Passin'

by Karen E. Quinones Miller Narrated by Sharon Washington

Overview

Essence best-selling author and winner of the Nubian Literary Award, Karen E. Quinones Miller was also named Author of the Year by Turning Pages Book Club. Passin' introduces Shanika Ann Jenkins-a light-skinned black woman who decides to remake herself. Shanika is blonde and beautiful. But after being rejected for a job she makes an incredible choice: to use her God-given assets to become the white woman she always imagined she could be.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In her fifth novel, Quinones Miller (Satin Doll) attempts to make a commentary on race but instead delivers a stew of clichés, two-dimensional characters and tired stereotypes. African-American Shanika Jenkins, who has "skin as white as Meryl Streep's," blond hair and blue eyes, comes from a long line of Jenkinses who pride themselves on being so light-skinned that some people could mistake them for white. After graduating from college, Shanika gets an interview at a New York PR firm and starts dreaming big. But after the interview, Shanika is told she was turned down for the position because the interviewer thought she was white, and therefore wouldn't help meet the company's affirmative action quota. She interviews for another position that isn't subject to the AA rules as a white woman and, predictably, lands the job and her career takes off. The lies snowball and she hurts plenty of people, including the man of her dreams: the handsome African-American businessman Tyrone Bennett. The ending may surprise, but there are few reasons to get that far. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Library Journal

In Miller's (Satin Doll) latest, blond, blue-eyed Shanika Ann Jenkins decides to pass as a white woman since none of her coworkers at the PR firm where she's employed suspect that she is African American. But she must finally face who she is when she meets and falls for a handsome black businessman.

—Ann Burns

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171283933
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	07/11/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Passin'

By Karen E. Quinones Miller Grand Central Publishing
Copyright © 2008
Karen E. Quinones Miller
All right reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-446-69605-0


Chapter One May 2007

The car never breaks down unless there's somewhere you really need to go. The washing machine never breaks down unless the laundry is piled to the ceiling. And the air conditioner never breaks down unless it's the hottest day of the year.

It was 105 degrees that dismal day in the Motor City, the warmest temperature recorded for May.

Twenty-three-year-old Shanika sat on the wooden steps of the decrepit frame house and fanned herself with the folded copy of the Detroit Free Press. She had thought the red halter top and cutoff jeans she put on that morning were a good idea considering the heat, but they gave her no protection from the sun's vicious rays, which caused both to stick to her skin. Maybe, she thought, she should go change into a sundress-and maybe even lose her underwear while she was at it. She looked up at her mother who inexplicably seemed content and cool sitting on the porch sewing a hem in an old pair of gray work pants.

"Mama, when is the repairman going to get here? I'm going to sweat to death out here," Shanika complained. She stuck out her bottom lip and tried to blow air up to cool her nose, but her breath was just as hot as the summer air. This, she decided, is what hell must be like. It was almost enough to make her decide to go to church more often to make sure she didn't face the grim possibility of enduring such heat for eternity. Almost.

"I had to call him back and tell him not to come," Rina said calmly, her eyes never leaving the small, neat stitches her wrinkled hands were producing. "I looked in the cookie jar and we can't afford him, after all. You know your father ain't been able to find work lately." The truth be told, Peter hadn't worked in months, but it was too hot to go into unnecessary details when everyone knew them, anyway. Peter Jenkins was an alcoholic who simply wasn't motivated to find work.

"Oh God!" Shanika let her head loll back and her eyes roll up in her head. "We're all going to die."

Rina lowered her sewing into her lap and quietly chuckled as she looked at her daughter sprawled out on the steps. Even now, after all these years, she couldn't look at her daughter without marveling at her delicate beauty, not that there was anything delicate about her personality. Shanika was assertive, headstrong, and always determined to get her way. But still, Rina thought as she picked up her sewing again, so lovely. A little spoiled, and a little flighty at times, but all in all, a lovely child.

"Stop being so dramatic, Shanika," Rina said in a firm voice. "We'll be fine. Go in the house and get some of the iced tea I made out of the refrigerator. It should be cold by now."

Shanika sighed as she stood up and wiped perspiration from her brow. She pulled her long, curly amber-colored hair into a thick ponytail; then realizing she didn't have a rubber band on her wrist to keep it in place, she let it cascade back down over her cream-colored shoulders.

