by Renée Watson
On my last trip to the table, I make a plate to eat for now. When I get back to my seat, a girl is sitting next to my chair. “Hi,” she says. “I’m Jasmine.”
“Jade,” I tell her. I notice no one is sitting next to her. “Have you met your mentor?” I ask.
“She’s not here yet,” Jasmine tells me.
“Mine either.” At least I’m not the only one.
A woman stands at the front of the room and calls everyone’s attention. “Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sabrina. I am so honored to kick off another cohort of mentors and mentees,” she says. “I am the founder and executive director of Woman to Woman, and I started this program because I believe in the power of sisterhood. We girls are often overlooked as if our needs are not important. And, well, I got tired of complaining, and wanted to do something about it,” Sabrina says. She has a small high-pitched voice. She’s tall and thin and the darkest shade of black. Her hair is braided in tiny singles and pinned up in a bun.
As Sabrina is talking, a woman walks in quietly, closing the heavy door behind her so it doesn’t make too much noise. She stops at the table to sign in and write her name on a name tag. She looks regal and carries herself in a way that makes me sit up in my seat. Our eyes meet and she smiles. The greeter at the table looks over my way too, and points. I can’t tell if she’s pointing at me or Jasmine. Once the woman gets closer, I see her name tag says, BRENDA. She whispers something to Jasmine and sits next to her.
Am I really going to be the loser girl whose mentor stood her up?
Sabrina continues her welcome speech. “There is an old adage that says, ‘You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day. You can teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.’” She pauses and lets the meaning sink in. “Well, I like what Pedro Noguera had to add. He says, ‘Don’t stop there.’ He says, ‘Help her to understand why the river is polluted so that she and her friends can organize to get the river clean and make it possible for the entire community to eat too,’” Sabrina says. She pauses again for a moment, and then a wide compassionate smile stretches across her face. “Young women, this is what this mentorship program is about. We will have fun, yes. But we will also discuss some of the distractions and barriers to success and hopefully gain strategies for overcoming them.” Then she smiles. “But first, the fun.” Sabrina asks everyone to stand. “Let’s all make a big circle, please. Mentees, please stand next to your mentors.”
I look around the room one more time and watch each pair join together, laughing and talking and getting to know one another. Maxine still isn’t here. Some mentor.
Sabrina says, “First, we’ll have everyone go around and say their names. But to add a little twist to it, say your name with a word that describes you and that begins with the letter of your first name.” Sabrina steps forward. “Okay, I’ll go first—Silly Sabrina,” she announces.
Then the next person says, “Hilarious Hillary,” and the woman next to her, “Bookworm Brenda.”
I think of names for my mentor: Missing Maxine, Mediocre Maxine, Mean Maxine.
This is stupid.
I’m ready to go. I look back at the table—the greeter woman isn’t there anymore. I take my jacket off the back of the chair I was saving, grab my backpack, and sneak out before anyone notices that no one came for me.
I walk to the bus stop, thinking about the fish and the river Sabrina was telling us about. I don’t really want to learn about the polluted river. I want to move where the water is clean. And I don’t want to play childish getting-to-know-you games. If I’m going to do this program, I want to get something out of it.
As I wait for the bus, some man with holes in his jacket and a bottle in his hand comes up to me and says, “You got a number, Jade?”
How does he know my name?
The man’s eyes are looking at my breasts.
I look down. Great. I’m still wearing the stupid name tag. I pull it off, ball it up, and put it in my pocket.
“That’s not your name anymore?” He steps closer to me. “That’s fine. You don’t want to be Jade no more? I’ll call you whatever you want,” he says. He leans in as if he’s going to kiss me.
I step back. Tell him to stop. I walk away, leaving the drunk man yelling and cursing. There is no bus in sight, so I decide to walk a few blocks to the next stop.
By the time I get home, it is dark and raining. E.J. is already turning the sofa into his bed, and Mom is on her way to Ms. Louise’s house. She’s staying there for three nights while Ms. Louise’s daughter is out of town. Mom looks at me with her knowing eyes. She can tell I’m upset. She always knows how I’m feeling, even when I don’t know how to put it in words. She is good at reading minds, reading the room, at having a feeling that just won’t go away.
Like the night E.J.’s best friend, Alan, was killed. Mom kept saying she had this feeling, a feeling that something bad was going to happen. She kept calling E.J.’s cell, but he didn’t answer. I thought she was flipping out for no reason, but later that night we got the call that E.J. and his friends had been shot. E.J. was okay, barely grazed on his arm. Nate was wounded badly, and Alan died at the scene.
Nothing’s been the same since then. I think Mom only hears what she wants to hear, sees what she wants to see when it comes to her baby brother. Mom knows E.J. is not fine. He’s not working a full-time job, and that money he makes from deejaying and selling mixtapes isn’t going to sustain him. Mom asks him all the time, “Are you looking for a job?” He says yes and she believes him. She asks him, “Are you okay, E.J.? What happened to you was traumatic. Maybe you should talk to someone.” But E.J. says he is fine and Mom believes him. I wonder, how could she get that feeling that night and know her brother was in danger when he was miles away, and not know he’s in danger when he’s right in front of her face?
