Piecing Me Together(47)

I tie my hair up and clean up the living room. Maxine is just about to leave when Mom’s key opens the door. “Hi, Maxine,” Mom says. “Hey, Jade.” She kisses me on my cheek. Then she looks at my scarf. “You still want me to braid your hair tomorrow? We better get started on taking that down. It’s getting late.”

I take my scarf off. “Maxine helped me.”

Mom looks at me. “Well, let me comb it out for you—”

“She did,” I tell her.

“Oh,” Mom says. “Well, that was nice of you, Maxine.” Mom’s face is smiling, but her voice is not.

“No problem at all,” Maxine says.

Mom walks into the kitchen. “Well, since you don’t need me to do your hair, guess I’ll get dinner started. Unless Maxine already fed you.”

“I haven’t eaten yet,” I say.

“I better go so you all can have dinner,” Maxine says.

Mom comes back to the living room. “You don’t have to leave, Maxine. Stay for dinner.”

“Oh, no. You two haven’t seen each other all day—”

“I insist,” Mom says.

“Okay, well, thanks.” Maxine sits back down.

Mom calls out from the kitchen, “One of these days, I’m going to try some of the recipes you gave Jade.”

“You’ll have to tell me how that goes,” Maxine says. “I’m still experimenting and learning.”

“Learning what? How to cook?” Mom peeks back into the living room.

“I’m good with salads,” Maxine says. “But, ah, everything else? Nah.”

Mom laughs. She waves Maxine into the kitchen. “Come on in here and let me show you a thing or two,” she says.

Mom and Maxine start cooking. I ask if I can help, but Mom says I need to finish my homework. So I sit at the table in the kitchen and practice new vocabulary, purposely saying out loud the words that pertain to cooking.

To Peel—Pelar

To Cut—Cortar

To Chop—Picar

To Add—Agregar, incorporar

To Mix—Mezclar

To Combine—Combinar

The aroma from Mom’s chopped herbs and sprinkled spices swims through the house. The pots are shaking to a boil; the oven is warming. I get Mom to try a few words. And while I am teaching Mom, she is teaching Maxine what a pinch of that and a dab of this means. While we wait for the food to cook, Mom adds in lessons on love and tells Maxine the remedy to a broken heart. Tells her how to move on. Mom looks at me, says, “You paying attention? You’ll need this one day.”





62


practicar

to practice

It’s the third Saturday of the month.

Maxine and I are on our way to Mia’s gallery. The radio is on, and we are singing along as loud as we can. When it goes off, Maxine asks, “What do you know about that song? That was out when I was in middle school.”

I laugh.

Too many commercials come on, so Maxine changes the station.

We get to the gallery just in time for Sabrina’s introduction. “I am so honored to be in this space today and so very excited for you all to meet the woman who owns this art gallery,” she says. “I hope you enjoy this conversation with our host, Mia, one of the few black entrepreneurs on Jackson Avenue. Her gallery opened last year, and we are very fortunate she is giving us her time today.”

We all cheer and applaud as Sabrina welcomes Mia to the front of the room. Mia speaks about her journey to becoming a business owner. Then she shows us slides of her art gallery when it was just an abandoned building, and all the ways it’s transformed into what it is today. “I like to think of this gallery as the people’s gallery. That means, I curate work that speaks to current issues, that is made by artists from marginalized groups, and I also make it a point not to showcase only well-known artists who you all may learn about in school. I want to introduce audiences to contemporary artists, young artists. Black and Latino artists. And so this exhibit is in line with that.” Mia points to the walls.

I look around the gallery, and I can’t wait to get up close, really study the work. We are surrounded by life-size portraits of black women. They look like if you walk up to the paintings and say hello, they will say hi back to you. They look like regal queens but also like my next-door neighbors. Mia says, “This collection is Kehinde Wiley’s first series dedicated to African American women. He’s a contemporary artist, and in this work he used women from the streets of New York City as inspiration and based the poses off historical portraits by painters like Jacques-Louis David and other painters who almost exclusively painted white women. So this is an exciting day for me, to be able to share this work—a work celebrating black women and giving them a place in art history—with you all, young black girls who I hope find your place in this world one day,” Mia says. “Any questions?”

A few people ask questions, and then Mia releases us to roam around the space. Sabrina calls out, reminding us to think about what we’re feeling and experiencing as we take in the images, because we will close the day with a reflection.

I look at the collection up close, taking my time to notice every detail. My favorite portrait is of a woman who is thick like me, and dark brown like coffee beans. I can’t wait to bring Lee Lee here. And Mom.