Helen lifted her head. “To do what?”
I shifted my feet nervously. “To be honest, I’m not sure. But I’m not leaving the gym without Melissa.”
Sean sighed as Helen untwined her fingers from his. “Go get ’em, tiger...s?”
The gym felt like it was a million miles long as I walked over to Melissa. The other three trailed me, like I had suddenly become their scout leader. I could feel a few people at the tables around the perimeter of the gym looking at us as we pushed our way through the dancing crowd, but most people ignored us. It was pretty easy to be ignored when so many people were literally jumping around to House of Pain’s “Jump Around.”
Melissa put up her hands defensively as soon as she saw me.
“If you’re going to yell at me about how Jamie shouldn’t have said anything, I don’t want to hear it,” she said. “This was her choice, not mine. And I don’t get how you’re suddenly not pro-choice anymore.”
I shook my head. “Oh, my God, I am still pro-choice. That’s not what this is about.” My tone sounded super defensive, matching hers word for word. I lowered my voice. “I just think if we—you and I—really believe in being pro-choice, then we need to stand up for Jamie now, too. So if you want to help, come with me.”
38
The thud of the DJ’s bass speakers echoed through the hallway from the gym. As we got closer to the main offices, I had a flashback to my urban exploration with Kyle. The terror of being caught was similar, but this time I didn’t have any anticipation of being alone with a boy I liked. Instead, I was with four girls, a misfit Nancy Drew and her sidekicks.
Pretty soon, the only thing we could hear was the sound of our heels clacking against the polished linoleum floors of the hallway. I signaled for everyone to slow down—the lights were on in the glass-enclosed entry to the guidance office, which was between us and Sister Catherine. We tiptoed past it, trying to avoid being noticed.
I couldn’t help myself from slowing down and looking in. The light was coming from Mrs. Turner’s office, and she was in there—packing. Her shelf of adolescent psychiatry books was half-empty, and a stack of boxes was taped up and ready to go near the door. She skittered from the bookshelf to the boxes, back and forth as quickly as she could, fully devoted to her task.
Had she been fired? Was that what Mr. Richard had meant by “handled”? Had she quit? Why was she doing this now? It was a mystery, sure, but one that I thought could wait. I waved for everyone to keep following me toward Sister Catherine’s office.
When we’d nearly gotten past the door, Jennifer stumbled in her heels and slammed into the glass window with a giant whump. She wasn’t hurt—it wasn’t like the glass broke or anything—but tears welled in her eyes. I thought for a moment that she’d sprained her ankle, but then I realized they were tears of sheer terror.
The guidance counselor looked up at the sound. She smiled, seeming satisfied that she’d finally—finally!—caught us red-handed. She scurried over to the door.
“Let me do the talking,” Helen growled, pushing her way in front of me. “I got this.”
Mrs. Turner hastily unlocked the glass door and pushed it open toward us.
“My, my, look who it is! Aren’t you young ladies supposed to be at the dance? Or is there something you might have to tell me?” She smiled again, and I felt a shiver of anger.
Helen looked down at Mrs. Turner with her “I’ve got intimidating height” thing. She was close enough that she was absolutely, definitely within Mrs. Turner’s personal space.
“No, we’re just on our way to see Sister Catherine.” Helen mixed the intimidation with a sweet tone of voice that was somehow both frightening and obsequious.
It worked. Mrs. Turner’s smug smile dwindled into a confused frown. “I’m sure you’ll find success at whatever you want to see her for,” she said, snappier than usual. Then she recovered and shook her head in mock sadness. “It’s such a shame. She won’t have my help much longer, and I fear for you young people. You young ladies most of all.”
She nodded at us, a look of counterfeit understanding settling onto her face. It was a favorite tactic of hers, most often deployed when trying to lure students into a trap. At this point in our lives, it didn’t impress any of us—but it did prompt a question.
“Oh, where are you going?” Helen asked, much more calmly and sweetly than I would have thought humanly possible. “I’m sure the school will miss you terribly.”
I was amazed at my sister’s ability to lie in an absolutely convincing fashion. Or maybe it would be more accurately described as acting—it was too bad they didn’t give out Oscars for getting horrible guidance counselors to tell you everything you need to hear, because she totally deserved one.
Mrs. Turner fussed with her voluminous shoulder-padded blazer, smoothing it with pride, and puffed up her chest. “I’m going to be the new volunteer youth coordinator for Representative Bettencourt.”
I was 100 percent sure that Melissa was rolling her eyes behind me, because Helen shot her a warning look that would have stunned a grown man or perhaps a large bear.
“Oh, how nice.” Rather miraculously, Helen didn’t give away the reason that she thought it was nice—namely, that her packing meant Mrs. Turner would be out of our lives forever. “A volunteer position?”
Mrs. Turner’s smile faded a bit, then brightened again to a superhuman wattage. “Yes, but it’s an amazing opportunity. I’ll get to work with young people in such a connected way. It’s really such a wonderful thing.”
Such a wonderful thing...to work with kids, for free, for a politician. Yeah, right. My money was on handled translating to fired, but I knew she would never admit that to us.
