Reluctantly, I followed along.
Gabriella exchanged hugs with all three girls at the table, and yelled out, “Everybody, this is Mina. Mina? This is everybody. I’ll tell you everybody’s names when Darwin stops singing,” she said, dropping her art case on the floor and joining in on the clapping.
“It’s nice to meet you all.” I smiled warmly. “Um, I’m going to go over and get those cupcakes before they’re all sold out. If I go back to Auntie’s without them, she might make me sleep on the front stoop,” I said, leaning into Gabriella’s ear so she could hear me.
“Okay, cool,” she said. “We’ll be right here. Leave your art bag—I’ll watch it,” she added.
I handed her my art supplies and made a beeline for the counter, alternately squeezing between people and saying “excuse me” as I pushed through the crowd. I felt like I’d just run a football gauntlet by the time I got there, and I was sweaty. The air conditioner was working overtime against the ninety-degree heat outside, but The Spot was so thick with bodies that the air coming out of the vents felt more like a small breeze than cool, comforting air. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a purple handkerchief and tied it around my locs.
“I’ll have four red velvet cupcakes,” I told the guy behind the counter.
“Coming up,” he said.
“That’s a lot of cupcakes for one person. You sharing?” I heard a voice say.
I turned and jumped when I realized who was talking. It was Marley.
“I, um, I’m kinda getting a couple to go,” I stuttered, turning back to the register guy. “Um, can I get three of those in a to-go box? Thanks.”
“Right. I’ll take a cupcake, too,” Marley told the counter guy. “Just one for me.”
I looked up at him and smiled uncomfortably, then turned back toward the counter and stared at the cupcakes, too nervous to say much of anything else.
“So, you enjoying yourself?” he asked.
“We just got here,” I said. “Gabriella and I, I mean.”
“Oh, Gabby’s here? Cool,” he said, nodding.
“Yeah, um, cool. I mean, um, she’s cool.”
“Yeah,” he said easily. “So, when am I going to see you take the mike?”
“Uh, never!” I said, shaking my head.
“Why not?” Marley asked. “What, you don’t have any talents? You must have something in that big ol’ art-supplies box.”
He noticed my art-supplies box. Omigod.
“Just some paint and brushes,” I said.
“So you and Gabriella paint, huh? Nice,” he said, nodding.
“Thanks,” I said.
“So that’s a talent,” he added. “You can paint.”
“Yeah, but I don’t play the guitar or do poetry like you, so…”
“Ah, but you draw. You should come up with me on the stage and paint while I kick a verse,” he said, taking his cupcake from the counter guy.
“Uh, no—no thanks,” I said. “I’m going to go ahead and eat my cupcake and leave the stage to the performers.”
“Come on—what are you, scared?”
Just then, Gabriella bounced up to us and threw her arm around my shoulders. “What’s up, Marley?” she said breezily. And then, to me: “You leave us any red velvets?”
“There are plenty left,” I laughed.
“What’s up, Gabby?” Marley said. “I was just trying to talk your girl here into coming up on the stage with me and drawing while I knock out a quick verse.”
“You should totally do it!” Gabriella exclaimed.
“Uh, no, I’m going to eat my cupcake and…” I began, but Gabriella was having none of that.
“Come on, you can totally do it!” she said, cutting me off. “What’s the poem about?” she asked Marley.
“It’s called ‘Harlem,’” he said simply.
“See? You’ve been working on story quilts about Harlem at home, Mina. It’s perfect!” Gabriella exclaimed.
“I don’t think—”
“Come on—you have your art-supplies box right over there, and I’m sure the manager wouldn’t mind lending you a piece of paper or a tablecloth or something. Oh man, this is going to be incredible. Let’s get your stuff,” Gabriella said, grabbing my hand.
“Hold on to these cupcakes, would you?” Marley said to the counter guy as Gabriella dragged me over to our table. I barely got a chance to protest before she swooped up my art-supplies box and dragged me over to the stage.
