“Do you live in Greenpoint or Williamsburg?” asks Jaira. She’s a high school teacher, and her twists are superlong, like my Ava DuVernay doll. Which I’m pretty sure I should never mention in middle school.
“Greenpoint,” says Paulina. “How did you know?”
“Let’s consider. Are there a lot of Polish people in your community?”
Paulina nods. “Oh, I get it,” she says. She looks around. “But this isn’t, like, an Italian neighborhood.”
“It used to be considered an Italian neighborhood,” says Jaira. “What would you consider it now?”
I start to raise my hand, then stop. Do I just say “white people”? I see some Black and Latinx and Asian people sometimes. But it doesn’t look like they live here; they’re usually rushing to and from the train station. The people who I see walking dogs, picking up the newspapers at their front doors, and sitting in cafés with coffee cups and laptops, just being comfortable here, they’re usually white.
“That lady at the counter is Dominican,” says a boy whose name I forgot.
“How do you know? Did you ask her?” asks Gigi, the girl with the box braids who likes Piecing Me Together. I don’t know how to go up to her and say HI, BE MY FRIEND without actually saying that.
“Only white people live here,” says Guillaume.
I look at him. Most white kids like him just don’t come out and say “white.” I bet he’s been to some workshops.
“Only white people?” asks Jaira.
I speak up. “I think there are Latinx people too. I hear a lot of Spanish when I walk by the Glassdoor Towers.”
“What’s Lateen X?” asks Gruber.
Oops, I’m talking workshop talk. I thought this was a workshop-type school.
“Latinx is a gender-neutral alternative to saying Latino or Latina,” says Jaira. A few other kids nod and snap their fingers.
Yeah, this is a workshop-type school.
“What does all this make you wonder about?” asks Jaira. “Ask yourself questions about this community and what you notice as we walk. We’ll have a community conversation when we get back to the building.”
More people come into the bakery, and I can tell the lady at the counter wants the place to look busy with people actually buying stuff. Jaira sends us outside with Benjamin.
“She’s probably getting herself a coffee,” says Gruber.
I wonder if Momma and Tom looked for a house here. It would be nice to walk to school. But I wonder if people would just assume I didn’t live here, even if I did.
When Jaira comes out, she has a box, and we can tell it’s cookies, so everybody starts cheering right there on the sidewalk. But she says we’ve got more walking and “inquiry work” to do before lunch. There are not that many people out, just some caregivers with strollers. Some look like the parents of the stroller littles, others I’m not so sure. And a couple of tiny old ladies (I can hear Nana say “elders” in my head) walking tiny old dogs. They look kind of mad when they see us, and I wonder if it’s because we’re not little and cute like kindergart-ners or if it’s because we’re taking up a lot of sidewalk space. Or if it’s that we’re not Italian. I wonder if the old ladies are Italian and if they think it’s weird to see this class with so many different kinds of people walking down their streets. But nobody owns streets, and our school is here, so they’re our streets too, right? As we walk and wonder, I think about our new yellow house. The family that lived there before us was from Egypt, and they seemed like they really loved their house a lot, but I overheard the mom telling Momma that “things were getting uncomfortable for the kids” at school “in this new climate.” In my old neighborhood, I used to sit with Xio on Mrs. Hill-Davis’s stoop, and sometimes she would even give us lemonade and muffins. Sometimes it felt just like Around Our Way on Neighbors’ Day, which is still one of my favorite books ever. There are stoops here, but I’m not sure if I’d sit on them. And I wonder what the old ladies here would say if I did.
Since we’ve been studying Community, I NOTICE and WONDER about it a lot more. When we’re walking home from the subway after school, I notice the sounds. Like, there are a lot of people who own bodegas in my neighborhood, and they speak both Arabic and Spanish. (The bodega cats all say the same thing, though: Pet Me Now! Stop Petting Me Now!) And a lot of old ladies (oops, elders) speak Patois to each other, but they sound kind of British when they go to the organic juice bar. We seem to be the only new people who are actually from New York. Everyone else is from, like, Michigan or Oregon or something.