Mrs. Turner reached out to squeeze Helen’s arm affectionately. Helen didn’t even flinch. She just stood there, a beatific, saccharine-sweet smile fixed to her face, without saying a word.
“Helen, I was so glad to hear that the...issue...surrounding you has been cleared up.” Mrs. Turner’s eyes were suddenly full of ersatz concern and welling with dewy tears. “Of course, I always had faith in you.”
If I were Helen, I would have had a hard time keeping myself from punching Mrs. Turner—or, at the very least, from jerking my arm away from hers. But Helen hid any fury she might have felt, the only telltale sign a small clenching and unclenching of her left fist.
“Thank you, Mrs. Turner,” she said, looking down at the guidance counselor. “But we have to go see Sister Catherine now. Good luck to you with your new position.”
“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Turner said, nodding. “Thank you.”
She gave Helen another squeeze and rushed back into her office, as though the packing absolutely had to be done on the night of the school homecoming dance, which only cemented my thought that she’d been fired. Mrs. Turner waved—a little too enthusiastically—at us through the window, and then returned to pulling books from the shelf.
* * *
Harsh fluorescent lights flooded the glass cage of the disciplinary office. Even during regular hours, they turned the skin of anyone sitting underneath them a shade of pale, sickly green. Maybe it was by design, so that anyone who crossed its threshold felt some level of guilt by coloration.
The door to Sister Catherine’s office was closed, and Jamie sat by herself on one of the chairs that lined the glass box on three sides. Her mascara had bled into gothy circles around her eyes, and her eyes and nose were bright red from crying and nose wiping. She held a wet, crumpled tissue in one hand. Every once in a while, she’d bring it up to her nose distractedly and blow. She didn’t seem to notice us at all through the glass, though, to be fair, none of us had slammed against the window this time.
“What are we doing?” Melissa whispered. “We can’t wait out here and watch her like a bunch of creeps.”
My shoulders tensed with annoyance. “Of course not. We�
�re going in to support her.”
I pushed open the glass door into the waiting room. The sounds of loud, but muffled arguing came from behind the closed frosted-glass door to Sister Catherine’s office. From the extreme Southern accent and high pitch, one of the voices likely belonged to Leah’s mother. I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, but I did catch snippets. “In-school suspension, young lady! You should be lucky you aren’t expelled!” and “What is going through your mind, young lady? What made you disrupt homecoming like this? Do you have any respect for the crown?” and even “I raised you better than this! Three months alone with your father, and you’re nearly kicked out of school?”
It was enough to know Leah hadn’t found the unwavering parental support she’d expected, because she’d bet on the wrong horse showing up.
I would have taken a moment for smug satisfaction, and I’m sure Helen would have, too, but we couldn’t. Jamie needed us. She looked up, her eyes passing over each of us in turn. It didn’t quite feel like she really saw us, though. It was more like she was looking at us through a fog, or maybe through a veil into another world.
“What are you guys doing here?” Jamie asked slowly.
“We thought you might like some support.” I sat down next to her. I looked her in the eyes, but her eyes darted back to her lap and the crumpled tissue.
“I don’t need it,” she mumbled. “I knew this could happen.”
Helen crouched down near Jamie while simultaneously grabbing Melissa and pulling her down to Jamie’s level. Melissa seemed to get what Helen was doing and didn’t argue.
“Yeah, but it’s our choice to help you,” Helen said. “Like you helped me, even though you didn’t have to. I appreciate that more than I can ever tell you. And I know that whatever punishment you get is as much because of something that happened to me as it is anything you said.”
Suddenly, the room fell quiet. At first, I thought it was because we were all letting Helen’s words sink in, but then I realized that the sound of arguing coming from Sister Catherine’s office had stopped.
The door creaked open, and Helen and Melissa jerked up from the floor, spinning around at the sound.
Leah’s mother was the first to walk out, her mouth a tiny frown of pearly pink lipstick. She was dressed in pink sweats with a pink bandanna over rollers in her hair, an outfit that clearly indicated she’d rushed from her new apartment, wherever that was, to come get her daughter. But she hadn’t rushed so much that she forgot the lipstick.
She pulled Leah behind her, hand gripped tight on her daughter’s reluctant wrist. Leah’s glower was almost exactly like her mother’s, but with an extra splash of defiance. Unlike Jamie, Leah still looked perfectly made-up, her curls crisp enough that they might be able to survive a nuclear holocaust, along with all of Louisiana’s roaches.
She sneered at us as she went past. “This isn’t over,” she gloated. “You’ll see!”
Leah’s mom jerked to a stop and faced her daughter. “Young lady, if this isn’t over right now, you’ll be the one who sees nothing but the inside walls of my apartment for the next six months!”
She banged open the office door and dragged Leah through it. Leah didn’t say anything else, but I didn’t believe for a second that she wouldn’t be back at her old torture games as soon as her suspension ended.
After a few moments of the tensest silence I’d ever felt, Sister Catherine emerged from her office, her face grim. When she saw all of us surrounding Jamie, her expression softened.
“Girls, I understand that you want to keep Jamie company,” she said, nun-calm. “But her parents are on their way, and our discussion should be private.”
