Zoe Rosenthal Is Not Lawful Good

by Nancy Werlin

  I pushed my hand into my hair. “ Yes. But . . .”

  There was no denying it any longer. My parents had summoned me to a family discussion about my college applications. At the last minute, they’d wanted me to add two or three more schools—at their expense, even. Places that Simon and I had ruled out. Or a women’s college.

  Like your friend Liv, said my mom.

  Where’s the harm? my dad said. Give yourself more options!

  I have tons of options, I said.

  Nothing wrong with more, right?

  To shut them up, I had finally agreed to add one extra school to my list. Just one.

  I was trying not to think about it.

  I hadn’t told Simon and I felt awful. It wasn’t like sneaking off to a con. This was a completely different order of sneaking. I knew it even if I wasn’t lawful good. I shouldn’t have applied to that extra school behind his back. And having done it, I should at least tell him I’d done it.

  But maybe he’d never need to know.

  I asked Josie, “How’d you find all this out? I told you about Aragorn, but not about my parents.”

  “Your mom called my mom the other day. I . . . happened to hear what my mom said.”

  “What?” I sat up. “What is this, a conspiracy? Why are they getting all Capulet and Montague? I don’t understand! There’s nothing wrong with Simon! There’s nothing wrong with me! Or us! We’re just young, that’s all! And my parents met in high school, too. They should talk!”

  Josie shrugged. “Why ask me? All I wanted was to be a Bloodygit! I don’t care whether you’re with my brother or not. That’s not my business.”

  I refrained from saying that for something not her business, she certainly had been eager to eavesdrop. And then to tell me what she’d heard.

  “Well,” I told her. “It’s not like my parents can or would force me to break up with him. They said so. My life, my decisions.” I crossed my arms. “Does Simon know about this conversation, too? Between our moms?”

  Josie looked resigned. “He wasn’t home when it happened. I guess you need to talk to him and ask if my mom talked to him.”

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “No. And I don’t think my mom would have. She said something about him being an adult.”

  “You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping anyway!” I took a breath. I reminded myself that I was hardly a model citizen. Still, everything would be all right in the end. Simon was really happy right now; that was what mattered. We were now focused on getting accepted to a close-to-Boston school so he could keep his job with Alisha Johnson Pratt.

  “If your mom didn’t tell Simon, then I won’t,” I said. “He’s busy. And this is nonsense. They’re acting like total babies. If she says something to him, then he’ll come to me. And we’ll talk at that time, if we need to.”

  “Zoe?”

  “What?”

  “Something else is bothering me.”

  I eyed her.

  “I don’t like lying to my mom. Or even Simon. About Bloodygits and everything. I thought it would be fun, like secret-agent stuff. But it’s actually not.”

  I sighed but said nothing.

  “I feel terrible. What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I hear you. Lying is bad. I’ll fix it. I will figure it out. Soon. In the new year. By the next con. Or the one after that. I have the definite feeling that things will just fall into place once Simon and I know where we’re going to college. And we don’t want to force the river, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t,” said Josie.

  “Well, never mind. Just trust me,” I said.

  “Okay. I guess.”

  We rejoined the Bloodygits.

  SEBASTIAN: Zoe, are you breaking up with Simon?

  ME: No.

  SEBASTIAN: Just asking. Calm down.

  ME: I’m calm! I’m calm!

  Awkward silence.

  MELDEL: So, to tactfully change the subject, what’s the final word on where you are all applying to college?

  As far as I was concerned, this was not a subject change, but I recognized that Meldel didn’t know that.

  CAM: My first choice is NYU.

  SEBASTIAN: Oh, that’s great! Great! I was hoping!

  CAM: I really want to be in New York. I love it there. So also some of the CUNY schools. My backup is Georgia.

  MELDEL: Zoe and Liv?

  ME: Well, my list is too long to go over it all. Simon now wants somewhere close to Boston, so our top choices are Boston University and Tufts. And we have a couple other local schools as possibilities, too.

  SEBASTIAN: What about Boston College?

  ME: No. I’m not very religious, but I’m just not comfortable with a traditionally Catholic school. Simon said he understood. And we didn’t apply to Brandeis in case Simon wouldn’t be comfortable with a traditionally Jewish school.

