Dad has good days and bad days. Sometimes he is in bed all day and can hardly keep food down and we all walk around the house whispering and the lights are dim because we don’t want to wake him, we don’t want to make his headache worse, don’t want him to feel left out of all the fun we are having or the great meal we are eating.

But today is different. Today the curtains in the living room are open and music is playing and the kitchen is a symphony of lids trembling on top of Mom’s best pots, the faucet goes on and off, on and off, and the timer dings. It’s seafood night, and Mom is making her special crab boil: crab legs, corn on the cob, andouille sausage, crawfish, jumbo shrimp, and small red potatoes. We haven’t done this in six months. We used to have the crab boil on the first Friday of every month. It’s tradition that Chelsea, Isaac, and Nadine come, and after we eat the four us hang out for a few hours. The last time we had everyone over, we had an epic karaoke night. Dad and I impressed everyone with our favorite duet, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” It’s one of the few songs we both know all the words to.

I don’t know if Dad will be up for hanging out with us after dinner, but at least he’s feeling well enough to do this. He is standing next to Mom, making his garlic-butter concoction for dipping. “Do you have enough bags?” he asks me.

“Plenty,” I say as I tear a brown paper bag at its seams and spread it out on the dining room table like a tablecloth. I layer the table and make sure every inch is covered. As soon as the food is ready, Mom will dump it on the table and we will feast.

Jason is helping me tear the bags. “Like this?” he asks.

“Yes. But tear the other side too,” I tell him.

He rips the bag and hands it to me.

Dad brings his garlic butter to the table. “Is Isaac coming?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, giving him a look that begs him not to start. He’s asked me twice already.

“I really like that young man,” Dad says.

“I know you do.”

He laughs when Mom says, “I think someone else really likes him too.”

“Mom—”

Jason sings, “Jasmine’s got a boyfriend . . . ​Jasmine’s got a boyfriend.”

“I do not. Isaac is not my boyfriend.”

Jason tears another bag. “He’s a boy and he’s your friend, so yes you do!”

“Jason, leave your sister alone,” Mom says. But she is laughing when she says it, so how serious can he take her?

Jason walks away from the dining room table and goes into the living room. He grabs the remote control so he can play his video game. “Okay, Mommy. I’ll leave Jasmine alone.”

“I won’t,” Dad says. “What’s up with you two? I feel like I don’t know anything that’s going on with you.”

Tears immediately rise in me, and I push them down. He doesn’t know what’s going on with me because we hardly talk anymore—not about me. I know he wanted things to stay the same, but how can they? Most of my interactions with Dad aren’t conversations at all. Just me coming into their bedroom to adjust the pillows to help him get comfortable or me waking him up every four hours so he takes his pain meds. He asks me about my day, but I just answer with fine because usually everything feels so trivial once I am standing in his room, looking at his face that still has life but won’t soon.

The buzzer sounds. Chelsea, Isaac, and Nadine are here. Jason runs from the table and opens the door to let them in, and Isaac does what he does every single time he sees my brother. They stand back to back, and Isaac says, “Man, J—you almost as tall as me!”

Jason is an ocean of giggles.

Mom and Dad come from the kitchen to give hugs to everyone. “You all are just in time,” Mom says. “I’m about to set everything on the table. Honey, can you get the crab crackers?” she says to Dad on her way back to the kitchen. He follows her, walking slow, but he doesn’t make it to the kitchen. He pulls a chair from the dining room table and sits down. He catches me watching and forces a smile. He silently mouths, “I’m okay,” but we both know he’s not. I go to the kitchen, get the crab crackers and extra napkins.

We all gather around the table to have our Friday night feast. The first five minutes there isn’t much talking, just the sound of shells cracking and mouths slurping. Then Nadine blurts out, “Oh, I missed this!”

