by Renée Watson
“I’m still on a high from our winter vacation,” Abby says. “Sun Mountain Lodge was magnificent. Let’s go there again.” Abby is rinsing spinach so she can make the salad.
“I don’t know,” Mia says. “I was thinking we’d go someplace tropical. Sun Mountain Lodge won’t be as fun without all the snow. The cross-country skiing was the best part.”
Abby adds, “Let’s not forget about that spa where we got the body and face treatment. I didn’t want to leave.” She places the spinach in the bowl and adds dried cranberries, goat cheese, and walnuts.
Nathan takes a piece of cheese out of the bowl. Abby slaps his hand. He takes another and says, “What about doing Victoria this summer?”
“Or northern California,” Mia says.
The four of them move around, setting the table, making the final preparations to the food. They never decide on a place.
I wonder what it would be like to go on a family vacation. Mom and I have never traveled anywhere together. One day I’m going to take her somewhere. Somewhere far from Oregon. Someplace you have to get on a plane in order to get to.
Mr. and Mrs. Winters come back downstairs, and we all go into the dining room. The food on the table looks so elegant. Like a feast for a royal family, but it’s really just baked macaroni and cheese, greens, candied yams, and ox tails with white rice. I wonder how it tastes, wonder if anything that looks this fancy can still taste how soul food is supposed to taste.
I sit down, Maxine beside me. She takes the folded linen napkin off her plate and drapes it on her lap, telling me with her eyes to do the same. I do.
After Mr. Winters prays over the food, I take the fork closest to my plate and begin to eat. Maxine gently taps me on my leg and whispers, “Wrong fork. Use the one farthest from the plate and work your way in throughout dinner.”
I already have salad dressing on my fork and I know better than to lick it off and place the fork back on the table, so I just freeze.
“It’s okay,” Nathan says. He picks up the wrong fork too and starts eating. He winks at me and I keep eating, but for the rest of dinner, I am careful to watch what Maxine does.
The first bite of food is so good, I almost moan out loud. That’s what we do at my house. The first five minutes is me and E.J. moaning and telling Mom, “Oh my goodness, this is so good,” and “Mmm. Yes, yes.” But I get the feeling that’s not what Maxine’s family does.
Once we’re good into the meal, Mrs. Winters says, “So let’s do our check-ins.” She turns to her husband.
“Nothing new around here,” he says. “I sold the house in Laurelhurst.”
The room echoes with congratulations.
Mia is next. She finishes swallowing her food, takes a sip of her wine, and then says, “Work is amazing. I just put up a show of local emerging artists. We’re getting lots of foot traffic.” Mia takes another sip of her drink. “Tim and I are doing well. He sends his love. He really wanted to be here, but he’s on call tonight and had to go in.”
When she says this, Maxine whispers to me, “Her husband is a doctor.”
Mia tosses a look to Nathan, who is sitting next to her. “And you?”
“All is well at the firm,” Nathan says. “Work is work, you know. Same thing, different day.” He puts his arm around his wife. “I’ll let Abby tell you our real news.”
Mrs. Winters puts her fork down. “I knew it! I knew it!”
Abby chuckles. “We don’t know the sex yet. The sonogram is next week,” she says.
Mrs. Winters gets out of her seat and hugs Abby, squeezing her tight. Mr. Winters pats Nathan on his back. “Congratulations, son. My boy, a father.” He shakes his head.
I look at Maxine, who is the only one not smiling. She rakes her yams from one side of the plate to the other, never taking a bite. Once she sees me staring at her, she snaps out of it, smiles, and gets up to hug Abby. “I can’t believe I’m going to be an auntie,” she says. “I’m going to be the baby’s favorite. Just saying.”
Everyone is so excited about Nathan’s announcement that the family check-in stops, and all Mrs. Winters can do is make plans for the baby shower. No one asks Maxine if she has any news. I can tell Maxine is hurt by this. Because when Mia says, “We should paint a mural in the baby’s nursery. That would be so much fun, wouldn’t it, Maxine?” Maxine says, “Yeah, sure. That would be awesome,” but her voice is flat and without emotion.
