One week later, I am sitting on a blanket in Pine Hill Park with Delia listening to the iconic score for Episode IV—A New Hope, eating cider donuts, sweating profusely, and hating the current reality that is eighty-two degrees in early October. In Massachusetts! So much for a Harvest Festival. I am born for sweater weather, but every year it feels like my favorite season gets shorter and shorter. Next week, the switch could flip and out will come the full parka.

Global warming. I wrote a whole play about it.

I wipe upper lip sweat with the back of my hand and check my phone for the time.

Two hours left of this family obligation. Then I am free. HAVE A HE(ART) is having a final dress rehearsal at Henry’s house later tonight. The school committee meeting is two days away. We’re ready. Our proposal is a low-budget compromise, our spin being HAVE A HE(ART) will give the illusion that the school committee cares about preserving the arts.

Have you considered the optics? The imminent backlash? Really, we’re doing you a favor!

HAVE A HE(ART) will be taken seriously. It has to be.

Because every arts club in the school is taking a chance on HAVE A HE(ART).

On me.

“Where is Hannah?” I ask.

“Not coming,” Delia says, plucking a cider donut from the paper bag between us. “It’s Monica G.’s birthday. Her parents rented out the entire roller rink downtown.”

Ah. “I’m sorry, Dee.”

She shrugs. “I’m over it. At lunch yesterday, The Monicas called my Captain Marvel jacket ‘basic’—and it hit me. On top of brushing off constant microaggressions… we have nothing in common, The Monicas and me. So it’s, like, why do I even try?”

“Doesn’t Hannah have the same jacket?”

Delia stands and crumples the empty paper bag. “It doesn’t matter. Hannah becomes a different person around The Monicas. Like with me, her favorite movie is Tangled. But with The Monicas? It’s Hereditary.”

“But Hannah hates scary movies.”

Delia shoots her trash into the nearest recycling bin, basketball layup style. “Exactly.”

Then Delia makes her way toward the main stage to join Mom, leaving me alone on my blanket. Anyone can come to the Harvest Festival to enjoy the music, but for a donation to the band program, folks can get a luxurious metal folding chair close to the stage. As always, Michelle Jacobson sits in the front row, her tripod set up in the aisle—which is cute and cringe and on brand. As tense as the energy can get between my parents in the lead-up to the Harvest Festival, at the end of the day Mom is always Dad’s biggest fan.