The Life and Medieval Times of Kit Sweetly

by Jamie Pacton

  Jett raises an eyebrow. “Grounded? The first Lady Knight of the Castle is grounded?”

  “C’mon,” I say, giving him a little shove. “My mom will kill me if I leave.”

  “Is she here?”

  I smile at him. “No, she’s on a double today and won’t be home until eight or so.”

  “Then we’ve got tons of time. Let’s go. My treat.”

  “Uh-huh. No buying my food. Against the Unbreakable Rules.”

  “Just this once?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fine.”

  I glance over my shoulder. Chris’s door is cracked, and his snores carry up the stairs. He probably got drunk on cheap beer after having it out with Len. I can go out, get coffee, and be back with time to spare before I have to mow the lawn. “Let me grab a few things.”

  “I’ll be waiting in the van,” says Jett.

  I take the stairs two at a time. I could change, but it’s coffee and donuts with Jett. He doesn’t care if I look like I just crawled out of bed. I grab my purse—a giant designer tote with a glittery unicorn and embossed castle on it that I got from Layla for Christmas and that I love with a fiery passion—the letter from Marquette that I still need to open, and my dead phone.

  On the kitchen table, there’s a note from Mom.

  Sorry about the fight, Kit-Kat. I think you’re brave and fierce, but I don’t want you to get hurt or get your hopes up. Get your chores done and have fun at Layla’s. I’ll see you tomorrow.

  XOXO, Mom

  I grab a pen and scrawl at the bottom.

  Sorry too, Mom. See you tomorrow.

  – K.

  The Mason jar full of tips sits on the table where we left it last night. I only pause for a moment before I reach in and take out a twenty. Although I’d love for Jett to buy me breakfast, I can’t let him. Beyond our Unbreakable Rules, I don’t want him to know that this money is kind of way too much to spend on breakfast. Jett and Layla know I’m poor, but I’ve worked hard to make sure they don’t know how broke we are. Like I’m planning on stealing a roll of TP and some of the free tampons that are tucked into a cabinet in the local Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom, just so I don’t have to buy more before payday. That’s a ridiculous level of poor and the kind of things that are hard to explain to your well-off best friends.

  Jett smiles as I get into the van. I plug in my phone to the charger, and the brassy horns and lilting melancholy of Beirut fill the car. Jett loves this band for the horns, but I love it because it makes me think of cities I’ve never visited. Of Paris before the wars and Istanbul at twilight. We’re quiet on the ride to Dunks, but it’s not weird. Just a nice silence. The cozy kind that’s like snuggling into a blanket on a cold day or wearing your favorite PJ pants. When Layla and I are together, we chat almost the whole time. Which thrills and exhausts me, but with Jett it’s always been relaxed and easy.

  I’m pouring more sugar into my extra-large coffee when he asks to see the Marquette letter.

  “Don’t make me open it.” I groan, and hand it over. I bite into a chocolate Long John. Sweetness fills my mouth. Donuts are my kryptonite, and of course, the history nerd in me knows that in the Middle Ages, they were a favorite treat before Lent.

  “You can do it!” he says, sliding a finger under the lip of the envelope.

  I snatch it back. “Too soon. Let me have a few more minutes of suspended disappointment. Please.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me. “You’re not being very kickass Girl Knight.”

  I drink more coffee. “Leave me in peace. I promise, I’ll open it today.”

  “Pinky swear?” He holds out a finger.

  I curl mine around his. “Pinky swear. Also, I haven’t done this since I was like nine.”

  And I love the way our fingers fit together.

  Jett laughs, unhooks his finger from mine, and finishes his donuts. “You know what you need?”

  “A day of yard work at my mother’s insistence?”

  Jett shakes his head. His brown eyes glow in the morning light. Goddammit, he’s gorgeous. “Road trip. To Marquette. Now. It’ll be like a pilgrimage. And you can open your letter there.”

  “I can’t. I’m grounded.”

  “And I’ve got to be back for my shift at the Castle tonight. You’ll be home with more than enough time to mow the lawn. I promise.”

