Just Us: An American Conversation

Rankine and her husband, John Lucas, are sitting in the office of a blonde marriage counselor who was clearly once a brunette. She wonders if the therapist colored her hair to make herself more desirable outside the office or relatable within it. She wonders how she would fit into this construction of desirability and relatability.

Rankine talks about her year of chemotherapy and radiation, about how much better she now feels. The fear of imminent death, however, resulted in Rankine telling her husband that she needed, in the time she had left, “to find a partner who would make [her] laugh” (75). This comment resulted in them going to marriage counseling. Rankine and John have spent decades working together and commiserating over various displays of police brutality, including a Black girl being thrown to the floor of a classroom by a resource officer and a Black girl being thrown to the ground by a white policeman while attending a pool party in McKinney, Texas. John has calmed Rankine’s anger when she was “confronted by inequity” and she calmed his anger when he was “confronted by bureaucracy” (75).

During their counseling session, John tells the therapist how much it pained him to hear Rankine encourage him to find someone new.