Page 57 of Certified To Handle You 2

“Yeah,” she said, smilin’. “Every piece on there came from somebody.”

I nodded, impressed as hell. “That’s hard.”

Sha’Nelle nodded and reached for my hand as we kept movin’.

The next piece had a whole section to itself. They had taken this huge block of white marble and carved a Black woman into it from her shoulders up. She had her eyes closed, her face was smooth as hell and her hair rose damn near ten feet above her head in these thick twists.

Every twist turned into somethin’ different toward the top.

Sha’Nelle started circlin’ it, so I followed her.

“How the hell they carved all this into one piece?” I asked.

“I’on know,” she said while lookin’ up. “Look at the back.”

I stepped around with her and saw this long staircase carved through the woman’s hair. Tiny people was walkin’ up it, and the higher they got, the more the clothes on the figures changed.

“Okay, this my favorite,” Sha’Nelle said.

I shook my head. “You said that shit about the last room.”

“I changed my mind,” she replied.

I wrapped my arm around her waist and stood here with her for a lil’ while before we moved on.

Further back, the whole wall was covered with these big ass circles that looked almost like planets. Every one of ‘em had been made from somethin’ different. One was carved out of dark wood with cities cut deep into it. One had pieces of sheet music worked through it, and another had numbers, equations and drawin’s from Black inventors and scientists written all across the surface.

By the time we made it into the last room, I understood why Sha’Nelle wanted to come in. The entire floor was covered by one big ass map of the world, except the continents had been built out of books. Thousands of them muthafuckas too.

It was novels, medical books, poetry, history, science, architecture, music, law and all kinda shit written by Black people from everywhere. The books had been stacked and shaped until they made continents, mountains and coastlines. Some was old as hell with worn covers, and others looked brand new.

Sha’Nelle walked around the edge slow readin’ titles whenever she recognized one.

I came up behind her and put my hands around her waist. “You finna have us in this muthafucka till they close.”

She smiled and leaned back against me. “You ready to go?”

“Nah,” I told her as I kissed the side of her head. “Look at yo’ shit.”

That made her smile even harder before she reached down and laid her hands over mine.

I stood here with her while she kept lookin’, and every now and then she would point somethin’ out to me or pull me toward another part she wanted to see. By then, I was fuckin’ with the museum too, but I liked seein’ Sha’Nelle enjoy herself more than anything. She had been smilin’ damn near the whole time we was in here, and every time she reached for my hand without thinkin’ about it, I closed mine around hers and kept movin’ with her.

By the time we finally started makin’ our way toward the exit, she had this soft lil’ smile sittin’ on her face.

I looked down at her. “You had fun?”

She nodded. “I did. I really liked that.”

I squeezed her hand. “Good.”

She leaned into my side while we kept walkin’, and I wrapped my arm around her before kissin’ the top of her head.

We had barely made it down the block when a horse and carriage came rollin’ up beside us. I looked over at it ‘cause I ain’tknow Greystone had shit like this, but the driver slowed down and asked if we wanted a ride through Midtown.

I looked at the carriage and then at his ass.

“This all this is, right?” I asked him. “A damn carriage ride?”