Mom looks me in my eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “How did it go?”
“She didn’t show up,” I tell her.
“What do you mean she didn’t show up?” Mom grabs her umbrella from the bucket by the door.
I just stand there.
“Does anyone know your mentor didn’t come?”
“No. I left.”
“Well, Jade. You should have said something.”
“Why?”
“Well, don’t you care that she didn’t show up? You need to let whoever is in charge know that—”
“I couldn’t just interrupt the event, Mom. Plus, Sabrina will know when she checks the sign-in sheet. I don’t need to say anything.”
“You have to start speaking up for yourself. I don’t know why you’re so shy. You need to—”
“Mom, it’s after seven already,” I tell her. This is my way of reminding her that if she doesn’t leave now, she will be late for work. It is my way of telling her I don’t need a lecture right now.
She kisses me on my forehead. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Think about what I said, please,” Mom adds as she steps outside. She opens her umbrella and walks down the steps.
I go to my room and try to do my homework, but instead my mind keeps drifting off to what Mom said. The thing is, I don’t think I’m shy. I just don’t always know what to say or how to say it. I am like Mom in so many ways but not when it comes to things like this. She is full of words and bites her tongue for no one. I wish I could be that way.
10
presentar
to introduce
I am on the phone, talking to Lee Lee, telling her everything that did and didn’t happen at the Woman to Woman welcome meeting. “A name game?” she asks. “Do they think you’re in elementary school?”
“Right? That’s how I felt,” I tell her.
Lee Lee and I talk until her aunt tells her to get off the phone.
I hang up as E.J. comes out of the kitchen and into the living room to convert the sofa into his bed.
There is a knock at the door. I look out of the window and see a woman stan
ding there. “E.J., I think someone is here for you.”
“Is it Trina?” He spreads a blanket over the pulled-out sofa.
I take a closer look. This isn’t Trina. And on a second look, I think maybe she’s lost and needs directions. She’s way too pretty to be here for E.J. Her hair is crinkled and wild, all over the place—but on purpose. She’s somewhere in the middle of thick and big-boned. I want to look like that. Instead I’m just plump. I open the door. “Can I help you?” I ask.
“Hi,” the woman says. “I’m here for Jade. My name is Maxine.”
Maxine. My mentor.
“I’m Jade,” I say.
I stand there, looking at her, wondering what she wants. Wondering how it is she can show up at my house in the middle of the night and not at the event earlier this evening. She must expect me to let her in, but there’s no way I’m letting her see my house. Not with the sofa made up as E.J.’s bed.
Maxine steps forward. I don’t move at all. “Nice to meet you, Jade,” she says.
I cross my arms.
“I’m really sorry about today,” she says. “A ton of stuff happened that was completely out of my control, and I couldn’t make it.” Her cell phone rings. She takes it out, pushes a button, and puts it back into her purse.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. It’s not, but what else am I supposed to say?
“Can I, ah, do you mind if I come in?” she asks.
I guard the door. “My uncle’s watching TV.”
“Oh.”
“But, um, well, hold on.” I close the door, leaving her on the porch. “E.J., my mentor is here. Can you go to my room for a sec?”
He looks out the window. “She is fiiiine. She looks— Wait. I know her.”
“You do not know her.”
“How you gonna tell me who I know?” E.J. says. “I was just talking to my boy Jon about her today.”
“E.J., will you please go to my room?”
He finally gets up. I pull the sheets off the sofa and toss them into his closet. I run to the bathroom and grab the can of air freshener and just about empty it, spraying the hallway and living room. E.J. starts coughing. “Is it that serious?” he yells.
I pick up his sneakers. “Yes. It is. Have you smelled these?” I throw his shoes into the closet too. And then I turn the lights out. I flick the lamp on instead, hoping the darkness will hide how sad the house is.
“You owe me,” he says. He walks down the hallway.
I open the door. “Come in,” I say. “Sorry to make you wait.”
“I just wanted to meet you and give you this.” She hands me a gift bag.
Is she trying to buy my forgiveness? I think about giving the gift back to her without even opening it, but then I stop being rude and remember how upset I was earlier today, how I wanted to meet her, and how now that I have what I want, I need to appreciate it.
I open the bag, taking the tissue paper out and neatly folding it before I dig in. It’s so fancy, I don’t want to mess it up. I look inside the bag. “Whoa, look at all this stuff!” I fan through the different colors of paper—some prints, some solid. Then I pull out the oil pastels and the sketchbook. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” Maxine says. She lets out a sigh. We’re probably thinking the same thing: all is forgiven.
“I thought you could add it to your collage materials. Hope it’s useful,” Maxine says.
“I love it.”
“So tell me what kind of art you make,” Maxine says.
“Well, I like to take things that people don’t usually find beautiful and make them beautiful. Like, blocks here in the Villa, or sometimes people in my neighborhood. I don’t know. I get ideas from everywhere.”
“Can I see some of your artwork?”
