by Renée Watson
“Why? Because he lost his job? I’m not a gold digger. I didn’t care that—”
“He got fired. That’s not losing his job. He got fired because he kept showing up high and late,” Kira says. “I mean, let’s be honest.”
I stuff my mouth with pretzels and listen to the soap opera tales of Jon and Maxine.
“All right—he had some issues. You can’t help who you love. And besides, the point is, We. Broke. Up. Remember? I let him go,” Maxine says.
Kira and Bailey say, almost in unison, “Just don’t take him back.”
Maxine looks at me. “I hope you have good friends to keep you from making stupid mistakes,” she says. She sits next to me on the sofa.
“My friends wouldn’t have let me date a guy like him in the first place,” I tell her. “And definitely not my mom.”
Maxine looks part offended, part surprised.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s fine. It’s— Point well taken,” she says. “And in Kira and Bailey’s defense—they did try. But we had a history, and I couldn’t walk away without trying to make it work. I tried. It didn’t work. I’m moving on—trying to move on,” Maxine says.
I feel bad that all we’ve talked about is Jon. I change the subject by asking them to tell me what college was like for them. Kira says, “Well, I’m still in college, actually. This is my last year at Portland State.” Kira and Maxine talk to me about dorm life. Kira says, “Living on my own but still close to family was good for me. I needed that.”
Bailey went to the University of San Diego. “My freshman year was so hard. But after I found my spots—where to get the hair products I like, a black church, you know, the essentials—I was good.”
We talk till the sun is swallowed by the sky. We’ve devoured all of the snacks, so Maxine orders pizza from a gourmet pizza shop. When she asks what kind we want, everyone says things like feta and grilled chicken and basil, and Maxine asks, “What about tofu instead of chicken?” And I am sure this is going to be the nastiest pizza I’ve ever tasted.
While we wait for the delivery, the conversation stays on food. Maxine shares her newest smoothie recipes, and Bailey mentions how hard it’s going to be to avoid chocolate with Valentine’s Day right around the corner.
Bailey asks, “Speaking of V-Day. Anybody got plans?”
Kira rolls her eyes. “I know what I’m not going to do,” she says. “I will not be attending the performance of The Vagina Monologues at PSU.”
They all laugh.
Kira eats the last little crumbs of pretzels in the bowl. “I’ve really had enough. Every year the school puts this play on like it’s the only play about the issues women face. I mean, what about For Colored Girls?”
Maxine says, “They are not going to do For Colored Girls.”
“They have before,” Kira says. “A long time ago.”
Bailey asks, “What’s wrong with The Vagina Monologues?”
“Yeah,” I say. “What is it about?”
Kira and Bailey look at Maxine and Maxine’s eyes get big and I start feeling like I do whenever I know my mom doesn’t want to tell me something.
Bailey stutters, “C-can she—”
“Um, it’s a play that features stories about women. It, uh, it covers issues like love and relationships—” Maxine starts telling me.
“And rape, sex, getting your period for the first time,” Kira interrupts.
“Okay, okay, I think she gets it,” Maxine says.
Delivery comes, and once Maxine has brought the box into the kitchen, we all reach in to grab a slice.
Kira pours more iced tea for everyone. “Okay, so back to the conversation at hand. What’s the big deal, talking about that play? What? Jade can’t hear the word sex?”
“Kira!” Bailey throws a pillow at her.
The three of them go back and forth, debating over what I’m too young to know, what I’m old enough to talk about, and who should tell me.
I sit and eat my pizza. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. The sauce is really good, and there’s a lot of it, so I barely taste the thin pieces of tofu.
I wonder if this is what having big sisters would be like. I have always wanted an older sister. When I was ten, I asked Mom if she would give me a sister for Christmas. I had no idea what I was really asking. She laughs about that now, telling me I asked Dad, too, and he actually considered it.
We end the night playing round after round of Taboo. We alternate teams until each of us has partnered. It is getting late, and Maxine calls it a night so she can take me home. While we are cleaning up the mess we made, Kira whispers to me, “For real, though, if you have questions about sex or anything Miss Prude Maxine won’t talk with you about, let me know.”
“Kira—please leave Jade alone. She is not like that. She’s smart. She’s on scholarship at St. Francis and has a four-point-oh GPA. This girl right here is going places. She’s not going to mess things up by getting caught up with some guy,” she says. “I’m going to see to it she doesn’t end up like one of those girls.”
I know when Maxine says those girls, she is talking about the girls who go to Northside. I don’t know what to say. Every time I see Maxine, it is two steps forward, two steps back. Here I was, thinking how quickly it happened that I fit in with her friends and how we are easy with one another as if we have shared years of laughter. But then I think, how quick it is that Maxine reminds me that I am a girl who needs saving. She knows I want out and she has come with a lifeboat. Except I just don’t know if I can trust her hand.
33
lo mismo
the same
I am finished with my first collage about York, Lewis, and Clark. Mom thinks I’m obsessed with their stories. I tell her, maybe I am. Tell her that it’s interesting to me that a black man made the journey to find this place—the Pacific Northwest—when all I want to do is leave it. Mom says, “Just come back to me and visit every now and then.”
