I popped in a Jimmy Smith CD on the way up, and had a conversation with Seraphine, who was sitting in the front seat. She came to the US from Cameroon when she was in ninth grade, and will graduate from high school this year. Her parents have political asylum here. She is their only child. Fidgety is her first bit of acting. I told her about my daughter Hannah’s experiences in Cameroon last summer; how she said on her return, “I keep looking for little kids selling boiled peanuts.” Seraphine tells me her grandmother owns a little store back home and that she used to be one of those little kids selling boiled peanuts. And of course…it turns out Seraphine is in the tribe of John Fomuso, whose family Hannah visited there. Then Hannah called me to find out how many cups are in a pound of butter, so I put Seraphine on the phone with her.
Matt sat next to me in the wings during the show and from time to time we would beam at each other as Seraphine was performing. She is utterly convincing and clear, and enchanting to watch. “Oh, I get so nervous,” she tells me on the drive back. On the CD, we were listening to the Latcho Drom soundtrack. “I love singing,” I said to her. “I love to sing and dance,” she replied. I dropped her off at her home, a big apartment complex in New Brighton. The wind was blowing fierce; it was ten degrees below zero. As we neared her house she raised her arms and did a dance in her seat. “I’m almost home!”