  I think again of all the women in the Middle Ages, especially of the Wife of Bath. Bold, brave, saucy, and spirited. Traveling to pilgrimage sites was kind of her thing. Exactly the kind of woman I want to be. Minus the six husbands and all that.

  “Let’s go.”

  We leave the donut shop before I have time to pilfer the bathroom for supplies, but that’s okay for now. Pilgrimage awaits.

  10

  MARQUETTE IS IN MILWAUKEE, A LITTLE OVER AN HOUR and a half away from my house. Driving into the city always takes my breath away. Lake Michigan sits in the east, an endless stretch of sapphire to the horizon. Then, skyscrapers, smokestacks, and the steeples of the city’s many churches and breweries stab at the clouds.

  We find parking a few blocks from campus and stroll along the street. It’s mostly empty and quiet this morning. A homeless guy pushes a shopping cart past us. Jett puts a five-dollar bill into his outstretched hand. The guy thanks him with an elaborate blessing. It’s too much, but Jett just smiles and waves as we walk away. Only a few students stroll (or stagger) across campus. It’s Saturday morning after all. Even still, I wish I had changed. Most of the early-morning students have expensive bags and wear North Face pullovers. It’s almost like a uniform.

  “I’d never fit in here,” I say as we walk.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” says Jett. “You’re brilliant, hardworking, and nice. You’ll be fine.” He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. I squeeze back and then drop his hand.

  Without meaning to, we’ve moved toward the center of campus. There’s a terraced garden where a riot of tulips and other flowers bloom. At the center of the garden sits a small, medieval stone chapel. It looks impossibly out of place among the nineteenth-century ivy-covered brick buildings and the more modern shapes of the Engineering Hall and the Wehr Life Sciences Building.

  “St. Joan of Arc Chapel,” I say, a little awestruck. I’ve seen pictures of it, but I’ve never been here. My heart kicks inside my chest as I think about teenage Joan of Arc, standing here, just like me, looking for some direction.

  I’m not religious, but I do love connecting to the past. And this is about as real as it gets.

  We take a couple of selfies in front of the chapel.

  “Did you know some rich lady brought this chapel over here stone by stone?” says Jett. “I did a bunch of research last night.”

  “Bless your little nerd heart,” I say. “Can you imagine that, though? Stone by stone?”

  “She actually brought a whole château over, so this was literally a drop in the stone-by-stone bucket.”

  Rich people. SMH.

  “This is like Disneyland for history geeks,” I say, pushing on the wooden door. It’s surprisingly heavy—as I suppose doors had to be back in the days of Viking raids and Inquisitions—and Jett and I step into the shadowy nave.

  It’s so perfect it’s almost a cliché.

  Dust motes dance in slivers of sunlight that filter through the row of arched windows. Threadbare tapestries cover the walls and wagon-wheel wooden chandeliers dangle from the star-shaped ceiling. Behind us an armless Christ figure hangs above the door, flanked by carved cherubs. An altar stone sits at the front of the chapel, solid beneath the distracting whimsy of the round stained glass window above it. Blue, red, yellow, and black pieces of glass paint a picture of life as it might have been in Joan’s time.

  This is what I imagine parts of Paris must look like. I close my eyes for a moment, pretending I’m in Notre Dame. Living a tiny part of the dream I’ve had for so long.

  “Wow,” says Jett under his breath. He’s filming on his phone as we walk.
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  “Yeah,” I whisper, trying to take it all in.

  We’re the only people inside the chapel. There’s a guest book on a carved stand that looks like it’s straight out of the set of Game of Thrones. I flip through it, skimming the entries. Pages and pages of names, scrawled prayers, and hopes; the whispers of people’s secret hearts. How many feet have crossed over these stones in the last six hundred years? The air’s charged, like it’s holding its breath, waiting for something. Or someone. Like it’s missing the girl-saint who stopped inside its walls, her boots muddy, her hair chopped off, her heart full of mystery or madness.

  I can’t stop touching things. I run my fingers along the cool stone walls, dipping them into the uneven places in the rock. I sit in one of the rickety chairs. I stand on my tiptoes and touch the tapestry fabric. The iron sconces have rounded points on the end, and I press the edge of my finger into one. It almost hurts.