Mrs. Winters brings out dessert. I am still eating, but I notice that everyone else has left a little bit on their plates, so I do too. In my house, there is no wasting food. Not one morsel of it. But here, I think it’s some way of showing you don’t eat too much, that you are saving room for dessert.
Everyone gawks over how beautiful the cake is. “Jade picked it,” Maxine says.
Mr. Winters looks at me. “Great choice,” he says.
We eat dessert—the best cake I’ve ever had—and then Mrs. Winters pushes her chair back from the table. “Jade, honey, would you please rescue my family from these calories and take some of this food home?”
“Oh, that’s okay. No, I—I don’t want to take your—”
“I insist,” she says.
She smiles and gets up from the table and goes into the kitchen. “Come.”
I follow her.
Mrs. Winters makes five Tupperware containers for me. And there’s food wrapped in foil, and a bottle of sparkling cider. She places the food in a canvas tote bag. Then she cuts a few slices of cake. “My husband will finish this off tonight if you don’t take some,” she says. She wraps the slices of cake individually.
Maxine comes into the kitchen. She sees the stuffed bag and says, “Mom, there are only three people who live there. I think that’s good.”
“Well, this way they can have seconds,” Mrs. Winters says. “Would you like me to make you a to-go plate too, Max?” She says this with less generosity in her voice.
“No, thank you.”
“You sure? I’m only trying to help. Not like you’re working or anything—”
“Mom. I said no, thank you.”
I walk over to the sofa and sit down. I know it isn’t like I can’t still hear them, but for some reason it feels better to be over here instead of in the middle of them.
“Well, honey, now don’t get upset. You know I worry about you. It’s very nice what you’re doing with Jade,” she says.
Maxine whispers—kind of. Her voice is low, but I am close enough that I still hear her. “Mom, it’s not just nice what I’m doing with Jade. Woman to Woman is making a difference in her life. I was hoping that by bringing her here, you’d see I am doing something that matters.” Then she lowers her voice even more and walks farther away from me.
I can’t hear what she says, but Mrs. Winters’s voice is loud and clear. “I don’t care about her sob story, Max. I understand that program is important to you, but you need a real job. Your father and I can’t keep—”
Nathan walks in, carrying a handful of dishes. He rakes the remnants of dinner into the trash and hands the plates to Abby so she can load the dishwasher. Maxine and Mrs. Winters stop talking, and I am so glad. I don’t want to hear any more about Mrs. Winters’s resentment toward her daughter for being my mentor. I want to leave. Just want to go back to my mother and eat the food at her table that has no rules about the way to use forks and napkins. Want to go where I don’t have to pretend I’m not hungry, where I can eat all that’s on my plate and not feel greedy.
I do not want to be Maxine’s experiment, charity case, or rebellious backlash against her mother. I do not want her to feel she has to coach me on what to say.
We say good-bye to everyone and leave.
Maxine and I ride down the hill. The sky is dark now, and the road is slick with rain. The side-to-side, side-to-side rhythm of the windshield wipers fills the silence. In the dark these majestic houses feel creepy, hidden away in all the trees and tucked behind alcoves. When we get to the bottom of the hill, Maxine says, �
��I’m not sure what you heard.”
“Please don’t. Just— Let’s not talk. Please take me home.” I don’t want an explanation or an apology. That feeling comes again, tightness in chest, tears in eyes. My mouth on lockdown, no words coming out. But they are there; I feel them rising.
42
saber
to know
Mom knows the food in the fridge is from Maxine’s mom. The ticket stub from Portland Art Museum and the program from the Artists Repertory Theatre are both outings Woman to Woman arranged.
Mom knows.
She is sleeping to work, and working to eat, and working, and working, and working,
And Mom knows that when she asks me, “How was your day?”
