Colorless

Part 3 The Party

Part 3: The Party

West Indians know how to party. Jane had prepared curried goat and rice pulao and the pungent smells hit us as soon as we entered the green, yellow and blue crepe-papered basement. The buffet tables were loaded with hot and cold food lining the perimeter of the room and exotic aromas of various red, yellow and green curries that would pull the guests from wall to wall, corner to corner, delighting in all the tastes.

The food was plentiful enough for second and third helpings. The music pumped on during the first hour and everybody of every age danced. Reggae, reggae and more reggae. Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, ‘cause every little thing’s ‘gonna be alright.

However, upon entering this after- baptism party I fell once again into self-consciousness.  Once more time, we were the only white people.  Here was another chance to feel alone, isolated and disconnected. But. No one there cooperated. Did the informal whiteys not stick out like a sore thumb? No. It turns out the Jackson family did not need Jane or Russell to front for us to put us at ease. Their friends welcomed us like the crowd in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Everybody is Irish on March 17^th.

I have never felt this kind of social generosity that I recall. By my own accounts, I was in a strange land, but the isolation I felt was of my own making and quickly disappeared in this room. I cannot look at this event of so long ago and assume these lovely people were putting on a show, bending over backwards for us for any cynical reason. If that were true that night, it would have been a polite smile and a swift nod, a way to show yourself as gracious but then turn away to your own comfort zone.

But this was different. We would be included and celebrated exactly like everyone else in that party simply because we were there. They may have made a conscious effort individually and collectively, but they sustained that effort and enjoyed themselves along the way.

We belonged because we were Jane and Russell’s friends, but it never felt like it was because we were their white friends. Or in spite of being white friends.

I had no evidence that Sunday night in 1990 that anyone in that church looked at me or my family with suspicion. I had to accept the human drama of Russell Pitt’s abandonment as well as Jane’s admiration of Tom and her choice to not only name her baby in his honor, but to then choose him as the god-father “stand-in”.  I’ve seen the irony of how moments in life either hit or miss, but it’s those near misses that wake us up in unexpected ways.

Thinking back on the Pitt family, I can now more fully understand why I so loved Jane. I admired her resiliency, her optimism, her creative stamina. She was so much more than a good daytime nanny, a no-nonsense employee/friend. She had a tenacity not dissimilar from mine. We both shared an ability to live with perplexing men.

I lost touch with her shortly after the baptism, but I imagine Russell did not stay long with his wife and children. He was volatile, unpredictable, unreliable. He was also charming, handsome and wily. He was the family provider only to the extent that he could hustle with landlords in Brooklyn and with properties in St. Vincent. But he never accounted to Jane for his activity when he was out of sight. Jane knew he had a wandering eye and certainly she knew the risks she held within this marriage: she would never have stopped working when she did were it not for the new baby.

The surprising events of the baptism itself and the after-party were both unexpected and uplifting. But Jane herself endures in my memory. She lived and worked to provide for her children and to model responsible motherhood.

I made it to that baptism on a near miss; Jane made it to the baptism with my husband covering for her own missing Russell.

And I learned to accept that sometimes I could belong to groups I never thought I could.