Page 4 of You've Got a Place Here, Too
“Hi,” he said back.
And for a while, we just walked together, without saying anything else. His steps were unhurried, and he walked in a crooked line that kept him bumping his elbow into mine every few steps.Either he had an issue with coordination, or he was trying to find an excuse to touch me…
“What happened back there?” Jrue spoke softly.
“Don’t you need to finish rehearsal?”
“Nah, this is my day off. I was just there for you. Wanna sit somewhere and strategize?”
I nodded and followed him, internally gushing over the whole “I was just there for you” part.
“The way he kept saying your name was kinda creepy.Miss Myra,” Jrue mimicked, as we settled beside each other on an upholstered bench. “Maybe I need to start calling you Rose instead.”
My eyes grew wide. “Why would you say that? Where’d you get that from?”
Jrue chuckled and grabbed my phone out of my hand, turning it over to reveal the stickers decorating the back of my case. Covered by an assortment of roses, all in different shapes and colors.
“Oh, right.”
“Do you just love roses or—”
“It’s my granny’s name,” I cut in, “and my middle name, too.”
“Dope! Are y’all close?”
“Yeah, super close.” I paused thoughtfully. “She’s actually the reason why I came here.”
“Oh yeah? She a Fiskite, too?”
I shook my head with a smile. “Not in real life, but in her mind, for sure. Once it was time for me to start college, well, you know how it goes.” I shrugged. “My parents pretty much decided for me, which is why I started at UofM. But when I needed to leave, I knew exactly where I’d go.”
“Why did you need to leave?” Jrue asked carefully, as if he knew it was a minefield.
I shrugged with pretend nonchalance. “Just wasn’t a good place for me.”
“I feel that,” Jrue replied. “Real talk, Jubilee has been like my home away from home. It’s where I found my place here when I was a little lost sophomore, kinda like somebody else I know.”
I pushed Jrue playfully as he winked. “You gotta see what fits for you, though. Get involved with other stuff. As much as I hope my people will be your people, maybe there’s another place on campus that’ll feel more like home. It’s kinda like…cookies,” Jrue said thoughtfully. “All of us here, we’re cookies. No brownies or pies or cupcakes or whatever. Cookies.”
I giggled and wrinkled my brow at his strange analogy.
“The best thing about being at an HBCU is that you don’t really have to find your community. ’Cause it’s all of us. You just have to find your tribe. It’s like, we’re all cookies, but whatkindof cookie are you?”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“So, tell me this. What did you do at your last school?”
“Classes,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Mostly. I did get into going to football games at the Big House, though. Oh, and I did a fashion show once, ’cause my roommate was one of the organizers.”
Jrue paused curiously before speaking. “We’ll get back to that. But I meant clubs, organizations, teams. Stuff like that.”
“Oh, right,” I said, hiding my embarrassment behind my elbow. “Yeah, well, just one. I’m a Delta. I didn’t really have time for anything else, besides that.”
Jrue made the face that every Black person makes when they find out I’m a Delta—a mix of respect, intrigue, and, depending on their own backstory, either distaste or admiration.
The Divine Nine was never on my radar before I startedcollege. Neither of my parents had pledged, and my first introduction to sororities and fraternities on the UofM campus was the white ones, with their giant on-campus houses that came equipped with cleaning ladies, their front lawn red Solo Cup soirees, and, famously, their foam parties. During freshman year welcome week, I learned there were Black sororities and fraternities on campus, too, the Divine Nine (or eight, in my case, because the AKAs on our campus had been snatched for over a decade).
“Being a Delta was honestly the highlight of my time at UofM. And a big part of why it was hard to leave. As much as I knew I wanted to transfer here, I was also pretty comfortable there.”
