Miss You, Mina

by Denene Millner

  Then, with the greatest of ease, she slipped between the ropes and jumped as gracefully as an Alvin Ailey dancer.

  Ice cream, soda pop

  Cherries on top

  How many boyfriends have you got?

  Is it A, B, C, D…

  I looked at Gabriella like she was speaking another language from a faraway land. After one verse, she hopped out just as easily as she hopped in.

  “Well,” she said, “go ahead. Try it.”

  I looked at Gabriella and then the ropes, and back at Gabriella. I felt a huge pang of nerves.

  “Come on,” she encouraged. “You can do it.”

  So I watched the ropes, keeping my eye on the “opening” Gabriella swore would magically reveal itself. It didn’t. All I could see were two ropes ready to tangle up in my Converses. But it was too late for me to back down; the rope turners looked like they were getting impatient, and Gabriella wasn’t exactly ready to say, Never mind; you don’t have to do it.

  So I bounced and looked and bounced some more, and then hurled myself into the ropes and…fell. Into one heaping, ugly pile of purple Converses, hot-pink skorts, flying brownish red locs, and beige rope. It. Was. Ugly.

  “Omigosh,” Gabriella said, holding her hand over her mouth. I couldn’t tell if she was stifling a laugh or genuinely shocked at my clumsiness.

  “Wow, so I know they don’t Double Dutch in New Jersey, but are they short on rhythm, too?” KeKe laughed.

  “Come on!” Gabriella said, whipping her head around to admonish KeKe. “That’s mean.”

  I collected myself from the sidewalk, brushed off the dirt from my knees, and slowly walked up the steps to my aunt’s brownstone. “It’s okay. Like I said, I’m not much of a jump roper,” I said quietly, fighting back tears. “Anyway, I’ll see you guys around.”

  “But wait…” Gabriella started. The slamming of Auntie’s ornate mahogany door drowned out whatever else she was saying.

  I tried to gather my composure before I went to Auntie’s kitchen; I didn’t want her to see me upset—or, more specifically, to know why I was upset. I really didn’t have it in me to explain why I was the only black girl in the world who couldn’t Double Dutch and didn’t know the jump rope songs. Or that I was scared of being the out-of-touch Jersey girl in the big, bad, fast city—scared of the subway, and clueless about all of the rich culture the city had to offer. No, this I didn’t feel like explaining to Auntie Jill. I needed to talk to one of my friends. My real friends.

  I found Auntie in the kitchen, hunched over her lesson plan book. “Auntie, do you think I can use your computer to send my friend Sam an e-mail?” I said, fighting the quiver in my voice.

  “She has Internet access?” my aunt questioned absentmindedly, a little distracted by her work at hand. I’d told Auntie Jill about both Liza’s and Sam’s trips that summer.

  “Well, I know Liza has no e-mail access, but there’s a small chance Sam might be able to check it,” I explained. “Plus, I want to thank her for her gift.”

  “Well, it’s worth a try, sweetie. Of course you can use the computer. Let me log you in,” Auntie said. She rose up from her perch to walk over to her desktop computer on a small table in the living room. I followed her, secretly wiping tears from my eyes while her back was turned.

  “Okay, here you go,” Auntie said. “I’m going to go upstairs and throw on a little lipstick and my shoes so that I can run up to the Studio Museum in Harlem for my meeting. You have about five minutes before we have to leave, okay?”

  “Okay, Auntie. I’ll be ready,” I called out to her as she walked away. And then I turned my attention back to the computer, typed in Sam’s e-mail addy, and got to work.

  Hi Sam,

  First of all, thank you for the supercute gift! I feel like I have a piece of the beach—and you!—with me. I wish I could talk to you face-to-face. I really miss you and Liza. Summer isn’t the same without you guys, and I could really stand to have you both here.