And I say, “It was fine,” that I am leaving out the details to spare her from hearing how the village is raising her child.
“So, things are going well with this mentoring thing, huh?” Mom presses. “And to think, you didn’t even want to give Maxine a chance.” Mom eats another forkful of Mrs. Winters’s food. “Now you’re with her all the time. Just loving it, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say I love it,” I tell her. “I’m actually thinking about quitting.”
Mom puts her fork down. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Jade, nothing happened but you want to quit? Come on, now.”
“I’m serious. Nothing happened. Nothing’s happening. That’s the problem. I just . . . I don’t know. I feel like half the time I’m Maxine’s charity case—”
“That’s it? That’s why you want to quit?” she asks. “Look, Jade. You are not quitting that program. Who do you think is going to pay for you to go to college? Not me, no matter how much I save. Not your daddy—”
“Mom, I can find another way to get a scholarship,” I tell her. “I have good grades and I’m sure I’ll get a decent SAT score—”
“This isn’t only about a scholarship!”
“It isn’t?” I say.
“Don’t get smart with me. First of all, I didn’t raise you to be a person who walks away from commitments. Someone else could have taken your spot. Second of all, not every girl has a young woman like Maxine to look up to. You need to learn that burning bridges always has a consequence.”
“But I don’t look up to Maxine,” I tell her. “She’s using me to feel better about herself. And her mother gave us all this food because she feels sorry for us. If that’s how you act when you have money, I’d rather stay poor.”
Poor. I actually said the word out loud. To my mom. About us.
“That’s a foolish thing to say, Jade.” Mom gets up and walks to her bedroom. “A very foolish thing to say.” When Mom comes back to the kitchen, she is carrying a jar of coins. A big jar, like maybe she bought something at Costco and saved the container. “You want this to be your life, Jade?” Mom sets the jar in the middle of table. “You want to grow up and have children and only have this to leave behind as an inheritance?”
Mom is talking to me in her I’m-so-mad-at-you-I-can’t-even-yell-at-you voice. I really wish she would just yell at me.
“Now let me be clear: having money doesn’t make you successful. I know that. And I’m not saying Maxine is perfect, but I am saying that even imperfect people have things to teach you,” Mom says. “You’re too smart to be acting so stupid, Jade. You see how hard I’m working, trying to save every extra penny I get so you can have some kind of life, and you just going to throw away an opportunity that’ll get you into college? So what, Maxine isn’t perfect? This girl graduated from St. Francis as valedictorian. She learned how to navigate this white world, and she is trying to show you how to do the same. You telling me she has nothing to teach you? You better learn how to get from this opportunity what you can and let the rest fall off your back,” Mom says. “You understand what I’m saying, Jade?”
I sit still and listen. I know better than to talk back and start an argument.
“You better figure out a way to stay in this program and finish strong. You hear me? Figure it out.”
43
tener dolor
to have pain
Today we learn words that pertain to going to the doctor. Mr. Flores is always teaching about one kind of thing while I’m thinking about another.
No me siento bien. I don’t feel well.
Tengo dolor. I have pain.
Me duele aquí. It hurts here.
44
hablar
to speak
I miss the next two outings with Maxine. I lied and told her I had too much homework so Mom wouldn’t let me go. I lied and told Mom the outings were canceled. I don’t even miss them. I mean, I miss the free food and I miss going to places I probably would have never gone to on my own. But I don’t miss the lectures about how to eat, how to not be who I am.
I am lying in my bed, thinking about all this and looking around my room, at the walls, at the ceiling. There’s a crack in the wall I’ve never noticed until now, and a spider is building her web in the corner of the ceiling. The wind is blowing and beating against my window; the rattling sounds like a nervous drum. The rain sounds like a million hands clapping in a stadium. Every now and then a car passes, speeding down the street on its way to somewhere. I hear the pipes moan when E.J. turns on the water in the kitchen. I hear the doorbell ring, then his footsteps into the living room, then Lee Lee’s voice. Before I can sit up, she is knocking on my door. “Come in,” I tell her. I don’t care that I am not dressed, that my hair is pulled back in a sloppy bun.