"Child, you'd better be glad your Grandmother Jenkins isn't here. She's probably sitting up in her grave now trying to yell at you to get out the sun. Look at your tan." Rina laughed. "She was always screaming at me to keep you out the sun so you wouldn't turn."

"Yeah, well, I like the sun," Shanika said. "And I didn't like Grandmother Jenkins."

Rina frowned. "No need to be saying all that. Show some respect for the dearly departed."

"Dearly?"

"Now, Shanika, be nice." Rina snapped the thread with her teeth. "By the way, your aunt Evelyn called this morning from Mississippi. Your cousin Booby's getting some kind of award from his lodge and she wants us to all come down and celebrate with them."

"Cousin Booby." Shanika snorted. "Now, that's someone who they shoulda kept out the sun."

Rina looked up. "Shanika Ann Jenkins," she said sharply. "I raised you better than that. Don't make me raise up out this chair."

"Oh, Mama, you know I'm kidding," Shanika said quickly. "It's just that it's so funny that Aunt Evelyn has the darkest grandchild in the family with her being the most color-struck in the family. At least now that Grandma Jenkins is dead."

"That ain't no way for you to be kidding."

"Mama, I've heard you say it yourself."

Rina frowned and looked away. "Well, I shouldn't have.

And you need to follow what I say, not always what I do. You ain't that grown, you know."

"Yes, Mama." Shanika shrugged and readjusted the halter top, which barely covered her ample chest, then let out another sigh and headed to the kitchen. She paused in the doorway of the living room to look at the unshaven man sitting in front of the television with just a dingy T-shirt and polka-dot boxer shorts and a stocking cap on his head. "Papa, you want some iced tea?"

Peter Jenkins let out a belch and picked up the sixteen-ounce can of Miller High Life. "I'm good, Nikkie. Thanks, though." He clicked the remote, and the television obediently switched from Wheel of Fortune to sports on ESPN.

Shanika nodded, then resumed her slow walk into the kitchen. God, I hope I get that PR job in New York next week, she thought while pouring two tall glasses of iced tea. I should never have come back here after graduation. I should have gone straight to New York and started my job hunt there. Or maybe Chicago, or even Los Angeles. There ain't no damn jobs here in Motown.

Life had seemed so promising her senior year at Delaware State University. True, she hadn't done any internships, but she had a 3.6 GPA, and she'd been so sure all of the big PR firms would be eager to snatch up a motivated and energetic young woman like her. She was sure it was only a matter of time before she was handling public relations for the likes of Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Kimora Lee Simmons, J. Lo, and the other jet-setters she read about in People magazine. And she was sure that she would soon make friends with them-after all, she made friends so easily-and pretty soon she'd be dating a billionaire and living the jet-set life herself. And then People would be featuring her on its covers. That had been her master plan.

But here it was more than a year after she'd finished school, and after sending out more than two hundred résumés, she still hadn't landed a job. She hadn't even gotten to the interview stage. Not until now.

"I've got to nail this job in New York," she said out loud while walking back onto the porch.

"What's that, baby?" her mother asked, setting the newly hemmed pants to the side.

"Nothing, Mama." Shanika bent down and gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek before handing her the glass. "Mama, can't we just call Joe and see if we can borrow the money from him to get the air fixed? Please?"

"We can't keep asking your brother to help us out. He's got his own family to worry about-especially with Ayoka being pregnant." Rina paused, then shook her head. "No, we can't keep burdening him like that. Ain't right."

"Mama, can't we just ask?" Shanika pleaded. "He's a grown man. If he can't afford it, he'll just say no. No harm done."

"You know your older brother, and you know he wouldn't turn us down even if he had to borrow the money from someone else." Rina took a sip of the tea. "Especially once you started batting your blue eyes up at him."

"I promise I won't bat my eyes," Shanika said, quickly holding her fingers up in a Boy Scout salute. "In fact, I'll ask him over the telephone."

"Lotta good that'll do." Rina chuckled. "You're the only one I know who can bat her eyes so hard people can hear it over the phone."

