by Jamie Pacton
I have to laugh. It’s a line from a seventeenth-century comedy we did in last year’s drama finals. I know for a fact that neither of us is a virgin. I lost mine in the world’s most awkward hookup at theater camp sophomore year. Jett lost his last summer to some out-of-town friend of a friend at Austin’s lake house.
“That’s a relief,” I say. “Not that I wouldn’t do that … well, I wouldn’t with you. Because of the Unbreakable Rules. And because you’re not into Serving Wenches. And, well, it’s you. And I’m me. But it’s a relief … that we didn’t … you know … while I was so drunk …”
He quirks an eyebrow at me, letting me dig myself deeper into the hole of my own words.
I’m clearly not helping this at all.
Stop. Talking. Kit.
“Let’s go get pancakes,” says Jett. “I’ll run home and get a shirt. You get cleaned up, and then we’ll go for breakfast. Everything else can wait.”
Ahhh, Jett. My breakfast food bestie.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror hanging by the cabana door and nearly scream. I look like a costume that should be at the bottom of a Halloween bargain bin. Half my hair is plastered to my head and the rest stands up like a cloud. All my makeup’s run down my face, like a melting clown, and my breath. Oh boy. My breath is roadkill bad.
“You’re asking me to breakfast, when I look like this?”
Jett tilts his head. “Do you look different than usual? I couldn’t tell.”
“Beastly man!” I grab a tasseled pillow from the floor and fling it at his head.
He dodges and steps closer to me. Even through my own stink, his coconut and lavender smell envelops me. “As your best friend, it’s my job to tell you that you’re beautiful every day. No amount of barf can change that.”
“Ugh,” I say, covering my stinky mouth. “Just give me a breath mint and get out of here already. I need to shower.”
Jett grins. “So, that’s a yes to pancakes?”
“Yes,” I say as I unwrap the red-and-white mint Jett hands me. He steals them by the handful from the candy bowls at the Castle, so his pockets are always full. Kind of exactly like my grandmother. I pop the mint in my mouth. “Wait, no. Rain check. I’ve got to get home soon and talk to my mom.”
I need her to un-ground me so I can train at Layla’s this week. And I’d like to ask her why she’s not been paying the mortgage.
“Okay,” says Jett, shrugging. “Text me if you want to talk about your documentary later.”
“Will do. And thanks for taking care of me last night.” I offer him my most grateful smile. “You’re seriously the best guy a girl could have.”
“Best guy friend,” he corrects gently. He offers me another mint and then he’s out the door.
There it is. The sound of me being put solidly and forever in the friend zone.
Outside, his motorcycle roars to life. I peek out the curtains as Jett races down the driveway. A little bit of my barf and a huge piece of my heart goes with him.
WHEN I FINALLY STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, LAYLA’S MADE COFFEE and is sitting at the breakfast nook table with her laptop open.
“You’re up to over three hundred thousand views in two days,” she says in lieu of a greeting.
“Are you serious?” I plop down into one of the fancy ergonomic chairs and try not to stare at the sun streaming in through the bay windows.
“Dead serious. Do you know how big a deal that is?” Layla dips a piece of bagel into her coffee and pops it into her mouth. She swings the screen around and points to the comments.
I read a few and then shrug, too tired and hungover to process them right now. My breath’s better thanks to the breath mint, but everything else still hurts. I unscrew the lid from a bottle of French vanilla creamer and take a long swig from it. It goes down sickly sweet, but since there’s not a bathtub of frosting to drown myself in, this will have to work.
“Gross,” says Layla, taking the creamer away and pushing black coffee and a piece of whole wheat toast toward me. “Eat that.”
“Where’s your pink-haired friend?”
“Maura? She left right after you and Jett went to bed.” Layla waggles her eyebrows at me, as if that will make details of my night emerge from my mouth.
I refuse to take the bait. “Are you going to see her again?”
“Maybe. We had fun,” she says. “But it’s not serious.”
“Jett knows all about that.”
