by Renée Watson
“This is gorgeous,” Maxine says. She hands me the book.
I look through the pages. I have never seen art like this before—not in a book.
Afro Woman walks us to another aisle. “Yeah, Mickalene used to live in Portland,” she tells us. I don’t hear all of what she is saying because I am looking through the book, staring at these brown women and their faces that are pieced together with different shades of brown, different-size features, all mismatched yet perfectly puzzled together to make them whole beings. “I want to do this,” I say out loud. They don’t hear me because they are too busy talking about Mickalene and where she went to school and where she lived in Portland.
The whole way to the cashier, I am trying to choose which book to get now and which one to come back for. When we get in line, Maxine takes both books and says, “Anything else you want?”
Is that a trick question? I say no.
She pays for the books.
I can’t stop thanking Maxine. She says, “You are more than welcome. Just thank me by making some great art.”
Once we’re in the car, I feel bad because we’re not talking much. Seems like we should be getting to know each other. But the whole way home all I can do is stare at these masterpieces, study the making of me.
20
doce
twelve
There are twelve girls who’ve been selected for the Woman to Woman mentorship program.
Twelve seeds.
Twelve prayers.
Twelve daughters.
Twelve roots.
Twelve histories.
Twelve reasons.
Twelve rivers.
Twelve questions.
Twelve songs.
Twelve smiles.
Twelve yesterdays.
Twelve tomorrows.
21
mujer a mujer
woman to woman
Being part of Woman to Woman is like having twelve new aunts. The way they all ask, “And how’s school?” then “Any boys trying to get with you?” The way one is good for advice about choosing the right college and another is good for advice about choosing the right shade of makeup to complement your complexion.
Tonight’s gathering is at Sabrina’s house. “It’s girl talk night,” Sabrina says. She is sitting crossed-legged on the living room floor. The hardwood is shiny, like she mopped before we came. All twelve girls and all twelve mentors are here, and it doesn’t even feel crowded. I think about all of us trying to squeeze into my house, how we’d bulge out of every corner like chubby feet in too-tight shoes. I hope tonight’s topic is “How to Get a House Like Sabrina’s.” That’s what I want to know how to do.
Most girls are on the floor, but I got here early, so I have a seat on one of the sofas. Everywhere I turn, I see snacks. Bowls of popcorn drizzled with olive oil and pepper. There is dried edamame in a small dish, and chocolate-covered sunflower seeds in a square bowl. The colorful, tiny seeds look like miniature Easter eggs. In the kitchen, fresh grapefruit slices float in a water cooler. I like plain water better, so I took some from the faucet before I sat down. “Help yourself to the snacks,” Sabrina says. “Healthy living is healthy eating.” There’s a tray of vegetables in the center of the coffee table with a small bowl of hummus for dipping.
“We’ll have one of these girl talk sessions once a quarter,” Sabrina tells us. “Each time there will be a different topic.”
Tonight’s topic is dating. Sabrina asks each mentee to write one or two questions on the blank pieces of paper and put them in the question box.
I don’t write a question.
I can tell by the looks on everyone’s faces who’s excited about talking about dating and who’s terrified. Tamar literally sighs out loud, like she’d rather be anywhere but here. I see Ryan nudge her, telling her to pull it together. The twelve of us fit into four categories. Since Kayla is dating a guy who’s in college and Tamar and Ryan are sitting here looking like they could lead this session, I put them in the “I Know Everything There Is to Know about Relationships” crew. Tracey, Ivy, Tameka, and Gabriella are in the “I’m Focused on School and I Don’t Have Time for Anyone Else” group. I guess I’m in that category too. I mean, I don’t mind talking about dating, but it seems like every time adults have something to say to girls it’s about what kind of boy not to talk to, what not to do with a boy. And even when they ask about our grades, and we tell them we have good grades, they usually say something like, “Well, that’s good. I’m glad you’re not distracted by them boys.”
The only girls who seem excited by this discussion are Mercy, Sadie, and Lexus. They are the curious girls. They’ve dated before but have so much to learn. And then there’s Jasmine. She’s the only “I’m Saving Myself for Marriage” girl. Right now, Jesus is her boyfriend.
Sabrina says, “I’ve asked each mentor to come prepared to share the things they wish someone had told them about dating when they were your age.”
Sabrina looks at Melanie. “Who wants to start?” she asks, when clearly she wants Melanie to speak first.
Melanie crosses her legs. She is one of the oldest mentors of the group. Midforties, I think. She is married, and talks about her husband like he’s her favorite everything. “Sure, I’ll give it a go,” she says. “When I first got Sabrina’s e-mail, I thought, well, if I’m really honest with myself, the truth is I was given some very good advice about dating. I just didn’t listen.”
The women laugh in agreement.
“Seriously,” she says. “My mom schooled me well. She told me that before thinking about dating and sex and all of that, I needed to worry about myself because I would never be able to love anyone or treat anyone with dignity if I didn’t first love and respect myself.”
Rachel, one of the mentors, snaps her fingers like she’s at a poetry café. “Girl, you can say that again!”
