作者： chenchen

Musical theater is, at its best, exhilarating and immersive. The catchy tunes, dynamic choreography and live environment form an experience that cannot be replicated anywhere else. No wonder film adaptations of musicals frequently fall flat.

“West Side Story” provides an interesting exception to the rule. The musical and its 1961 film adaptation are both notorious for their inauthentic depictions of Puerto Ricans, but they remain cultural touchstones. In an age of remakes, another adaptation of a semi-problematic work could very easily fall flat.

This one, thankfully, does not.

Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner made several wise adjustments, like casting Latinx actors as Latinx characters and adding dialogue that mixes English and unsubtitled Spanish. These changes do not erase the original’s issues, but they do help reimagine “West Side Story” for a new era.

The famous score from Leonard Bernstein and the recently-passed Stephen Sondheim remains, and the Shakespeare-inspired premise still revolves around two star-crossed lovers (the white Tony and the Puerto Rican Maria) associated with rival gangs (the Jets and the Sharks, respectively) in 1950s Manhattan. While Ansel Elgort is merely serviceable as Tony, newcomer Rachel Zegler is graceful in Maria’s softer scenes and achingly vulnerable amid her heartbreaks. The supporting performers, many of whom are Broadway veterans, are all commanding presences: Mike Faist and David Alvarez bring edge as Riff and Bernardo (the leaders of the Jets and Sharks, respectively), and Ariana DeBose’s lively portrayal of Bernardo’s girlfriend, Anita, lives up to Rita Moreno’s Oscar-winning performance in the same role.

Spielberg combines these performances with Janusz Kaminski’s arresting cinematography and Justin Peck’s sharp choreography to create musical sequences that are in themselves exhilarating and immersive, especially when viewed in a big theater. Some numbers, like the vibrant “America,” could have come from a classic Technicolor extravaganza; others, like the toe-tapping “Cool,” are inventive in using their environments, be they platforms hanging over the water or displays in a department store. One reprise of “Tonight” encapsulates this film’s strengths, using overlapping voices and quick cuts to crescendo both musically and emotionally in the buildup to a climactic fight.

In Spielberg’s hands, “West Side Story” is both a glorious throwback and a grittier update. It’s also a poignant tribute to the living legend Rita Moreno and the late legend Stephen Sondheim. Fittingly, Moreno appears as a wise mentor, bridging the gap between past and present in a film that purports to bridge the gap between stage and screen. She even gets one of the show’s most iconic (and heartbreaking) numbers, singing, “There’s a place for us / Somewhere, a place for us.”

There is, indeed, a place for another “West Side Story”: right here.

Maeva Andriamanamihaja, age 16, Battlefield High School, Haymarket, Va. : “‘Only Murders in the Building’: An Ingeniously Comedic Take on True Crime Podcasting”

Carolyn Considine, age 17, Acalanes Center for Independent Study, Walnut Creek, Calif.: “This Cookie Will Crumbl”

Edward Simon Cruz, age 16, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, Plainsboro, N.J. : “Tonight, Tonight, ‘West Side Story’ Is Full of Light”

Yiyun Hu, age 16, Shanghai Qibao Dwight High School, Shanghai: “Gunpowder: A Symbol of Violence or a Beautiful Ritual for Humankind?”

Colin Kim, age 16, Groton School, Groton, Mass.: “A Little Island With a Not-So-Little Ego”

Brian Li, age 17, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, Plainsboro, N.J.: “‘The Melodic Blue’: The Absurd Hues of Baby Keem”

Tina Mai, age 16, St. Margaret’s Episcopal School, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.: “‘Dickinson’: Drunk on Imagination and Unapologetically Feminist”

Jacob Mulliken, age 16, Milton Academy, Milton, Mass.: “‘Entangled’ Trades Activism for Honesty”

Salma Reda, age 16, Jumeirah College, Dubai: “‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’: Ottessa Moshfegh Reckons with Privilege, Beauty, and Ambien”

亚军

Ananya Balaji, age 15, American High School, Fremont, Calif.: “Why Women Can Win: Netflix’s ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’”

Carson Crays, age 16, Carroll Senior High School, Southlake, Texas: “‘Squid Game’: An Exciting Storyline With a Mediocre Ending”