“Uh-oh,” says Layla. She closes her computer. “That bad?”
“He told me he’s not into Serving Wenches. Which I’m taking worse than I thought I would.” I slurp some black coffee and nibble a bite of toast.
“He’ll come around,” she says. “You feeling okay about phases one and two?”
“I’m not feeling good about anything right now. Maybe once my brain stops ping-ponging around my skull, I’ll be capable of opinions again.”
“Poor baby drinker,” murmurs Layla. She gets an ice pack out of the freezer and plops it on the top of my head. After I finish my coffee and drink a bunch of water, she turns on the TV. I curl up on the couch beside her with a mumbled “Thank you.”
I don’t wake up until she nudges me. My head’s resting on a plump, satiny pillow, and there’s a line of drool soaked into it.
Ugh. I’m awesome.
“It’s three p.m.,” says Layla. She’s dressed in her work clothes. “I texted your mom earlier, pretending to be you, and told her we were still doing homework and you’d get a ride home with me. But she pretty much yelled at me through the phone. So, I think you better get home now.”
“You are the best. Friend. Ever. What do you see in me?”
Layla laughs. “Get moving, Wench.”
“I love you too.”
16
MOM’S NOT EVEN HOME TO YELL AT ME BECAUSE SHE’S on another double shift, and I end up sleeping the rest of Sunday away in my dark house. At some point, Chris brought me a Gatorade, which I took after a long soliloquy about how he was the best brother ever. I expected an argument from Mom when she got home from work, but she just planted a sleepy kiss on my forehead and un-grounded me, saying she was too tired to keep up my punishment or even argue about it any longer. I didn’t have enough brain power to confront her about the mortgage, and all of us went to bed exhausted and ready for the new week to be better.
By Monday morning—the first day of spring break—I’m among the living again and super excited about the first training session with the other Knight-hopefuls. Our electricity is also on, so I take a scalding-hot shower and microwave water for instant oatmeal. Thank you, gods of modern technology.
“Ready to go?” Chris asks around noon. He’s on spring break too this week, though he was up early to drive a few Uber pickups before we start training.
I close my own laptop and smile. I’ve been checking all the viral strains of the Girl Knight campaign, and so far it’s going great. There are more than four hundred thousand views for the video, and it’s been shared almost as many times on social media. No major news outlets have picked it up yet, and I’ve still not heard anything from the Castle, but hopefully that will change as the workweek gets underway.
“I’m ready,” I say, grabbing my purse and Jett’s backpack. “I just need to get some food.”
Opening the fridge, I peer inside. Mom must’ve gone grocery shopping, because there’s milk, cheese, some fruit, and pasta in there. The Cooler of Doom is still under the table though. I shoot it a dirty look.
“Forget it,” says Chris. “I picked this up for you on the way.”
He tosses a sub sandwich toward me. I catch it using my Knight-like reflexes. “Turkey and Muenster, good job,” I say, reading the wrapping.
“Just looking out for you,” he says, sitting down at the kitchen table across from me. He unwraps his own sandwich. “I figured we should start day one of training with some food in our bellies.”
As we eat, he goes over his plans for the day and
the routines we’re going to learn. It’s a lot, but we might just be able to pull this off.
Penny, Alex, Mags, and Lizzy are at Layla’s by 2:00 p.m. Jett’s there too with the fancy video camera he got for his last birthday. I’m not sure if I should give them a pep talk or what, but Layla pokes me hard in the back as we all stand in her barn, each of us gripping one of the practice swords Chris has smuggled out of the Castle for us.
“Say something,” she hisses. “You’re the fearless leader here. Tell them the plan.”
Okay. Pep talk it is.
“Hi, everyone!” I call out over the sounds of their conversations. I step up onto a rectangular bale of hay. “Thanks for coming out today.”
Alex whistles and Penny calls out, “Anytime, Kit!”
A horse whinnies in a nearby paddock and Layla runs her hand along its face, soothing it.
