“Look, when white folks leave the house, they make sure that things are the way they should be. They check to see if they got their house keys, if they turned off all the lights, and once outside, they check the gauge on the gas tank. Do they have enough to take them to work and get them back home, or do they need to stop at the gas station?

“We do the same things, except we have an extra step. We gotta stand in front of the mirror and ask ourselves one very important question: What is my white-people tolerance level today?”

“I guess I didn’t today. If I had, I’d have stayed home,” I admit.

She goes over to the stove and pours a white powder into the boiling water. It soon makes a sticky white paste. Mrs. Wright fixes me a plate of fufu and fish sauce. I wasn’t going to eat, but she insists, and the smell of all the spices makes my mouth water.

“You think I’ll get in trouble?” I ask before taking my first bite.

“With everything going on, no one can blame you for going crazy. But it’s not a place we can afford to live in. You hear me? Get your mind right.”

“Can I ask you about . . . this whole Star Trek thing? How long have you been into it?”

She puts her spoon down and surveys her collection on the display wall. “I wasn’t, before. But my niece, Melody, was really into it. I raised her when my sister got sick. She loved everything to do with Star Trek. When she got pregnant, she actually had me make onesies with Spock’s face on them. I used to tease her about it.”

“Did you find out what she liked about it?”

“No, I only know why I like Star Trek—because in all seventy-nine original episodes, never once did a life-form refer to us as sassy.”

“Where’s your niece, at work?”

Mrs. Wright’s face falls and she looks away. “Mel is gone. She died in childbirth. She was always saying that no one listened to her at her property management job, and she fought like hell to be heard. Turns out, they don’t hear Black women in the medical profession either. She tried to tell them that something was wrong. She was in pain and they didn’t believe her. By the time I raised enough hell . . .”

“I’m so sorry.”