The Nowhere Girls

by Amy Reed

  But for Grace, going back to normal is unacceptable. Normal is where she gets lost. Normal is where she is nobody. Normal is where nothing happens. How can something be so different for two people?

  “But I keep thinking about her being all alone,” Grace says. “It seems like we should go check on her or something.”

  “Honestly,” Rosina says, “I think that would stress her out even more. If you need to do something, why don’t you text her? Let her know you’re thinking about her. That’d make her feel good.”

  “You two have a fascinating relationship.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You really care about her, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, so?” Rosina says. “She’s my friend.”

  Grace chuckles a little.

  “What?” Rosina says.

  “You act like you’re such a badass.”

  “I am a badass.”

  They walk the rest of the way in silence, which allows Grace’s thoughts to wander back to herself. “Are you sure it’s okay that I’m coming over?” she asks. She half hopes Rosina will change her mind. Grace is suddenly so nervous that even her leaking bedroom seems more comfortable than a first visit to a new friend’s house.

  Rosina is her friend. Going to her house (really her aunt and uncle’s house) after school makes it official.

  “I’m telling you,” Rosina says. “I don’t even need to be there. Those kids can totally survive without me.”

  Rosina wasn’t kidding when she said she had a whole army of cousins. They are everywhere, underneath the tables, bouncing on the furniture, climbing up the walls. The open living/dining room is stuffed with mismatched furniture; toys, clothes, dishes, and papers cover every surface.

  A tween girl sits close to the television, watching a reality show. “That’s the one I’m trying to groom to take my position,” Rosina says. “All she has to do is sit there like she always does. Lola!” The girl doesn’t move. “Where’s Abuelita?”

  “At your house,” Lola says without taking her eyes off the screen. It’s the show about people who have strange addictions to eating weird things. On-screen, a woman is drinking dish soap out of a champagne glass.

  “You know she’s not supposed to be there by herself,” Rosina says.

  Lola shrugs. “She’s sleeping.” The woman on the TV burps and a bubble comes out of her mouth.

  “Where’s Erwin?” Rosina says.

  “In the bathroom.”

  Rosina shakes her head. “These people,” she mutters.

  “Does Erin come over a lot?” Grace asks.

  “She’s not really into hanging out outside of school,” Rosina says, throwing her backpack on the floor. “She’s only come over a couple of times, and both times she had to leave after, like, ten minutes because she said the smells hurt her.”

  “What smells?” Grace says. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “Food smells. She says she can smell the hot peppers my mom and aunt use in their cooking. Which is especially weird at my house because my mom hardly ever even cooks there. Erin was smelling, like, leftover smells from the restaurant. It’s like she has superhuman senses or something.”

  A boy around two years old hands Grace a naked Barbie with no head. “Thank you?” Grace says as he toddles away.

  “Over here,” Rosina says as she opens a laptop sitting on the dining table. She moves a laundry basket off a chair and motions to Grace to sit down. They stare at the screen as Rosina signs into the e-mail account they created for the Nowhere Girls, with no real names or identifying information attached to it.

  “Hey, look,” Rosina says. “We got new e-mails!”

  A fight breaks out on the other side of the room. “Mine!” says one of the kids.

  “No, mine!” says another.

  “Give me that,” Lola says, grabs the toy from the dueling cousins, sits on top of it, and goes back to watching her show.

  “See,” Rosina says. “She’s totally ready.”

  “What do the e-mails say?” Grace says. “Do you recognize any of the addresses?” All the school e-mail addresses are the same format: lastname.firstname@PrescottHS.edu, but none of the names look familiar to Grace.

  “If you haven’t already noticed,” Rosina says, “I’m not exactly a social butterfly. There are more than a thousand students at our school. It is highly unlikely that I know the first and last names of approximately five hundred of them.”

  “You sound like Erin,” Grace says.

  “I think this is from one of those little Emo girls at the meeting,” Rosina says as she clicks on the first e-mail. “She says we should meet somewhere more secret than the library. Good point.” Rosina clicks on the next one. “Here’s one from Elise. She just wants to know when the next meeting is. Oh, man, I thought she was going to take credit for those signs. That girl has some cojones.”

  “You think she did it?” Grace asks.

  “Of course she did it.”

  Rosina smiles at the computer screen. “Well, look at this. We got one from Margot Dillard.”

  “Who’s Margot Dillard?”

  “You don’t know? Only your two-term Prescott High student body president,” she says in a singsong voice. “Let’s see. . . . ‘Dear Nowhere Girls.’ Isn’t that polite? ‘I am very interested in joining your group. It appears that you can do much in the way of promoting empowerment among the young women of Prescott High School. I am very devoted to fighting for women’s equality and would like to be involved in your positive social action. Please let me know when and where your next meeting will be, and how I may be of service. Sincerely, Margot H. Dillard, Prescott High School Student Body President.’ Jesus!” Rosina says, leaning back in her chair. “It’s like she’s applying for a job at the fucking bank.”

  “What’s that one?” Grace says, pointing to a “From” e-mail address not in the regular school format, just a bunch of randomly generated numbers and letters from a common e-mail provider.

