Summary

In “Boys Go to Jupiter” (50), a third-person narrator describes how a character named Claire receives the gift of a bikini with the Confederate flag printed on it from Jackson, a man she began seeing mainly to annoy her “almost stepmother” (51), Puppy. When Puppy sees the bikini, she tells Claire she looks “like white trash” (53) and Claire continues wearing the bikini to annoy her. Before Claire leaves town to return to college, Jackson posts a picture of her in the bikini on Facebook. On the plane on the way back to school, Claire receives many angry and confused text messages, prompted by a tweet from a Black girl who lives across the hall from Claire and who disapproves of the Facebook post. Claire feels embarrassed by the situation but is dismissive of the girl’s reaction.

The narration flashes back to Claire...