Bianca Asare

Eighth Avenue Line

Excerpt

Eliza confirmed that the line where her wig meets her hairline was just a line and not a point of confusion, not two separate things appearing like two separate things. She walked to the A Train on 168th Street. She always wore sunglasses, even in winter, for the freedom to look and not look as she pleased, to allow her eyes to do whatever they needed. She made eye contact with bodega cats through her lenses.

O

Eliza’s mother Audrey’s body memorized the London Underground, grown accustomed to always being prepared for rain. She had learned that she much preferred blending in, having no need to explain who she is or where she comes from. She would think of her mother and how she lived in Ghana as an English woman with pale skin and dark hair. Thinking of her mother made her wonder how she could feel uncomfortable standing out when her accent naturally shifted depending on where she was or who she was talking to, when her dark hair could be set free to blend in with Ghanaian women.

O

Every winter, Eliza wondered why she lived in that filthy city, as the hills of her face gave rise to mountains and she grew to an age that she did not ask for and the holidays approached, excited, and disappeared one after the other, leaving nothing to look forward to. For every birthday, she received a brand new age that she didn’t want or ask for. This happened every January, in the middle of Capricorn season, when work and serious buckling down and the channeling of the driven sea goat was meant to occur, but she was instead busy online shopping for skincare products to tame mountains and was always too cold to get out of bed. 

O

Eliza’s mother returned to Ghana at twenty-six, where she had left behind the memory of her father and the German shepherd he stuffed and displayed in the living room of the home she grew up in. She had left behind Accra boarding school friends and hot-humid air that warred with the afro she no longer sets free. Her mother sent her to collect the belongings they had left in a distant relative’s basement, too much stuff to own when you are eager to start over far away. They were finally ready to say goodbye to Ghana once and for all.

O

As she waited for the A train, a man who Eliza thought was a boy looked over at her and whispered to a group of men who also looked like boys. He approached her and asked for her number, looking back at his group of friends who all wore encouraging smiles.

Eliza examined his face. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” the man who looked like a boy said. 

Eliza, not fully believing him but without the energy to challenge him, accepted the phone being extended toward her and entered her phone number. She satisfied him despite not wanting to, out of something that she didn’t think was fear or obligation. She didn’t fear that she would be murdered or raped and made a public spectacle in a subway station on a Tuesday morning. She was afraid of something, but it wasn’t him.

O

She arrived at the home of a second or third cousin or someone she was taught to refer to as a cousin. It seemed like everyone in Ghana was related in some way or close enough to claim to be. A beige dirt road met a gray stone driveway. The house stood proudly behind a black iron gate, wanting nothing to do with the beige dirt road. The interior was decorated in neutral colors with multicolored woven baskets and carved wooden figures seeming out of place. The people who moved inside looked like they weren’t at home, women clothed in red and yellow and green and blue Kente cloth, children running around in their yellow and green school uniforms, all seeming too colorful and untame for the neutral interior. 

O

Eliza wished she could escape that filthy city in the winter. She wished she owned more coats so she could look different all the time. She wished, every day, that she had left the house with gloves so she could comfortably tap around on her phone because otherwise she didn’t know what to do with her hands or arms or eyes. She chose numb hands over not knowing what to do. She also didn’t know how to relax her face while thinking about the importance of a relaxed face or how to smile with chapped lips. She closed-mouth smiled at the man who she thought was a boy as she gave him her number, despite being uninterested, out of fear of something.

O

Audrey arrived at her cousin’s house around dinner time. She wore high rise jeans and a T-shirt. Her hair was not yet wild. Small-framed sunglasses sat on her head to push back any strands trying to break free. She ate and her body remembered how to speak the Ghanaian dialect, how to exist in this place. Relatives or people unrelated to her at all insisted on her eating more than the large amount she already had, forcing upon her jollof rice, fried plantains, and okra soup, which was their way of being hospitable. 

O

Eliza boarded the A train and thought of her father, the way she would drink quickly and think too much. The way she would move with too much thought, her over-awareness of how badly she didn’t want to misstep and spill causing her to misstep and spill. She would always grow tense and frozen, out of fear of something. She would say only what she had carefully planned out.

O

In the basement there were boxes of old school uniforms and photos, Audrey threw out what she no longer needed and kept things that she didn’t need but wanted. She chose to keep a mug with her high school’s song printed on it. Her school colors were black and white, her school motto was “that all may be one.”

O

Eliza stepped off of the A train at the Clinton–Washington Avenue stop. On days that she was in a rush, having spent too much time eye-tracing her body that is also her mother’s body, noting how her stretch marks mapped her curves, she was left without six minutes to spare. On those days, Eliza transferred to the G train, abandoning the Eighth Avenue Line for the Crosstown Line. On that day she had an outfit planned from the night before, she avoided creating any anxious messes, she quickly snapped out of any prolonged anxious eye-traces, so Eliza got off of the A train and walked, avoiding turning corners for coffee or pastries or a pack of cigarettes. Finally, she entered her business class and chose a seat toward the back but not far enough back for the teacher to know that she was trying to go unnoticed. She nodded often to communicate engagement but fiddled with rings on fingers attached to hands she did not raise. She wished she never forgot to wear rings. She wished she could speak as eloquently as the white girl with the octagon tattoo and pink dip-dyed blonde hair, but she also thought that girl spoke pretentiously. She was conflicted. When her class ended, she was one of the first people out the door.

About the Author

Bianca Asare is a New York City-based writer. With ties to Ghana and England, she is most interested in exploring the topics of immigration, family, and identity. Additionally, sexuality and young womanhood are topics she finds herself returning to.