Chelsea, dinner’s ready,” Mia shouts down the hall. “Mom made your favorite—spaghetti and meatballs. You’re so spoiled,” she continues as I walk into the kitchen, which is only about five steps from my bedroom, so I have no idea why she’s even shouting.
“Well, at least that’s one thing that’s going in my favor,” I reply, and slide into my seat at the front of the table, which is right next to the oven and an arm’s-length away from the fridge, so I could basically fry an egg and pour myself a glass of milk all at the same time. Our apartment is on the small side, and when something happens to one of us, everyone seems to know.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” my mom says, shoving me to the side to pull a loaf of garlic bread out of the oven.
“Why does everyone keep saying that? It’s like women aren’t allowed to have any emotions,” I say. My mother closes her eyes and looks like she’s trying to meditate, something she does a lot lately.
“Chelsea, not everyone is out to get you,” she says, opening her eyes and starting to serve everyone.
“Principal Hayes is trying to shut us down, Mom. Completely and totally shut us down. Do you understand that?” I ask.
“Shut who down?” my father asks, closing the door behind him and slipping his shoes to the side. He’s clearly sweating as he takes his jacket off. He throws his satchel, full of student papers, into the closet. He’s a professor of education at City College, and this time of year is rough with grading lesson plans and helping students get better at teaching. “Jesus, it still feels like Indian summer out there. How’s that even possible at the beginning of November?”
Mia and I give each other a look. “Dad, you can’t say Indian summer.”
He moves past us to wash his hands, while giving my mom a kiss. It would be pretty idyllic if only the principal of our school wasn’t trying to silence the voices of women, and my dad didn’t just walk in the house spewing some old-fashioned, racist term.
“According to our People’s History class, there’re a bunch of terms and sayings that have super-racist origins. Like, the etymology of Indian summer was based on the idea that Indians were deceitful—as in—as crazy as summer in November. So even though you think it might be harmless, you just made a statement based on a historically stereotypical and racist statement,” Mia says, leaning back in her chair and smiling at me.
“Well said,” I say, already looking forward to taking that class my senior year. “You could just say, ‘Jesus, it feels like global warming out there,’ and then you’d really seem like you were socially conscious.”
“And it would also make you seem like you know a thing or two about science,” Mia adds. I love when she gets all social justice-y. “You two are the ones who sent us to the revolutionary high school.”
“I stand corrected and will officially never use that term again. Can I blame my stupidity on being old?” he asks. We shake our heads.
“Excuse me, could we refrain from saying Jesus in that way? Please,” my mom adds, glaring for a moment at my dad.
Jesus, I say in my mind, but I stop myself from rolling my eyes. “By the way, I wouldn’t say our school is so revolutionary,” I add, “especially since the school, or should I say the principal, decided that our women’s rights blog was too derogatory and was inciting incidents of unrest.”
“Incidents of unrest?” my father asks. “What do you mean?”
“She means that they’ve been writing some awesome poems and posts about women’s rights, racist teachers, and the basic takedown of systems of oppression. And truthfully, some people, no matter how woke—and I hate that term—”
“Right? I mean, I feel like if you say, ‘I’m so woke,’ it’s sort of like saying the opposite. Like I’m so with it and in the know, and whatever,” I add.
“They think they are, but they’re really just same old, same old. They can’t get with the system, and they definitely can’t get with it when a woman is behind it,” Mia finishes.
“Can we please pray before we eat,” my mother asks, clearly annoyed. “While I appreciate you all sharing your days with us, I’d like to eat, myself. It has been a long day for me.” My mom is a social worker, and it seems like all her days are full of other people’s problems, so when it gets to us, she’s already had enough. “Our Father, who art in heaven,” she begins, and she ends by asking God to watch over us and guide us in the right directions in the weeks to come.
I try not to say anything, I really do. I know my mom was raised super Catholic, and that she truly believes a healthy dose of Jesus (coupled heavily with guilt) in our lives is beneficial and makes perfect sense, I just don’t know if I can get behind it. It’s not that I don’t believe there’s some type of higher being, but I just don’t know who or what that higher being is, and besides, I’m so fed up with everything and everyone that I can’t take it anymore.
“Mom, what if God’s a woman?” I ask, piling my plate high with meatballs.
My father eyes me from across the table. “Don’t start, Chelsea,” he says. Mia nudges me. She’s heard this conversation before, and it never ends well.
“It’s completely fine if your God is a woman, Chels. Pass the spaghetti, please.”
She’s not gonna fight with me, so I try again. “But I mean, why does your God have to always be a man? If God is a spirit, then why can’t that spirit be embodied by a woman? And since a woman is the one that gives life, and not the father, which is what the Bible always tries to make us believe, then I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t say, ‘Our Mother, who art in heaven,’ especially since you’re a woman, and . . .”
“Enough,” my mother shouts, slamming her water glass on the table. “I understand you’re upset about your little club, but you do not have the right to pick a fight with all of us tonight.”
“My little club? It’s not a little club. It’s the Hotbed of Cultural Women’s Issues—the Nerve Center of the World, the Command Post of Politics Pertaining to the Pussy,” I shout. I can see my father trying not to smile, and it makes me even angrier. “I know you all think it’s some little joke that Jasmine and I are running, but it’s not. It’s a big deal, and it means something to us.”
“Chelsea, I hear you, but you can’t just go around starting fires, you can’t act like a child every time . . .”
“A child? I’m not acting like a child, Mom. Have you read any of our posts? Do you even know what we’re fighting for? It’s the same issues you couldn’t get over, because you were so obsessed with beauty and looking a certain way, and you ended up putting that on me, so that even when I was trying to not care about being pretty—because that’s what you told me to do—it’s all I could ever think about.”
“Don’t start this again, Chelsea,” my father chimes in, adding nothing else to the conversation.
“And you,” I motion to my dad, standing up now. “You’re both so concerned with us speaking our voices and standing up against injustices, but now, now that I’m really doing it, you’re telling me I’m acting like a child. Well, I’m just getting started. And we’re not going away,” I finish. I stab another meatball with my fork and shove it into my mouth before I head to my room. I figure the kitchen will be closed after the way I’ve acted tonight, and I don’t wanna have to run into my mom or dad again. I slam my door and start on a new poem.
Grown Up
No frilly dresses
or shoes that pinch. No candy,
lemonade, cartoons.
See me grown—my own
attitudes, opinions, thoughts
all mine, don’t disturb.
Who you think I am?
The woman I’m becoming
I’m already her.
Yes, adult enough
running up against 18
won’t you see the whole
me, a history
I’m crafting in front of you.
Writing down my dreams.
directions for who I am
free out in the world.