“And next up,” the DJ shouted into the mike, “is a crowd favorite, and he’s brought along a newbie to the stage to draw while he kicks a verse. Please give a hand to Marley and Mina!”
The crowd, still hyped from the last performer, clapped wildly for me and Marley. He grabbed my art box from Gabriella with one hand, took my hand with the other, and practically pulled me up to the stage. Gabriella grabbed the piece of white butcher paper covering our table, brought it up to the stage, and set it up on the easel. I slowly took my art box from Marley’s hands and tried not to faint. My hands were trembling. But when I looked over at Gabriella, she was smiling—which put me at ease, if only a little.
“Why don’t you do it with me?” I said to Gabriella as I hurriedly squeezed out paints onto the palette.
“No, girl, you got this!” Gabriella said, shaking her head violently. “Go for it.”
“Hold up, wait—you’re scared?” I asked, smiling in wonder.
“I’m not scared,” Gabriella said, nervously surveying the crowd. “It’s just that Marley asked you.”
“Whatev, you’re totally his friend—he won’t care,” I insisted. “Plus, it’s your fault I’m up here, anyway. I’ll sketch; you paint.”
Just as I squeezed the last of the paint onto the palette, Marley loosened the mike from its stand and looked over at Gabriella and me. “She’s helping,” I mouthed confidently with a smile.
Marley smiled back and nodded. “Cool,” he mouthed back. Then, into the mike, he said, “This poem is called ‘Harlem.’ I know Mina and Gabriella are going to do something dope.”
When the audience applause finally quieted down, the DJ mixed a beat as Marley leaned into the mike and spun a fantastic rhyme about city buildings, street corner vendors, and streets paved with gold—uptown roots, Double Dutching, Strivers’ Row, and the Apollo. Every word he said inspired my pastels to fly across the butcher paper: Brownstones materialized, then a steep stoop, and a lady with a big textured Afro, watching her kids play Double Dutch. I couldn’t believe how fast my hands were moving, creating a scene painted by Marley’s words. Gabriella was keeping up, too, adding bold colors to my sketch that made the pictures pop off the page.
When Marley finished up his rhyme, Gabriella and I stood back from our painting. It wasn’t finished—the little girls’ clothes weren’t colored in, and the windows in a couple of the brownstones were missing, and the sky was only half painted blue, but it totally looked like the streets Auntie and I had explored just the other day, when she was encouraging me to stick up for myself and acknowledge that for a twelve-year-old, I painted pretty good.
“Everybody, show your love for Marley!” the DJ called out as our friend pumped his fist in the air and grinned at the wild applause. Marley’s grin grew even wider when he strutted over to the easel and saw the picture Gabriella and I created.
“Man! That’s amazing!” he said, standing back to admire the painting. “I can’t believe you guys just did that.”
I couldn’t contain my excitement—I had to admit the picture was kinda awesome.
“You gotta sign it,” Marley said as the DJ called out over the mike for us to show the audience our painting. “You gotta write the word Harlem on that. That painting is bananas.”
Gabriella hurriedly signed her name in hot-pink pastel; I used purple and added a swirl at the top of the I in my name, which I wrote in all capital letters; then I scribbled Harlem beneath it. And, together, Gabriella and I grabbed the sides of the easel and turned o
ur painting around so that our audience could see it.
The hooting and hollering and hand claps were deafening!
I looked at Gabriella and she looked at me and we broke out into hysterics and high-fived each other like we’d just won the Super Bowl. Marley joined in and put his arms around both of our shoulders, which, of course, made Gabriella and I look at each other and laugh even harder.
I was totally thinking, Thank goodness for red velvet cupcakes and Harlem!
Seriously, if I could have bottled my happy juice right then? All of Brooklyn would have been floating—that’s how happy I was. I mean, that hour and a half totally ranked right up there with the time I won the math team competition against Tye Lawrence in our gifted class (after he told everybody the entire two weeks leading up to our math showdown that he was smarter than me), and definitely the time when Sam set me up with the winning shot in our big summer soccer tournament. Even though I got trophies from both the math competition and the soccer tournament, I won much more doing that performance art: I got my confidence back.