All the women are nodding, their heads moving like synchronized swimmers.
Tamar asks, “But what if you already know who you are and what you want?”
Another woman speaks. She looks at Tamar and says, “You think you know yourself, but trust me: you will keep growing and developing. That’s why you all need to take the pressure off yourselves to have these serious relationships. You will change so much in the next ten years—”
Sabrina interrupts. “In ways you can’t even imagine.”
“Right,” the woman says.
Ryan looks like she has checked out of the conversation. She is playing with the chocolate-covered sunflower seeds. Lining them up on her plate according to color.
Sabrina speaks again. “Any other mentors want to add something?” she asks.
Maxine hasn’t spoken. She is looking all over the room, everywhere except Sabrina’s direction, like she doesn’t want to be called out. She must be thinking of Jon. Must be thinking she has no advice to give.
Brenda speaks. “I guess I’ll add that relationships should be fun. I mean, there should be real joy in spending time with the person you are dating—and actually, this goes for friendships, too. If a person is making you the brunt of the joke all the time, or if they are dismissive of your feelings, then you need to stop wasting your time.”
“Now that’s the truth!” someone says.
Then Sabrina says, “With that, we’ll go to the question box.” She shakes the velvet box and pulls an index card out. “Our first question is, ‘How do I get guys to notice me?’”
“I’ll take that one,” Carla says. “I think being yourself will attract the person who’s best for you. You have to be true to yourself. Don’t change what makes you you, because someone is going to want you. And the guys who don’t, well, that’s their loss.”
The next question Sabrina pulls out says, How do you get over someone you love?
I don’t mean to but I immediately look at Maxine. She looks away quickly when our eyes almost connect. I wonder how it feels to be here as a person who’s supposed to have it all together but has some of
the same questions that we do.
Melanie says, “Getting over someone is hard. You will think your heart will always be broken, but the truth is—it won’t always hurt this bad.”
Sabrina ends the night with a talk about following our dreams and believing in ourselves. “You have to believe you are worthy of love, of happiness. That you are worthy of your wildest dreams coming true.”
When she says this, so many thoughts rush through my mind. I am thinking about how Mom had plenty of dreams, and E.J. is not short on self-confidence, and Lee Lee has known she wants to be a poet since we were in middle school, so it can’t be just about believing and dreaming. My neighborhood is full of big dreamers. But I know that doesn’t mean those dreams will come true.
I know something happens between the time our mothers and fathers and teachers and mentors send us out into the world telling us, “The world is yours,” and “You are beautiful,” and “You can be anything,” and the time we return to them.
Something happens when people tell me I have a pretty face, ignoring me from the neck down. When I watch the news and see unarmed black men and women shot dead over and over, it’s kind of hard to believe this world is mine.
Sometimes it feels like I leave home a whole person, sent off with kisses from Mom, who is hanging her every hope on my future. By the time I get home I feel like my soul has been shattered into a million pieces.
Mom’s love repairs me.
Whenever Mom’s cooking is simmering on the stove and E.J.’s music is filling every inch of the house and I am making my art, I believe everything these women are saying about being worthy of good things. Those are the times I feel secure, feel just fine. I look in the mirror and see my dad’s eyes looking back at me, my mom’s thick hair, thick everything. And that’s when I believe my dark skin isn’t a curse, that my lips and hips, hair and nose don’t need fixing. That my dream of being an artist and traveling the world isn’t foolish.
Listening to these mentors, I feel like I can prove the negative stereotypes about girls like me wrong. That I can and will do more, be more.
But when I leave? It happens again. The shattering.
And this makes me wonder if a black girl’s life is only about being stitched together and coming undone, being stitched together and coming undone.
I wonder if there’s ever a way for a girl like me to feel whole.
Wonder if any of these women can answer that.
22
almorzar
to have lunch
Sam and I are walking from the bus stop to school. She is talking nonstop asking about Friday and Saturday and Sunday like it isn’t only Monday morning. “Can you come over this weekend, or do you have something to do with Woman to Woman?” Sam asks me.
“Sorry, can’t.”
“Am I going to have to find a new best friend?” Sam asks.
I feel bad that I don’t have any time to hang out with Sam. We only spend time together on the bus or at lunch. Every now and then we do our homework at Daily Blend, a coffee shop not too far from her house. We usually split a pastry and order iced coffees. Sometimes the owner gives us free refills.
We splash our way through the puddles, and as we enter St. Francis I see Glamour Girl pulling her car into the student parking lot. I’ve actually had to stop calling her Glamour Girl, because Sam gets confused and can’t keep a straight face whenever someone says her real name, so I call her Kennedy now. Kennedy waves, and I wave back and hurry into the building to get out of the rain.
“See you at lunch,” Sam says.
“Okay.” I go to my locker, take off my wet coat, and pull the heavy books out of my backpack.
I can hear Kennedy coming because her laugh fills the hallway. She is walking with Josiah. “Lunch at Zack’s?” Josiah says, to everyone in the hallway, it seems. He looks at me. “No excuses this time. Kennedy is driving.”