I walk over to my bookshelf, take my sketchbook, and hand it to her. “These are only small collages. I like to make bigger ones, on canvas. But sometimes, when there’s no space, I just make stuff in this,” I tell her.
Maxine looks through my book. “Wow, Jade. You’re, like, a real artist. I mean—this isn’t kid art. You are for real.” She flips through the book and stops at the page of Lee Lee. Part of the collage is old photos from when we were in elementary school. In the image, Lee Lee is standing, her hands on her hips, wearing that serious look she always has. The one that says, I can handle anything. Nothing’s going to stop me. I made the collage the day after her grandmother was buried. I took different scraps of fabric from her grandmother’s old handkerchiefs and ripped up an extra copy I had of the funeral program to make the background. “This is really, really lovely, Jade.”
“Thank you.”
“I have to tell my sister, Mia, about you. She’s an artist and she owns a gallery on Jackson Avenue. You two have to meet.” Maxine’s cell phone rings again, and she ignores it. Then, seconds later, it rings once more. She takes her phone out and looks at the screen to see who’s calling.
“You can answer it,” I say. “Must be important.”
“Sorry. Give me a minute.” Maxine answers her phone. “Jon?” she says.
So E.J. was right?
She pauses for a long time, and even though I can’t hear what’s being said, I know it isn’t good. I can tell by her eyes. “I can’t talk about this right now, okay? I’m at my mentee’s house.”
Mentee. I don’t like that word. I just want to be Jade.
I try to act like I’m not listening, which is hard to do because the living room is small. I put everything back into the gift bag, even the tissue paper, and put it on my bookshelf. The whole time I’m thinking how I pictured Maxine would be a woman with strict eyes and a voice that says she doesn’t play around. But instead Maxine’s eyes look nervous and gentle. Like she’s new to this.
But her voice.
Her voice is not mean, but it is rich. Sounds like those St. Francis girls. The way she hangs up the phone from Jon and asks, “Mind if I sit here?” like she has a problem sitting on the sofa, like she wishes there was something else to sit on. I mean, yes, it’s low. So low you have to rock yourself a few times to build momentum to get up, but it’s not dirty.
Her voice.
The way she says, “How precious is that?” when she looks at my bookshelf.
My books are stacked by height and turned so that the titles can easily be seen. I pull a book off the shelf and hand it to her. “I’ve had some of these books since I was in fourth grade,” I tell her.
Maxine strains to get up from the sofa, and walks over to take a closer look at my bookshelf. There are plaques on the top shelf. Some small, some big. All of them have my name front and center. “Wow. You’ve got a lot of trophies,” she says. “You are quite the scholar. That’s great.”
I smile.
We talk for a while about which teachers are still at St. Francis and how things have changed. I ask Maxine if she liked St. Francis. She says, “I loved it. High school was a great experience for me. Enjoy it. It goes by fast.” We talk more about her experience at St. Francis, how she was the senior class president and how she was on the debate team.
“Were you a student in Woman to Woman?” I ask.
“No,” Maxine says.
So she’s never been at risk for anything?
“But when Mrs. Parker called me, I really wanted to be part of it. It’s my way of giving back, I guess,” Maxine says. She takes her phone out of her pocket, looks at a text message on the screen, and puts it away. “Mrs. Parker always looked out for me. She was the one who convinced me to go to Guatemala.”
“You’ve been to Guatemala?”
“And Ghana,” she says. “I was in the study abroad program at St. Francis. You’re a junior, right? Isn’t this the year students get nominated?”
“Yes, but—well, I don’t know when that’s happening,” I tell her. “They haven’t announced the nominations or where the trip is yet. I want to go.” I don’t tell her how I went to Mrs. Parker’s office, thinking she had good news for me, but instead
it was about Woman to Woman, about her. Turns out nominations don’t happen till after winter break, so I still have a chance.
“You really should do it,” Maxine tells me. “Traveling changes you. It opens you up in ways you’d never imagine, and it makes you appreciate home.”
“Really?” I ask. “Seems like the more you travel, the more you’d want to leave Oregon. Other places sound so—I don’t know, so much bigger, more diverse, more everything.”
“I think everyone dreams of leaving home, but trust me, the cliché is true: I’ve been a lot of places and there really is no place like home.”
Part of me thinks it’s easy for Maxine to say this because home for her has probably never been a tiny two-bedroom house with a leaking roof.
E.J. comes into the living room. “Max, I thought that was you!”
“E.J.!” I throw a pillow at him.
“Just came to get something to drink. Calm down.” E.J. walks into the kitchen.
“Hey, E.J.,” Maxine says. “How’ve you been?”
My mentor knows my uncle? I’m not sure how to feel about this.
“I’m good, I’m good,” E.J. says. “You know, still working on my music. Trying to finish this demo with Jon.” E.J. comes back into the living room, a can of soda in his hand. “Speaking of Jon—”
“Let’s not,” Maxine says.
“He told me what went down today, but you two are going to get back together. You always do,” E.J. says. He cracks the can open.
“I don’t know about that,” Maxine says.
I wonder what went down today and if it went down while Maxine was supposed to be with me. Did she stand me up because of some drama with her boyfriend?
