Piecing Me Together(31)

“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.





38


vestido

dress

Mom and I stand at the fridge, looking at our dry-erase calendar. “Are you keeping up on your homework?” Mom asks. “All these activities can’t get in the way of your studies.”

“I know,” I tell her. “I’m good.”

She looks the calendar over, studying each date. She gets to next Friday and says, “Wow, the symphony? Woman to Woman sure does plan some extravagant events.”

“I know. I can’t wait. I’ve never been to a symphony before.”

Mom says, “What are you going to wear? Don’t people dress up to go to the symphony?”

“They do?” I ask.

“I think so. I guess you should ask Maxine. She should know.” Mom walks to her bedroom. I hear her mumble, “I’ve never been to the symphony either.” Her door closes.

I go to my bedroom and stand in front of the closet, looking for something to wear. I try on at least five outfits. Nothing looks right. Either the shirt is too snug, the skirt too casual, the dress too dressy. I think about the money I put away just in case there was an emergency. A new dress isn’t what I thought I’d use the money on, but I have to. I mean, after all, it’s the symphony.





39


música

music

Before the symphony begins, one of the volunteers gives us a tour of the backstage area and talks about the history of the Oregon Symphony. She is white, and the black sweater she is wearing makes her skin look pale and washed-out. “You all should be very proud to be Oregonians. Did you know that before we were called the Oregon Symphony, we were called the Portland Symphony Society? We were the first orchestra in the West, and one of only seven major orchestras established in America before 1900.” She seems very proud of this fact.

The volunteer walks us to the stage so we can see the same view the musicians will have tonight as they look out at the audience. She tells us, “I like to think of our musical sections as different families coming together for one big celebration. You see, instruments in certain families have things in common, like being made from the same types of material, looking similar, and sounding akin to each other. They come in all sizes, just like natural families have parents and children and extended family members.”

I can tell this is something she’s memorized. But still, she manages to say it to us with passion and a smile on her face.

She is hyper, talking fast and high-pitched like the chirping birds outside my window in the early morning. “Our families are the strings family, the woodwind family, the brass family, and the percussion family.”

The volunteer must be offended that we aren’t as excited as she is. Why else would she look at us and say, “You know, some folks don’t think they can relate to this kind of music. But let me tell you, all kinds of people have been lovers of the symphony.”

This part doesn’t sound memorized. I think she’s going off script.

“Now, I know hip-hop is what you kids are all about these days,” she says. “But did you know that James DePreist was one of the first African American conductors on the world stage? In 1980 he became the music director of the Oregon Symphony, and he held the position for twenty-three years.” She walks toward us a little, still smiling. “He truly transformed our little part-time orchestra to a nationally recognized company with several recordings.” She pauses for a moment, maybe waiting for one of us to say something. Then she says, “Fun fact—he was the nephew of contralto Marian Anderson. Their family was from Philadelphia, but she lived in Portland in her last days. Do you know about her?”

Maxine speaks up. “Yes, we know about her.” There is venom in her voice.

“Oh,” the woman says with a smile.

Maxine is not smiling. She folds her arms and says, “In 1939, when she was refused permission to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall, with the help of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Marian Anderson performed a critically acclaimed concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. She traveled the world.”