Like Violet

by Hannah Eko

2021 Fiction Contest Honorable Mention

You ever notice that in books, when they want to make the girl character special they give her blue or green eyes? 

Once during Film History 101, which only eighth graders can take because sometimes the movies are rated R, we watched Suddenly, Last Summer and I asked Mr. Antonio what Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes looked like and he said they were violet. 

I said, you mean like purple? And he was like, no Zip, like violet. 

In the rainbow, isn’t that like the same thing?

But whatever, Mr. Antonio.

 I don’t have blue or green or purple eyes. 

Eyes like mine aren’t special in books or really anywhere. 

I guess there’s that one song about making love in the green grass, but everyone knows that that song is about some hippie-dippie white girl. 

It’s not that eyes like mine aren’t pretty. 

They are. 

It’s just that no one really writes songs about them or spends that much time talking about how they look like night skies or whatever. 

I read The Bluest Eye when I was in eighth grade, and like, even Toni Morrison didn’t do it. My English teacher basically snatched me by the collar and was like, you just have to read this book. She was always doing shit like that, trying to reach her diverse students. The Bluest Eye wasn’t even on the mandated reading list that semester. Stupid Johnny Tremain was and so because of her hyper-ass preaching, I had to read two books that month. 

I ended up liking it a lot though, even though the ending made me cry so hard my snot ran to my chin.  

Me and my mom go to Downtown LA practically every other weekend ‘cause the prices are cheaper and she gets all her cooking supplies there. Every other booth sells contacts. Five packs for $20. 

 I always kind of wanted to buy them, I can’t even lie.

 I just wondered what I would look like.

Maybe I would look exotic and shit, you know. 

 That was really it, swear to you. 

It wasn’t like I wanted to be white or something. 

Sometimes, black girls have hazel eyes. Green. Sometimes even blue.

Like Vanessa Williams or that one supermodel chick. 

My mom says there was a woman she knew from her village with for real blue eyes. She was darker than me, mom said. Had three daughters. In the middle of Nigeria! I guess the whole thing freaked the woman’s husband out real bad. After the third daughter, he called his wife a witch and dipped. 

Last Sunday, I was having period cramps that were squeezing my insides from another continent. That same day my cousin Uche told me that hanging out with me was bringing her down, because I was way too emo. She didn’t come to Downtown LA with me and my mom that day. She went to the Santa Monica Pier with her stupid cheerleader friends instead. 

So, I was looking for something, anything, to put me in a good mood. 

I love Downtown LA because of The Santee Alley. It’s this long strip of stalls and they sell anything your mind can think of. Trucker caps, fake Gucci belts, pink bandanas, mini turtles in clear plastic cages. Any-thing. 

Once I got a super legit-looking Kate Spade purse for twelve dollars. 

There are beige panties with built-in fake booties and rainbows in the sewer water and canary gold necklaces and men with mustaches yelling out Pásale, Pásale. 

Sometimes you see sad things too. Like one time me and Uche saw this homeless woman who was caked in dirt and had blood running down her leg like a thin ribbon. And there’s this dude who is always there, leaning against a turnstile holding up a sign in Spanish and English that just says Please. He has elephantiasis of the feet. He just stares straight ahead, looking at nothing. 

Uche basically holds her breath when she comes to Downtown (even though guess who has permanently borrowed my Kate Spade purse?) and my brother Lazarus thinks Downtown is hella tacky. He’s in college right now, all the way in New York. 

People like Laz and Uche can’t help it—some people just have bougie souls. 

When we go Downtown, we always park in one of the tip-top parking garages and you can watch all the people flickering on the sidewalk below like a million happy ants. 

That Sunday, I waited until my mom went ahead to the fabric stalls by pretending I wanted to buy a Styrofoam cup of mango and red pepper sauce. 

My mom hates blue eyes, says people who have them look like they’re blind.

 Me and my brother pretend like we don’t know that dad’s new girlfriend has blue eyes. Or maybe they’re purple? I can barely tell. The pictures my dad sends around Christmas are always kinda blurry. 

So, you can imagine my mom wouldn’t be jumping for joy if she knew I used my movie theater paycheck to buy fake violet eyes. It felt like I was buying crack. I stuck the twenty dollars into the dude’s hand so quick that he almost dropped it and then I slipped the packet in my hoodie pocket. 

I put them on before school the next day. 

They burned like crazy. Kept folding up around my finger like snails and it took me about two lifetimes to get them on right. The area around them turned pink like a bottle of Pedialyte.

 Or how I look after I smoke really bad weed. 

I practically ran out of the house. 

Everything was hazy shapes, the jacaranda trees and the thin clouds and the bright red stop sign as I waited for the bus. I was glad the usual trio of kids weren’t there because I was blinking about a thousand times a minute and I think it would’ve scared them. 

One time me and Uche were watching this TV special about the first black supermodel to be on the cover of Vogue. Uche is all about that runway life, so of course her nose was basically pressed to the screen.

 Supposedly, the model has blue eyes because she has a condition called Waardenburg syndrome. It gives people, even black people, ice-cold swimming pool eyes. 

It felt kinda like cheating to me, but okay.  

The syndrome also makes the people who have it sort of deaf, but the model didn’t harp on that too much during the documentary. 

 The model said that when she was a baby, she was at Kmart in a stroller and an Indian woman saw her and just started to sob. The woman told the model’s mom that because she saw those gorgeous blue eyes, she wasn’t going to kill herself that night like she had planned to. 

The Indian woman said that the baby model was an angel sent from God to remind her about the beauty of life. 

Uche for real cried. She was all, wow, can you imagine? She saved a life as an infant! 

And I was like, yeah, if she had seen us as babies she would’ve jumped off a cliff. 