  MELDEL: Is Simon Catholic? Josie, are you Catholic?

  JOSIE: Yes, we are, but our family doesn’t agree with everything.

  LIV: Well, who does?

  SEBASTIAN: Liv? Colleges?

  LIV: I’ve applied early decision to Smith, and that’s it. If I don’t get in early, I’ll still have time to apply elsewhere.

  TODD: Smith? What? Never heard of it.

  MELDEL: It’s a women’s college in Massachusetts, one of the Seven Sisters. They’re like the women’s version of the Ivies. Nice, Liv! Good luck! Only, will you be comfortable there?

  LIV: I think so, yes. I’ve talked to a lot of people, including the basketball coach and a couple other nonbinary students, and also the head of their program in women and gender, which is what I think I want to major in.

  ME: Smith is less than two hours from Boston, so maybe I’ll see a lot of Liv.

  CAM: Liv hasn’t yet visited this palace of perfection, mind you.

  LIV: The admissions director talked to me. I’ll visit if I get in. Like I said, I’ll still have time to apply elsewhere, and they also said they would still let me turn them down if I was uncomfortable, even though I applied early decision. But I have a good feeling. Also, Zoe went to see it for me. We did a campus tour together, sort of, with me on the phone.

  ME: I’m just glad applications are over. I only wish I’d written a better essay.

  LIV: What did you write about?

  ME: (Sighs) Why I love making a to-do list.

  MELDEL: Oookay.

  ME: Every time I tried to write something else, it fell apart on me.

  (Silence.)

  ME: Oh, God. Is it really so bad?

  TODD: You seem so normal at first, but you are peculiar in your own way, aren’t you, Zoe?

  ME: But how peculiar is it? It’s really about the importance of logistics. Lists are a very helpful tool in life!

  MELDEL: I really, really wish you’d asked for my guidance.

  ME: Liv read my essay and didn’t think it was bad!

  LIV: I liked it.

  CAM: What did your friend Maggie think?

  ME: Maggie has her own problems. I didn’t want to bug her with college stuff. She doesn’t want to go to college at all. She wants to apprentice to become an electrician. Her parents are not thrilled.

  MELDEL: Stop changing the subject. I am a best-selling writer to be, and you didn’t even ask me to help.

  TODD: She feels hurt. You hurt her.

  ME: It was my essay! I just couldn’t think of anything else to write, okay? I tried to write about being a media manager, but it just turned into a rant about Wentworth.

  SEBASTIAN: Does anyone else find Zoe’s vendetta against that cat disturbing?

  ME: It’s not a vendetta.

  JOSIE: I like Wentworth.

  ME: What?

  JOSIE: He seemed to like me, too, that time I met him.

  ME: That’s because you just petted him and told him how pretty he was! The fact is, Wentworth can’t follow directions. It’s not a vendetta. I am exercising good business se
nse.

  SEBASTIAN: You expect a cat to follow directions?

  ME: He’s a working cat, okay? He has professional obligations!

  MELDEL: Todd, you’re right. She only seems normal at first.

  ME: Bloodygits, Wentworth peed in Maggie’s handbag. Which was a critical prop for the video! Not to mention Maggie’s property.

  SEBASTIAN: Well, that’s probably because he just wanted to nap or cuddle or whatever, and you were bugging him to follow directions.

  ME: Have you met him? Have you met Wentworth, Sebastian? No, you have not! So how are you entitled to an opinion?

  MELDEL: Ahem. Zoe, I believe we were discussing your essay, and your failure to seek professional help.

  TODD: (Snicker.)

  ME: Ellen From Finance is also a cat and she follows directions. Just saying. There are cats and there are cats. I like cats that do their jobs!

  SEBASTIAN: But a cat’s job—

  MELDEL: Essay. Essay! I don’t want to hear anything more about the cat! We need to focus on Zoe’s essay! We can come back to the cat.

  ME: I don’t want to come back to the cat.

  MELDEL: Good. Let’s talk about your essay.

  ME: There’s nothing to discuss. I did it. I wrote what I wrote. It’s done.