Aryav Desai, age 16, Crystal Springs Uplands School, Hillsborough, Calif.: “‘Bo Burnham: Inside’: No One Laughing in the Background”

Eric: “Blonde: A Modern Masterpiece”

Michael Gan, age 15, Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong, Shanghai: “Ruishilou: Beauty Born Out of Necessity”

Siya Gupta, age 15, Herricks High School, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: “Requiem for a Still Needed Dream”

Momo Horii, age 16, American School in Japan, Tokyo: “Losing Your Voice Through Grammarly”

Sonja Jugo, age 16, Sunset High School, Portland, Ore.: “‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’”: Trope or Trailblazer?”

Yaejoon (Jay) Jung, age 14, North London Collegiate School Jeju, Seogwipo, South Korea: “There Are Bad Shoes and Terrible Shoes. Then You Have the Kobe 4 Protro”

Justin Khim, age 16, Great Neck South High School, Great Neck, N.Y.: “Goodbye, Graphite!”

Angela Ya Xin Lu, age 16, University Hill Secondary School, Vancouver, British Columbia: “‘Never Have I Ever’ … Actually, Yes. I Have.”

Malini Sampath, age 16, Carroll Senior High School, Southlake, Texas: “A Window Into Another World”

Lakshmi Sunder, age 16, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston: “‘The Jasmine Throne’ by Tasha Suri Changed My Perception of What an Indian Woman Can Be”

Zi Wang, age 17, Shanghai Qibao Dwight High School, Shanghai: “‘Blüht und Lügt’: Lost in Colors”

Melody Zhang, age 17, Fremont Christian School, Fremont, Calif.: “‘Wandavision’: A Study in Scarlet”

荣誉奖

Ava Anderson, age 17, Ames High School, Ames, Iowa: “‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’: A Quintessential Work of American Literature”

Matthew Belcrest, age 18, University Liggett School, Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.: “Pearl Jam’s ‘Ten,’ 30 years Later”

Omar Elbadawy, age 13, Birchwood School of Hawken, Cleveland: “Searching for Italy”

Izzy Fruehauf, age 16, University Liggett School, Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.: “A Restaurant Worth Its Weight in Gold”

Wanqing Gao, age 16, Tabor Academy, Marion, Mass.: “Art Basel 2021 Representing the ‘Miami Movement’: A Modern Renaissance”

Maya Gest, age 13, Cedarbrook Middle School, Wyncote, Pa.: “‘1984’: Outdated in Every Way”

Fiona Gu, age 16, YK Pao School, Shanghai: “‘Speak of Me as I Am’: The Way ‘Othello’ Was Meant to Be Seen”

Gage Huff, age 17, West Shore Junior/Senior High School, Melbourne, Fla.: “‘Spencer’: An Intricate Portrait of a Real Woman Seen Only as an Icon”

Ashrita Kollipara, age 16, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, West Windsor, N.J.: “Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion: A Creative and Historical Awakening”

Shangqi (Peter) Lin, age 12, United Nations International School, New York, N.Y.: “Minecraft’s 1.18 Update Is the Ultimate Middle School Stress Reliever”

Serena Liu, age 15, Parkway West High School, Ballwin, Mo.: “Mars House: Not Quite Out of This World”

Maya Menon, age 15, Sunset High School, Portland, Maine: “Lana Del Rey’s Verses Versus the Critics: ‘Norman F——— Rockwell!’”

Zach Nish, age 15, Clark Magnet High School, La Crescenta, Calif.: “Long Live the Skate Shoe”

Enya Pinjani, age 17, Carroll Senior High School, Southlake, Texas: “‘Sour’: A Different Take on America’s ‘Teenage Dream’”

Heather Qin, age 15, Ridge High School, Basking Ridge, N.J.: “Daring, Hilarious and Hearty: ‘Gintama,’ a Master Class Deconstruction of Mainstream Anime”

Erin Rasmussen, age 15, St. Mark’s School, Southborough, Mass.: “The Corn Muffins That Changed My Life”

Madison Nicole Rojas, age 17, Mayfield Senior School, Pasadena, Calif.: “Harry Styles in Concert: Spreading Acceptance and Love on Tour”

