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?
E.J. gives Maxine a hug. “Well, it’s good to see you. Hope it works out.” He looks at me. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s okay.” Maxine yawns long. “I need to get out of here anyway.” She stands and walks to the door. “It’s nice meeting you, Jade. I’m looking forward to getting to know you.”