My only wish was that Liza and Samantha had been there to see it. Gabriella was a welcome stand-in, though.
“How cool is it that they’re going to hang our picture up in The Spot?” Gabriella said as we practically skipped down Fulton, our art cases and bags of red velvet cupcakes dangling from our hands.
“Where do you think they’ll put it?” I asked, peeking into storefront windows as we walked.
“I don’t know.” Gabriella shrugged. “If it’s not behind the cupcake counter next to the red velvet display, I’m writing a letter to the president!”
“Wow,” I laughed. “So what are you trying to say?”
“It could be a tribute to your addiction,” she said. “They could put a plaque under it that says: ‘Here lies a tribute to the red velvet cake bandit. Guard your velvet!’”
I was still giggling over that one when we passed Sheets, a music store tucked between an African clothing store and a small Jamaican restaurant. In the window, there was a collection of songbooks and sheet music, one of which caught my attention: It was a song called “Under the Boardwalk.” I stopped so short that Gabriella ran into my back.
“Dude!”
“Wait—oh, I’m sorry,” I laughed. “Check it out—it’s sheet music.”
“Okaaay,” Gabriella said, confused.
“No, it’s just that my friend Samantha just started teaching herself how to play guitar,” I said.
“And…” Gabriella said, trying to hurry my point.
“Well, I want to send her something, like a souvenir from my trip to Brooklyn, and I’ve been trying to think of something super-awesome to get her and I think I just found it,” I said, walking into the store.
Gabriella shrugged and followed me inside.
“Excuse me,” I called out to a little old lady sitting behind the register. “How much is that sheet music in the window—the ‘Under the Boardwalk’ music?”
The old lady pushed herself up off her roller chair and creaked over to the window. “Oh, this one?” she asked, picking it up. “That’s a great song. You’re a fan of the Drifters, are you?”
“Well, I’ve never heard the song,” I offered. “But it says ‘Under the Boardwalk.’ That’s where my best friends and I used to hang out when we were little kids and we played together on the Jersey Shore.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” the lady said.
“It was.” I smiled easily. “How much did you say it costs?”
“That’ll be four dollars,” she said.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out two crinkled dollar bills and seventy-two cents in change. “I don’t have enough,” I said sadly.
“Well, yeah, you spent almost all your money on cupcakes,” Gabriella laughed as she reached into her pocket. She pulled out a neatly folded five-dollar bill. “This oughta do it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that. I’ll pay you back tomorrow. I really want to take this music home now so I can put a little paint on it.”
“Paint?” the old lady asked as she took Gabriella’s five-dollar bill and rang up the price on the register.
“Yeah,” I said. “My friend Sam and I love the beach. It would look pretty cool if I paint a picture of the boardwalk and the beach on it.”
“Nice,” Gabriella said as she watched the lady put the sheet music in a paper protector and slip it into a bag. “You know, you never talked about your friends from back home. I was starting to think you didn’t have any.”
“I never told you about Samantha and Liza?” I asked.
“Nope,” Gabriella said. “But I’m sure they’re cool.”
“Definitely,” I said, smiling. There wasn’t any need to say another word. We just beamed all the way down Fulton Street, until she went her way and I went mine.
When I got back to Auntie’s apartment, I dropped off her cupcakes and then went straight up to my room and right up to the chalkboard wall. With a yellow chalk, I wrote the word happy in big bubble letters, and then colored them in with bright pink polka-dot smiley faces.
My board was bright, but not nearly as bright as I was feeling right then.
Chapter Ten
“Wait. I need one more piece of the gold material, and then I’m done,” I said, rummaging through a huge pile of scrap fabric, torn pieces of paper, beads, buttons, ribbon, and fancy stationery. Auntie Jill had given me all the goods after a little begging and pleading on my part.
“But baby, if you keep piling stuff onto your picture, it’s not going to have enough time to dry before you have to present it to the judges,” Auntie said. “This has to be the last piece, sweetie pie.”
