Love is love

My first crush on a white boy was on my first day in college back in August of 1982.  His name was Kevin Chiplock and he was from New England, I can’t recall which state.  I was in the process of unpacking my suitcases and putting things away in my dresser in my dorm room when suddenly this tall, slim, dark blonde, handsome young man appeared at my door. “Want any help?” he smiled, by way of a greeting.  I happened to be holding a pair of panties when he made his entrance and I quickly tucked it away in embarrassment.  He walked into my room before I could reply and proceeded to put away some of my dresses in the closet by the entrance.  We chatted comfortably as if we had always been friends.

A couple of days later, late at night, Kevin stopped by my room and invited me to pizza.  I was already in my PJs, but he convinced me to come out with him.  While I was looking for something suitable to wear, he grabbed the comb off my dresser and began to comb through my long brown curls. I’ve never had a boy comb my hair before.  It felt nice.  Stroke after stroke of tender loving care.  There was a pizza joint across the street from campus, and minutes later, Kevin and his friends were eagerly munching away at their pizza and garlic rolls and they all did a great job of totally ignoring me, except for Kevin, of course.  He was very attentive to my needs.  I was conscious of being the only girl in the bunch and the only black person too.  I never imagined that these thoughts of color would occur to me, as this had never been an issue for me before.  But I had just received that speech from my dad, the one that warned me about falling in love with a white guy once I’ve been “exposed” to them.  As if there were no white people in Haiti.  As if I never had white friends before.  A good half of my class at Union School in Haiti was white, or of foreign descent.   “He may love you, but his family never will,” my father told me of any eventual white fiancé.  That little speech, for many years, ruined my ability to see love for what it was.  Just love.

Though I clearly had a crush on Kevin, I tried to redirect his attention toward some of my white girlfriends.  As if they would be a better fit. Kevin would have been the perfect boyfriend.  He thought he looked like Sting (which I must admit he did, especially at a certain angle) and he loved loved loved ice hockey.  He would sing songs from “The Police” for me, especially that great tune “Don’t stand so close to Me”, and teach me how to move a puck down the hall with his hockey stick. He was very sweet.  And did I mention, handsome? My father’s warning colored all of my thoughts, though, and when Kevin kissed me, I was gauche enough to ask: “Are you kissing me because you’re wondering what it must be like to kiss a black girl?”  I regretted those words as soon as they had left my mouth.  Kevin’s face dropped, and he said slowly, “No, I’m kissing you because you are Nadine.  I’ve kissed black girls before.  And white ones too.”  I heard the disappointment in his voice.  I would never forgive myself for uttering those words.

Later that year, Kevin started going out with the most popular girl in the school.  A white girl.  One of those model types with dazzling eyes. And I looked at him with longing, wondering what could have been… That is when it was confirmed in my head that love was just love.  It didn’t matter the color of your skin.  But it took a while for my father’s point of view to stop impacting me and my thoughts.  After all, he meant well.  Some other adult in his life must have fed him that garbage. Or, perhaps, back then it had been justified.  Who’s to say?

So when it came to Vivienne’s love for Logen, as I was writing the story, I did not want color to be an issue.  Other stories had done a good job of raising the issues that usually come up between interracial couples. One of my favorite movies of that genre,  the 2006 “Something New” with Sanaa Lathan and Simon Baker, comes to mind.  Career-focused expert-accountant Kenya McQueen (Lathan’s character) does everything she can not to fall in love with laid-back garden architect Brian Kelly (Baker’s character) whom she meets on a blind date, going as far as dating Blair Underwood’s character, successful gorgeous black professional Mark Harper, just to prove that only Black-on-Black love would work for her.  All kinds of issues, from Black people having to work harder to make it in the White world, to Black society’s possible disapproval of this interracial couple, to hair extensions on ethnic hair, were addressed in that delightful love story.  But at the end, love triumphs and they live happily ever after, confident that their differences  (color and otherwise) only reinforced the love they had for each other.

In Nonstop Oslo, there are small references to Vivienne and Logen’s different skin color and hair texture, but they are done in the most natural way, without making waves.  For instance, he teased her about the rollers in her hair when she let him into her hotel room one early morning.  She playfully slapped his hand away asking him to respect her black woman’s tools.  On one other occasion, Logen kissed her caramel-colored skin and suckled on one brown areola, while she laid small kisses on his sparsely freckled white muscled shoulders.  She fleetingly reflected that that was her first time making love to a white man, but her thoughts did not linger on that uncomfortable notion. And her mind traveled back to her college experience with her Kevin.  There is only one moment in the story when her skin color might have been an issue, towards the end when she meets one of Logen’s exes, but she pushes aside any harsh feelings that could have arisen from that disagreeable encounter and takes care of the business at hand like only a woman in love, and very much loved in return, could.

Across the oceans, over the distance, and through our differences, love conquers all.