  I met this really cool girl named Gabriella. She lives around the corner from my aunt and goes to the same art camp with me. I think you would like her. She’s definitely the bright spot. I can’t say that for some of the other people around here, though. I’m just not like them, and trust me, they make a point of reminding me every time they get a chance. Like Paulette, who keeps saying and doing the meanest things possible to make herself look good in front of the instructor. I guess she thinks that the more she puts down my artwork, the more chance she’ll have of winning the final art critique. At this point, I don’t think I have any kind of chance of winning. I’m counting the days to when we’ll be together again in Greenwood.

  Miss you,

  Mina

  I pushed the SEND button just as Auntie Jill made her way down the stairs. “Okay, Mina, I’m running a little late—let’s get a move on,” she called out.

  I took one last look at Sam’s name on the computer screen and then clicked SHUT DOWN. “Coming, Auntie,” I called out as enthusiastically as I could.

  But I was far from happy.

  If I weren’t in such a funky mood, I’d have thought I was in heaven at the Studio Museum in Harlem. There were paintings and photographs, collages and 3-D art pieces—some of it created by artists my auntie helped me fall in love with, like Elizabeth Catlett, Ann Tanksley, and Kehinde Wiley, and plenty of others I’d never heard of before. The rooms were bursting with color and energy as a handful of art lovers meandered through the halls, stopping to discover the artwork displays and read the tiny info boards about the pieces. My aunt did her best to get me excited about what I was seeing—to remind me that I was a part of the legacy of many wonderful artists of color who were intent on using their art and their incredible talent to show the world how beautiful and diverse and magnificent our people are.

  But seeing all the art up close just reminded me that I’ve got a long way to go to be that good. Plainly put, I felt like I lacked that gene that gave my artwork the passion that made the artwork in the Studio Museum in Harlem worthy of being there. I couldn’t imagine making art as beautiful as that which I was looking at right then, and it just reminded me that Paulette was out to prove she was better than me; this just reminded me that the art competition was only two weeks away and I still didn’t know what I’d be creating to compete.

  Not even seeing an original collage by Romare Bearden could remove me from my worry and funk.

  “I thought you loved Bearden,” Auntie said, alternately staring at me and the artist’s picture of two women in a kitchen, one of whom appeared to be standing in a tub of water.

  “I do,” I said simply, leaning into the collage to make it look like I was super-interested in it.

  “Well, what do you like most about it?”

  “Um,” I said, hesitating. “It’s really colorful?”

  Silence.

  “That’s it?” my aunt finally asked.

  “And the paper layers look cool,” I said. “It’s interesting.”

  “Interesting?” Auntie asked, wrinkling her brow. She leaned in closer to me, startling me. “Look, Mina, I’m going to need you to snap out of it, honey.”

  “What do you mean, Auntie?” I asked innocently. “I said I like the collage.”

  “Mina, you’ve barely been paying attention. You’re in the middle of one of the most famous museums for art created by artists of color, and you’re staring at an original piece by the Romare Bearden—something most artists your age who come from where you come from don’t get to see often. And all you have to offer is ‘It’s interesting’?”

  “I…I like…” I began.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Auntie asked, her tone much softer now. “Are you homesick?”

  I looked down at my lucky Converses. They hadn’t really brought me much luck lately; I was really considering simply calling them my sneakers. “No, not really.”

  “Well, is it that you don’t like staying with me in Brooklyn?”

  “Oh
, gosh, no,” I said quickly. “I love staying with you, Auntie Jill. You’re, like, the coolest aunt a girl could ever have.”

  “Well, then what’s the problem?” she asked. “You’ve been walking around the house the last couple of days like a total grump-a-lump, and I need to know how to get you out of this funk.”

  “It’s no big deal, Auntie,” I said, still staring at my feet.

  Auntie took my chin into her hand and lifted my face up so that my eyes could meet hers. “Little girl, I’ve changed your diapers, twisted your hair, taken you shopping, babysat you, and vacationed with you, too. I know you—maybe even better than you know yourself. You’ve never been very good at hiding your feelings. Now, if something’s wrong, you need to tell me so that I can maybe help you make it better.”

  I tried to avert my eyes away from Auntie’s, but she had a kung fu grip on my chin and wouldn’t let go.

