Blended

Given the novel’s movement toward Izzy’s tender epiphany when she hears the music of Beethoven while she is recovering in the hospital bed, the incident over her pimple the day before her piano recital carries surprising significance. When Izzy first notices the pimple, she feels panicky and vulnerable. She stares into the mirror and understands only that her life is ruined. The adolescent anguish, however, is eased with the help of her soon-to-be stepmother, a woman Izzy admits she has never warmed to. The face crème Anastasia gives Izzy works. The next morning the zit is “miraculously” gone. The episode works as a sort of parable, a cautionary tale that foreshadows the closing chapters in the hospital. Izzy learns that at a moment when she feels most alone and vulnerable, the victim of events she cannot control, only the intervention of her extended family will get her through and give her emotional stability and psychological reassurance. Delighted to see the pimple gone, Izzy wakes up and embraces what now seems to her to be a “perfect day.” Experience has made her stronger; it has taught her the value and necessity of others and the irrepressible energy of optimism.

The narrative of the racial profiling episode and the encounter with the Cincinnati police juxtaposes two symbols, Izzy’s rapidly melting ice cream cone and the officer’s drawn revolver, to reveal the dark irony and sheer absurdity of the police department’s detaining of Darren and Izzy. The logic of racial profiling causes the police to stop Darren and throw him to the street and handcuff him. The police have no hard information about the robbery. They see only a Black kid driving a Mercedes in the swanky neighborhood in the vicinity of the bank robbery. Neither Darren nor Izzy is prepared for the police. Neither understands entirely why they are being detained. Darren is a stellar student, an accomplished athlete, and a community hero. Izzy is on her way perform at a prestigious piano recital that could launch a promising career as a concert pianist. Both have lived in a protective environment provided by loving and financially secure parents. Symbolizing their confusion and innocence is Izzy’s ice cream cone, which melts all over Izzy’s new dress even as the cops go about the business of brusquely interrogating Darren. Like the ice cream that is now lost forever, so is the innocence of both Darren and Izzy. From this point, they cannot see themselves as Black without realizing that other see them as threats.

The gun, on the other hand, represents the absolute authority given to white people in contemporary America, power that is too easily abused. The gun is pointed at an 11-year-old girl dressed in a crushed black velvet dress and holding an ice cream cone. The absurdity of thinking that Darren and Izzy could have anything to do with a bank robbery is evident to everyone except the officer who points the gun at this little girl and, with little cause, fires. The wound is superficial—Izzy’s parents cannot help but think of what might have happened had the cop’s aim been steadier—but the wounding is lasting. Izzy now understands the implications of her racial identity.

At the moment when the narrative might focus on outrage, the novel in the closing pages does not turn to confrontation and retribution. There is no mention of the legal fate of the white cop. Izzy resists offers to use social media platforms and news outlets to vent her anger and stir up national outrage over the encounter. The family does not go public with their anger or find lawyers to pursue legal action against the city. Cincinnati itself does not erupt in flames. The key in the end is finding a way to harmony—to not letting hate justify more hate and intolerance more intolerance. Darren, the most violated of all, refuses to give in to hate. In ways that recall Izzy’s impassionate message to her classmates, hate is easy. Love is tricky.

The ending thus is unexpectedly quiet. Izzy finds her greatest joy in seeing the warring elements of her extended family holding each other and conducting an impromptu prayer in her hospital room. The novel returns in the closing chapter to how the novel began, Izzy with her piano music, seeing the implications of the black and white keys creating stunning harmonies. If the piano is the same, Izzy is not. She has left behind the innocence of her childhood. She is more complicated than she realized, the world more threatening than she grasped, but she does not give in to fear or hate. As she falls off into an untroubled sleep, on her way to physical and emotional recovery, her fingers quietly play along on her bed sheet to the Beethoven’s familiar Für Elise. As she plays along, the music reassures her that harmony is still possible, that Black people and white people can find their way to blend “perfectly.” It is wisdom that she has earned despite, rather than because, of her experience.