Melissa opened her mouth to protest, but I shushed her. “We know, Sister Catherine. But we’d like to stay. If it weren’t for us, she wouldn’t be here.”
Sister Catherine raised her eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure that none of you are responsible for her choosing an abortion, even if Melissa was at the protests this summer.”
Melissa looked genuinely surprised that anyone at the school knew of her summer exploits, even though she’d been clearly visible on the national news and had never, ever been shy about her politics. Once again, she opened her mouth to protest.
This time, Helen stepped forward. “No, we didn’t have anything to do with that. But if it hadn’t been for the rumors about me, then she wouldn’t have told everyone about it, and she wouldn’t be in trouble now. It’s not fair that she should be kicked out of school for that.”
Sister Catherine’s shoulders drooped ever so slightly. She grabbed one of the chairs that lined the glass wall and motioned for us to sit down in the chairs near Jamie.
“Girls, I understand you want to help.” She glanced at Melissa and Helen, but then her eyes finally came to rest on mine. “It is very compassionate of you. And I want to reassure you Jamie isn’t going to get kicked out.”
“I’m not?” Jamie asked in a small voice.
Sister Catherine shook her head. “No, of course not.”
“But the student handbook says—” Helen said, puzzled.
Sister Catherine raised her eyebrows. “Am I hearing you protest?”
“Of course not!” Helen said, a little too loudly. “But I remember that the school’s policy is to be pro-life in any case, and—”
“And is it pro-life to make an example out of Jamie?”
“No, but Representative Bettencourt—”
Sister Catherine smiled kindly at Helen. “Is a politician, not an educator,” she said, leaning forward. “We have school policies about all sorts of things, but we also have to approach students with compassion in our hearts.”
Except not everyone at our school had compassion. Mrs. Turner certainly didn’t. And Sister Catherine herself had told me we were close to landing ourselves in trouble.
“But what about everyone else?” I asked. “The protesters are still out there, and if they hear that Jamie had an abortion, they’ll call for your head, and this’ll never end.”
Something in Sister Catherine’s eyes told me she knew that, too. But nuns are calmer than normal people—or at least the ones working in high schools are.
“You’re right,” she said. “But Jamie can’t be punished for whether or not she had an abortion. That would be in violation of many medical privacy laws, and her parents would have to give permission for us to theoretically even know about it.” She nodded meaningfully at all of us, though Jamie still stared at the crumpled tissue in her hand and Sara and Jennifer had shrunk into their chairs. “She’s going to face the same possible punishment that Leah did, which was for interrupting the homecoming court.”
My eyes darted from Sister Catherine to Jamie. My heart sank at the thought of her being punished when we were the organizers. “But that’s not fair. We interrupted it, too.”
Sister Catherine smiled wanly, like she was almost amused that I was continually one step away from talking myself into punishment. “Am I to take it you want an in-school suspension, Miss Graves?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then I suggest that you and your friends go back to the dance and enjoy your freedom,” she said. “Miss Taylor’s parents will be here soon.”
It felt rotten to leave Jamie by herself, even knowing she wasn’t going to be kicked out of school. I looked at Melissa and Helen, who seemed to get what I was thinking.
“Sister Catherine, can’t we hang out with Jamie until her parents get here?” Helen asked, positioning herself protectively between Sister Catherine and Jamie. “I mean, if you want us to.” She looked at Jamie for approval.
Jamie nodded, looking tired and drained, but not nearly as terrified as a few minutes ago. She hadn’t said anything the whole time. If I were her, I’d be playing the events of the past hour on repeat in my brain, paralyzed and unable to think of anything else.
39
While we walked back to the gym, I felt like the world had changed, and yet it hadn’t. Leah was going to have an in-school suspension, and so was Jamie, and we weren’t able to stop it. And I wasn’t so certain that Sister Catherine wouldn’t be in trouble if Bettencourt got wind of things, but it did seem that with Mrs. Turner out of the way, that avenue of communication might be a lot narrower.
Still, I felt a little relief—no, a lot of relief—that it wasn’t worse. Mrs. Turner hadn’t made good on any of her promises and was leaving, and Leah was suspended.
“Athena, I wanted to say I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Melissa said, right before we got close enough that the music blasting from the gym would drown her out.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I get why you had to keep it a secret.” And I did. Melissa thought she’d change people’s minds, but I wondered if we had.
She hugged me and then peeled off. “I gotta go find my date. Catch you later?”
“Of course.”
“Ciao!” She waved at the four of us and darted off onto the dance floor to find College Boy, whose name I still didn’t know. Somehow, I suspected it wasn’t important information.
“Hey, Graves!” Trip bounded up to me, his face red and his blond hair sticking up. His shirt was hanging halfway out of his pants from the exertion of his “dancing” with the football team. “Where’ve you been? You missed the football team’s salute to the homecoming court.”
I mustered a half smile. I was a terrible date—I’d missed out on the only chance my date would have to impress me. Every year, the football team sang a dumb love song to the girls on the court, à la “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” in Top Gun. I suspected it was usually a terrible ensemble of howling boys, but I couldn’t say for sure. I’d missed it last year, too, because I didn’t have a date for the dance.
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