  It all feels genuine in the way that history doesn’t at the Castle. It’s uncomfortable, imperfect, and it makes sense that real lives could’ve existed in a place like this. Somewhere sacred and strange and utterly out of place in the rush and bustle of an urban college campus.

  “They have Mass here every day,” Jett says, reading a sign near the back of the chapel. He’s stopped filming. “Do you want to stay?”

  I shake my head. “The awe of history is good enough for me,” I say. “Let’s go see her.”

  Near the front of the church is a statue of Joan of Arc. It’s small, like she was, and her pageboy haircut is rendered with painful, awkward accuracy. I’m not tall, but I tower over her. With the exception of the sword at her side and her armor, she looks like an eighth grader going to get her braces adjusted.

  I rest my hand on her arm, trying to channel some of her bravery, spirit, and belief in her own mission. What must it be like to have that sort of clarity in your own life as a teenager? I mean, I have my Big Plan. And my lists. But it’s not quite so unswerving as an edict from saints and divine powers.

  “She must’ve been badass to see in battle,” says Jett.

  “Actually, she never fought in battle,” says a voice from the front of the chapel.

  A woman wearing an Easter egg–patterned sweatshirt, mom jeans, and a name tag with “Volunteer” on it steps out from a hidden door of what must be the sacristy. “Joan was present at many battles,” the woman continues in a tour-guide voice. “But she didn’t fight in any herself. It’s one of her legends. Like this chapel. We’re fairly certain she never set foot in here.”

  “What do you mean?” I make a face. “This is the Joan of Arc chapel.”

  The woman laughs, like she’s heard a thousand other people say the same thing. “It’s called that, dear, but it’s not true. This chapel is from the southeast of France. Joan was in the north. The windows were put in during the thirties, and the tapestries are reproductions from a rich donor. Everything in here is from somewhere else—the altar is from centuries after Joan, and the statues in the back from a bombed church in Italy—that’s why they have no arms.”

  “You mean it’s all a fake?”

  I kind of can’t breathe, and the dust motes now look tawdry, as does all the other stuff scattered about the chapel.

  “It makes people believe,” says the woman. She shrugs. “And Joan was real. Those are the important parts.”

  “But, just to be clear, this chapel really has nothing to do with Joan at all?” My voice has a frantic edge, and I can see Jett biting his bottom lip. I wonder if he found this out already during his research.

  The woman tugs at the bottom of her sweatshirt and looks at Joan’s statue. “I wish it did. I really do, honey. But it’s only a story.”

  I slump into a chair and bury my head into my hands. Stupid, unasked-for tears fill my eyes. The chapel is really no better than the Castle. A fake, a fraud, an approximation attraction that’s playing at being real.

  “Would you all like to know more about the history of the chapel?” asks the woman. Her voice sounds worried as she looks at me. “There’s real medieval graffiti right over here… .”

  Jett puts an arm around my shoulders. “We’re okay, thanks.” His arm is warm, real, and not super-fucking disappointing like everything else. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got one more surprise.”

  I swipe my hand across my face and stand up. As we leave, I don’t even look at Joan’s statue. All my reverence from the moment before is gone. Replaced by the cold, hard facts. Craptastic Reality 1, Mystery of History 0.

  Maybe Marquette isn’t so great after all.

  Jett keeps his arm around me as we walk to the car. A traitorous sob bursts from me as we walk.

  “What’s up?” His eyebrows come together.

  “It’s all just so fake and frustrating, and I don’t know …”

  My emotions from last night are still catching up. I’m crying for stupid things like a fridge that can’t keep food cold. A job where I’m allowed to serve beer to frat boys but not ride a horse. And the lingering suspicion that my Big Plan is as fake and foolish as a chapel brought stone by stone from France to trick people.

  Jett hugs me until I’m done crying.

