Why Mr. Bauer Didn’t Like Me

As a child, Blaise Allysen Kearsley tried, in vain, to win over a white friend’s father.

Blaise Allysen Kearsely as a tween.

I always wanted to be liked by everyone’s parents. When I was in fourth grade, I wrote a note to a friend with my No. 2 pencil that read:

Does your father like me?

I stood up and headed for the hand-crank sharpener at the other end of the classroom, pretending I had to sharpen my pencil, and I slipped the note to my friend as I walked past her desk. I'll call this friend Margaret Bauer. Margaret had extra-thick, brown, shoulder-length hair. That day she'd pinned her hair back on one side with a single pink and purple ribbon-braided barrette. My ribbon barrettes were white and purple. I went back to my seat and kept looking over at her, anxiously waiting for her to write back. When she slipped the note back to me, it said:

I don’t think my father likes you, but my mother does.

That Margaret said her mother liked me was a consolation, but a small one. Mrs. Bauer was nice to me, but she seemed a little less friendly when her husband was around.

***

The Bauers lived down the street from my mother’s house in a suburb just outside of Boston — that small, perpetually segregated and pedigree-obsessed city. They were a five-minute walk away and on the path to school, which was another 10 minutes down a quiet road lined with big trees and bigger houses. There were no Black people who lived in those Victorian-style homes. But I lived there part-time with my white Jewish mother. The rest of the time I was with my Black father in an equally stodgy part of town — but we had maybe one or two more Black people.

Margaret said she couldn’t walk to school with me anymore. She told me it was because her parents said she was late getting there whenever we walked together. I don’t know if that was true, but it’s entirely possible; my mother was born a late person and I became one too.

In third grade Margaret and I would walk to school together during the weeks I stayed at my mother’s. In the mornings I’d amble down the porch steps, along the steep driveway, looking both ways before I crossed the street. I’d follow the bend in the road, and when I reached the busy intersection where the crossing guard waited, wearing her reflective orange vest. That’s where Margaret waited too — on the corner in front of the towering wooden fence that hid her house.

But then Margaret said she couldn’t walk to school with me anymore. She told me it was because her parents said she was late getting there whenever we walked together. I don’t know if that was true, but it’s entirely possible; my mother was born a late person and I became one too. It was hard to get me out of bed, and I know there were some mornings I left the house late because my mother was trying to comb through the knots in my thick, curly hair, which would get wildly tangled and matted overnight. I’d always been sensitive so it stung that I couldn’t walk to school with Margaret anymore. Did I do something wrong? Maybe if I had different hair that wasn’t so tangled in the morning.

We were still friends. One time she even invited me over for dinner with her parents and her older brother. It was spring, when the days were long, and their narrow dining room filled with natural light, gradually dimming. Mr. Bauer sat diagonally from me. He had almost all-white hair, not balding, but thin and soft-looking. He wore round, wire-rimmed glasses across the bridge of his long ivory nose. His lips were naturally pursed, and he had a slight double chin despite being slender. He was tall — all the Bauers were — and he always wore a suit.

It made me nervous, eating at friends’ houses and not knowing their rituals or what was expected. In the center of the dining table there sat a Corningware casserole dish densely packed with steaming baked macaroni and cheese — a delicacy. I figured out we were supposed to help ourselves so I reached forward, wrapped my hand around the silver serving spoon handle, and dug in. As I carefully brought the spoon toward my plate, balancing a mound of food, my hand shook and a clump of macaroni plopped onto the floral tablecloth.

“Whoops,” I said quietly.

Mr. Bauer glared at me. I froze. The perimeter of the room seemed dark, the overhead light focused solely on me and the spilled macaroni. I sensed the tension even though I didn’t know the word for it — the change in the air, the tightening of the atmosphere, the firing of too many neurons. Everyone else saw it too, but then they looked away.

Mr. Bauer was watching me. I felt my brown skin flame up; my cheeks wouldn’t let me disappear. I picked up the macaroni with my jittery fingers and dropped it onto my plate. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d washed my hands before dinner. Should I have used the spoon? Isn’t it bad manners to let the spoon touch the table? Margaret’s dad gave me a dirty look, just like friends do when they’re being mean to you. His dirty look told me I was the one who was dirty. His hardened, squinting eyes, his clenched jaw, his stiff neck said how dare I drop food on the table. It said I had no manners. It said he didn’t want me there in the first place. It said I wasn’t welcome, and spilling food on his table was exactly why. It told me why Margaret couldn’t walk to school with me anymore.

There were so many internal “buts” attached to why Mr. Bauer acted the way he did when I was around. But I’m polite. But I’m a good person. But I live in the same neighborhood as you. But Mrs. Bauer doesn’t glare at me sideways. But Margaret is my friend. But I didn’t do anything to you.

Mr. Bauer was watching me. I felt my brown skin flame up; my cheeks wouldn’t let me disappear. I picked up the macaroni with my jittery fingers and dropped it onto my plate. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d washed my hands before dinner. Should I have used the spoon? Isn’t it bad manners to let the spoon touch the table?

The next time I went to the Bauer house, Margaret had something to do at a certain time and her father was driving her to whatever it was — piano lessons, tutoring, flute practice; I don’t recall.

