Monday's Not Coming

“Mondays were Monday’s favorite day of the week, and not just ‘cause she was named after it. She loved the day itself. She’d be at school, early as ever, brighter than sunshine, even in the dead of winter with wind that could freeze our eyelids shut.” 

This passage reveals a lot about Monday’s personality, as well as Claudia’s naive interpretation of Monday’s life. She idolized her friend, seeing Monday as a shining light of positivity and strength. What she saw as enthusiasm for life, however, was also a reflection of Monday’s abuse: She was excited to go to school so that she didn’t have to be around her mother.

“Being the voice of our duo, she always spoke up first while I hung back. I mean, I’m not really shy or nothing, but Monday was just better at talking to strangers. Folks were just drawn to her, and I hated the idea of sharing her.” 

Monday’s outgoing personality traits were a foil to Claudia’s shyness, but Claudia resented the way Monday’s extraversion drew people to her. Claudia, who struggles to make friends, felt possessive of the one friend she had.

“Without her, the line went on for eternity. Without her, I ate alone. Being alone made you a target, though, and ain’t nobody got time for stupid boys throwing food at your head.” 

Monday was both Claudia’s protection from bullies in her peer group and Claudia’s reason for being. Without Monday, she was in an endless liminality. Her parents recognize this, and they want Claudia to expand her circle of friends.

“She told me about her summer wedding and honeymoon trip she took with her wife to Europe, and I told her about spending the summer with my grandmamma. I always felt I could relate to Mrs. Valente, so I had no problem admitting that I hadn’t seen Monday since June and I was real worried about her.”

Mrs. Valente was Claudia’s only ally at school. In this quote, the intimacy and authenticity of their relationship is revealed. Mrs. Valente gave Claudia personal information, making Claudia feel safe enough to confide in her.

“But one drop of another color could spoil her brightness. Leave her out in the heat too long and her banana peel would start to rot. The tip of her highlighter blackens with wear. The prickling of her pineapple skin sometimes leaves her impossible to open.” 

Claudia’s understanding of Mrs. Charles is complex. Although Mrs. Charles could be bright and beautiful, she was easily influenced by other events and people. She is a dynamic character with both positive and negative attributes, despite being the villain of the story.

“Sometimes, it boils down to miscommunication. Wires crossed, missed emails, stuff like that. Adults don’t always know how to play nice in the sandbox together.” 

Even Mrs. Valente, an adult, didn’t do what Claudia thought needed to be done to find Monday. Claudia expected adults to act like adults and solve problems, but the adults disappointed her.

“When you think of dance, I bet you think of colors like cotton-candy pink and glittery snow white. Not me. I think of gray, silver, smoky charcoal, the shadowing of a number-two pencil. The simplicity can be so beautiful.

I try to look like shadows on page when I dance. Imagining myself the color of rocks at the bottom of the river, every movement casting a ripple behind the next. The few seconds before I leap off the floor and arch my head back, I’m a perfect summer rain cloud.”

Most of the people in Claudia’s life are described as bright, vivid colors. She characterizes her connection to dance as a more subdued, profound hue; she says she’s moving like the world’s shadows as she dances.

“The word burned through the air—a word that lived on the back of my tongue, gagging me every time I pretended to read a book. A word I had tried to shield and protect myself from for years. But once spoken, it shot out like a hot needle and popped the bubble I lived in. Exposed to the new crisp air, I shivered, like I never knew cold existed.” 

Claudia’s dyslexia affected more than just her school experience. She created an entire inner world to shield her from her fear of being perceived as stupid. In this passage, her secret was finally exposed, popping her protective bubble forever.

“She lived in a town house with thousands of pictures of her family hanging up on every square inch of wall space, next to portraits of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Her kitchen was filled with well-used pots and pans, and her living room was a spotless shrine for her cream sofas. The sharp edges of the plastic covers on her dining room table chairs ripped holes in my stocking every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after school. I mean, she wasn’t a bad lady or nothing. She always offered me orange juice and biscuit cookies before we started. It’s just that every time I stepped foot in her house, it reminded me of why I had to be there in the first place.” 

Claudia is in a new environment: Ms. Walker’s house. Her home is grounded in order and higher truth, as revealed by the portraits of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. In this space, Claudia becomes oriented to her own truth for the first time: She is dyslexic.

“Everything about this school is driven by our ranking. No one has time to just take a moment and really be with our students. You’re old enough to know this now, but sometimes all you are to this school is a score that adds up with the overall score. And the higher the score, the better the reputation.” 

An education system in which students are judged by numbers, like test scores, and in which numbers determine a school’s level of funding and prestige, enables gross injustices. Monday’s abuse and disappearance fell through the cracks in a place concerned only with numbers. Claudia’s learning disability fell through as well. 

“We walked toward the front of station to a large bulletin board hanging by the door, filled with missing persons flyers, detailing names, dates, ages, and locations, along with photos. Staring at the wall of bright, smiling faces, I couldn’t escape one glaring fact: there was nothing but girls on the wall. And they all looked like Monday.” 

Deeply embedded systemic racism and sexism was on display in Detective Carson’s office. The only missing persons were young black girls, a shocking portrait of society’s most numerous yet most invisible victims. Monday’s story was like thousands of others’, revealing a much deeper societal defect, above and beyond the story of one missing girl.