"Mama, please-"

"No," Rina said firmly. "And we're ending this conversation right this minute. Now, you need anything mended before I put my sewing kit away?"

Shanika poked out her lips, then sat back down on the steps. "Mama, can't we at least go to the movies? They've got air there. We've got to get out of this heat."

"You can go if you want, baby. I got too much work to do around here." Rina took another sip of her drink. "I gotta start dinner in a few minutes."

"Oh, Mama, it's too hot for you to be trying to cook up in here," Shanika cried. "What are you trying to do? Give yourself heatstroke?"

"No, just trying to make sure we have something to eat this evening, is all."

Shanika looked at her mother and shook her head. "Mama, you're ... what? ... seventy-one years old? You've worked hard all your life and you need to be taking it easy. You know what? As soon as I get a job and hit it rich, I'm going to get you a maid and a cook so you can just be a lady of leisure. And I'm going to buy you a new air conditioner, too. Heck, I'm going to buy you a new house."

Rina smiled at her daughter's verbal daydreams. "That'll be nice, baby."

"You don't believe me, do you?"

Rina chuckled and stood up. "It's not that I don't believe you, but you still sound like a little girl. But that's okay, you're still my little girl. You go ahead to the movies and enjoy yourself."

"I tell you what, Mama. How about I cook tonight? What you want me to make?"

"Girl, please. What you gonna make? Your famous Rice-A-Roni?" Rina laughed. "You go ahead and get outta here and go to the movies. I'll have a nice cool pasta salad waiting for you when you get back."

Shanika hesitated. "Mama, is there enough money in the cookie jar for me to borrow for the movies?"

"Hello, beautiful ladies!"

Shanika turned around, then bounded down the stairs like an eager puppy and into her brother's arms.

"Joseph!" she shouted. Even though she was five-ten, she had to stand on her tiptoes to give her brother-who was six-five-a kiss on the cheek. Except for his height, he was almost the spitting image of their father when he was young-maybe a little darker, but they had the same dark wavy hair and dark brown eyes that twinkled when they smiled. The other difference between Joseph and his father was that Joseph didn't mind keeping a job. He'd been working at the city's largest real estate firm for eight years. And no matter what Rina said, Shanika had already made up her mind to hit up her brother for some money. She hugged him around his waist and walked him up the porch steps.

"Whoa, what I do to deserve all this?" Joseph looked at his mother. "What's she wanting now, Mama?"

"Nothing you need to be giving her," Rina said, eyeing Shanika up and down. "And you'd better not be trying to get anything, either, young lady. And I'm meaning that," she said, with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, Mama-" Shanika began.

"Oh, Mama, nothing," Rina said firmly. "Don't try me now, hear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Shanika answered sullenly.

"Come on inside with me, Joseph, and don't pay that sister of yours no never-mind. I'll get you some iced tea." Rina walked into the house.

"What you do to get Mama riled up like that, White Girl?" Joseph teased as he and Shanika followed their mother inside, passing the living room, where their father was letting out loud, wet snores. "Shut up, Black Boy," Shanika snapped in response.

"Mama, Nikkie just called me 'Black Boy,'" Joseph said as he settled in a kitchen chair.

"Uh-huh," Shanika said from the kitchen doorway. "Don't forget to tell her you called me 'White Girl,' buddy."

"Joseph, you're too old to be calling your sister names," Rina said, placing a glass of tea on the table in front of her son. "And, Shanika, same goes for you." She sat down next to him. "Y'all are both grown now and too old to be acting like that to each other."

"Well, he's older than me and he started it," Shanika said defensively. "He always starts it."

"Stop whining, White Girl," Joseph said, throwing a spoon at her.

"See, Mama?" Shanika said after successfully dodging the flatware.

"Joe, stop it now." Rina gave her son a soft slap on the hand.

"You're thirty-five years old and acting like you're five. And here you're about to be a father. How's my daughter-in-law and that grandbaby of mine she's carrying?"

"She's great-finally getting over her morning sickness, thank goodness." He took a sip of his tea. "Mama, can't nobody make iced tea like you. I shoulda married you."

"Stop being silly," Rina said with a giggle.

"But why is it so hot in here? I thought you were supposed to call the repair guy."

