On Rotation(4)

Daddy didn’t stand until Chris and Mr. Holmes stopped in the center of the living room. He regarded them with a cool smugness for a half second before languorously getting to his feet, moving with the syrupy slowness of a man who considered himself a great benefactor.

“Chris, good to see you!” he said, clapping him on the back with one hand. With the other, he reached for Mr. Holmes’s hand. “Oh, Greg, Chris was telling me you were coming into town. How was the trip?”

The niceties continued. Daddy asked after Chris’s mother, who unfortunately could not make it, and oohed and aahed over pictures of Mr. Holmes’s new BMW. When they settled into their chairs, Daddy shot me a look, reminding me to execute my duties as eldest daughter and serve our nice guests. I put on my most serene smile and asked them whether they would like anything to drink (orange juice for Mr. Holmes and water for Daddy and Chris), any biscuits*—We have some good shortbread, you really have to try some—and shuffled to the kitchen to help prepare the arrangement. The presentation had to be perfect—biscuits arranged so that not a crumb fell out of place, glasses filled to three quarters height with just two cubes of ice in Daddy’s water, napkins folded into neat triangles, all balanced on a large silver serving tray. The first time Chris came over and my father sent me to the kitchen to prepare the tray, he had seemed uncomfortable being served. Now he barely acknowledged me before plucking a biscuit from the plate.

“How’s Dorothy doing?” Mr. Holmes asked. I sighed internally; gathering my parents was like herding cats.

“Oh, she’s doing well. She’ll be out in a minute.”

Daddy gave me another look, this one saying, Go check on your mother, and I obliged with a nod and slipped out of the living room and into my parents’ bedroom.

I found Momma in front of her vanity wearing a gray sheath dress, her magenta maxi dress discarded at her feet. She gave me a chagrined smile, as shy as Dorothy Appiah could look.

“I looked out of place,” she explained. “All of you are in muted colors, and I thought we should match, you know, for the pictures . . .”

She was nervous. Of course she was; the Appiahs were among the first crop of Ghanaians to immigrate to Naperville, and Tabatha the first of the children to have a Knocking. All eyes would be on our family, taking notes on how successfully we translated the marriage traditions through a Western lens. Any photographs we took would likely be circulated through WhatsApp groups across the country, and Dorothy Appiah was not about to give any cause for salty aunties to cluck about the mother of the bride trying to “steal the spotlight.”

“You looked great before,” I said truthfully, “and you look great now.” I turned my body toward the door. “Come on, Ma. Hurry out before you miss the whole thing.”

Momma didn’t miss the whole thing, and neither did Auntie Abena, who snuck her nosy ass into the living room under the guise of sneaking some biscuits and ended up sitting on the couch next to Mr. Holmes, interjecting like Tabs was her daughter.

I did, though. Because just when Chris cleared his throat and said, “Actually, I have a reason for coming here today,” I got a notification on my phone: an email from [email protected].

Your score report is now available, the subject said, and my heart took off in a gallop. My Step 1 score.* I hadn’t been expecting it so soon; my upperclassmen had told me to expect to wait six weeks after the exam, and it had barely been two. And yet here it was. The main determining factor for the trajectory of my medical career, the test that determined whether I had a hope of matching to the specialty of my choice,* sitting in my email behind an unassuming link. I rushed into my bedroom to open it, tapping my foot impatiently as the PDF loaded on my phone—

A 209.*

I’d passed, but barely. I stared at the number in numb shock, feeling the tears I had held back all morning prickle the corners of my eyes. I had gotten 240s on all my practice exams. I’d studied for twelve hours a day for a month straight. How could this have happened? How could I have let this happen? So much, I thought, for proving myself as more than the Affirmative Action Candidate.

On the other side of my closed door, my father’s unrestrained laughter mingled with Mr. Holmes’s, and I felt a smothering sense of loneliness. The father of a man who loved me so much that he wanted to be mine forever would never sit with my family nibbling on Walkers shortbread. After all, the one man I’d convinced to commit had left me out on the literal curb after just half a year. Dorothy’s first daughter is a doctor, but she’s still unmarried, can you imagine? the Appiahs still at home base would say among themselves. Up until today, they could have added, Oh, but at least she’s brilliant, and for me, that would have been enough.

But now, they couldn’t even say that. I was not only alone, but also a failure. All of that potential, wasted, they would say instead. What a shame, what a shame.

What a shame indeed.

*

I lay in bed, facedown and unmoving, until the Holmeses took their leave and my bedroom took on an orange hue. Being in my childhood room felt less like an escape and more like being trapped in a curated exhibit on Childhood Overachievement. Plastered on every wall were reminders of what I should have been before this Step score. The newspaper clippings announcing my induction into the National Honor Society. Trophies from the National Science Bowl regionals and Destination Imagination, from spelling bees and science fairs through the years. Stacks of Princeton Review books, AP workbooks from every available class, a placard next to my diploma marking me as Parkview High School’s class of 2010’s salutatorian. Markers of excellence, of a girl who always worked twice as hard,* who was the best of “the best and the brightest,” not a girl who barely passed. Tabatha’s bedroom was much more typical, covered in Twilight posters and clippings from Seventeen magazine, but Tabatha had grown up with a chiller, saner version of Momma who had allowed such trivialities. My version of Momma had been convinced that simply looking upon the image of a shirtless man was enough to get me pregnant.