“Do you want a ride home?” Margaret asked as we walked down the driveway.

“That’s okay, thanks,” I said. I wanted to be benevolent and gracious. “It’s just a short walk.”

Mr. Bauer nodded silently as if to say, Yes — it is just a short walk. At first I thought he was showing some kernel of kindness; we were agreeing on something. But he looked uncomfortable. It was that same stiff body language I’d witnessed at the dining table and I knew he wished Margaret hadn’t said what she said. I wanted him to say, “No, we’ll drive you home,” just like any of my other friends’ parents would — just like my parents would for Margaret. It wasn’t like my house was out of the way.

I said goodbye and started walking when the two of them ducked into the car. I turned onto the sidewalk feeling embarrassed and uneven, a crawling sensation slithering under my skin. I reached the corner where the crossing guard stood on school mornings, and where Margaret used to wait for me. My chin quivered uncontrollably and there was no clear reason I could quite put my finger on. Like all the math lessons that looked like indecipherable secret codes to me. I knew it wasn’t so much that I wanted a ride, but that he didn’t want to give me one.

I heard the car’s hum advance alongside me. I imagined them stopping to tell me they’d drive me home anyway, make sure I got there safe, and I’d open the door and climb into the back seat and be at my house in two minutes. Margaret smiled and waved through the passenger window. I waved back. Mr. Bauer gripped the steering wheel. He glowered at me from the corner of his eye, his mouth cemented into something halfway between a scowl and a smirk. They drove off out of sight, but not before I saw him take another look in the rearview mirror.

***

Two years later we left elementary school for junior high. I made new friends and wanted to be somebody other than the child I’d been in 6th grade. Most of the kids at our new school seemed worldly and more grown-up. I wanted to be mature, the way I thought all 13-year-olds were when I was 12. I wasn’t friends with Margaret anymore. Entering 7th grade was how it ended. Simply, naturally, without a word, the way some friendships do.

Margaret smiled and waved through the passenger window. I waved back. Mr. Bauer gripped the steering wheel. He glowered at me from the corner of his eye, his mouth cemented into something halfway between a scowl and a smirk. They drove off out of sight, but not before I saw him take another look in the rearview mirror.

Recently I googled her. I found her in an article about how she and her brother were carrying on their father’s legacy after he’d died of cancer at age 84. An obituary from Boston public radio’s website said he had been a philanthropist and political activist, well-known in the area. Bolstered by having traced his German lineage back several generations, he founded an organization that awarded non-Jewish Germans for their goodwill toward Jews. Because Germans today had nothing to do with the Holocaust, he’d said in an interview on NPR, they got a “bad rap.” I wondered if he thought white people got a bad rap because of slavery.

In the accompanying photos Mr. Bauer’s face was in front of me for the first time in three decades. His hair was even whiter and he’d grown a snowy beard. In the pictures, taken months before he died, he laughed with Margaret and her brother, and grinned and touched noses with his pudgy baby grandchild wearing a blue bonnet. All the times I had to be in the same room with Mr. Bauer, I never saw a smile on his face.

***

After watching Margaret and her father drive away that day, I walked alone along the Bauer’s giant fence towards my house. My chest hurt. It was heavy-like, and my heart rang in my eardrums. I seethed and felt flushed. Gravity tugged the corners of my mouth. Ripples of salty tears swelled in my eyes. I wiped them dry with the backs of my hands when I reached our house, relieved to be home. I didn’t tell my mother; there was nothing to tell. It wasn’t unusual to walk home instead of getting a ride. It was a five minute walk and there was somewhere Margaret needed to be. Plus, my mother and Mrs. Bauer were friendly towards each other. That was my reasoning.

But it would not settle. That day kept drifting back and roiling in my throat. So I wrote Margaret the note. I wanted everything to be made right. What could I do differently? Whatever it was, it was her father’s problem, but his problem was my weakness. I felt his disdain in my bones; he didn’t need to say anything. An inherent, visceral knowing passed down to the youngest generation, cracks us open, and we can never unknow it. It’s a kind of innocence held for a ransom we could never come up with.

I stared at Margaret’s handwriting, wishing it said something more — an apology on her father’s behalf even though it wasn’t her fault. But that wouldn’t have been enough. My brain was busting open, but I couldn’t find the external language to describe how Mr. Bauer made me feel about him — about myself. I could only write a note with my No. 2 pencil, asking my friend if her father liked me.

---

Blaise Allysen Kearsley is a writer and creative nonfiction teacher. Her work has appeared in Longreads, The Boston Globe, Catapult, Gothamist, New York Magazine, Memoir Land, Oldster, and elsewhere. She is a contributing editor for Vestal Review and the founder of the How I Learned series, a long-running live NYC storytelling show that's now a magazine launching in July 2025. She has been writing a memoir since medieval times, about growing up a biracial teen girl in the underground alternative scene in 1980s Boston. Fortunately, she lives in New York now. You can find her at www.blaiseallysenkearsley.com and on Instagram: @blaiseallysen, @blaisewritersworkshop, or @howilearnedseries. It's a lot.

A version of this essay was originally published in Longreads.