I grin, feeling more confident. “I know we have a lot of work to do, but I’m certain we can be ready. Today’s Monday, the second. We’re planning on taking over the tournament on Friday, April thirteenth, when the Corporate folks are in town. We’ll try to get together here to train a bit every day. If you can make it, great. If not, practice on your own.”
Lizzy raises her hand. “Are we going to be able to use the other Knights’ gear?”
I give Chris a look. We’re still figuring out this piece of things.
“We’ll have it taken care of by then,” he says smoothly. “Kit and Layla are working on bringing attention to this cause. All you need to do is work hard and be ready by the thirteenth.”
Mags salutes Chris. “Understood. And will do. Can we get started though? I’ve got to be back home by three thirty.”
And thus begins the day in my life that is basically one big Knights’ training montage. Layla even plays Queen’s Greatest Hits through the stable’s speakers, so we can joust just like the dudes in A Knight’s Tale. Chris spends the first hour teaching everyone except Layla and me how to stay on a horse. Layla’s long-suffering horses are beyond patient, and eventually Penny, Lizzy, Alex, and Mags have the basics down and are no longer gripping the reins with expressions of terror plastered on their faces. After that, we work on swinging swords and fake falling, and then Chris leads us through round after round of trying to catch rings with lances and other knightly games. It’s all stuff I’ve practiced with Chris before, but it’s so much more fun with a big group of friends.
Jett films it all, adding in commentary here and there along with heaps of laughs and cheers.
“Bravo!” Chris calls out from the sidelines encouragingly, even as Alex falls off their horse (again) and Mags misses all the rings she’s trying to capture. We’ve got a long way to go.
After a few hours, we’re bruised, battered, and a tiny bit better at jousting and fake fighting. We’ve seen the show so many times that memorizing the moves is relatively easy. But applying them in the arena? I’m not so sure about that.
Once everyone leaves—with a promise to be back here tomorrow at the same time—Layla and I walk up to the house. It’s blissfully cool inside, and I get us two bottles of fancy water out of the fridge.
“So, you know how you said you didn’t want me to give you any money?” Layla sits down at the kitchen table and opens her laptop.
“I still don’t want that.” I plop down next to her. “I can figure out all that money stuff alone.”
“Sure you can,” says Layla. “Just like you know CPR?”
“Shut up.”
“Tell me it’s not the same thing.”
“It’s totally not the same thing. That was years ago. I was just a kid!”
“It wasn’t that long ago and you’re still that same kid.”
Two years ago, Layla, Chris, and I went to an ice-skating rink where Olympic figure skaters train. I was fifteen, and fresh off CPR classes at school. Needless to say, I was feeling super confident in my lifesaving abilities. It was a family skate day, and the ice was busy with kids, parents, and couples. Somehow I ended up in the fast-skate lane. I was wobbling my way toward the edges when a teen girl wearing a fuzzy pink hat crashed into this mom who was tentatively making her way off the ice with a toddler. The mom flopped backward, hitting her head on the ice. She fell right at my feet and passed out. I dropped to my knees.
I could do something about this!
I KNEW CPR!
I checked the woman’s pulse. I reassured the toddler. I had things under control.
Layla and Chris skated up to me.
“Oh my God, Kit!” said Layla. “What happened? Is she okay?”
Chris looked around, trying to see where the closest exit was. “I’m going to get some help. Stay here.”
“NO!” I shouted. “Don’t go get anyone. I KNOW CPR!”
Layla and Chris looked at each other. Their feet were moving before the look was done.
“We need help over here!” shouted Layla as she raced toward the exit.
“Don’t move her, Kit!” Chris called over his shoulder.
Of course I didn’t move her. I held the toddler’s hand as a medic helped the now-awake and dazed woman to her feet. My cheeks were brighter than my red jacket as I handed the child off to a staff member.
“You know CPR?” muttered Chris as we left the rink and got into his car. “What were you thinking?”
I was thinking that I could save someone. That I could do it on my own. That I didn’t need anyone else.
Which of course was ridiculous.
Beside him in the front seat, Layla cracked up.
