Jasmine disliked the answer.
Not because it was false.
Because it closed the conversation too easily.
“What fight?”
Renee looked toward Derrick.
He had been quietly slicing chicken at the counter.
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I married into this mystery.”
Renee sat.
“When my father was seventeen, there was some kind of cafeteria incident.”
“Some kind?”
“That is honestly what I know.”
“Did he get hurt?”
“I don’t think seriously.”
“Was he suspended?”
Renee paused.
“That part I remember.”
“How long?”
“Maybe two weeks.”
“For what?”
“Fighting.”
Jasmine opened the photograph again.
“Did he start it?”
Renee looked at the image.
“I never asked.”
The same question from Walter Bennett’s subject line seemed to enter the room.
Your grandfather didn’t start that fight.
Renee exhaled.
“Jasmine.”
“What?”
“Do not turn this into something before you know what it is.”
“I’m not.”
“You have that face.”
“What face?”
“The same one your grandfather made before he spent three days fixing something nobody asked him to fix.”
Derrick pointed the knife toward Jasmine.
“She does.”
Jasmine ignored him.
She replied to Walter Bennett.
Can we talk?
He answered eleven minutes later.
Yes.
The first time Connor Whitmore made a racial joke about Jasmine, he did it softly enough to pretend it was not one.
It happened three days after Walter’s email.
Senior lunch.
Jasmine stood near the cafeteria condiment station waiting for Leah when Connor walked past with two football teammates.
Connor was eighteen, white, six-foot-two, broad enough to make standard school desks look undersized, with dark hair cut short and the confidence of somebody who had known most of the school’s coaches since childhood. He played defensive line, wore a silver chain outside his shirts, and alternated between Jefferson Ridge football gear and black hoodies.
His family name appeared everywhere.
Whitmore Athletic Pavilion.
Whitmore Family Training Center.
Whitmore Community Field Initiative.
His father, Richard Whitmore, owned several construction companies and chaired the Jefferson Ridge Athletics Foundation.
His grandfather, Michael Whitmore, had played football at Jefferson Ridge during the early 1970s before becoming a successful commercial developer.
Connor had grown up attending games where adults shook his hand because they knew his father.
That did not automatically make him cruel.
For most of high school, Jasmine barely noticed him.
They shared one sophomore math class.
Nothing memorable happened.
Senior year changed that.
Connor reached for ketchup beside her.
Jasmine moved.
He looked at her tray.
Beans.
Rice.
Chicken.
Then smiled.
“School finally serving something your people like?”
One teammate laughed.
The other did not.
Jasmine turned.
“What people?”
Connor looked surprised she heard.
“You know.”
“No.”
“Relax.”
“That is not an answer.”
He squeezed ketchup onto fries.
“It was a joke.”
“What was the funny part?”
Connor laughed.
“You really want me to explain a joke?”
“I want to know which people.”
His smile thinned.
“You are making it weird.”
Jasmine nodded.
“Then it should be easy to make normal.”
Leah arrived.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Connor said.
He walked away.
Jasmine watched him.
Leah looked at her.
“What?”
“Apparently lunch is racial now.”
Leah sighed.
“It is September.”
“I know.”
“We have eight months.”