by Renée Watson
“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.
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s go! I want to see you push yourselves to the limit here,” Coach Williams yells in our general direction. I say that, because we are all scattered around the sweaty gym floor. It smells like a combination of BO and hairspray, and every time I breathe too deeply, I gag.
“Why would he want us to push ourselves to the limit? I don’t even know what that means,” I whisper to Nadine, who was forced to switch from band class to gym, since she’d already taken all her music credits. She was totally pissed, but it’s currently making my life much easier, since I have someone to talk to when my obsession over James becomes too much for one woman to handle. I’m beginning to think that I am too much to handle, and besides the fact that he looks good and knows that we’re in the same class, I have no real reason to even like him—I guess lately, it’s giving me something to take my mind off missing poetry club, or clubs in general.
What I definitely don’t miss is Jacob Rizer. Every time he sees me in the hallway, he asks me if I miss him, and the other day he called out: “You’ll be back.” No, I won’t. After I quit, Ms. Hawkins told me that I had until the middle of October to choose a different club, and that it would have to be approved by her. She also let me know how disappointed she was, and how much she’d miss my “spunky personality.” She actually said those words, which confirmed that Ms. Hawkins doesn’t really know me at all, and made me feel way better about quitting. That is, until I realized I had nothing to do after school. So I’ve mostly been hanging out at Word Up and writing in my journal. It’s like my thoughts and ideas have nowhere to go, and no one to listen to them.
“Just lean forward and pretend you’re stretching your hamstrings,” Nadine whispers back, actually stretching her impossibly long limbs toward me. She is wearing workout clothes, the kind that make you look both athletic and cute, and she definitely looks both.
“Gym is the worst,” I say.
“Get ready for the best afternoon of your lives,” Coach Williams shouts. He’s always speaking in exclamation marks. “We are becoming road warriors this afternoon and turning our cross-country running into cross-city running. We’re gonna be taking over Washington Heights today! So I need you all to get laced up and get ready to take to the streets.”
“What? No!” I say, a little too loud. A few people look over in my direction.
“Spencer, you can do this! Here’s the plan. You each have a partner and a route you’ll need to take. This is part workout and part exploration. You will go on an easy two-mile run—each of you will have different paths, some with hills, some with parks, some around the block. It’s your job to run fifteen-minute miles and take note of the things you see and hear. It’s about creating a rela
tionship with your city and using it as a place to make your body healthy and strong. Are you all with me?” Coach Williams asks.
A few people mumble yes, and a couple of kids on the track team high-five each other. I’m mostly panicked about the concept of running, and especially with some jock who believes that running on city concrete is the best idea on the planet.
“I’ve partnered you all up, and the list is right here.” He unfolds a giant piece of chart paper. “Check to see who you’ll be running with and where, and I expect to see you all back here at 3:05 p.m. so we can debrief and pack up for the day. All good?” He gives a thumbs-up and posts the chart paper. I find my name near the top and see “James B.” next to mine.
“Who’s James B.?” I ask Nadine, looking around the room. I’m sure I’m paired with a freshman who will likely run circles around me.
“James Bradford,” Nadine says, looking at me wide-eyed. “Your lover.” She smiles. We both look in his direction. He’s stretching and hasn’t looked up at the paper yet. Maybe I can still change it.
“Shut up. I don’t even like him.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Nadine says.
“I can’t run with James Bradford. I’ll puke before we even get out the door.”
“Chelsea, you’ll be fine. It’s no big deal,” Nadine says, trying to soothe my panic.
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re on the soccer team. You actually go running for pleasure. I only wanna run if I’m auditioning for a horror film,” I say, trying to do a self-check of how I look. I’m wearing my old, beat-up tennis shoes and a T-shirt that says: Virginia is for Lovers. I thought it was really cool when I got it at the Goodwill, but now I’m not so sure.
“You’ll be fine. Just keep a steady pace and don’t say anything weird,” Nadine says, patting my back like I’m a toddler.
“Are you serious? All I ever say is weird stuff. Crap, he’s coming over.”
“Good luck. Break a leg,” Nadine says.
“What? You only say that in the theater . . . before a show . . . not before a run. If you say break a leg before a run, then someone could actually . . . oh hi,” I say, looking up toward James.
“Let’s do it,” he says, holding up the route Coach Williams handed out.
Do you know how many times I have dreamed of James Bradford saying let’s do it to me? Or even how many times I have imagined doing it with James Bradford? Not that I have any real context, since I’ve only ever been to third base with a boy, and it was on summer vacation with a dude I met at a teen dance party. We made out on the beach. This is totally not the same thing, and in that case, I never saw the guy again.
“These will be your partners and your routes for the next month, so get used to them,” Coach Williams says as if he’s reading my mind. Great, I think.
“So look,” James says, leaning down toward me. “We gotta head down Broadway to get to Columbia Presbyterian, and then cross over to Amsterdam and take that up past Highbridge and Quisqueya Park.” He looks at the route closer. “There’s a dude that sells coco helado right outside the park. That should prolly be our last stop.”
“A coco helado after a two-mile run.” I’m liking the fact we’ll be running partners more and more.
“It’s about balance, you know? Also, go easy on me, ’cause I sprained my ankle this summer, and I gotta take it slow before basketball starts. Hope that’s cool.”
Did he just ask me if I was okay with us running slow? Amazing. “Yeah, yeah, that’s no problem. I mean, I’ll have to slow way down, but I can do it.” I smile.