Leave it to Nadine to state exactly how she feels. She’s always admitted when she’s sad or angry or jealous. One time, in middle school, when Chelsea and I were debating if we were going to a slumber party or not, Nadine said so matter-of-fact, “I’m not going. I don’t like hanging out with those girls.” I remember thinking that I’d never just say that. I’d make up a reason why I couldn’t go or cancel at the last minute saying I was sick . . . ​but not Nadine. She’s always been honest about her feelings and truthful about what she wants.

Dad says, “I missed you all too.” He wipes his hands on a napkin. “And I hope you all don’t think that just because I’m missing in action means you can stop with our Brown Art Challenge.”

“I got you, Mr. Gray,” Isaac says.

“What do you mean by that?” Nadine asks.

“I mean, I’ve been going out and learning about artists of color.”

Nadine looks suspicious. “Where’s your proof?”

“In my sketchbook,” Isaac says. “You already know.” Isaac gets up from the table and gets his sketchbook out of his backpack. He hands it to me first. I open it and scoot closer to Dad so he can see too.

After we all ooh and aah over Isaac’s drawings, Chelsea says, “One of the bonus places I went to was the Bronx Documentary Center. I wrote a poem based on their exhibit Spanish Harlem: El Barrio in the ’80’s by Joseph Rodriguez. It’s not finished yet. But I’m working on it.”

“I’d love to hear it when you’re finished,” Dad says as he leaves the table, kissing me and Jason on our foreheads and Mom on her lips. “You all enjoy the rest of the night. I’m going to go rest.” Dad goes back to his room, and I see worry spread all over Mom’s face. Worry and sadness.

“We’ll clean up, Mrs. Gray,” Chelsea says. “Thanks for having us over.”

Mom joins Dad in their bedroom.

Jason washes his hands and runs back to his video game in the living room. “Want to play with me, Isaac?”

“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.”

“Damn.” James leans back in his chair. “Why you and Chelsea always gotta be so deep?”

“What’s deep about me saying I’m a black girl who likes theater and who cares about our world?”

James doesn’t have time to answer—not that he’d have an answer—because Mrs. Curtis calls our attention back to her and says, “I want you to look at each other’s lists and tell one another what you notice,” she says. Then she adds, “And no judgments, just noticings.”

We swap lists. I go first this time. “I notice that you didn’t describe your ethnicity or gender,” I say.

He jumps in with, “I notice that you did. You definitely did.”

“No judging,” I remind him.

“I’m not. I’m noticing that you almost always bring up race and gender no matter what the topic is.”

“Well, the topic is to describe myself. So I did.”

James says, “If our yearbook has a category for Most Likely to Start a Revolution, you and Chelsea will be tied.”

I start laughing.

“What’s so funny?” James asks.

“Oh, nothing. I’m just noticing how you keep mentioning Chelsea. Any chance you get, you bring her up.”

Mrs. Curtis stands and calls our attention back to her. “Okay, so how many of you used adjectives that describe your personality?”

Hands go up.

Mrs. Curtis calls on a few students and writes their words on the board: loyal, funny, generous. Then she asks, “Anyone use words that spoke to a talent you have?”

More hands go up.

She writes athletic, musician, poet, singer on the board.

Then she asks if any of us wrote down words that describe our ethnicity. Not as many hands go up, and the ones that do are all people of color.

Mrs. Curtis puts the cap on the dry-erase marker, sets it down, and sits back in the circle. She gives us another handout. The top says “Science’s Role in the Social Construction of Race.” Mrs. Curtis says, “Even though race—especially in North America—is how humans get categorized, even though it’s what divided our country and sometimes still does, race is a social construct. It’s really true that on the inside we’re not that different, and in this unit we’re going to talk about that.”

When the bell rings, James and I walk out together. He says to me, “I wasn’t talking about Chelsea a lot.”

“And there you go again,” I say.

James laughs. “Okay, you’ve got a point.”

“I get it. She’s an awesome, smart, beautiful person. What’s not to love?”

“Love? Whoa—who said anything about love? Anyway, I’m with Meg.”

“What? Since when?”

“Last week.”

I hope Chelsea meant it when she said she doesn’t like James.