I say okay, but only because E.J. gave me some money. He does that sometimes after he’s deejayed at a big event.
Kennedy gives me half a smile and says, “Good morning.” She searches through her junkyard of a locker and finally pulls out a book. “Jade, I didn’t know you walked to school. I can give you a ride,” she says.
“Oh, I don’t walk. I take the bus.”
She looks confused. “The bus? Where do you live?”
“North Portland,” I tell her.
“Oh,” Kennedy says, like all kinds of lightbulbs are flashing in her head. “That makes so much sense now.” She slams her locker and walks away. “See you at lunch,” she says.
“Okay,” I say. Even though now I’m not even sure I want to go.
23
reír
to laugh
Sam and I eat with Kennedy, Josiah, and two of their friends. I have no idea how six of us are going to fit into this car. When we get to the car, one of the girls, the only other white girl with us besides Sam, looks me over and says, “Um, maybe you should sit in the front,” knowing my wide hips would take up too much space in the backseat.
When we get to Zack’s Burgers, they are impatient with the woman who is taking our order, and so rude to her when she gets it wrong and brings Kennedy regular fries instead of sweet potato fries. Kennedy has a small tantrum because we don’t have time to wait for a fresh batch, and the whole ride back she whines about how she’s wasting her calories on something she doesn’t really want.
And the other girl talks so bad about Northeast Portland, not knowing she is talking about Sam’s neighborhood. Not knowing you shouldn’t ever talk about a place like it’s unlivable when you know someone, somewhere lives there. She goes on and on about how dangerous it used to be, how the houses are small, how it’s supposed to be the new cool place, but in her opinion, “it’s just a polished ghetto.” She says, “God, I’d be so depressed if I lived there.”
Kennedy and the other girls agree.
“That would be the worst thing ever,” the white girl says. “I so don’t understand how anyone could be happy there.”
“Me either. I’d be so depressed.”
If they feel that way about Sam’s neighborhood, they must think I live in a wasteland.
Josiah is eating his food and staying out the conversation. Sam doesn’t say anything the whole ride, but I can feel her eyes burning my back. When we get out, we barely say thanks for the ride, barely say good-bye to any of them. We sit in the hallway and eat our lunch. Sam and I on one side, Kennedy and the girls on the other. Josiah’s gone to the computer lab because he gobbled his food down by the time we got back to St. Francis.
Sam swallows a mouthful of her burger and then whispers, “I’d be so depressed if I lived over here.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t care that Kennedy has a car. I never want to do this again,” Sam says.
“Me neither.” I eat a handful of fries.
“But we have to go back to Zack’s,” Sam says.
And then we jinx each other. “This burger is so good,” we say.
We laugh, our mouths full. Kennedy and her friends look over at us. They don’t know why we’re laughing so hard. Don’t understand our joy.
24
tener hambre
to be hungry
When I get home, there’s a note from Mom by the phone, along with a twenty-dollar bill. The note tells me to get something for dinner because she has a doctor’s appointment. I decide on Dairy Queen so I can get a Blizzard—who cares if it’s cold outside? I stop by Lee Lee’s on my way, but she’s not home, so I get on the bus and go by myself. Even though it’s not late, it’s dark and I don’t really like to walk in the dark by myself. But tonight I don’t have a choice.
Fall leaves cover the ground. Soon they will be trampled on by trick-or-treaters. Halloween is next weekend. Carved pumpkins sit on porches, their faces lit and haunting. And on the door outside the costume store there’s a mummy holding a COSTUMES ON SALE sign.
The line at Dairy Queen is backed up all the
way to the door, and it’s hard to tell who has ordered already and who hasn’t. There’s a woman holding on to her toddler’s hand while fussing with her other child, who looks about five, telling him to stop touching the dirty table that’s coated with days-old ketchup. A group of boys are sitting at a table, all spread out and loud like they are eating at home in their dining room.
“You order yet?” a man asks me. He counts the single dollar bills in his hands, looks at the menu, and then counts again.
“Not yet,” I tell him. I order my meal and step to the side so the man behind me can order. I hear the boys at the table, laughing and talking about who they would date and who they wouldn’t. The guy in the light-blue shirt says, “What about Mercedes?”
And the rest of the group laughs and shakes their heads in fits of protest. One of them says, “Man, Mercedes’s breath smells worse than your shoes!”
Then the one wearing a green hat adds, “And she got too much attitude.”
They go on with their what abouts, naming girls who are nowhere in sight, but then they start pointing at women who are in the restaurant. “What about her?” Green Hat says.
“Oh, she’s a ten. Perfect ten.”
They all agree that the next girl is a seven, and just when my order is ready, I hear one of them say, “What about her?”
I know he is pointing to me, which means they are all looking at me—from behind. Not good. The man at the counter calls my number and gives me my food.
The boys behind me assess me. One of them says, “I give her a five.”
The other: “A five? Man, she so big, she breaks the scale.”
Another voice: “Man, thick girls are fine. I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
“Well, if she so fine, go talk to her.”
The man behind the counter looks at me, shakes his head, and says, “Boys.”