  CAM: I wonder if you were trying to sabotage yourself?

  ME: What is this, attack Zoe day?

  LIV: People. Stop. I read Zoe’s essay. It was a fine essay. It was unusual! I know it sounds like a stupid topic, but it really wasn’t.

  ME: Sounds stupid?

  LIV: I said it wasn’t stupid.

  ME: Bloodygits, look, I don’t have anything important to say. Simon did. He wrote all about his work with Senator Pratt, and how he’s looking within our immediate communities for kids who can speak out, like Greta Thunberg. He wants to be the one to help elevate those voices. Senator Pratt is all about inclusive community voices of all ages and from all walks of life. She’s a sign of politics to come. She’s the kind of leadership we need, and anything he can do to help—

  TODD: Weeping hemorrhage, stop. Just. Please. Stop.

  ME: What did you say?

  JOSIE: He said weeping hemorrhage. It’s just something the fans are starting to say. You know. Blood-related phrases. As curses.

  TODD: You were having hemorrhage of the mouth there, Zoe. You’re having a day.

  MELDEL: Todd.

  TODD: What?

  MELDEL: Be nice.

  TODD: I’m nice. I just don’t want her going on about politics. It’s pointless.

  ME: Pointless?! You’re old enough to vote! Do you vote, Todd? Do you? Do you use your privilege as a citizen to raise your lawful voice, or do you trample on that privilege by ignoring it and calling it pointless?

  TODD: It’s entirely my own business whether I vote.

  ME: Do. You. Vote? I want to know!

  TODD: Voting doesn’t matter, because the planet is voting with its feet and it’s too late. Everything we do is just passing the time. My plan is to pass it as pleasantly as possible and have as much fun as I can. Carpe diem, baby. Carpe diem.

  LIV: I disagree. We can’t know whether whatever we do now is going to be meaningful or meaningless. We have to try. It’s our future at stake. It doesn’t mean we can’t have regular lives at the same time.

  ME: We need that balance for sanity. Responsibility doesn’t mean no joy.

  TODD: Think that if you like, Liv and Zoe and whoever. In my opinion, humanity is racing down the steep slope to the apocalypse. No brakes. So let’s give up.

  JOSIE: Are you okay, Zoe? You look weird.

  ME: I’m fine. Just thinking.

  TODD: Always a mistake.

  I grimaced at him.

  They went on talking, but I tuned out for a moment.

  I had had a realization when I wrote my essay about planning and lists. Planning helps me feel like I am in control, not only of the details of my life, but also of my own despair. For me, detailed planning represents hope. Hope isn’t the same as conviction, though. I think hope is inherently a wobbly place. Hope may be the thing with feathers—nod to Emily Dickinson—but that doesn’t mean it will fly. Sometimes it’s stuck on the ground, like a turkey. Hope is just possibility. And it’s not enough! Whereas lists are possibility made action, which is better than hope. For me.

  I had started writing the essay and that was where—to my surprise—I ended up. Even if it wasn’t great, I was telling the truth. About what I believe. About who I am. About why lists are not a shallow thing. About planning as a tool for survival.

  I hadn’t shown my essay to Simon, though. I wasn’t completely sure he’d like where I went with it, or what I was saying about myself. Anyway, he hadn’t asked to read it, not even after I read his.

  SEBASTIAN: I think we’re going to save ourselves. Not everyone will make it, and things will change, but humanity will go on. How can you be a fan of science fiction and not believe that?

  TODD: Believe that science will save us?

  SEBASTIAN: Yeah.

  TODD: Science is one of the things that’s doomed us, man.

  MELDEL: Maybe we should—

  JOSIE: Change the subject?

  CAM: I feel like all we’ve done in this conversation is change the subject. But fine. Hemoglobin! Fans are saying that now, too.

  JOSIE: I don’t like that one. Listen, Bloodygits, I need to send you a link—this one guy wrote this whole post, like, with footnotes, about blood swears in Bleeders.

  MELDEL: I read that. He makes the case that there’s an etymological relationship of Bleeders phrases to Elizabethan swears like “God’s blood” and “God’s wounds.”

  CAM: God save us.