We drop Bri off at the playground for an after-school playdate with her friend Nef, and I notice most of the caregivers are different kinds of brown, and most of the babies they’re with are white. But they’re all different ages. (The caregivers, not the babies. The babies are all baby aged.)
“I wonder where those women live,” I say to Naomi E.
“What women?” she asks.
“The caregivers. Like some of the ones in the playground. When we went on our Neighborhood Walk, we talked about how a lot of people who work in neighborhoods can’t afford to live in them.”
“We talked about bus routes,” says Naomi E. “Boring bus routes.”
“Oh yeah, the cuts, right? We talked about that too, because public transportation is how a lot of people get to work.”
“I guess,” she says. “I hate the bus. I’m going to work right next to my house when I grow up. Or maybe in my house. Work from home sounds good. Mostly the ‘from home’ part of that equation.”
“I don’t know if they have so many choices,” I say.
“Who?”
“The caregivers, remember?”
“Yeah, who would choose to take care of some of those kids, right?” she says. “The screaming . . .” We walk past a dog walker who is tangled up in his leashes but trying to pretend that he meant to be. We both laugh. “Caregiver’s a nice word. It could be parents, grandparents, babysitters . . . anybody.”
“Does it feel funny for you now because it used to be you and your dad, and now it’s . . . all of us?” I ask.
“Nope,” she says so fast that I can tell she’s lying. “Why would it be funny?”
“Not funny ha-ha, but . . . just different.” Sometimes it’s both, and I wish we could talk about that.
“What do you think we’re having for dinner?” Naomi E. asks. “Is it our turn to make the vegetables?”
Okay, I get it. Subject changed. I won’t say anything if she doesn’t. I don’t want to look like the complain-y one.
When Naomi E. and I get home, Momma is already there.
“Momma, can we take a walk?” I ask. “We haven’t done one in a while.”
She looks surprised. “You’re right. . . . How much homework do you have?”
“I finished it at school; we had a double period of Advisory,” I say. “The schedule is still weird; we haven’t started electives or anything yet.”
“I didn’t finish my homework,” says Naomi E. “Just in case anyone’s wondering.”
Momma looks at me. “Let me go get my bag,” she says, raising her eyebrows at me and glancing over at Naomi E. I swallow, because I really need to talk to Momma, but I know what she wants me to do. After she leaves, I turn to Naomi E.
“Um, do you . . . do you want to come?”
Naomi E. looks up at me and smiles, and that smile makes me more glad I asked than worried about whether or not she’ll say yes. That smile says that I have to remember to ask more often.
“No, but thanks,” she says softly. “I have to get my homework done.” When I don’t move, she adds, “And don’t give me concerned-sister eyes. It’s fine. I think it’s cool that you guys do that. And maybe . . . maybe I’ll come next time.”
“Okay,” I say. And we awkward-hug. “The offer stands . . . any time.”
“Thanks,” she says again, pushing me toward the door. “Just bring me back some cake!”
“Do you really think you have to ask?�
�� I say. “I got you.”
“How do you know when someone is racist?”
Momma’s about to sip her smoothie, but she stops before the straw hits her mouth.
“Well, honey, I go by . . . if it feels racist, then it’s racist.” She gives me a hard stare. “Why? Did something happen at school? Is there someone I need to speak to? What happened?”
“No, Momma, not really . . . and why do you sound angry? At me? I didn’t do anything.”
Momma sighs. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I just . . . get anxious. And angry, when it comes to racism. But I’m not angry at you.”
We walk and drink our smoothies for a little while. We get to a bench next to a bus stop and both sit down near a man carrying a baby in a front carrier.
“You said ‘not really,’” says Momma softly, in her seriously-I’m-not-angry-sweetie-pie-gentle voice. I love that voice. “What happened, really?”
