"Substitute Me"
Author: Lori L. Tharps
You hate leaving your kids.
It’s not that you don’t want a break from them sometimes, because you need that for your sanity. And it’s not the pitiful way they cry, ripping your heart out, even though you know they’ll be playing 10 seconds after you’re through the door.
No, you hate leaving your kids because of that nagging little voice in the back of your head. It says that nobody can care for them the way you do.
In the new novel “Substitute Me” by Lori L. Tharpsc (2010, Atria. $15 / $17 Canada. 343 pages + extras), a working mother finds the perfect nanny for her son. But perfection comes with a price.
Zora Anderson’s family thought she’d kicked around enough, and that it was time for her to get her life on track. Problem was, Zora had no idea what she wanted to do. She was nearing 30 years old, had dropped out of college, gone to culinary school in Detroit, nannied in Europe, and was now unemployed.
So, without telling her family of her plans, Zora answered a personals ad of a White couple in Brooklyn, who were looking for someone to care for their son. Zora had loved being a nanny in France. Why not do in New York?
In the back of her mind, though, something wasn’t quite right. Zora was well aware of how it might look: a Black woman caring for a White baby? She wasn’t anybody’s mammy but racial history seemed to nag at her just the same.
Kate Carter had loved staying home with little Oliver, but she was looking forward to returning to work. Jacobs & Zimbalist wouldn’t hold her job forever, and although she knew there’d be long hours ahead, she was ready for some adult company. An energetic, smart woman like her couldn’t thrive on baby talk and mommy and me events.
Brad Carter liked to think of himself as a progressive guy who saw each person as an individual, so when his wife, Kate, hired a Black woman as a nanny, he was aware that there might be some discomfort in the situation. But as Zora began to fit into the routine and become a valued member of his and Kate’s lives, Brad began to see things differently.
As it turns out, discomfort was only the start …
Author Lori L. Tharps, who has written two non-fiction books and dozens of magazine articles, takes a crack at fiction-writing with “Substitute Me,” and for a debut novel, it ain’t bad.
Although the story tends to drag a little now and again, Tharps constantly tweaks her readers with several plot lines that make us ponder our beliefs on race, heritage, and privilege. There’s also some predictability here; not enough to ruin the plot, but enough that you’ll see what’s coming, and you’ll (sheepishly) find yourself wondering why the characters can’t see it, too.
Who is your favorite superhero?
Does he wear a cape and fly through the air? Or does he have sharp knives instead of claws so he can really mess up the bad guys? Does your superhero run fast, spin webs, jump high, control fire or wind, or is he able to swim through deep oceans with special gills on his neck?
It’s amazing how, sometimes, old words have new meaning.
Take, for example, a classic play or novel. Take, for example, a favorite poem that a great-grandfather tucked away in a family Bible, a story set in another era, or a letter written by a long-gone ancestor.
The words inside it might seem quaint and stiff. The format may not be familiar to you at all. You might not have known the writer but though the times are different, verses and thoughts put to paper 100 years—or even three generations—ago still shout their meaning.
Aliens have kidnapped your best friend.
At least that’s what it seems like. The two of you used to do things together all the time. You’d hang out, watch TV, shoot hoops or climb trees. You liked the same things and you knew each other’s secrets.
But now, sometimes, you feel like you barely know her any more. She never wants to do the things you used to do, and everything’s different. It’s almost like your best friend got kidnapped and replaced with someone who just looks like her.
You were so sorry.
Of all the things you regret, this one is right at the top. The bad haircut, that horrible outfit you loved at the time, things lost or lent and never found—those are all unimportant.
No, you’re most remorseful for the thing you didn’t do. You missed saying words that would have meant so much to someone.
Though you tried, there was really no way you could ignore it.
The first time your fingertips spotted the lump, you were sure it was nothing. Just a little abnormality beneath the skin, probably one of those weird things everybody’s body does now and then.
But the lump was there the next time, and the next, and you couldn’t ignore it anymore. With a big lump in your throat (ironic, huh?) you saw your doctor and got the diagnosis you dreaded.
So what next? How can you get past breast cancer and stay well?
