Piecing Me Together: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Jade wakes up early the next morning. There’s nothing to eat for breakfast, so she drinks a glass of water and catches the 35 bus that will take her out of her neighborhood. Jade lives in the New Columbia, and no one lets her forget that it used to be public housing for shipyard workers in World War II, and that the units were all rundown by the 1980s. Though many people can’t find beauty in Jade’s neighborhood, Jade can. Since elementary school, she’s been picking up magazines, candy wrappers, and receipts to make beautiful, unexpected collages. Jade says the collages are like her: ordinary. But Jade is going to make something of her life, both for herself and for Mom. Mom had Jade when she was 16 and so she couldn’t go to college. Jade’s Dad, however, turned his life around after Jade’s birth. He now has a rich white fiancée.

On the bus, Jade thinks about how she’s the answer to Dad’s prayers and she is also Mom’s deferred dream. The bus moves through the transition blocks between North Portland and Northeast. At one stop, a thin white girl gets on. She looks young and Jade wonders if she’s going to St. Francis. They get off at the same stop and Jade thinks that she would’ve noticed this girl before, since Jade is one of the few students at St. Francis who buses in. There are only a few other black students: Rose is nice but a year older, and Josiah is a cool, popular tech nerd. He’s nice when Jade tutors him but he uses a lot of slang around his white friends. Josiah invites Jade to join friends for lunch out, but Jade refuses—she wants to say yes but she can’t miss this meeting with Mrs. Parker.