The Vanishing Half

by Brit Bennett

She’d gone inside some shop called Darlene’s Charms, where the shopgirl mistook her for white. “Isn’t it funny?” she’d said. “White folks, so easy to fool! Just like everyone says.” “It ain’t no game,” he told her. “Passin over. It’s dangerous.” “But white folks can’t tell,” she said. “Look at you—you just as redheaded as Father Cavanaugh. Why does he get to be white and you don’t?” “Because he is white,” he said. “And I don’t wanna be.” “Well, neither do I,” she’d said. “I just wanted to look at that shop. You won’t tell my mama, will you?” In Mallard, you grew up hearing stories about folks who’d pretended to be white. Warren Fontenot, riding a train in the white section, and when a suspicious porter questioned him, speaking enough French to convince him that he was a swarthy European; Marlena Goudeau becoming white to earn her teaching certificate; Luther Thibodeaux, whose foreman marked him white and gave him more pay. Passing like this, from moment to moment, was funny. Heroic, even. Who didn’t want to get over on white folks for a change? But the passe blanc were a mystery. You could never meet one who’d passed over undetected, the same way you’d never know someone who successfully faked her own death; the act could only be successful if no one ever discovered it was a ruse. Desiree only knew the failures: the ones who’d gotten homesick, or caught, or tired of pretending. But for all Desiree knew, Stella had lived white for half her life now, and maybe acting for tha...