Watch Us Rise(45)

“I know, I know, I just—”

“You don’t know, and it makes me feel like you don’t even see me, Chelsea.”

“Intersectionality,” Leidy sings from the back of the store, clearly listening in on our conversation. “You must learn to look at and see each other—you have to come together over race and class and color and nationality and sexuality and size and ability, and so on,” she begins to hum.

I roll my eyes again. “I got men’s large, okay? You can wear that, right? It’s fine.”

“No. It’s not fine. And by the way, for someone who’s so into fashion, I think you’d know that a men’s shirt is cut differently, and so no, it’s not gonna fit me. And Leidy’s right. We have to start thinking about everyone, and not just ourselves all the time. You have to do better,” Jasmine says, grabbing one of the women’s large. “I’m gonna get Nadine to make this work for me. And you, you need to do some edits on that poem.”





When I get home, I sit at the kitchen table and try to start my homework, but all I can think about is my conversation with Chelsea. I can’t stop thinking how girls like me hide in plain sight. Chelsea has known me since middle school, and in middle school I was fat. I wasn’t thick or plump or big-boned. I was fat. The biggest kid in our grade. Always. How could she not see that? All these years of taking the subway together, hasn’t she noticed that when she points out that there’s a seat and I say, “That’s okay, I’m fine, you sit,” that I am not just being polite but that I actually can’t fit, can’t squeeze in between two people on a crowded train?

I have always felt so close to Chelsea. In the fifth grade, a white girl told me that my brown skin was just dirt and that if I took a bath, it would come off. Chelsea slapped her. Of course, we later learned about the whole nonviolent movement, but for me it meant Chelsea was my real friend. That she wasn’t going to make excuses for anyone’s racist comments. She has always had my back. Always.

I’m so distracted by my thoughts that I don’t even notice Mom has come into the kitchen. She has bags of groceries in her hands. “Can you help me with these?”

I take the bags and start unpacking them.

“We’re having sandwiches for dinner,” Mom says. She sets out pastrami, salami, turkey, and cheddar and provolone cheese.

I unpack the pickles and all the condiments she bought.

Mom slices sourdough bread, then takes out serving dishes and prepares the meat and cheese on the plates like she’s getting ready for guests to come over, even though it’s just us.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asks.

“Nothing. Why?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Mom, I’m fine.” I bring the trays of meat and cheese into the dining room.

“Humph.” Mom dumps potato chips in a bowl and brings it to the table.

I call Jason and Dad to come eat.

I wish I could just make my sandwich and go to my room to eat. Every time we have dinner together, we share our peaks and pits of the day. Today, there are no peaks to share. Just pits for me. And I don’t want to talk about it, especially not with Mom. She has nagged me about my weight since I was a chubby seven-year-old. You need to get that weight off of you, she says. She’s eased up on it now that Dad is so sick. But still, I know she wishes she had a normal-size daughter.

I can feel myself about to cry, and I am so tired of crying. So tired of stressing about if I am going to fit in a booth at a restaurant or if the reason why Isaac hasn’t actually asked me out is because he’d be embarrassed to claim the fat girl as his girl.

But I am more tired that all these things are superficial and have nothing to do with my actual health. The last time Mom insisted I go to the doctor because she was so worried about my weight, the doctor told her I was healthy. That, yes, incorporating healthy eating and regular exercise would be important but that all my vitals were where they needed to be. Still, though, she nagged the whole way home. “You need to get that weight off of you.” Like it is so easy.

I don’t care what Mom says, losing weight isn’t about my health. I know this because whenever she gains half a pound, she looks at herself in the mirror with disgust and says, “Oh God, I am getting fat.” And when she was pregnant with Jason all she kept talking about was the fear of not losing the weight afterward, as if staying big would be the worst thing that could happen to her.

“Jasmine, would you like to start us off?” Dad asks.

No. I really, really don’t.

I think for a long while.

“Come on, Jazz,” Jason whines. He eats a chip, and Mom gives him a look, then looks at me.

“Um, I’d rather not talk about today.” I haven’t even told Mom about anything that’s happened at school with the blog or quitting the acting ensemble, so explaining why we made shirts wouldn’t even make sense to her. She’d probably just say what she always says whenever I complain about the roles big girls get cast in, “Well, Jasmine, you know how the entertainment industry is. If you want a different kind of role, you have to look a certain way. That’s the business.” No outrage in her voice.

“There’s no pass,” Jason says. “Hurry up.”

Dad says, “It’s okay. Tonight, Jasmine gets a pass.” He smiles at me.