Watch Us Rise(10)

“Of course,” Isaac says.

The day sky has shifted now. It isn’t dark or light, somewhere in between. Usually, this is the time of day Mom gets the house settled for the night—giving Dad his evening meds, putting away the dishes, closing the curtains. But I leave them open.





The weekend goes by too fast, like always. Monday is dragging. After lunch we’re walking to our classes, and Chelsea keeps complaining about her club. “Jasmine, I’m serious. I don’t want to go back to the All-We-Read-Are-Dead-White-Poets Poetry Club. But there’s no other club I want to be in. What am I going to do? Ms. Hawkins says I have to decide soon.”

“I don’t know, Chelsea, what about Justice by the Numbers?”

“You know how much I hate math,” she says as we climb to the second floor.

“But isn’t it about learning statistics and understanding how those stats impact Washington Heights and other neighborhoods in New York?” I ask. “I think they talk about redlining, gentrification, and—”

“You lost me at statistics,” Chelsea says. “Maybe we can start our own club?”

“We as in . . .”

“Me and you.”

“I’m already in a club!” I say. “Besides, what would our club be about?”

Chelsea shrugs. “Aren’t you tired of dealing with Meg? You could quit the ensemble, and we can do our own thing.”

We get to my science class and stop at the door. James enters the classroom, and when Chelsea sees him all of a sudden she is no longer interested in a new club. She whispers to me, “James Bradford is in your class? You get to spend an hour with James Bradford every afternoon?”

It is so funny to me that Chelsea says James’s whole name like he is a celebrity or a president, or someone important enough to be called by his full name.

“Why didn’t you tell me James was in your class?”

“I didn’t know you’d care,” I say.

“Well, ‘care’ is a strong word. I’m just, I don’t know. I didn’t realize you had a class with him too,” Chelsea says.

I give her a look.

“What?”

“Um, does Chelsea Spencer have a crush on someone and isn’t telling me?”

“I, no. We’re just friends—I don’t, I don’t even know if we’re friends. It’s just that I have a class with him, and I didn’t know you two had a class together too. That’s all.”

“If you say so,” I tease.

“Jasmine—”

“Payback for all the comments and jokes you’ve ever made about me and Isaac.”

“Oh, please. You and Isaac are perfect for each other and just need to admit your feelings. James Bradford and I? We barely know each other.”

“If you say so,” I repeat. I go into the classroom and sit next to James. Our science class is officially called the Science of Social Justice. Mrs. Curtis is the youngest teacher in the school and is so honest with us that sometimes I wonder if she’s supposed to be telling us everything she tells us. I had her last year, and I know there is no holding back in this class. We talk about the intersection of ethics, social justice, and science, and sometimes it gets kind of heated.

On the first day of class, Mrs. Curtis gave us our course syllabus. The units of study this year will be “The Use of Human Subjects in Medical Research,” “The Rising Rates of Childhood Obesity,” and “The Environment, Climate Change, and Racism.”

I’m excited to talk about all of these except the one about obesity. I hate talking about weight with skinny people. As a big girl it’s like I’m invisible around skinny people; sometimes they make jokes or say things like “Oh my God I’m getting so fat,” when really they wear a size small or medium, and no one who wears a small or medium—or large, for that matter—is truly fat. They don’t know anything about being this big. And really, that’s not what bothers me. What hurts is the disgust in their voice, the visceral fear in their tone, like gaining weight would be the absolute worst thing to happen to them. And so I just sit there, kind of in shock for most of those conversations.

It’s completely opposite when I’m the only black girl in a conversation. If race comes up, people look to me to answer questions like I know everything there is to know about blackness. So pretty much my whole life is going back and forth from being super visible to invisible.

Mrs. Curtis starts class today saying, “Good afternoon, everyone. We’ve got a lot to cover today. Let’s jump right in. I’d like you to write down four words that describe you. Don’t think too hard about it. First four words that come to mind.”

I write down my words, and when Mrs. Curtis tells us to share our lists with a partner, I am paired with James.

He goes first. “Um, I wrote down athletic, outgoing, generous, and then I couldn’t really think of another one.”

“You couldn’t think of a fourth word?”

He laughs. “I don’t really think about myself like that. I mean, who walks around thinking about words to describe themselves? What, you got like twenty words, huh?”

“Just four,” I tell him. But I could have put down twenty. I really could have. I read my list. “Black, female, activist, actress.”