When Lee Lee comes in, the first thing she says is, “What’s the matter with you?” She sits on the foot of my bed and stares me down with her you-better-not-lie-to-me look.
“Nothing,” I tell her. “Tired.”
“Why does your mom think I need to talk to you?”
“Are you serious? She sent you over here?”
“No. I was already on my way. We passed each other while she was going to work. She said maybe I can talk some sense into you. But didn’t give me details. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Jade—”
“I’m thinking about quitting Woman to Woman.”
“But don’t you get a scholarship for being in that program?”
I sigh. “I am so tired of talking about it.”
“Well, you haven’t talked about it with me,” Lee Lee says.
I don’t say anything.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I know you are too smart to give up on yourself.”
“I’m not giving up on myself.”
“Yes, you are. Whatever happened, it’s not worth quitting. Who loses if you quit the program? Not Maxine. You do. You’re the one who’ll be trying to figure out how to pay back a school loan.”
“But you don’t understand,” I tell Lee Lee. “I don’t want to go to all these expensive restaurants and be reminded that my family can’t afford to eat in them. I don’t want be taken all over the city of Portland just so I can see how everyone else lives in bigger and better houses and neighborhoods. I wanted to be in Woman to Woman because I thought I’d actually learn something about being a woman. About how to be a successful woman. So far all I’ve learned is how to make sure there are low-fat, vegan-friendly snacks at girl talk sessions. It’s got me thinking, is that all mentorship is? Taking someone younger than you to places they can’t afford?”
By the look on Lee Lee’s face, she doesn’t think any of these are good reasons to quit. I even tell her how sometimes Maxine makes me feel like I am better than my friends at Northside, better than Lee Lee. I add that part to get her on my side.
But instead Lee Lee says, “You need to talk to whoever is in charge. Have you said anything to anyone?”
I don’t answer.
“They can’t read your mind. I mean, I get what you’re saying—some of that stuff is a little corny, and a lot of it is offensive. But I don’t know; what’s the better option? Stay silent, lea
ve the program, and they never have a chance to do better?”
“But I could speak up and they could dismiss me. I mean, I doubt they’ll take me seriously. They’ll probably just make excuses,” I tell her. “And I shouldn’t have to tell grown people how to act. This is their program.”
“It’s their program, but it’s for you,” she says. “If you speak up and they dismiss you, that’s on them. But if you stay quiet and just quit, well—”
“All right, all right. I’ll think about it,” I tell Lee Lee. I don’t know why I never considered it before. Here I am, so focused on learning to speak another language, and I barely use the words I already know.
I need to speak up for myself. For what I need, for what I want.
Like most times, Lee Lee is right. I love and hate that about her.
45
la verdad
the truth
The next day, I call Maxine and ask if we can get together. She says yes right away, and we make plans for Saturday afternoon. When she gets to my house, she steps inside and brings the cold in with her. “Jade!” Maxine reaches out to hug me. “I missed you.” Her hug is tight and long. “It is so good to see you.” She holds on to me as if to say, I’m sorry for hurting you. As if to say, I’m not going to stop calling or coming by; I’m committed to you. “Ready?” she asks.
“Ready.” We get into her car. It’s beginning to sprinkle, so Maxine turns the wipers on the lowest speed and I watch the water disappear and come back again. Sabrina is always telling us girls that we need to work on making eye contact with people. That people want to know we’re telling the truth and that we’re confident and sure of ourselves. But I feel more confident when I’m looking at the floor or my shoes or far away at the rain clouds. I know I don’t have a choice, so like my mom and Lee Lee keep telling me, I start speaking. “I’m sorry I’ve been flaking out on you.”
