Chapter XXXII. American（?） Teeth.
XXXII.
AMERICAN(?) TEETH.
LOS ANGELES.
On a late Thursday afternoon in mid-March, after dropping Lucie at ballet and returning home to start dinner, I get a phone call from Julien. It’s an odd time for him to be calling, in the middle of track practice.
“Mom.” From the timbre of his voice, I know something is off. He’s injured himself. He’s in an ambulance. He’s at the hospital. The mind races.
But oh, I am so far off.
“I’m in the security office at the Century City mall and you have to come and get me.” His voice croaks.
In the midst of stirring a pot of chili, I freeze. “You’re where? What? Why aren’t you at track?”
“It was canceled. Can you come and get me? I’m putting the security officer on the phone, okay?”
The officer, who manages to be simultaneously formal and gruff, has to repeat himself three times before I can comprehend, because I am shaking so violently.
A flash of names and images coming to mind.
Trayvon. Tamir. Freddie. The ringing in my ears punctuating his words.
Loitering. Trespass. Suspicious behavior.
I turn off the stove and run out to my car before realizing there is no way I can get to Century City and back to the Palisades in time to pick up Lucie from class.
But Francois is not answering his phone, Parisa has the day off, and I am too frazzled to text anything more coherent to my husband than Call me. Now. Now. Please now.
My son is not a troublemaker. He’s not a Loiterer or a Trespasser or Suspicious.
He’s a fourteen-year-old boy with braces, who still plays with Legos and Minecraft.
I know in my gut he’s done nothing wrong, and still my insides are in knots, my breathing uneven.
What was he doing there? Was he alone? Was he scared?
My SUV twists through the winding roads of the canyon. Jolting and pitching and hugging the blind curves.
He calls again, just as I am making the turn onto Sunset.
“It’s okay, Mom. Anthony is going to take me.”
“Who’s Anthony? Take you where?”
“Isaiah’s dad. Hold on,” he says, and proceeds to put me on the phone with yet another stranger.
“Hi, this is Anthony Johnson, my son Isaiah is on the track team with Julien. I’m not sure if we’ve met. My firm’s in Century City, so I got over here immediately when Isaiah called. I’m happy to stay here with Julien until you arrive.”
“That’s very kind of you, Anthony. But I’m coming from Rustic Canyon, so it’s going to be another forty-five minutes, at least. And I have to turn around and pick up my daughter from ballet in the Palisades in an hour, which I’m never going to make in time.
And I can’t reach my husband, or I’d have him meet you. And we don’t have any family here and—”
“Hey. It’s okay,” he says, slow, sensing my panic. “I’ve got both boys, they’re fine. Julien is fine. But I can’t leave him alone here. If it’ll help, I can meet you back at the school.” His voice is deep and even, instilling confidence.
“That would be incredibly helpful, thank you. How did they even get over there?”
“Uber, apparently. I’ll meet you at Bancroft shortly. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to talk to them about what they did right and what they did wrong, and how mall security does not have the same authority as the police. Because I think that was lost on them.”
“Okay,” I say, knowing that it should have been my and Francois’s job, but relieved to have a capable third party step in. “I’d appreciate that.”
Anthony pulls into the Bancroft parking lot some thirty minutes later in a black-on-black Range Rover.
Julien spills out of the back seat with his school backpack, a hesitant look on his face.
He seems to have grown three inches since yesterday.
I rush to embrace him and he holds me at arm’s length.
A reminder that as much as he still might need his mother, he is a teenager in view of other teenagers.
As Julien makes his way around to the passenger side, Anthony gets out of the car to greet me. Clean-cut, navy suit. I recognize him almost immediately. The dad from the parent council on race. All those months ago.
“I can’t thank you enough.”
“No problem,” he says, outstretching a hand. “Anthony.”
“Cecilia.”
“Nice to officially meet you, Cecilia. So a bunch of them decided to take off when practice was canceled and head to the mall. That was their first mistake. They were all hanging out on the top level of the parking structure, which is apparently off-limits, since it’s become a known place for kids to hang out and get in trouble.
That was their second. When security showed up, most of them ran.