Why are you so bitter, Zipporah? Like why? was all Uche said.

Uche only uses my full name when she’s tired of me. 

Even though tears keep jogging down my cheeks and I’m not as skinny or pretty as the model is, part of me wonders if maybe I sort of look like the model on the day I wear my violet eyes.

Like maybe I look like a true Waardenburg winner. 

Maybe someone would even write a song about me. 

Or not kill themselves.

During homeroom, when I sat across from Monique for Silent Sustained Reading, she dropped her Lord of the Flies past her forehead and gave me this long stare like, girrrl. Then she did the swirly thing at her temple. And I whispered back, I’m not crazy and then Mr. Antonio told me to hush. 

After the bell rang, I rushed out of the class to first period. 

I would’ve taken them out then too, but Daniel Rodriguez smiled at me on my way to history. Like real smile. Full teeth, top and bottom. 

So, I didn’t throw them out. 

Plus, it’s not like I had a container for them or anything.

At break, me, Monique, Nancy, and Priscilla hang out in the quad as usual, eating from the same carton of chili cheese fries and sharing an extra large orange soda. Monique looks from my eyes to Nancy, from Priscilla back to my eyes like she’s practicing telekinesis. But since they don’t say anything and she doesn’t want to seem like a mega-bitch, she just chews slowly on a little crinkle fry and we talk about whether it’s true that Mr. Antonio wears thong underwear. 

And then Annabel Adams in her stupid little pink cardigan sweater set walks up.

We’ve all known Annabel since kindergarten. 

Me and Annabel always got paired together because of our last names. Sometimes I felt a bit sorry for her. Like, Annabel Adams’s dad drives a new Porsche. She has long blonde hair and blue eyes, she’s skinny as a naked Barbie, and she still isn’t pretty. I’m not trying to be mean, but something about her face is sort of off. Maybe too much forehead? 

 It’s like God fucked up the dimensions at the last minute. 

No one cared though. 

Annabel has the personality of construction paper, and guys still wanted to have sex with her ten million different ways. It doesn’t matter what I think—she’ll always win that contest just because.  

Me and Annabel are both in Film 101. I’m expecting she’s just coming by to ask when we’re meeting after school for our Vertigo project. 

Priscilla, Monique, Nancy all think Annabel is the worst type of white girl annoying so they just sip the soda and stare real hard at her sweater and freckles like they could burn them off. 

 Suddenly, Annabel smiles Colgate-big, and is like, Oh my gawd, your eyes are so pretty!

Monique spits out a stream of orange soda. Priscilla and Nancy giggle like idiots.

And I just stand there. 

The thing is, I don’t even think Annabel is being funny.

You can tell when girls are doing things to be extra mean. 

Annabel cocks her head to the side waiting, still smiling, waiting. 

I kind of expected Monique to defend me, but she just laughs at the ground like it’s the most hilarious piece of concrete she’s ever set eyes upon. 

Isn’t she the cutest? Nancy says, grabbing me by the shoulders.

The bell rings and instead of going to math, I shake Nancy off and run to the bathroom. No one follows me even. It’s just me in the dark grey, right before the mirror. 

I’ve known since before forever that Annabel Adams has blue eyes. Teachers were always going on about how they looked like spring. She even got Prettiest Eyes for our yearbook.

In the mirror, the pink in my eyes is still as pink as ever.

It didn’t die down at all.

And I wonder if Daniel Rodriguez was just smiling at me because I looked stupid. 

And I wonder if Pecola had my kind of eyes—dark brown like the place you have to spend time digging to, fading into a deep cherry brown around the edges. Or were her eyes black-black like the back of a throat? Or were they brown-black-brown like a KitKat bar? 

And I wish I knew what she looked like more than what she didn’t.

I sort of thought Pecola was pathetic when I read the book. She just had all these bad things happen to her, like a wet balloon. Even the good things—the cat and the ice cream—all get messed up. Her daddy didn’t love her. 

No one did except her imaginary friend. Which is even sadder. 

I pinched at the rubber in my eyes and then I flushed them down the toilet. They whirled around like little marbles and then the toilet sucked them into oblivion.

Just like my twenty dollars. 

My mom would’ve been pissed because she hates when we waste anything, even toilet paper. But maybe she wouldn’t have minded as much if she knew they were someone else’s violet eyes. I didn’t end up going to fourth period that day, just sat in a bathroom stall looking at my grey shoelaces. Uche forged an excuse letter when I got home.

I tell Lazarus about Violet Eyes Day when he comes home from NYU and he laughs but not in a jackass way. He laughs in a sad, bless-your-little-black-heart way. 

Since he left for college, practically all Laz does is quote James Baldwin and talk about civil rights this civil rights that. He grew out his hair in these nubby dreadlocks even though my mother begged him not to. It’s kind of nice having a revolutionary as your big brother. 

I tell Laz about Annabel Adams and the burning.

I tell him that I just wanted to be special.

For once. 

Laz takes my chin in his hands, and I’m waiting for his latest mini-lecture. 

Like how I need to listen to more Tracy Chapman or stop perming my hair.

But he doesn’t say any of that.

He just wipes my cheeks in his special way, like he doesn’t want to hurt my tears, and then he goes, 

Zippo baby, the problem with you is that you always go extreme.     

And then he hugs me so close that I’m swimming in his Cool Water cologne. 

Sometimes I wonder if maybe things would’ve been different if I didn’t go all ultraviolet.

I mean, I’m not Elizabeth Taylor. 

Like not even a little bit.

Part of me wishes I would’ve tried something softer. 

A lighter brown. Or dark dark green. 

Or maybe even something like honey.  

Published July 11th, 2021