  ME: (Trying to sound normal) I’m confused. The crew of Mae Jemison doesn’t actually swear that way. They use Mongolian-derived phrases.

  TODD: Fandom can diverge from canon.

  ME: Hello, I know that!

  Another awkward pause.

  CAM: So, are we going to talk about Episode 8? Like, at all? Please?

  MELDEL: I don’t know if I can! I’m so horrified—Celie can’t be dead! This totally wrecks my fanfic, Bloodygits.

  CAM: Always about your fanfic. How about mine?

  MELDEL: Wait, you’re writing Celie dead?!

  CAM: I programmed her personality into the head of the Sanitation Soldier. Remember, the one Celie put in the kitchen to make toast?

  TODD: Hey, that’s not bad! I can do that cosplay!

  SEBASTIAN: But what if she’s not really dead?

  CAM: I can’t stand how the episodes don’t come out all at once or at least on a schedule. I hate waiting.

  MELDEL: It’s about money. I don’t understand the details, but I hear AMT is working on finances and she might have a big investor on the line. That will help.

  JOSIE: Isn’t SlamDunk their investor?

  CAM: One of their investors, but I guess more are needed. Or at least one other big one. Or advertisers. Whatever. It’s expensive to produce the show.

  JOSIE: I hate capitalism.

  TODD: What’s capitalism got to do with it?

  JOSIE: Bleeders is art! But it’s got to act like a business. That’s not fair.

  TODD: Listen, if the United States were a socialist country, do you think Bleeders would get financed by the state? The answer is no. There would be no artistic paradise. You’ve been listening to your brother the social-justice warrior too much, if you ask me.

  JOSIE: You don’t even know Simon!

  TODD: I don’t have to know him to know that everybody and everything has to find a way to pay their own way in this world. Art is no exception.

  MELDEL: Unfortunately, that’s true. It’s why I plan to be a best-selling author.

  TODD: And who says Bleeders is art, anyway? It’s entertainment. It has to entertain enough people to pay its own way, or it’s gone. That’s fair.

  ME: But not all art is popular. It’s still art. It’s still good. It’s still
worthwhile and it has a place in the world even if it’s not popular.

  LIV: Right. And sometimes good stuff isn’t loved or recognized right away. The original Star Trek got canceled. Van Gogh wasn’t appreciated in his own time. But even when not a lot of people appreciate something, you can’t say it shouldn’t exist. It’s more complicated than that. There has to be a place for art that isn’t about money or popularity. And if just a few people love something, that something is still of worth.

  MELDEL: Right. Not everything can be measured in dollars and cents.

  ME: Agreed. We love Bleeders, we know it’s wonderful, but maybe not enough people will feel that way for it to go on. That doesn’t mean we’re wrong.

  TODD: You are naive. Not all good things survive in this world. It’s Darwinian law. Right? Van Gogh died. End of story. I will not mention our planet again. Notice my restraint.

  CAM: So noted.

  LIV: Everyone dies, Todd. But art needn’t.

  JOSIE: But lots of good art is forgotten. Or is never seen or appreciated by many people. But it still existed. Doesn’t that matter?

  ME: Yes. It matters.

  CAM: It definitely matters. And whatever Todd is saying, we know he loves Bleeders, too.

  TODD: I do. But it might be doomed. And I’m a realist.

  All of us sighed at once.

  TODD: But we’ll always have Seasons 1 and 2!

  CAM: And maybe more. The Firefly fans and the Veronica Mars fans had the same problem. They ended up getting more, later on. And Star Trek—

  LIV: We know about Star Trek. The show that would not die.

  ME: Let’s just say it straight out, though, okay? We’d better face it. It’s looking like AMT is getting ready to wrap up the whole series arc early, this season. Just in case she can’t find financing for Season 3. And that’s why Celie is dead.

  JOSIE: If she’s dead.

  ME: (Softly) I think she’s dead.

  LIV: But it’s not over yet! We need to redouble our efforts, Bloodygits! We’ve let ourselves be distracted. We have to get back to doing everything in our power to pressure SlamDunk and show them that Bleeders has passionate fans, and we have to work to get more fans. So, since we’re stuck with capitalism—Todd is right about that—