Poorvi Sarkar, age 17, Glen Ridge High School, Glen Ridge, N.J.: “Never Will I Ever: Toying With Representation”

Nathan Shan, age 16, Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, Md.: “‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’: A Modern Take on the Disappointed Dad”

Simon Sidney, age 16, Waynflete School, Portland, Maine: “‘Say That You Were Born Here’: A Review of an Eight-Year-Old ‘Illegal’ Immigrant’s Tale of American Poverty”

Ella Siebentritt-Clark, age 17, Foxcroft School School, Middleburg, Va.: “‘Good Days’: A Reflection on Hope and Happiness”

Caroline Song, age 14, Boston Latin School, Boston: “‘The Untamed’: A Story of Adventure, Defiance and Love”

Sanya Tinaikar, age 16, University Scholars Program — PALCS, Chester County, Penn.: “‘Loving Vincent’: A Fusion of Unparalleled Artwork and Emotion”

Jiarui Wu, age 19, Hwa Chong Institution, Singapore: “‘The Battle at Lake Changjin’: Mere Propaganda?”

Maggie Yao, age 17, Canyon Crest Academy, San Diego: “‘Cats & Soup’ a.k.a. Purr-fection”

感谢所有比赛的评委

Kirsten Akens, Erica Ayisi, Julia Carmel, Amanda Christy Brown, Nancy Coleman, Kathryn Curto, Nicole Daniels, Dana Davis, Shannon Doyne, Jeremy Engle, Caroline Gilpin, Michael Gonchar, Annissa Hambouz, Kari Haskell, Callie Holtermann, Jeremy Hyler, Susan Josephs, Tina Kafka, Shira Katz, Stephanie Kim, Megan Leder, Phoebe Lett, Sue Mermelstein, Amelia Nierenberg, John Otis, Ken Paul, Natalie Proulx, Katherine Schulten, Ana Sosa, Tanya Wadhwani and Kimberly Wiedmeyer

No one imagines the pinnacle of American literature as a carriage ride with Death, a giant talking bee, a twerking dance-off and a stroll with Nobody. But this is “Dickinson,” Alena Smith’s imaginatively raw, genre-defying retelling of an artist struggling as a marginalized voice. Now in its final season, the Apple TV+ series follows Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) as she navigates adolescence in 19th-century society. What ensues is an avant-garde love letter to a Transcendentalist icon, remixed with magical realism and 21st-century pop culture — just as defiant as its heroine, just as rebellious as teenagers today.

As a young female poet, I was nothing short of amazed when I met Smith’s version of Emily: a teenage misfit as characteristically Gen Z as Steinfeld’s previous role in “The Edge of Seventeen.” One moment she’s penning a magnum opus, the next she’s throwing a house party and complaining about getting her period. By fusing history with a coming-of-age dramedy, Smith intentionally makes the show anachronistic (characters drop pickup lines like “You look hella ripe” and share “hot goss” at sewing circles). Historically inaccurate? Who cares — the show’s true accuracy lies in its portrayal of adolescent uncertainty, making it so radically relevant for teens like myself.

Though whimsical interpretations make some scenes feel like a surreal fever dream, “Dickinson” remains earnest by transforming absurdities into lessons on identity. In one episode, Emily hallucinates a shadowy, Daliesque circus before being called “the greatest freak of them all” — it’s a homage to our innate fear of not fitting in, but also a message of embracing our true selves. Meanwhile, the poet’s fight against the control of powerful men unveils Smith’s feminist vision. In the episode “The Daisy follows soft the Sun,” the show delivers its message for women who feel unheard and voiceless: “Refuse to be the daisy and start being the sun.”

Thus, the writers are unapologetic when championing female characters (with L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ and minority representation in the spotlight), who rise like witty mavericks in rebel mode. Sue (Ella Hunt), whose relationship with Emily is supported by scholarship on the real Dickinson’s sexuality, delivers a hauntingly honest line: “The minute we [women] get a little bit of fame, or show the slightest amount of ambition, we get slapped with the nastiest comments.” With that, “Dickinson” earns a poignant urgency — like a palimpsest, it embeds our modern third-wave feminism atop the first-wave feminism of Emily’s time.