“I was used to having Monday to practice with, be the mirror I needed to make myself look flawless, in school and outside it. Without her, my imperfections seemed jarring, like coloring an ocean carrot orange rather than cyan.” 

Claudia’s identity is tied up with how her best friend sees her and with who she is in relation to Monday. Without Monday, she has to learn to construct her own reality, based on her own perceptions.  

“Rumors are born with less that can run a mile in less than a minute.

Rumors eat up dreams without condiments.

Rumors do not have expiration dates.

Rumors can get you killed.” 

At school, rumors that Claudia and Monday were sexual partners both isolated them and made their lives difficult. The rumors about Monday’s abuse, however, kept her trapped in her situation, never helping to break her out.

“People melt, shift, and mold her into jewelry that they can wear when they want to feel regal. You’re drawn to her solidness, strength, and pure beauty. 

But when she is not gold, when her insides are hollowed to the point where there is nothing left, she can turn your skin green.” 

Claudia’s compassionate perspective enables her to see April as beautiful when everyone else sees her as trash. Even so, Claudia still sees the negative effects others’ use of April has on her. April is malleable and sometimes has negative impact on people because of the pain she has experienced.

“I didn’t love her in a way a girl loved a girl, like romantically. I loved her more like a soul mate loved a soul mate. Who makes up the rules for who your soul belongs to?” 

Claudia reveals the depth of her love for Monday. Others assume that they are lesbians, perhaps, because of their bond, which goes much deeper than most friendships. 

“Notice the difference: I’d been missing for two, maybe three, hours tops, and Ma had half the congregation out looking for me. Monday had been missing for months and no one even considered it strange.” 

Claudia comes from a healthy, safe home; Monday came from an abusive, neglect-filled home. Claudia recognized her privilege as a daughter from a loving home and how it compared to Monday’s relative invisibility.

“A policeman stumbled out of the house, his white face tinted green. He hacked and heaved, covering that same crack I tripped over with pink vomit. A hush came over the crowd. The police and medics moved at a snail’s pace. No urgency—meaning whatever was done was done, there was no one left to save.” 

This passage references the very first chapter, when Claudia muses on the color pink. The awareness of Monday’s true situation literally sickened people. The adults tasked with preventing tragedies like this were finally forced to recognize the truth: just pink. 

“Once red, she became a starless sky, an endless midnight, a hole in the universe swallowing up the world, leaving everyone blind. Onyx, ebony, jet black.” 

Earlier, Claudia saw Monday as red, symbolizing both Monday’s vitality and her existence as a walking red flag. When she is gone, she fades to black in Claudia’s mind. Black symbolizes the void Claudia feels in Monday’s absence.

“You would have seen the puddles—no, oceans—of what Ma called crocodile tears from fellow classmates. The same ones that had cackled at her blond hair, called her a ho, then a lesbian […] You would have seen the ushers in white gloves and charcoal dresses walking around with boxes of tissues, handing out church fans and programs with her middle name spelled wrong.” 

The media frenzy around Monday’s death revealed the hypocrisy of the systems designed to supposedly protect society’s citizens. Those who turned down Claudia’s requests for help capitalized off Monday’s death, and the bullies from their school pretended to be her friends.

“When you first wake up from a nightmare, you search for something to ground you—something to anchor you to reality. So, each morning after they found Monday, I stared out the window at the library, waiting for it to morph into a cave full of flesh-eating rodents. Only when it remained a clear box would I pull back the covers, step out of bed, and start a new day, with each step heavier than the last.” 

For Claudia, the library is grounding, as it was for Monday, who used the library as a safe haven from her abuse. Although Claudia’s reality has shifted, she remains grounded, and she will eventually move on from this experience and heal.

“So no use arguing about what could have been or what should have happened. Monday was gone—nothing was going to bring her back. And as insane as it sounds, I understood April. I understood trying to keep a secret to protect a small fraction of the life you once loved.” 

Again, Claudia displays compassion for April. She recognizes that despite the abuse, April loved her family deeply. Although she made mistakes, her ultimate goal was always to protect and provide for her family.

“Residents are hoping this will bring light to the current property conditions and stop the city’s recently approved redevelopment plan, which includes demolishing 500 homes and rebuilding both sale and rental properties, along with retail spaces. It is not certain that the displaced residents will be approved or will receive government assistance to move back in their community, forcing most into homeless shelters.

“Multiple claims suggested Mrs. Charles feared eviction, driving her to a mental break.

“‘You got these buses of white folks driving around here with cameras around their necks like they’re on a safari, hunting for their new home. Of course she went crazy!’” 

Gentrification, and the fear of losing their homes, has affected Ed Borough’s entire way of life. It also reveals the invisibility of the black community to a white community that plans to capitalize, consciously or unconsciously, on their poverty and powerlessness.

“‘I walked in and thought it was you,’ he continued. ‘Y’all looked so alike it’s freaky. I remembered she had these bright-ass shorts on. Then after the way everything went down, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, how I saw her on her first last day. And then I thought, what if that was you? Couldn’t get it out of my head. It scared me.’” 

As Michael recalled the similarities between Monday and Claudia, he projects Claudia into Monday’s tragic experience. He realizes that if something happened to Claudia, it would affect him deeply. His feelings for Claudia motivate him to take care of her.