I wasn’t going to bring this up again, but I realize that this is kind of what Momma is here for. “Sometimes people make comments . . . I don’t know. Maybe they don’t mean to be mean, but . . .” I’m getting all tied up, and my stomach is starting to hurt. And now I’m mad, because I’m not the one who did anything wrong. Like when I went to the store yesterday and the security guard followed me from the minute I walked in and then still checked my backpack on the way out. I felt ashamed. And I’m pretty sure Jen is all kinds of wrong, just like Jenn Harlow, but I just end up feeling weird and unsure with them, and a little bit sick when they’re surprised that I get good grades, and they think of certain countries as only vacation spots, and their moms act like they’re scared of my dad when he comes to pick me up from school.
Momma just sits and rubs my shoulders.
“How did you know Tom wasn’t . . . I mean . . . not to say he’s racist, but . . . what if he forgets, or . . .”
Momma laughs. “I don’t think that’s something you forget.” Then her face gets serious. “But Tom would be the first to say that as a white man in a racist society, he has to remind himself every day to be antiracist.” She smiles again. “So he’s working on it. Always.”
“I think some people at my school talk one way because they know they’d get in trouble if they say what they really think, but . . . sometimes it still comes out.”
“What do you mean?”
I sigh and watch a pigeon pick at a chicken wing bone, which is probably one of the nastiest things ever. I mean, that’s like your cousin, bruh!
“Never mind,” I say. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t want to talk about it right now?” Momma asks, but it’s not really a question.
“I promise I’ll talk about it later.” I stand up and turn my face to the sun. “I just want to keep walking for now.”
She stands too and holds out her hand, so I put mine in it as she kisses the top of my head.
“I know, honey,” she says. “I know.”
CHAPTER TEN
Naomi E.
We’ve been having All-Family Sunday dinners since we moved into the yellow house, and as traditions go, it’s not the worst. (Worst: Dad’s First-Weekend-of-the-Month Total Housecleaning. Second Worst: Friday-Night Laundry.)
At first, the name bugged me. Because it’s all of one family. But Naomi Marie and Brianna’s dad’s not there and neither is my mom. THAT would be All-Family. But now, like lots of things, I don’t really think about what we call it—it’s just what happens at the end of the weekend.
Everyone but Dad is hard at work in the kitchen, because All-Family Sunday dinners are an all-hands-on-deck activity.
“Could you wash the lettuce?” I ask Brianna, who’s standing between Naomi Marie and me and that’s really saying something, because one thing we don’t have a lot of is counter space. This kitchen was made for maybe one person to cook in. Not All-Family dinner preparation.
I’m trying to make salad dressing, and I haven’t gotten to the big leafy romaine yet. “Brianna? Can you?”
She rolls her eyes at me. She’s lucky her mom doesn’t see, because Valerie is not a fan of eye rolling. “What do you want to do?” I’m still learning how to be a big sister. And really, Naomi Marie is the best teacher. I don’t mean that in only a kind way. She knows how to get Brianna to do things she wouldn’t normally want to do. Brianna looks at Naomi Marie, who is slicing cucumbers and carrots and trying to figure out what to do with the tomatillos we bought at the farmers’ market.
“I want to do those,” Brianna says, inching toward the tomatillos.
Naomi Marie hands them over. “Be my guest,” she says.
Brianna stops inching and stares at Naomi Marie, trying to figure out why she’s so agreeable. It’s probably because she hasn’t any idea how to turn that papery-covered thing into something that belongs in a salad.
Salad. That’s what we were assigned. But they also let us be in charge of dessert. So we bought the ingredients to make apple crisp. It’s my mother’s recipe, and at first I felt funny about making it without her. It’s one of my earliest memories—taking out the yellow children’s cookbook she used when she was little and baked with Grandma. It has old stains from cinnamon and vanilla all over the pages. But delicious is delicious, so Naomi Marie and I made it together. Brianna thinks she helped, too, but drying the apples after they’ve been washed isn’t an actual step.
The smell from the oven is hypnotizing and wonderful.
“Almost ready?” Valerie asks.
Dad has been “reading the Sunday paper” (sleeping on the couch). “I’m up,” he says, which isn’t really a response to Valerie’s question. “I don’t need long,” he says.