  “Sorry,” I say, swiping my hand across my wet eyes and snotty nose because I’m classy like that. “I’m just … overwhelmed …”

  “One more surprise,” he says again, a smile tugging at the edge of his eyes. “Promise you’ll feel better …”

  WE DRIVE THROUGH DOWNTOWN, HEADING EAST PAST skyscrapers toward Lake Michigan. It’s a bright, breezy spring day, and dozens of sailboats dot the horizon. The metal wings on the Milwaukee Art Museum are closed because it’s so windy, making it look like a giant tropical flower that’s sleeping. There’s something else in the sky too—kites. Hundreds of them soar above Veterans Park, a wide expanse of grass, willow trees, and picnic spots beside the harbor. As we get out of the car, the clanking of sail rigging and the screech of seagulls sound like a nautical symphony.

  “What’s happening here?” I point to the kites and the crowds of people beneath them.

  “Spring Kite Festival.” Jett grins. He grabs a blanket and his ratty green backpack from the van. “My grandparents used to live in Milwaukee, and we’d come to this festival every year.”

  “It’s magnificent.” My mood lifts as we move through the crowd, rising higher with each gust of wind and dance of the kites.

  There’s a group from Chicago doing competitive, synchronized kite flying (who knew such a thing was possible?!) to Aerosmith; vendors selling everything from snow cones to vacation packages; and packs of children holding kite strings and gaping at the anarchy of geometry above them. Jett and I find a spot near some trees where a group of teenagers have strung a rainbow of hammocks.

  Jett spreads the blanket out and we sit down to eat warm PB&J sandwiches.

  “My younger brothers helped me pack these,” he says apologetically through a mouthful. “Oh! And my mom told me to tell you that she’s excited you’re challenging the dominant patriarchal hegemony of the Castle.”

  Since she teaches Feminist and Gender Studies in addition to anthropology, sentences like this from Jett’s mom are like my mom saying, “Kit, mow the grass.”

  Which I’m clearly not doing, but so it goes.

  “Your mom is awesome.” I put my sandwich down and lean back on my elbows.

  “She is,” Jett agrees. “And so are you.”

  I smile to myself. Jett, like Layla, is the best kind of best friend. Positive, affirming, fierce, and not afraid to push me when I need it. I just hope I’m as good a friend to him as he is to me.

  He finishes his sandwich and lies beside me. Our shoulders barely touch as we stare up at the sky. The kites flutter, dip, sway, and soar, a mesmerizing display of canvas and caprice. The wind picks up my hair and wraps me in the smell of Jett’s coconut lavender lotion. His mom also insists on all organic, natural products for her kids, so Jett always smells vaguely like a garden and a cookie at
the same time.

  “This is perfect.” I rest my hands on my stomach and close my eyes as the sun warms my face.

  “It is,” says Jett, shifting around so his head nuzzles between the curve of my neck and shoulder.

  Which of course sends my stupid heart racing. But also is a perfectly friendly thing for best friends to do. Right? As far as I can tell he’s feeling nothing out of the ordinary from our proximity.

  “You should open the letter,” says Jett after a few moments of kite watching.

  I exhale sharply. “I don’t know. After the disappointment of the Joan of Arc chapel being a fake, maybe I don’t even want to go there.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You have other reasons. C’mon. Open it. I want to see.”

  He pokes me in the shoulder repeatedly. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”

  “So. Annoying!” I say with a laugh. “Okay, fine.”

  Pulling the letter out of my bag, I take a deep breath. I don’t want to spoil our perfect afternoon, but it’s better to open it here. With Jett. Because—even if it’s a no—I can look at the lake, the city, the kites, and remember that life is full of beauty.

  I slide my finger along the envelope and slip out the paper.

  “Be brave,” says Jett, poking me in the shoulder again.

  Please let it be a yes. Please let it be a yes. Please let it be a—

  “YES!!!” I shout, startling the family on a blanket beside ours. I sit up quickly, brandishing my letter. “It’s a yes!”

  “Ahhhhh!” says Jett. He pulls me to my feet in one fluid motion. “It’s a yes!”

  We jump up and down together for a moment. A few people cheer with us, raising beers. They probably think we just got engaged.

  “I’m so happy,” I say to Jett as we settle back onto the blanket.

  “I’m so happy for you.” He bites into an apple. “Does it say anything about financial aid?”

  I skim the letter again. “Nope. Just that they’re still considering my scholarship application and they’ll let me know soon.”

  “That’s okay though. Today is a good day.”