  “Huh,” Rosina says, opening it. “Whoever it is must have really wanted to stay anonymous.”

  Grace leans over Rosina’s shoulder as they read the e-mail in silence:

  Hi, whoever you are.

  When I got your first e-mail, I just ignored it. I thought it was bullshit. But after today and all the signs at school, I started thinking maybe it’s not bullshit. I don’t know if I’m ever going to come to your meetings, but I think you should keep having them.

  The reason I’m writing is because the thing that the signs are talking about—that really happens. It happened to me last year. I was a freshman and he was a senior and I was so flattered he was into me. I thought he really liked me. It was at a party and he kept giving me drinks. Then he took me out to his car.

  I told myself he must have not heard me say no. I blamed myself. I thought it was my fault for getting drunk.

  I’m not going to tell you who this is, because if you go after him, he’ll know it was me who told. But I just want you to know I’m grateful for what you’re doing. I think a lot of girls are, even if they don’t know it yet.

  Thank you.

  Rosina and Grace stand there for a long time, not talking, reading the e-mail over and over again.

  A child in the living room starts wailing, breaking their trance. The cousin who must be Erwin pokes his head out of the hallway and says, “Rosina! Will you quiet that kid up?”

  Rosina looks at Grace, her jaw set, her brown eyes sharp and glistening.

  “When is our next meeting?” Grace says.

  Rosina’s hands shake as she starts typing.

  To: undisclosed recipients

  From: TheNowhereGirls

  Date: Friday, September 23

  Subject: ONLY YES MEANS YES (and info about our next meeting)

  Dear friends:

  There seems to be some confusion about this, so let us make something very clear:

  Taking advantage of someone who is intoxicated is sleazy and wrong. I
T IS RAPE.

  Getting a girl drunk for the purpose of having sex with her is not “loosening her up.” It is not a seduction technique. It is RAPE.

  Having sex with someone who can’t consent doesn’t make a guy lucky. It makes him a RAPIST.

  Got it?

  Somehow we’ve all decided this is just the way things are. This is just what guys do. This is just what girls have to deal with. But we refuse to accept that anymore. We are done letting guys decide what they get to do with our bodies.

  If this has happened to you, it is not your fault. We are here for you. We are here for all of us.

  Together, we are so much stronger than this bullshit we’ve been putting up with for far too long. Together, we can change it.

  Join us!

  Our next meeting will be 4:00 p.m., Tuesday, September 27, at the old cement factory warehouse on Elm Road.

  Love,

  Your friends, The Nowhere Girls

  The Real Men of Prescott

  Hot girls are trained to make it hard for you to fuck them. Being untouchable heightens their value. But all girls want a strong man, not some sensitive beta pussy who talks about his feelings. Girls want to be taken; it’s in their natures, so sometimes they put up a fight hoping you’ll get a little rough. The truth is, sometimes no doesn’t mean no. Of course, the feminazis will never admit this, but I’ll bet you a hundred bucks most of those chicks like it rough.

  Women want a man who takes charge. They want a master. But remember, only when you gain complete control of yourself will you be able to gain complete control of her.

  —AlphaGuy541

  US.

  “I think this is considered breaking and entering,” Erin says as they walk into the empty warehouse. “This is most definitely illegal. I am not comfortable with this.”

  “We’re not breaking anything,” Rosina says. “The door was wide open.”

  “I’m not convinced,” Erin says, but she doesn’t seem as upset as she should be.

  The space is huge and empty, just a concrete floor surrounded by walls of multipaned, dirty windows, with no furniture anywhere. There are already over a dozen girls here, including every one of the girls from the first meeting, even Connie Lancaster, the girl who essentially ended it. Everyone is slightly damp from the day’s relentless drizzle, standing around looking suspicious, huddled tight in their usual cliques, eyeing each other with disdain. It seems more likely that they’re about to go to war than join forces.

  “I don’t think they like your location selection either,” Erin tells Rosina.

  “How did you even know about this place?” says Grace.

  “Let’s just say I have made it somewhat of an art form to discover places where my family can’t find me,” Rosina says.

  Gray light filters into the empty space through clouded windows, muting all color. Everything is a gradation of shadow. Someone whispers, “What is she doing here?” and everyone assumes the “she” means herself.

  “I don’t like this,” Erin says. “Everyone looks mean. What if they’re mean? What if this ends as badly as the last meeting?”

  “It hasn’t even started yet and you’re already panicking about how it’s going to end?” Rosina says.

  “There are so many more people,” Grace says nervously.

  “Dude,” Rosina says. “That’s a good thing.”

  “I thought Grace was supposed to be the positive one,” Erin says, wringing her hands. “Why isn’t Grace being positive?”

  “Oh, thank God!” Rosina says, looking over Erin’s and Grace’s head. “Margot Dillard’s here. Finally, someone’s here who will know what to do. Or at least pretend she does.”

  “Oh, this is so exciting!” Margot Dillard, Prescott High School student body president, exclaims, clapping her hands together. She goes around the room greeting everyone, as if this is her party and she invited everybody, as if she doesn’t even notice the dismal surroundings.

  “Holy crap,” Erin whispers. “Cheerleaders. I can’t handle this.”