It’s true. Dad’s idea of cooking— Well, no. He doesn’t cook. But everyone has to contribute, so he takes his specialty from the freezer—a bag of broccoli in cheese sauce. He puts it in the microwave. Incredibly, Valerie smiles at him like he’s pulled a tray of homemade croissants out of the oven, even though she’s spent the afternoon making escovitch fish and festival and fried sweet plantains, which are ridiculously delicious, always.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, and step outside to check on the tomato plant. The best part of my old garden, at my old house, was picking fresh vegetables. Salad is actually delicious when you pick something from the plant and serve it when it’s still warm from being outside (after you wash it, of course). I didn’t realize how lucky I was, having that little garden. Actually, I kind of did. All I have here is this big planter with a half-dead tomato plant. I miss my old green beans. And the giant zucchinis. Shoot! The last tomato of the season, the one I was hoping was ripe, has fallen into the bottom of the pot and started to rot. Next summer, when I can put in a real garden, seems like an impossibly long time away.
“Okay, who’s setting the table?” Dad asks, pretending he’s actually part of putting this meal together.
“I’ll do it!” Brianna yells, which makes no sense until I look at the cutting board where she was . . . turning tomatillos into something that doesn’t look like tomatillos at all.
Brianna charges into the dining room with napkins and silverware. Naomi Marie watches as I stare at what used to be tomatillos. I try to figure out how to clear out the papery part that Brianna sort of cut-mushed along with the more tomatoey part. It’s an incredible mess. Naomi Marie starts laughing and so does her mother. Then so do I. And it’s one of those perfect times when I really feel like we’re a family.
“Hand it over,” Valerie says. “I’ll figure something out.”
When we sit at the table, I remember the part of All-Family Sunday dinner that’s always excellent: the food. Everything is delicious, even the broccoli in cheese sauce.
“So are you looking forward to Creative Writing? It’s a shame it’s the only class you two have together,” Valerie says.
Brianna says, “No fair!”
“What’s not fair, Brianna?” Dad asks.
“If sisters get to take classes together, then I should b
e able to take classes with my sisters too.”
Valerie laughs.
“We are six grades apart!” Naomi Marie says. “You’re not exactly ready for Creative Writing. You can barely write a sentence.”
Brianna looks mad. “I can write! I can creative!”
We all just nod. Sometimes agreeing is the best thing you can do.
I thought they’d keep sisters in separate classes, like they did with the Martinez twins through elementary school. I guess middle school’s different. Creative Writing was my second choice—I put Band first.
I was kind of surprised it was Naomi Marie’s last choice since she’s always writing—in her journal—and making lists all the time. She sometimes leaves the lists on the desk where I can’t help but see them. The most recent one was about words not to use in school, but they weren’t curses or anything. I didn’t get it.
“And when do you start Community Builders? I’m sure you’re both looking forward to serving the school community,” Valerie says, changing the subject. Another thing we all do when Brianna thinks something isn’t fair.
“Soon,” Naomi Marie says. “I’ll be working with second graders.”
Valerie beams at her. “You already are a community builder and leader,” she says. “You’ve always shown initiative—I believe Ms. Starr said you were the youngest patron to ever begin her own library club. Remember Shapes-and-Colors Club?” She looks lit up with pride.
I miss my mom.
The timer beeps. “I’ll get that,” I say. “The apple crisp is ready.”
I grab two pot holders and open the oven. The smell is incredible—a buttery mix of brown sugar and apple and cinnamon and baking magic. Also: that smell practically equals my mother. I’m going to call her tonight and let her know how it tastes.
I put the pan on the stove, and when I walk back into the kitchen, Brianna says, “I should get to be a leader of second graders too.”
And everyone laughs. Even Bri.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Naomi Marie
I like changing classes every period, just like on Tidwell Academy. Some periods are double periods, though, so in the beginning of the year I was wondering if we’d leave the room and then come back in, just to keep up the routine. But once I realized what I was wondering, I was glad I didn’t say it out loud. If I want to make an impression as a Smart Girl in middle school, things like that are not going to help.
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