So here’s to all the women and teens who have been silenced, who are reclaiming their ambition, and who are penning their own identity. “Dickinson” — brilliant, innovative and utterly unforgettable — empowers us to not be daisies following conventional suns, but to be our own sun, unafraid to share our voice and unfettered from expressing our true selves.

When I turned 16, I cut off all my hair. Those long, spiraling locks whose crispy ends fell to my hips represented the days when I hid my face behind a curtain of curls, the days when I had social anxiety (how embarrassing!), something I had decided not to have anymore. My cosmetic transformation proved to be a righteous decision. I arrived at school a changed woman, and that day, the heavens split wide open as an angelic chorus descended from swirling clouds and God Himself smiled on me with the warmth of a thousand suns.

That day, a boy told me he liked my hair.

I immediately understood this boy to be The One. He flirted with me more than he flirted with other girls, and sometimes even looked at me while I spoke. I wrote him love letters in the form of homework questions that could easily have been answered by any sentient rock, and my affections were reciprocated in late night Snapchats of his forehead, or, if he was being particularly bold, his forehead and one eye. Our playful back-and-forth persisted in this manner and maybe even developed into a friendship. Ultimately, I learned that if you ruin your sleep schedule in order to text a boy at night for 10 solid months, he may just ask you out.

In the shimmering light of the summer evening sky, I ate a few bites of overpriced ramen across a tiny table from a real live guy who had actually asked me out on a date. When he reached for the bill to signify that it was, in fact, a date, his hand briefly grazed mine, and I felt my cheeks flush with the distinct rosy tinge of heteronormativity. As we left the restaurant, it began to rain, and we took refuge in an ice cream shop where he once more paid for me to pretend to eat while dutifully sucking in my stomach. Summoning all my skills of seduction, I flaunted sophistication in my sultriest tone:

“This ice cream is so good that I’m, like, literally having an aneurysm,” I observed.

“Actually, I think it’s ‘burst’ an aneurysm,” he said.

My heart fluttered. He had such a way with words.

Based on every movie I had ever seen in my life, I anticipated that our intense flirtation would culminate in a kiss good night before I sped away in my dad’s visibly deteriorating 2001 Honda Civic. In our final moments together, I stared deeply into his gleaming, enigmatic gaze and, as I leaned one shoulder toward him, received a one-armed side hug and a “Bye, Leah!” that lingered uncomfortably in the air. Whether the unease in my gut stemmed from this disappointing departure or my severe IBS, I could never know. But one thing was for sure — I had done everything right. Right?

A true gentleman, he ended things a few weeks later in a two-sentence Snapchat. In a response riddled with exclamation points, I let my concern for his feelings eclipse my own. Painfully embarrassed, I dismissed myself as idiotic for believing a boy could ever like me. I knew I was to blame for equating the slightest amount of male approval with the highest standard of human decency.

I couldn’t remember where I learned to do that.

Stuck between guilt and confusion, I once again took scissors to the braid that reached halfway down my back. It’s strange; even though I consider feminism to be the most essential tenet of my existence, the whispers of the patriarchy are sometimes so soft that they sound like my own thoughts.

The familiar smell of garlic, soy sauce, and onion permeated through the air as I opened my lunch bag to see what my mom had packed for me. On any other occasion, I would have been delighted to eat my mom’s braised pan-fried tofu: a Korean dish that I often ate for dinner. But not today, the day a nice girl had invited me, the new girl at school, to sit with her friends during lunch.

“Charis, over here!” My new friend was waving her arms, trying to get my attention.

As I prepared to walk over to the table, memories of elementary and middle school lunch times resurfaced. I remembered my embarrassment as my friends would hold their noses, or not-so-subtly scoot away from me when I brought homemade Korean food. I remembered how my embarrassment shifted to anger when I complained about the smell to my mom.

I had argued with my mom that I wanted “normal” food for lunch. I remembered the look on my mom’s face, a mix between disappointment and confusion. But I was adamant and she relented because she worried about my making new friends every time we moved. So for the remainder of middle school, my mom packed odorless, non-Korean fare like ham and cheese sandwiches. However, that day, she was in a rush to get to her new job and packed me leftovers from dinner.

