Page 29 of Tempting Eden

“This one.” She handed it to me. “Have you read it?”

“I have. Seems kind of heavy reading for an eleven-year-old?”

She frowned. “I’m almost twelve, and it’s not. It’s an AP class. I mean, it’s got some stuff in there that’s, well…” She looked away. “That’s dark, but it’s realism, you know?”

“I do. So you’ve read the whole thing, then?”

“Yeah. I’m supposed to give a report on the themes and write a paper from an opposite perspective.”

“What themes have you identified?”

She moved over to me and perched on the arm of my chair. “Oh, that’s the easy part. Racial identity. The impossibility and perniciousness of European notions of beauty.”

Impressive. “And what sort of opposite perspective were you thinking about?”

Her brows drew together in thought. “Well, my teacher wasn’t clear, but I was thinking of doing something like pretending the book was about a white girl who wanted beautiful brown eyes, and like, writing maybe a creative piece in that light.”

I thumbed through the pages, though I had no need to read them. I’d become quite familiar with them during my breakneck education with Ms. Temple and again in college. “I think that’s an interesting viewpoint to take, but can you pull it off? Are you able to imagine a world where brown eyes are just as beautiful, or more so, than blue?”

She blushed and looked down at me. “Well, therearebeautiful brown people.”

“Right, but it’s not person-specific. It’s the idea that, in totality, brownness is the preferred look. Kinky hair”—I ran a hand through mine—“left in its natural state, is the height of beauty. The darker the skin, the browner the eye, the better. I’m not the best example since I’m mixed, but you get the idea—”

“Oh, I think you’re perfect.” She covered her mouth with her hand like she’d cursed.

“Look, Adele. The way things are now, being dark-skinned makes you more likely to be jailed, to be killed by police, to be any number of things that are highly disfavored in our society. You’ll have to turn that notion on its head. Make black beautiful. Make it virtuous. Make it the default. Do you think you can put yourself in that head space?”

“I can try. I mean, I know I live, like, here. Very white. Very privileged. And I go to school with a bunch of other kids just like me. And there aren’t, you know, a lot of kids who look like…” She faded off into a hum and went back to work on her pinky nail.

“Who look like me?”

“Oh, the boys my age definitely don’t look like you.” She grimaced and tapped her foot against the chair cushion. “Um, I mean, the boys at my school. They don’t—don’t have your looks. But I don’t mean the color, but yeah, that’s true, we only have a few minorities, but they don’t look as good as—well, I mean, you know…”

The color in her cheeks heightened until she looked faintly sunburned.

“I definitely think you should give the creative writing idea a try.” I smiled up at her in a way I hoped would put her at ease.

“Right,” she said a bit too loudly. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

When she smiled back, braces and all, adoration was writ large across her face. I knew that look, remembered the same look in Helen’s eyes all too well. I didn’t deserve it then and still didn’t now.

I handed her the book. “And that’s a great start. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

“Do you think you could read over it—”

“I should have known you’d drag him back here to your messy pile of books.” Rosa stomped into the room. “Dinner’s on the table in the small dining room.Vámonos! Wash up and get on in there.”

We followed Rosa to the dining room through an entirely different set of heavy wooden doors.

“Inviting such a man,muy guapo, dios mío, for dinner and then not even letting him eat,” Rosa grumbled under her breath.

Adele snickered as we followed the fuming housekeeper.

After we’d washed up, we sat down in the dining room that had seats for a dozen people, three sparkling chandeliers, expansive windows looking out into a perfectly symmetrical garden, and enough food to feed a small army.

Eden was sitting and waiting, twirling a butter knife around in her hand. She narrowed her eyes at Adele. “I hope you didn’t interrogate Jack.”

“No, but he did help me with my book report homework.”

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