“I’m not going to ask if you’re okay, by the way. I mean, it’s cool if you’re not okay is what I’m saying. It’s not okay. . .what Tanner said. I mean he’s going to say it again, but I feel like, yeah, it’s worth always saying that it’s not okay.”

“He say it to you, ever?” I asked.

Berry pulled up the edge of her overalls with her thumb and forefinger. “Obv.”

“Right. Okay. That sucks.” I took a deep breath.

“I should have mentioned the element of small-town homophobia on top of the racism,” Berry said as we walked our trays to an empty table.

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t heard it before. It’s not just small towns, BTW.”

“Wait, really?” Berry raised her eyebrows, highlighting a spatter of neon-orange paint on her eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I said.

Berry looked at the apple in her hand. “People are homophobic in Califor nia?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure there are people who are horrible in every city. I mean in some bigger cities I think it’s just not, like, as accepted. Or obvious? But it does happen.”

Berry blinked, shook.

“But I’m not, like, an expert or anything,” I added.

People having an issue with LGBTQIA people, or BIPOC people, wasn’t new. It just sucked. Consistently. I’d spent a lot of time as a kid with my moms advocating for their existence to teachers who sent me home with “draw your family tree” exercises that were tricky for me as someone who was both adopted and had two moms.

“Tell them we’re not a tree. We’re a garden,” Millie said.

Actually one of the reasons Lucy went into education was stuff like that. Like curriculum and how it normalizes stuff. Lucy came up with this whole exercise she taught to teachers in schools all over the place. So we could all be gardens.

But maybe not in Greenville. On this particular day.

Berry artfully changed the subject to what movies I had and hadn’t seen, and we were knee-deep in a debate about whether or not animation is better than live action (it’s not) when I heard Tanner’s voice rise up into the air like a flock of angry seagulls.

“Hey, NEW GIRL!!!”

I put my drink down on the table.

“NEW GIRL! DYKE!”

“Anne,” Berry said quietly.

I was already up and walking before I realized it.

Tanner and his crew of Forevers were sitting at a picnic table a few feet away. It was clearly the good table. Half shaded by tree, half in the sun, the full buffet of teen snacks spread out for those in attendance to enjoy. Tanner was spinning his soccer ball on the table, which to me seemed doubly rude, not that his friends seemed to care.