As soon as I got to my new lunch table, I tried to sneak my bright lunch bag down under my seat before anyone noticed the strong smell. I looked up to see the other girls at the table, opening their normal American lunches. I sat meekly, trying not to be noticed when Katrina, a new acquaintance, asked where my food was.

“I’m not really hungry,” I replied in an insecure voice. But Katrina had already seen me carry my lunch so she spurted out, “Then, I’ll eat it!” The other girls laughed — apparently Katrina was known to be the lunch scavenger.

I didn’t want to be rude to a potentially new friend, so I reluctantly dragged out my lunch bag and unzipped it. The moment I partially lifted the lid, I could practically taste the garlic and soy sauce. The girls, piqued by the smell wafting through the air, all curiously peered at the oval-shaped Pyrex container. I expected an “Ew” or a “What is that?”

I expected them to turn away — and turn me away. What I did not expect was for Katrina to instantly grab a small piece of tofu and eat it ravenously. And I most certainly did not expect for her to encourage the rest of the table to try my lunch.

It took me a second to recognize that my foreign, Korean food was not being rejected; in fact, it had become a source of personal pride. My new friends were going on about how lucky I was that my mom took the time to prepare a cooked meal for me. They were enchanted by the fact that tofu could actually taste good. While I didn’t get to eat any of my mom’s pan-fried tofu, I was full — of pride and gratitude.

When I arrived home, my mom asked how my day went. Answering with a simple “Good,” I pulled out my Pyrex container from my lunch bag.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to buy bread or ham yesterday.” But when she noticed that the container was empty, she hesitated before asking, “How was the food?”

I paused a moment before I replied, “Perfect.”

We went to see a movie one Friday afternoon. It was spring; there was no snow on the ground, but I was still cold. I don’t remember many other details. Whether the movie was good or bad, whether the theater was crowded or not, I couldn’t say — I only remember that it was a Friday because we had a half-day at school, and we only ever get half-days on Fridays.

When I’m nervous, unlike most people, my hands don’t get sweaty; they just get cold, clammy, and a chill spreads throughout my entire body until I can scarcely draw a breath, engulfed in frigid paralysis. We were walking a knife’s edge that day, on either side of the knife unspoken emotions, the air between us tense with timorous anticipation. One wrong word, one misstep, and we were liable to tumble into the vast unknown. I was freezing.

I don’t remember the movie because I was focused on a hand, inches from mine, occasionally moving to dip into the popcorn we were sharing, salt and butter coating pale fingertips. I longed to take that hand in my own, but I didn’t; I kept rubbing my palms against my dark-wash jeans, trying to heat up my hands, my arms, my chest, with some small morsel of friction.

We sat in the car a while after the movie. The late day sun fell through the windshield, striking her skin and bathing it in white-wine light, and she was radiant. An old ballad filtered through the speakers, a fifties star singing about a woman in a velvet voice existing in stark dichotomy to what was happening between us.

In the end, it was her who grabbed my hand and jumped off that precarious edge we had been tiptoeing along for what felt like an eternity, throwing caution into Zephyrus’s hands. With those juvenile words everyone longs to hear in their melodramatic adolescence, when they are an insecure, doe-eyed high-school student, we fell.

“I like you.”

She whispered it like one would whisper a secret under the cover of darkness, tenebrous night making the speaker confident. The words fell heavy onto my ears, the weight of their implication pressing onto my chest, combining with the ice in my body, stealing the air from my lungs.

I was terrified.

I was terrified because I was abnormal, because no one really told me as a kid that girls can like girls and boys can like boys, and because my first kiss was followed with a slap to the face after the girl realized that I wasn’t joking, and God, what were people going to say? What would my parents say? I was terrified, so I didn’t reply. We sat in silence, listening to that balladeer croon about being rejected once again. I got out of her car after the song finished and went home.

Whenever I spoke to her after that, my hands were cold.

Her vulnerability that day was a double-edged sword, and we both ended up bloody. Leaving her words unacknowledged felt like leaving an open wound to fester. Neither of us, however, were willing to speak. We acted like nothing had happened at all, making snide remarks about everyday happenings, gossiping innocently about school goings-on. But, it was a kind of breathless normalcy — we were just waiting, waiting for a time when we were old enough, brave enough, to meet her confession head-on.