  My eyes started to water as I started to explain what had gotten me in a twist.

  “I really miss my friends,” I began.

  Auntie didn’t say anything, only watched me with her wide eyes.

  “And art camp is a little different from what I expected it to be,” I continued.

  Still more silence.

  “And that girl Paulette keeps giving me a hard time,” I added. “Yesterday, when we got paired up for an assignment? I came up with a great idea for what we should do together, and when Ms. Roberts told the whole class she liked it, Paulette told everybody she was the one who suggested it!”

  “And what did you say when she did that?” Auntie Jill said, finally releasing my chin.

  “What do you mean, what did I say?” I questioned.

  “What did you say when Paulette took credit for your idea?” Auntie asked simply.

  “I didn’t say anything. It was the middle of class and I didn’t want to cause a fuss,” I said.

  “Who says you would have had to cause a scene?”

  “Well, if I said anything, it would have been a confrontation,” I shrugged.

  “Only if you made it a confrontation. Look,” Auntie Jill said, taking my hand and leading me to a bench out by the front of the museum. “I’m not telling you to get in the girl’s face or start yelling—that’s not what I’m talking about. But Mina, you do need to start sticking up for yourself. You take all that criticism and backtalk from Paulette in class and get upset about it but you bite your tongue instead of defending yourself. And even when you’re just hanging out with friends, you tend to run off when you don’t succeed right away.”

  I hadn’t known she’d seen the whole Double Dutch episode.

  “Uh-huh, I saw it,” Auntie said as if she were reading my mind. “The minute someone challenges you or pushes you or tells you they want more, you shrink back or walk away. I can tell you personally that that’s not the way of Chestnut women.”

  I smiled a little at Auntie’s words; it was nice to be thought of as a Chestnut woman.

  “But—how do I do it exactly?” I asked.

  “Well, in the case of what happened with Paulette, as soon as she started taking credit for the project you guys did together, you could have added your own comments to the mix. I’m not saying you should have yelled out, ‘She’s lying! I’m the one who came up with the idea!’ But you could have said something like, ‘I’m glad you like our project, Ms. Roberts. I actually came up with this idea, but Paulette was helpful in such and such way.’ And today, when those girls were laughing at your jump rope mishap, you could have simply gotten up, shaken it off, and tried again.”

  “Easier said than done,” I grumbled, but I knew that my aunt had a point.

  “Look, Mina, all I’m saying is that you weren’t raised to be this shy girl playing in the background while everyone else steals your shine. You’re a terrific little artist and you’re only going to get better. But you have to find your voice. Speak up, baby, and you’ll be heard,” she continued, patting my hand. “Now, I have to go into my meeting. It won’t take long. You going to be okay out here?”

  “Yes,” I said, forcing a smile to my face.

  “It’s going to be all right, sweetie. Why don’t you go into the gift shop and see if there’s anything in there you like. I think they have some Bearden postcards in there.”

  “Okay, Auntie,” I said as I stood up from the bench.

  She was right; there were plenty of Bearden postcards, and books about him, too. I flipped through a couple of them, feeling my spirits lift, and then sauntered over to a table with a bunch of colorful jewelry on it.

  “Those bracelets are from Kenya,” a woman standing near the register called out. “Some of them are made with leather, and some have cowrie shells attached to them. They’re made by people in the villages there, and no two bracelets are ever alike.”

  I leaned in a little closer to the bracelets. “They’re beautiful,” I said, smiling genuinely for the first time in quite a while. I ran my fingers across the beads of a black-and-green bracelet; the beads were arranged in a way that made the green beads look like arrowheads pointing in the same direction all the way around the bracelet.

  “Green and black are my best friend’s favorite colors,” I said, trying the bracelet on my arm. It was a perfect fit, which meant it’d probably fit on Liza’s arm, too, seeing as we’re practically the same size. I was thinking she’d dig the bracelet, too, because it was so different from anything she’d probably have ever seen. And how cool was it that someone actually strung all those beads on the leather?

