Blended

Although Izzy would like to think that since her father moved back to Cincinnati, her parents might be getting along better, she overhears heated telephone conversations about the amount of time she is spending with each parent. That indicates to her significant “territorial” issues. She is aware of the differences between her parents and the lifestyles their homes offer her.

Under her father’s direction, to prepare Izzy for an upcoming piano recital, Izzy begins piano lessons with an accomplished and formidable pianist, Madame Rubenstein, from the Music Conservatory at the University of Cincinnati. The sessions are rigorous, the practice schedule demanding. Izzy, however, responds enthusiastically.

In school, Izzy’s English/history teacher, Mr. Kazilly, introduces the class to the difficult subject of school shootings to encourage the students to think about the responsibility they have to protest for safe schools. He connects the discussion to the civil rights movement and the importance of protest to achieve social justice. When the discussion turns to the darker moments in America’s long and difficult struggle to accord Black people civil rights, one white student, Logan Lindquist, makes a snide remark about lynching, suggesting it is something harmless that he has seen in dozens of Westerns. Izzy’s friend Imani is incensed, and she immediately tells Mr. Kazilly about Logan’s insensitive remark. The smirking Logan is summarily given detention.

Two days later, however, Imani is shocked to find a noose dangling from the coat hook inside her gym locker. The noose upends the school. Izzy is unsure how to react. No one is sure who did it, but Logan is the prime suspect. The students with access to the gym are interrogated. Izzy is asked a battery of questions about Imani, her friends, her family, and even websites Izzy herself visits. Students are sent home until the perpetrator can be identified. Izzy’s phone blows up with messages from her friends about the noose. Izzy asks her father what the noose means, and he explains to her how the noose is a “horrible symbol of hate” for Black people (86). She is confused about how she should feel: “Do you think people think I’m Black or white when they see me? Am I Black? Or white” (90). “Yes” is all he replies.

When Izzy returns to her mother’s house for her week there, John Mark confesses to her that he grew up in a family of racists who denigrated Black people, Jewish people, and “basically, anybody who wasn’t white” (94). Indeed, with his pick-up truck, his blue-collar job, his minimal education, his mess of tattoos, and his love of country music, he would seem to embody a redneck. He assures Izzy, however, in tears, with his voice breaking, that he rejected that racist mentality long ago.

When school resumes, Mr. Kazilly’s class is allowed to decorate the entire school with cut-out hearts, all different colors, all different sizes, to send the message that love is greater than hate. Izzy speaks up and encourages the plan: “[I]t’s is harder to be nice. But I think we ought to figure out a way to turn this around. So nobody else gets hurt” (101). Every time someone in the school sees a heart, the kids hope, they will remember what happened to Imani and resolve not to let their school be defined by hate. When Imani returns to school later that week, she receives a warm reception from her friends and even from students who barely know her. For the first time, Izzy is embarrassed by the part of her that is white. When her mother asks her what is wrong, Izzy proudly and defiantly tells her that her Black half is stronger, finer, and better than her white half: “I’m Black, Mom. African American. That’s what I put on my official school tests when they ask. I’m Black and I’m proud of that” (113).

To address the problem of racism, Mr. Kazilly assigns students to research any Black poet. Izzy selects Langston Hughes, particularly his poem “Cross,” which examines the confusion of a person who is biracial. In response, Izzy writes her own poem, “Criss Cross,” in which she acknowledges she loves both her parents but is not entirely either one. She defies color: “I’m pink and green and red and gold/I’m not what they expect” (119).

At her father’s house, while she practices at the Steinway, Izzy finds out that Anastasia plays piano. Anastasia shares her old piano music, which, unlike the classical repertoire that Izzy is learning, includes boogie-woogie pieces and old-school blues. One piece in particular, “Bumble Boogie,” intrigues Izzy. She sight-reads it, thrilling to the “deep rumble” of the bass and the crazy syncopations of the right hand. Izzy can barely contain her enthusiasm: “My mind is pounding with the jazzy thunder of that piece. Makes me want to…boogie!” (123).