If she were a boy, I might have kissed her that spring Friday in her car. My hands might have been warm as I drove home.

I grasp my underwear and pull them down, watching the white fabric land around my feet. I am naked; exposed. I look across the room at the Pink Paper Gown, walk over, and unfold its perfect symmetry. I wrap it around my cold body and tie the plastic string around my waist. I sit on the side of the chair with two stirrups extending from the end, my feet resting on the cold wooden floor. For a moment, I wonder: How many other women have had to wear the Pink Paper Gown?

The short, kind doctor comes in and asks me to lay down. Though hesitant, I follow her directions; she is, in fact, the first person I ever saw in this world. She delivered me 17 years before. The last time she saw me, I was pure, innocent, unaware; my blue, childish eyes never having seen the harsh truths of this world. Now, I am her patient, for reasons I am horrified to admit.

The doctor walks to the end of the chair. One blue glove at a time, she prepares. My feet are in the stirrups, but I remain with my knees together. I know she is safe. I know she is just doing her job, but still, I don’t want to spread them.

“I’m just going to check around and make sure everything is OK. Just spread your legs …”

She lifts the Pink Paper Gown. I am scared; not of her, but of the memories I know will flood my mind when the blue gloves land on my skin. However, I do as she says. For the first time since Him, I am being touched. I know she is a doctor. I know she is safe. The Woman in the Blue Chair and I talked about this. Yet, I can’t stand it. I close my eyes, tight. The memories come, and I lay there, trying not to cry. All I picture in my mind is Him. His terrifying brown eyes, His grotesque pink sweatshirt, His dangerous hands. I look down to remind myself that it is the doctor down there, not Him.

“I have to insert one of my fingers to feel for any tearing, OK?”

Oh, God.

“OK.”

She feels around. I want to cry. I might throw up. I can’t do this.

I see him on top of me … my head banging against the side of the car … my hands on his chest …

I try to remember what The Woman in The Blue Chair would tell me to do. Breathe in for five, hold for five, exhale for five. This isn’t working …

Right as I feel as if I can’t handle it any longer, she is done. She said He probably tore some things, but it’s been long enough for the damage to heal. Even my own body fails to provide evidence to prove that I’m the real victim, not Him. My body may have fixed itself, but my mind cannot repair on its own. I should have come six months ago. I should have told my mom back in May about the spots of blood I kept finding in my underwear all month long.

We talked more about what happened.

“And you still go to school with Him?”

“Yes.”

She says that she should do an STD test just in case.

I lay back down. I put my feet back up. I spread my knees. The cotton swab enters. I hold my breath once more.

Again, I wonder: How many other women have had to wear the Pink Paper Gown?

There’s solace in the bottom of a swimming pool, that’s what I used to believe. To me, there was nothing better than feeling the water fill my ears and fold over my head until my feet scraped the concrete bottom. The feeling of disappearing.

Through the lenses of my pink-tinted goggles, underwater was magical. The cracks in the tiling lining the walls, the disembodied legs kicking for stable ground, the sun overhead reduced to a few weak rays barely shattering the water’s surface — it all created such a sublime kind of picture. When it got dark, the lights on the sides of the pool would turn on, dim yellow circles to guide swimmers to the walls. They always reminded me of the glowing eyes of deadly sea dragons, able to devour anyone (even grown-up fourth-grade teachers) in one bite.

Even better, though, was the sound. In the open air, sound was too insistent. The noises of the pool all demanded your attention: the lifeguard’s shrill whistle, the smacking of tiny feet across the ground, the hundreds of voices demanding different things. “Can I get a —” “Owww! Quit —” “Stop splashing!” It reminded me of the school cafeteria, packed full of vicious kids: no rhyme, no reason, too loud to read a book in. But beneath the surface, things were quiet. The sounds that used to overwhelm me lost all their power, garbled and muffled. They intermingled with the sloshing of the water and the gentle blub-blub of air bubbles escaping my nose. It was not random, all the noises worked together to create a symphony. Harmony.