Tonight I make something about a different expedition. The one I am on. I want to get out, and I feel like a traitor for admitting it.
Maxine is right and wrong.
Wrong because I am like those girls. I am the Kool-Aid–drinking, fast food–eating unhealthy girl she wants to give nutrition classes to. I know all about food stamps and dollar menus and layaway. Know how to hold my purse tight at night when walking down dark streets, know how to duck at the sound of a shooting gun. I do. I am the girl who walks down the hallway, hoping for at least one boy to notice me. But the boys at school don’t like me because I look nothing like their mothers, look nothing like the Dream. The boys over here, well, to them I am good for tutoring and friendshipping and advice giving. I am.
So Maxine is wrong—so wrong—about me.
But she is also right, because I know more than that, want more than that. Right because I am the girl who spends her summers reading books and working, tutoring at the rec, when a lot of her friends are at the rec, playing their summers away. I am the girl who knows when to stop talking back to a teacher because I know my mother will be waiting for me when I get home, asking me if I forgot who raised me. I am the girl who dreams of going places: to college, to grad school, all around the world, if I can.
Maxine is right and wrong. Those girls are not the opposite of me. We are perpendicular. We may be on different paths, yes. But there’s a place where we touch, where we connect and are just the same.
34
pertenecer
to belong
Life has only been school all day, tutoring afterward, and sad looks from Sam, who thinks I have forgotten about her. I tell her I haven’t been hanging out with anyone, not even Lee Lee, and I used to see her every day. She believes me, I think. But it doesn’t make her feel any better when I say, “Sorry, I can’t come over.” Today, though, I don’t have anything to do after school, so we decide to go to Pioneer Place to shop. Well, Sam’s shopping. I’m just going.
Sam drag
s me in and out of stores for the rest of the afternoon. The only stores we go into are for skinny girls, so I’m glad I don’t have any money to buy anything. “Let’s go in here,” she says. We step into a store lit by bright lights and with music so loud, we can barely hear each other talk. Sam stops at the first rack and picks up a blue long-sleeved shirt that’s thin and low-cut. She holds it up to her torso and then tosses the shirt over her arm.
I have never been able to pick up a shirt, hold it up to my body, and know it can fit. I have to try everything on. Everything.
We walk to the next rack. “What about this skirt? Too short?”
I look at it, then look at the mannequin to see where it falls on her. “Um, it might be fine if you wear leggings under it.”
Sam grabs a skirt in her size and adds it to the growing bundle on her arm. She goes rack to rack, deciphering jeans, shirts, and skirts. Her arms are so full that one of the salesclerks comes over to us and asks if she can start a room. She is white with curly red hair and freckles that can barely be seen unless you stand close to her. Her nails are painted emerald green and they match her leggings. “I’ll put you in room four,” she says. Sam continues to the back of the store. The woman looks at me. “Is there something I can help you with?”
I smile. “Thanks for asking, but I don’t think there’s one thing in here that could even fit my pinky toe, let alone my whole body.” I am joking, but I guess she doesn’t think I’m funny. She doesn’t laugh or even smile.
She says, “We don’t allow loitering in our store.”
“Loitering? I’m just— I’m waiting for my friend.”
“You are more than welcome to wait out there,” she says, pointing to the bench sitting outside the entrance.
“So, I can’t look around?”
“Well, of course, you can. But you can’t stand idle and—”
I walk away. There’s no point in arguing with her; plus I see a cute bag on sale in the back of the store. On my way to the bags, I get distracted by all the earrings. I try on a few pairs and then pick up a thick bracelet the color of a pomegranate and sitting in the clearance basket. It’s chunky and wide, and it looks like it might fit me. I pick it up and try to slide my hand through. It will barely get past my knuckles. I try again, squeezing my fingers together as close as they can go, but the bracelet won’t go on. I put it back into the basket.
“Excuse me,” the salesclerk steps toward me. “I’m sorry. I just noticed you still have your bag with you. Do you mind if I take it and hold it behind the counter?”
“I, uh—”
“It’s store policy.”
I look around the store. The woman standing at the rack next to me has her clutch in her right hand. She is white. The woman two racks from her has a purse hanging on her left shoulder. Also white. Before I can object, she says, “Your bag is quite large. Much larger than theirs, which is why—”
“If you’re not taking everyone’s bag, you’re not taking mine,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry, but if you don’t cooperate, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“Don’t worry about asking me.” I walk out of the store, right past all the other women who heard this lady ask me for my bag while they are still holding on to theirs. None of them say anything. Most look away, like they are trying not to witness this. Others stare and shake their heads in disappointment. I’m not sure if the gesture is geared toward me or the clerk.
I sit on a bench outside of the store and wait for Sam. One of the women who was able to hold on to her purse comes out of the store, a shopping bag in hand. She walks over to me and says, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I had to let you know that what that woman did to you was wrong. If I were you, I’d write a letter to her manager.” She walks away, and I am left with her apology and the scent of her lingering perfume.