“Let us never mention this again.” I crawled into the back seat and pulled my scarf up to my nose.
Much to my undying shame, the CPR incident still comes up with regularity.
“Hey, Earth to Kit,” says Layla, poking me in my very bruised arm. “Did you hear anything I just said?”
“Nope.” I shake my head and take an apple out of the fruit bowl in the middle of the table. “I was lost in memories of my ‘I know CPR’ shame.”
Layla laughs and points to the screen of her laptop. “Okay, so as part of phase one, we made some swag to sell. I printed T-shirts and stickers, and I put ads on your site. Plus, we’re charging people to use your content when they write articles about you.”
“What does all that mean?” I ask through a bite of apple.
“It means that you’re making money. You’ve already generated more than a thousand dollars in revenue.”
“You’re shitting me.” The apple falls from my hand. “It’s only been a few days.”
Layla shakes her head. “The Internet is a mighty capitalist tool. Look.”
She walks me through numbers, profits, and a bunch of other things I don’t fully understand. But what it all boils down to is that I now have money coming in. And I can use it for school or to help Mom catch up on the mortgage.
Save the day or follow my dreams?
I’d like to say I was heroic enough to not struggle with the choice, but that’s a lie.
“When can you get me this money?” I ask Layla.
“You can have it within a week if you’d like,” she says. “Going to put it toward Marquette?”
“Something like that,” I reply.
17
WE TRAIN HARD ON TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY. BY Thursday morning, I’m painfully sore from all the falling, hitting, riding, and practice, but I think we’re getting better. Each of us is good at some part of knighthood, and Chris has been helping choreograph a very basic routine that can work for the tournament. Jett’s got a few hours of video, which he’s working on editing for the next few days. He’s promised to keep the David Attenborough–style voice-over to a minimum, but I’m betting he won’t be able to help himself.
After I arrive home from practice on Thursday, I find Mom sitting at the kitchen table. She’s got a stack of bills beside her computer and stares at the screen with a dismayed expression.
“Hey Kit-Kat,” she says. “How was school?”
I shoot her a look. “It’s spring break, Mom. I’ve been at Layla’s most of this week.”
Chris and I both agree it’s best not to tell Mom about the training and my goals for knighthood. At least not until we’re sure it will work. No reason to worry her unnecessarily.
“Ahh, that’s right. Spring break. Sorry.” She lets out a tired sigh. “I’ve been working as much overtime as the office and the diner will let me. I lost track of the days.”
“What’s all this?” I ask, sitting down next to her.
“Bills. Always so many bills.”
“Can I help with anything?” I really want to ask her more about the unpaid mortgage, and what that means for us. Like, will we have a place to live at this time next month? But I did some googling, and even if we default on that loan, we would have months before the bank took the house.
“You’re doing enough already,” she says, squeezing my hand. “We just have a lot of unexpected expenses lately.”
I take a deep breath for bravery. It’s no good to be trying to inspire change at the Castle if I can’t figure out what’s going on with my own mom.
“Speaking of that … I saw the late notice on the mortgage. What’s going on, Mom?”
She runs a hand across her eyes. “You saw that?”
I nod.
She sighs. “I was trying to keep it from you. So you didn’t have to worry about it on top of college applications and finishing your senior year.”
“Why aren’t you paying it?”
“How would you feel if we didn’t live here anymore?”
I look around the house that’s been my home since I was a kid. It’s everything to me. Family. Home. The place I finally felt secure.
“I suppose it could be okay,” I lie. Trying to keep my voice steady. “If we had somewhere else to go. And I guess this would be a lot of space for you if Chris and I were away at school.”
“Exactly my thought,” Mom says. “Downsizing has been my goal since your father left. To that end, I hired a lawyer to officially get the divorce from your father going. But, in order to pay the legal fees, I’ve had to skip a few mortgage payments. But maybe it’s serendipitous. A smaller place could be a really good thing. I know I’d like less house to take care of. And you and Chris won’t have to worry about helping out around here so much.”