  “How much is it?” I asked, pulling it off my arm.

  “It’s twenty-five dollars, and all the proceeds go directly to the collective of Kenyan artists who made it, so you’ll be giving both yourself and the artists a great gift!” she exclaimed.

  “Yeah, this would make a great gift, wouldn’t it?” I said, handing the bracelet to her. “I’ll take it.”

  “Great, I’ll wrap it up for you. Come on to the register and I’ll ring you up,” she said.

  “Um, I kinda have to wait for my aunt. She’s in a meeting, and she’s also the one with the money, so…”

  “Oh,” the lady laughed. “I understand. I’ll just leave it over here and when your aunt comes in, we’ll settle up, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Did you enjoy the art exhibit?” she asked as she removed the tag from the bracelet and wrapped it in tissue paper.

  “Well, I only got a quick look at it.”

  “You have some time on your hands—go back in there and enjoy the art,” she said. “You won’t find anything like it in too many museums. You’re here; you might as well take a look, right?”

  “You’re right. I think I will,” I said, bounding out of the gift shop and into the gallery.

  The art was looking much brighter.

  Chapter Eight

  Uptown—that’s what Auntie Jill calls Harlem—was crazy! In a good way. After her meeting at the museum, Auntie took me on a walking tour of the neighborhood to see all these brownstones and restaurants and big, beautiful churches, and places where people were showing off their talent. Auntie gave me a dollar to toss into the hat of a trumpet player who was playing a slow, melodic version of “Amazing Grace,” the way you hear it in church early Sunday morning. He smiled and nodded a thank-you, never once taking his lips off his horn. Just around the corner was the Schomburg Center, a huge library full of books and art produced by black people from all across the world.

  “You know, when I was a college student at Columbia University, I used to come here and look through the stacks and stacks of books and papers they have here,” Auntie said as we walked through the halls of the library. The museumlike displays chronicled the history of black people in America.

  When we left the library, she walked me past the stately cottages that lined what she called Strivers’ Row, a neighborhood where rich black actors and politicians used to live. Auntie showed me the houses where the poet Langston Hughes and Madam C. J. Walk
er, the richest black woman in the world (before Oprah even!) used to live.

  “And here is where I saw my first live concert,” Auntie said, pointing up at the marquee of the Apollo, where some of the world’s most famous singers and dancers used to give concerts. “New Edition was performing. I just loved them, but boy, was it a rowdy affair when the amateur contest started. The audience didn’t have a problem cheering on the good singers, but when they didn’t like a performer, they booed and booed. I felt sorry for whoever was on the receiving end of that super-loud crowd.”

  I nodded, thinking about how hard it was to get rejection, to hear criticism.

  “But you know what?” Auntie said, watching me closely. “Those singers kept on going, kept on trying, despite all the boos. I was amazed by them!” I smiled at my auntie, realizing she’d told me the story for a reason. After all, if the people trying out at the Apollo could stand tall, I could survive art camp. I reached out and squeezed her hand.

  Later, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread, Too, and even the food tasted better in Harlem. The fried fish, collard greens, and candied sweet potatoes were super-tasty and reminded me of my mom’s cooking. It was definitely a nice break from Auntie’s tofu and beans and fruit dip. Anyway, Auntie really showed me some cool stuff in Harlem—enough to make me think that it might be a neat place to live when I get old enough to go to college and live on my own. Well, after I live in a fab apartment in Fort Greene, and maybe spend a year or two in SoHo.

  I’d never felt the urge to draw something the way I did when Auntie and I got back to her place. No doubt, I was on a mission: I had decided to make a story quilt. It would show pictures of city buildings and sidewalks and stoops, and people with broad noses and large brown eyes and colorful hats, just like the beautiful sights, sounds, and people I’d seen during our walk.

  “Mina!” Auntie Jill yelled as she walked into my room/our art studio to find me tearing through her latest issue of Essence. A pile of other magazines and massive amounts of cutout pictures and scraps were spread out all over the floor. “Tell me you didn’t cut up all my magazines!”