Our boys and a couple others did not. Which Isaiah knows not to do.
But because our boys are our boys, they singled them out, searched their backpacks, which they do not have the legal right to do, and in which they found nothing, and brought them down to the office, which scared the hell out of them, and then gave them an official warning.
“Isaiah knows to text me with a certain code if something is really wrong. And we have Life360, which allows me to see exactly where he is at all times, so I got over there immediately. They’re a little shook up, but they’re okay.”
I am stunned by all of this. Julien leaving campus without permission. Hanging out in prohibited spaces. Getting his belongings searched. Though I’m grateful it wasn’t disrespectful behavior that prompted it, the anguish is still visible on my face.
“It’s okay, sis,” Anthony says. “These things are bound to happen. It’s cool. No one was hurt. Just … be aware, you know. In that situation, they did the right thing.”
“Thank you so much,” I repeat. “I’m still kind of learning the ropes here.”
“No problem.” He smiles. “Raising Black boys in America is not for the faint of heart.” And then, “Are you French?”
“No. Jamaican. But I grew up in New York. Although, I’ve been in Paris for twenty years. So I’m sort of…”
“Confused?” He laughs. He has beautiful teeth. American teeth.
“Maybe.”
“Well, look, my wife Kim and I are here if you guys need anything. We live in Ladera but we’re at the school all the time. Julien now has my number, so … don’t be shy.”
“I appreciate that,” I say. “Truly.” And as I get into the Lexus my phone vibrates.
A text from Francois:
Hey. Was in a session. What’s up?
Without responding, I start the engine and drive.
Later that night, when I am sitting outside by the edge of the plunge pool, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and a glass of Casamigos Anejo at my side, because the occasion warrants something far stronger than wine, Fran appears at the sliding doors to the living room.
He backtracks for a moment to grab a jacket and then comes to sit beside me, cross-legged on the cool stones.
For a second, he doesn’t speak, taking in the night sky, the tree frogs croaking in the distance. And then, “Do you want to talk about what happened today?”
“I don’t want him here, Fran. I don’t want my Black son to live in this country. I want him back in France by the time he’s sixteen. Before he’s at his full height. Before he learns to drive. Before a little misunderstanding at the mall turns into something horrible.”
“Cecilia—”
“I’m serious. I don’t want him here. I don’t want us here.”
He’s quiet for a moment, turning away from me, gazing into the middle distance. I watch my husband consider this new reality. That his son—his sweet, well-mannered, childlike son—is threatened here. Is threatening.
“What do you want us to do? I can’t just leave, Cile. I’m still editing. There are three films, you know.”
“I know.”
“I can’t leave now.”
“I’m not asking you to. But we don’t have to stay with you.”
He looks at me then, hurt.
“Maybe the kids and I go back this summer. Julien and Lucie enroll in new schools. We bring Nicoletta on for more days to help around the house. I’ll do my best to handle it by myself. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”
“It could be another year, Cile. More.”
“I understand that.”
“Putain,” he says, under his breath. “Maybe we get him a chaperone. Like Eryx has. Someone to just be around him so he doesn’t get into trouble.”
“He’s fourteen, Fran. I don’t want to helicopter him in that way.
He’s a fourteen-year-old boy. He should be out having fun with his friends and goofing around and doing whatever it is fourteen-year-old boys do.
He just shouldn’t have to worry about it being lethal.
He should be allowed to be a boy for the few years of boyhood he has left. ”
A sadness spreads across his face then, settles into his shoulders. Defeat. The realization that he could only protect us so much. Not from the big assaults nor the countless small indignities.
“We’re not safe here,” I say, my voice soft. “The way their politicians talk about immigrants, Fran … And these frightened, armed police … We’re not safe. Your kids are not safe.”
There’s a rustling by the living room, and I look back to see Leelou squeezing her little gray body out between the narrow opening in the sliding doors.
“Leelou! Back inside! Back inside now!”
“Merde.” Francois rises to his feet, making his way toward the cat.
“You have to be careful with that door. We have coyotes.”
“I know.” He turns to look at me then, Leelou cradled in his arms. “I’m sorry about today, Cile. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.”