When Sam comes out, she asks, “Why’d you come out here?”
I tell her everything that happened.
“No way,” she says.
“I’m serious. That really just happened,” I tell her. “Did you get to take your backpack into the dressing room?”
She looks at mine, lifts it up to hers, and says, “Yes, but yours is a little bigger.”
“By, what? An inch? Really, Sam? You’re going to side with that racist salesclerk?”
We walk to the next store. “I wouldn’t call that racist,” Sam says.
“So what would you call it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you seemed up to something because you weren’t buying any clothes.”
“So big girls can’t go into stores for skinny girls and look at the accessories? That’s a problem too?”
Sam slows down. “That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t think it had anything to do with your race or your size. I think maybe she was just trying to do her job. That’s all.”
I don’t know what’s worse. Being mistreated because of the color of your skin, your size, or having to prove that it really happened.
35
negro
black
Today’s collage is made up of words and cutouts from magazines.
Things That Are Black and Beautiful:
A Starless Night Sky
Storm Clouds
Onyx
Clarinets
Ink
Panthers
Black Swans
Afro Puffs
Michelle Obama
Me
36
comer
to eat
As soon as I step onto the porch, I can hear Fred Hammond’s voice singing about God’s grace and mercy. Mom must be home and she must be cooking or cleaning, because that’s the only time she goes into gospel music mode. I unlock the door and walk in. “Mom!” I call out to make sure I don’t scare her, since her back is to me.
She jumps anyway, all hysterical, but then smiles once she realizes it’s just me. “Jade, you can’t sneak up on me like that!”
I turn the music down. “Sorry. I tried not to.”
Mom scratches her nose against her forearm because her hands are turning fish in a bowl of cornmeal, coating both sides before she dips it into hot oil in a frying pan. On the back burners of the stove, there are two silver pots, their lids trembling on top of them like chattering teeth. She turns the knobs down and brings the boiling pots to a simmer.
“You’re home early,” I say.
“Half day today.”
I change my clothes, grab a bag of chips, and sit at the dining room table.
“Don’t get full. Dinner will be ready soon.” Mom takes the fish out of the frying pan and puts it on a plate layered with paper towels to soak up the grease. She puts more fish in the pan. The oil pops and crackles.
I eat a few more chips, fold the bag, and start doing my math homework. By problem three I am feeling stuck and frustrated. “I can’t do this right now,” I say. I close my book.
Mom comes over to me. “What’s wrong?”
“Algebra two.”
Mom opens my book, skims the page for a moment, and then says, “Girl, I don’t know nothing ’bout that. Wish I could help you.”
I close the book. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’ll ask Maxine to help me.”
“Well, excuse me,” Mom says.
“Mom—”
“No, you’re right. I can’t help you. At all.” Mom finishes cooking.
I take my flash cards out and drill myself. I repeat each word three times. Mom huffs and puffs and closes cabinets harder than usual, so I stop saying the words out loud. Just whisper them. Mom fixes my plate and then fixes hers.
I take a bite of the fish. “This is good, Mom.” I tell her—not like she doesn’t know it, but because I think she needs to be reminded of the good she can do. But if that was my goal, I should have stopped there. Because what I say next sends Mom into a rage. “Are you coming to the Woman to Woman Healthy Eating, Healthy Living seminar?”
“The what?”
“I le
ft the flyer on the fridge.” I point.
Mom looks at the flyer. “I don’t have time to go to that. What is it about, anyway?”
“Eating healthy. I think they’re going to give tips on how to make small changes when buying and cooking food. Like, this fish—it’s good—so good, but Maxine and Sabrina would probably say it should be grilled or pan seared or—”
“Is Sabrina going to buy us a grill? You tell Maxine that if she got time to come over here and cook for us, she can come. Until then, I’m cooking how I want to cook.” Mom shakes hot sauce onto her fish. “Got some nerve, telling me how to cook my food.”
“That was only an example. I’m not—”
“I don’t fry everything. Humph. You liked my cooking until you started going out with Maxine—”
“Mom, I love your cooking. I was just telling you about the event.”
“You hanging around all those uppity black women who done forgot where they come from. Maxine know she knows about fried fish. I don’t know one black person who hasn’t been to a fish fry at least once in their life. Where she from?”
Mom won’t stop talking. She goes on and on about Maxine and Sabrina and how they are a different type of black, how she knows she’s going to get tired of dealing with them for the next two years. “I swear, if you didn’t need that scholarship, I’d take you out of that program. I’m not sending you there to be in no cooking class. What that got to do with getting into college?”
I let Mom talk. I know none of these questions are meant to be answered. I finish eating, making sure I eat every single morsel of food on the plate.
37
mi madre
my mother
Photocopied pictures of my mother from when she was an infant till now are spread across the table. I rip and cut and puzzle her back together. The hair of her teen years; her hands, when she used to paint her nails, before they were constantly washing and scrubbing. The smile from her twenty-first birthday. The eyes she had when she was seven, before she really saw this world. All the best parts of her on the page.