"Oh, she called him, all right," Shanika said, giving her mother a playful look. "Twice in fact."

Rina shot her a dirty look, then said, "He'll get here when he gets here, and we'll be fine until he does." She turned to Joseph. "You staying for dinner? I'm about to make some pasta salad."

"Mama, it's too hot for you to be cooking," Joseph said.

"That's just what I told her," Shanika added.

"Y'all hush now. If it's not too hot to be hungry, it's not too hot to cook," Rina said as she started filling a pot with water. "Joseph, you and Ayoka missed a good sermon yesterday. Pastor Reynolds read from Psalm sixty-two of the Good Book. All about learning patience, because good things will come to those who wait."

"We wanted to make it, Mama, but Ayoka wasn't feeling good," Joseph said as he fingered a yellowing hole in the white plastic tablecloth that covered the kitchen table.

"I know, baby. I managed to drag your sister down there. First time in months. But all she did was fall asleep as usual."

"Mama, I'm sure the Lord understood I was just tired."

"Hmph, if you hadn't been hanging all night with your friends, maybe you wouldn't have been so tired. You don't have to go worship but one day a week and you can't even manage to do that without me threatening to throw cold water on you to get outta bed."

"Mama, the Lord knows I love Him, even if I don't make it to church all the time," Shanika grumbled. "I honor Him in my heart."

"I know you love Jesus, baby, but you know how they say, 'Jesus is present whenever two or more gather in His name.' You need to do more than just worship Him in your heart." Rina turned to Joseph. "Your aunt Evelyn called. Said Booby's getting some award from his lodge and she wants us to come down. Sometime in September, she said. I got the date written down."

Joseph's eyebrow shot up. "I know you're not planning on actually going all the way to Mississippi for that, Mama. For some lodge award?"

Rina shook her head. "Stuff like that's a big deal down South, Joseph. I might be thinking of going."

"I'm not," Shanika broke in. "She didn't come up for my college graduation, why should we go all the way down South just so her son can get some award? Besides, I hardly remember Booby. 'Cept that him and Joseph was always pulling on my hair when we went down there when I was a kid. And that he always called me 'Nika' instead of 'Shanika' or 'Nikkie.'" She made a face. "I hate that name."

"I saw him a couple of years ago when I went to New Orleans for a convention," Joseph said. "He's not the same since he came back from the first Gulf War. I think he must be suffering from shell shock or post-traumatic stress, or whatever it is they're calling it now."

Rina wiped her hands on a dish towel and sighed. "And if that ain't a shame. He was always such a nice boy, too. If it wasn't one Bush president getting us into a war, it's another. And it's our boys who have to suffer."

"What do you mean he's suffering from shell shock?" Shanika asked. "Does he go off on people for no reason or something?"

"No, at least I don't think so. He just seemed a little slower than usual, mentally. He didn't get things quite so fast." Joseph shrugged. "Maybe he'll get over it, but it's been like fifteen years, so it's not likely."

Joseph stood up and stretched. "Changing the subject, if I stay in this hot house any longer, I'm going to melt into a puddle of water. How about I treat you two to dinner at Applebee's?"

"Works for me," Shanika said before her mother could respond. "Should I wake up Papa?"

"Is he in his usual drunken stupor?"

"Joseph, don't you be talking like that about your father!"

"That's all right. Leave the boy alone," Peter said as he shuffled into the kitchen. "Wake me up for what, Nikkie?"

"Joseph's taking us to dinner, Peter." Rina walked over and kissed her husband on the cheek. "He wanted to know if you'd like to come."

Peter turned to Joseph. "You want me to come, son?" he asked in a hopeful voice.

Joseph paused before answering, but when he finally opened his mouth to speak, his father's mouth opened simultaneously-forced to do so by a large belch that filled the kitchen with the stench of beer.

Peter looked down at his feet just in time to avoid the look of disgust that enveloped Joseph's face. "Sorry. Um, excuse me, I mean." Peter forced a laugh. "Didn't know that was coming. You know, on second thought, think I'll stay here. Don't wanna miss the baseball game. Bring me back something, won't you?" He shuffled back into the living room.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Passin' by Karen E. Quinones Miller Copyright © 2008 by Karen E. Quinones Miller. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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