Perhaps the best thing about the bottom of a swimming pool, though, was that at the bottom of a swimming pool, I was alone. I didn’t have to worry about anyone splashing or kicking or shoving me aside. I didn’t have to worry about anyone making fun of my dumb bathing suit or my bug-eyed goggles. I didn’t have to worry about Mrs. Mills pretending not to see me when my hand was raised, or Sasha Grey’s friends giggling when I was the first to finish my times tables. They were all far, far away up on the surface. It was only me. Just me.

I used to wish I could live underwater. Mermaids didn’t have to go to school. Mermaids didn’t call other mermaids nerds or freaks.

But once, when I came up for air, I spotted a girl my age at the other side of the pool. We locked eyes before I went back under, just for a second. I didn’t think anything of it — girls like her usually didn’t want to be seen around me — until I felt a soft tug on my ankle, and I spied her next to me. She actually wanted to talk to me. She wanted to be friends.

So we talked. And I found out that she liked Pokémon and Warrior Cats just like I did. And we begged out parents to give us $3 so we could buy Popsicles, and we competed to see who could make the biggest splash, and when it got dark and the lights came on, we explored the depths of the pool together. She never once mentioned the scabs on my knees or the gaps between my teeth. She just laughed and said that she liked spending time with me. I liked spending time with her, too. I really did.

I didn’t spend so much time at the bottom of a swimming pool after that. How could I when there was so much waiting for me on the surface?

When the phone finally stopped ringing and the house lay still with grief, I filled my home with the aroma of flaky pie crust and sweet peaches to mask the scent of worry that still lingered.

The weekend after the diagnosis, Mom had copied and pasted the same text to each concerned relative, old friend and college roommate: Jay was diagnosed with a type of early-onset dementia in April. We had an appointment with a neurologist in Houston last week. His condition is called Pick’s disease. We are going back in a few weeks for more information.

Then Mom put down the phone, rubbed her forehead, and suggested that we go for a drive.

I grabbed my newly-minted learner’s permit and started the Nissan Pathfinder we bought from our neighbors after Dad’s company confiscated his truck. On the interstate, we passed a fluttering banner with bold red letters: “Fredericksburg peaches, the best fruit you can find in Central Texas.” Mom slipped on a medical mask and went to negotiate with the vendor.

Now in our kitchen, peach juice seeped through the cardboard box onto the counter. I rinsed a ripe peach under the sink and lifted the fruit to my lips. Juice dribbled down my chin to my arm. The sweet smell diffused into the living room and pulled Dad away from the football reruns on TV.

“Oh! You got peaches?” His large stomach pressed into the counter as he eyed the fruit with childish glee.

“Here,” I handed him a green serrated knife. “We’re making peach cobbler.”

I showed him how to peel the skin off the fleshy fruit, run the blade around the seed, and loosen the peach halves to cut the juicy fruit. As I made pie dough, he asked questions: How long does it take to bake? How much sugar? Are you adding almond extract? How many peaches? What should I do with the seeds? I combined our efforts with a lattice topping over the bed of peaches, and then signaled Dad to open the oven.

Standing there at the counter, showing him how to slice and measure and mix in a calm, firm voice, I suddenly felt grown up. The summer had reversed our roles; now, I was the adult, wincing as the blade neared his fingers. Mom worked through quarantine, so I stayed home and cooked his dinner, washed his T-shirts and helped him make phone calls. When Dad asked the same question every night — “Are we eating inside or outside?” — I always gave him the same answer, unless the August heat decided to scorch the patio. I stayed up late thinking about him and anxiously monitored him like an overbearing caretaker.

That same day, long before the afternoon drive and peach cobbler, I had held my tears as I read the prognosis for Pick’s disease: four to 10 years, depending on how fast the damaged proteins overpower Dad’s brain. I decided then that I would be grateful for just four more years with Dad, enough for him to see me become an adult for real.

Once the pie crust shone golden through the tinted oven door, we gathered on the patio to eat and watch the birds. I savored the moment and the warm dessert before either of us aged further: silver spoons clinking in fiesta bowls, vanilla ice cream melting over the cobbler, both warm and cold and perfectly sweet, a memory to cherish in the coming weeks when we wouldn’t have the time for baking or long evening drives.