  Four girls walk into the room, statuesque, impeccably groomed, and somehow impervious to rain.

  “Big deal,” Rosina says.

  “It is actually kind of a big deal,” Grace says.

  “I don’t understand why everybody gets so excited about cheerleaders,” Rosina says. “None of them is particularly accomplished at anything except jumping up and down and occasionally spelling ‘Spartans’ out loud. I can spell a whole lot of words way more complicated than ‘Spartans’ and no one ever cheers for me.”

  “You like that one cheerleader,” Erin says. “The nice one.”

  “No, I don’t,” Rosina says.

  “Yes, you do. You said she’s the most beautiful girl in school.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Oh my gosh,” Grace says. “There are like twenty people here already.”

  “Oh my gosh,” Rosina teases.

  “Twenty-three,” Erin says. “I counted.”

  “Does this group have a designated facilitator?” Margot Dillard says with her big, presidential voice.

  “It’s like she has a microphone built into her throat,” Rosina mutters.

  “The last meeting was pretty unfacilitated,” Sam Robeson, drama club girl, says.

  “Well, every meeting needs a facilitator,” Margot says. “Would anyone like to nominate a facilitator?”

  “I nominate Margot to be the facilitator,” says Elise Powell.

  “Thanks, Elise,” Margot says with fake surprise. “Does anyone want to second Elise’s nomination?”

  “I second it,” says either Trista or Krista.

  “All in favor, raise your hand,” says Margot, and all the hands in the room go up.

  “Thank God,” Grace says.

  “Thank gosh,” says Rosina.

  “How about we all sit down in a circle,” Margot says.

  “On the floor?” says one of the cheerleaders as everybody shuffles into position.

  “You won’t die if you get a little dirty,” says another cheerleader—Melissa Sanderson, the one with the sweet smile and kind eyes who has brought Rosina’s wandering grandmother back home more than once, and who has always stood out as a little different from her pack of popular girls.

  “Before we get started,” Margot says after everyone gets settled, “I just want to say thank you to whomever started this. I know you want to stay anonymous, which I understand completely. But if you’re in this room, and I think you are, I want you to know that this is the kind of grassroots organizing that leads to real and lasting change.” There are some halfhearted nods around the room, a few shrugs, a few muted sneers and snickers.

  “It’s like she’s practicing for a real run for office,” Rosina whispers. The cheerleader named Melissa laughs as she sits down right beside her, and Rosina looks down at her lap. Erin glares at both of them.

  “Why did you blush?” Erin asks Rosina. “You never blush.”

  “Shhh,” says Grace.

  “I’d also like to suggest that the group stop using our school e-mail for communication, because it’s too easily traceable,” Margot continues. “I’d recommend disabling it entirely. We can spread news by good old-fashioned word of mouth.”

  “She’s really taking over, isn’t she?” Melissa whispers to Rosina. “Do you think she’s the one who started it?”

  “Are you blushing again?” Erin says.

  “Now,” Margot says, “I think we should go around in a circle and introduce ourselves and say a little about why we’re here. I’ll go first. My name’s Margot Dillard. I’m a senior and your student body president, and I’m here because I want to change the misogynist culture at our school. Okay, your turn.”

  “Um,” the next girl says. “My name’s Julie Simpson. I’m a sophomore. I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to see what this is all about?”

  “My name’s Taylor Wiggins,” says another girl. “I’m here because I’m sick of the way guys treat
girls. Like how they always tell their buddies whenever they hook up with someone, without even thinking about her privacy or anything.”

  “Yeah,” says another girl. A few more nod their heads in agreement.

  “I’m Lisa Sutter. Senior. Captain of the cheer squad. But you all know who I am, right? Anyways, I’m here because my boyfriend, Blake, cheated on me and I want to punish him.”

  “I’m Melissa Sanderson,” Melissa says. “I guess I’m just tired of everyone expecting me to be a certain way because I’m a cheerleader or whatever. Like maybe I’m not really who everyone thinks I should be, but I feel like I have to hide it. I don’t know, maybe that doesn’t have anything to do with what this group is about. But it feels like it does, or at least it should. Because, I don’t know, there has to be more than one way to be a girl, right?”

  “Totally,” Rosina says.

  “Why are they looking at each other like that?” Erin whispers to Grace.

  “Shhh,” Grace says.

  “Hey, weren’t you guys friends with Lucy Moynihan?” someone says, and everyone’s attention immediately focuses on two nondescript girls on the other side of the circle.

  “Can I pass?” the first girl says meekly.

  “Isn’t the Mexican girl next?” says the other.

  “Mexican girl?” says Rosina.

  “You were at the party with her that night,” someone else says. “I remember you. Both of you.”

  “Come on, Jenny,” says the first girl. “We knew we were going to have to talk about her. That’s why we came here.”

  “You were friends with Lucy?” Grace says, then immediately shrinks back, as if startled by the sound of her own voice, so loud, in front of this many people.

  “No,” says Jenny, at the same time her friend says, “Yes.”

  “Which is it?” says Margot.

  “We weren’t, like, close or anything,” Jenny says, not looking anyone in the eye. “We just knew each other.”