We head out the front door and start to jog toward Broadway. We pass the Bon Bon bakery that smells like pastelitos and fresh juice and then the dollar store, loaded with baby clothes, kitchen utensils, and home furniture in the windows. The fruit stand on the corner is overflowing with avocados and papayas, most of them sliced straight through the middle to show their freshness. We pass the Mister Softee truck and little kids already out of school or daycare. They’re holding cones piled high with chocolate sprinkles and SpongeBob ice cream bars with bubble gum eyes. I take it all in. We run past the Hot Looks store, where all the mannequins have hourglass figures and massive breasts, and I unknowingly let out a huge sigh.
“You okay?” James asks.
“Yeah, it’s just so annoying every time I pass Hot Looks. Also, why is it called Hot Looks? It’s so weird.” He looks up, and we both pause to catch our breath, eye to eye with the super-curvy mannequins.
“They’re hot,” James says, and starts to laugh. I punch him in the arm. “What?”
“Okay, fine. They are stereotypically hot. They’re like the male fantasy.”
“Which is hot,” he replies.
“Which is manufactured,” I say. “It’s absurd to think that all women should look or even want to look like that. It’s fake. It’s like some bottled, plastic version of women, and it’s all on display. It’s like this constant message telling us how we should look and dress and be in the world.”
“But no one expects y’all to look like that. It’s just . . . it’s . . .”
“It’s just wrong,” I say, looking around for more examples. I see them right away when I glance at the magazine stand. “Look at this.” He follows behind me, and I can smell him, a mix of cologne and sweat. Why does he have to smell so good? How does his sweat even smell good? “Cosmopolitan magazine. This is a magazine for women. For women,” I stress, “and look at what the cover says: ‘10 Things Guys Crave in Bed,’ and ‘Inhaled the Whole Pizza?—How to Not Gain Pounds After a Pig-Out.’ I mean, what is that? And all these magazines are supposed to be created FOR WOMEN.”
“Just looks like sound advice to me,” James says, and starts to laugh.
I give him a look.
“No, I’m just messing with you. ‘40 Girlie Moves That Make Guys Melt,’ ” he reads out loud, “ ‘The New Feminism: Would You Go Topless to Get a Pay Raise,’ ‘Mind Tricks That Melt Pounds.’ Is that real? What does that even mean?”
“What does any of it mean? It’s all about getting super skinny, or lean, working out, and then doing whatever it takes to please men. It’s a setup! And Cosmo is not the only magazine trying to get into our heads.” We scan the others. Most of them have super-skinny white women on the cover with some type of headline that suggests that women aren’t enough. “I mean, how about some covers that read: ‘Food Is Delicious—Ways to Love It’—or oh, oh, ‘Ways to Have a Healthy Relationship with Cheeseburgers,’ or ‘Your Body = Perfection,’ or ‘Sex—The Way YOU Like It.’ ” I pause. I can’t believe I said that last one out loud.
James smiles. “Those are good lines.”
“Yeah, they are,” I say, feeling confident. “Maybe I just need to start my own magazine, or club, or whatever, because this is the kind of stuff I really wanna be talking about—the kinds of issues that are the most important—to me, at least,” I say, and I start to really think about it. Maybe other girls are feeling the same way as me and hate getting all the mixed messages from the media. Maybe I need to figure out a way to be talking about these issues more, and create a space where learning and talking about women is normal and doesn’t get shut down right away.
“I’d read it,” James says. “And maybe you can make one for guys too.”
“What? It’s totally not the same for guys. You all get all the positive messages—you’re always celebrated and . . .”
“What? No, the same is totally true for men. You’re just not looking out for it.” He leans over his legs to catch his breath. “Come on, I’ll show you.” He runs ahead of me to 175th Street. We weave between people, dodging bicycles, babies in strollers, and old folks taking their sweet time. I smell coffee brewing at Floridita and pass the elderly man who sits in a wheelchair outside the restaurant wearing an old captain’s outfit. He salutes me, same as he does every morning on my way to school. The city feels alive to me in a new way this afternoon, and I can’t tell if i
t’s because I’m running with my crush, or if it’s because my heart feels like it’s beating somewhere else outside my chest.
“Here,” James says, pointing to the window of the Vitamin Shoppe. “Check this guy out,” he says, looking up. “Six-pack abs, insane muscles—I mean, you gotta work for that.”
“And maybe take steroids, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, or spend all your time in the gym. All I’m saying is that it’s the same thing for guys. We got that pressure too.” I give him another look. “Okay, maybe it’s not exactly the same.” We look in the window at the cover of a Men’s Health magazine. It reads: “6 Moves for Six-Pack Abs” and “Make Good Sex Great.” “I mean, that’s a lot.” He looks at me, glances at his watch. “Come on, we gotta go if we’re gonna get back on time. So just, ya know, think about it—writing some stuff for us.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll think about it,” I say, pushing past him to take the lead. We run down Broadway all the way to 170th Street, then take a detour to J. Hood Wright Park to look at the GW Bridge on the first landing. We decide that as long as we get back by 3:05, then it doesn’t really matter where we go. The bridge looks massive from our landing, and the Hudson rough and wild below. We talk about our classes—the ones that we actually like, and the ones we’re just suffering through. We both agree that calculus can suck it. And we talk about the neighborhood and how we both landed in it.
“I love the Heights. Can’t imagine growing up anywhere else,” James starts. We’re on the way back to school on Amsterdam Avenue, having crossed over for the famous coco helado. “It’s home. My grandfather came here from the Dominican Republic, and just stayed. He was a mechanic, and he made enough to send my dad to college and business school, so when my dad made enough money, he bought the shop, and now he runs it. It’s home,” he says again.
“What about your mom? What does she do?” I ask.
“She’s an artist—sculpture mostly and some painting. And she lives upstate—Hudson Valley. My folks aren’t together anymore—I’m their only one, so I live with my dad during the week and try to spend weekends with my mom.”
