Grant looked toward her.
“You verified him?”
“He is in the yearbook.”
“Good.”
“I have his full interview recorded.”
“Better.”
Jasmine waited.
“What now?”
Grant smiled.
“You tell me.”
“I am asking the teacher.”
“And I am teaching.”
She rolled her eyes.
Grant suggested she bring the records to the anniversary committee.
Not as an accusation.
As material.
The committee included teachers, students, alumni, administrators, and community members.
Principal Thomas Baines chaired it.
Baines was fifty-one, white, polished, careful, and known for speaking in sentences so balanced they occasionally seemed designed by a committee.
He examined the documents.
“This is significant.”
Jasmine had expected resistance.
“Really?”
Baines looked up.
“Why are you surprised?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Jasmine smiled slightly.
Baines continued.
“We cannot verify every detail from one surviving witness.”
“I know.”
“But we can state what the documents show.”
He placed Walter’s statement beside the official report.
“They show competing accounts.”
“And one disappeared.”
“Yes.”
That was better than Jasmine expected.
Baines asked district counsel how historical records should be displayed.
The anniversary committee voted to expand the integration section.
No dramatic fight.
No cover-up.
That should have ended the old story.
Instead, Connor learned about it.
His reaction arrived at lunch.
“Seriously?”
Jasmine looked up.
Connor stood across from her table.
“What?”
“You’re digging up stuff about my grandfather?”
Leah looked toward Jasmine.
Jasmine set down her fork.
“I’m helping with the anniversary exhibit.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“What did you hear?”
“You’re telling people my grandfather was racist.”
“I have never said that.”
Connor laughed.
“Right.”
Jasmine opened her backpack.
Leah touched her wrist.
“Don’t.”
Jasmine stopped.
Connor noticed.
“What, you got your little evidence binder?”
“No.”
“Of course you do.”
He looked toward his friends.
“She has been waiting fifty years to be offended.”
Jasmine stared.
“My grandfather was the one it happened to.”
Connor’s smile faltered.
For maybe half a second.
Then returned.
“According to one guy.”
“And the photograph.”
“So they had a fight.”
“Your grandfather pushed his face into food first.”
“You don’t know what happened before that.”
“That is literally what I’m trying to find out.”
Connor leaned closer.
“No.”
He lowered his voice.
“You’re trying to turn some cafeteria fight into a race thing because that’s what people like you do.”
Leah stood.
“Okay.”
Jasmine raised one hand.
“Sit.”
Leah stared at her.
“Seriously?”
“I’m fine.”
Connor smiled.
“There she goes.”
Jasmine looked at him.
“What does people like me mean?”
“You know.”
“No.”
The same phrase again.