I pulled a tiny piece of gold-leaf paper out from the pile. I applied glue from the hot glue gun onto the edges, then carefully pasted the paper to the canvas on my easel. It was my final art project, the one that was supposed to represent everything I’d learned over the summer.
“There,” I said, standing back to admire my picture.
“Oh! That sure is a fine piece of work,” a voice called out from behind us.
It was Mom! I screamed and laughed and ran into her arms.
“I didn’t hear you guys come in,” I said, squeezing her waist and snuggling into her. “I’ve missed you!”
“We’ve missed you, too, pumpkin,” my dad said, walking into the room with two overnight bags. My sister followed behind him, with a big box in her hands. She tossed me a half smile, which, clearly, was about as welcoming as she was going to get, even though we hadn’t seen each other in six whole weeks. But whatev.
“Daddy!” I squealed, loosening my grip on my mom so that I could pull him into a group hug. “Omigosh, I can’t believe you guys are here!”
“Live and in the flesh,” Daddy said. “Did you have a good time, sweetheart?”
“Did Auntie Jill take good care of you?” my mom chimed in, without giving me a chance to answer the first question.
“So are you going to be a vegetarian and eat tofu and broccoli all the time?” my sister asked, leaning against the door.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Auntie laughed. “She had a great time because she was with me, and of course I took great care of my niece. And as for you, Miss Lady, I’ll have you know that tofu and broccoli is not only good for you; it’s quite delicious.”
“Uh, yeah, okay,” my dad laughed, hugging his sister. “I’m sure we could stand here and debate the merits of eliminating an entire food group from our diets, but don’t we have to get going?” he asked, looking at his watch. “We have about an hour until the show starts, and the traffic over the Brooklyn Bridge is getting kinda ugly. We should get a move on.”
“Oh, goodness, we sure should. I don’t want my baby missing out on her big win!” Mom exclaimed.
“Aw, Mom, I don’t know if you should be claiming the top prize for me just yet,” I said. “A lot of the kids in the program are really good.”
“As good a
s this?” she asked, walking over to the artwork I had just finished. “Mina, this is absolutely beautiful!”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, smiling. “But you’re kinda supposed to say that.”
“Mina! I’m not just saying it because you’re my daughter, trust,” she said. “You know I’d tell you if it wasn’t just right. Your painting is really great. Now hurry up and get changed,” my mom said, clapping her hands. “Let’s go, baby, or we’re going to be late.”
“Mom, I’m not getting changed—I’m wearing this,” I said, looking down at my oversize purple hooded dress and pink polka-dotted leggings. Earlier, Auntie Jill pulled my locs into two low ponytails, and let me use a little of her lip gloss, even though my mom doesn’t really like me wearing makeup. Shoot, I looked cute!
“Mina, you’re wearing sneakers,” my mom said, wrinkling her nose and looking at me disapprovingly.
“Oh, girl, we’ve been through this already,” Auntie Jill said. “She’s got to wear the lucky Converses because Sam and Liza signed them for good luck, and if she doesn’t, she greatly reduces her chances of winning—blah blah blah.”
My mom shook her head and gave my Converses the stare down.
“Speaking of Liza,” my little sister said, “you got something in the mail.” She shoved the padded envelope she’d been carrying in my direction.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, if you read the label, you’d see it’s something from Liza,” my sister snapped.
“Liza!” I exclaimed, grabbing the package from my sister’s hands. A wild giggle made its way into my throat.
I sat on my daybed and ripped open the envelope, pulling off layers of tissues to get to the Liza goodness.
“What’s that?” my mom asked as I pulled out a photograph of Liza balancing on the top of a fence, soaking wet with her arms raised triumphantly in the air. And under layers of wrapping paper was, of all things, a small cowboy lizard figurine.
“Omigod, Liza is such a nut!” I laughed as I flipped over the photo. On the back, in her trademark bubble letters, Liza had written, Wish You Were Here! Love, Lizard.
Miss You, Mina Page 9