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