by Amy Reed
* * *
“Hey, boys!” calls a girl across the lunchroom. “Miss us yet?”
“There’s more where you came from,” calls a boy from the other side.
People laugh. It’s all they can do. Some laughs are giddy, triumphant. Some are the peculiar mix of cruelty and embarrassment—the laughter of bullies. Still, some burn with a rage and hate that was already there but hidden, before any of this began.
“Miss this?” says another boy, standing up and fake unbuttoning his pants.
“Miss what?” says a girl. “There’s nothing there.”
Clear lines are drawn. The lunchroom is tense. Allegiances are shifting; tables are emptying as members defect to the other side. A vague no-man’s-land exists between them, a neutral zone of people with their heads down, just trying to eat their lunches. The taunts fly over their heads like war fire, back and forth, a hit here, a ricochet there. Shrapnel flying and seasoning everyone’s food.
“Look at Ennis over there,” Rosina says. “He looks like he’s going to throw up. I almost feel sorry for him.” His head is down, his face covered by the bill of his baseball hat. His friends are silent, hunkered down and steely eyed. All except Jesse Camp, Grace’s almost-friend from church, whose doughy, bewildered face rises above the hunched figures of his lunch mates, looking around the lunchroom as if he’s been misplaced. “God, I wish we had the same lunch as Eric,” Rosina says. “I want to see the look on his face.”
“Sam said he hasn’t been at lunch the past few days,” Grace says. “He’s been going off campus.”
“Can I have your French fries?” Erin says.
“What happened to your raw, organic, vegan, gluten-free diet?” says Rosina.
“All this social upheaval is making me hungry.”
* * *
“It’s important,” a girl says to her boyfriend in her bedroom after school, removing his hands from her waist. “I have to do this.”
She’s having a hard enough time believing her own words without him touching her. Her body wants her to forget her promise. His mouth is on her neck and his breath is warming her skin, and he’s not the enemy, is he? He’s not a rapist. He’s a nice guy. She loves him. Why should he suffer?
She melts. She turns warm. She closes her eyes. She lets his hands sculpt her.
Then she thinks of Lucy, alone and scared, with nobody to help her. She remembers seeing her in the hall the day she came back, how the boys threw things at her—pencils, wadded-up paper, chewed gum—how the girls looked the other way. She thinks of her own body, her boyfriend’s. She thinks of this privilege of pleasure.
“No,” the girl says, and pushes her boyfriend away. “I need you to support me on this.”
He sighs. He squints his eyes tight. He breathes in and out. “I do support you,” he finally says. “But this is kind of painful.” He looks down at his lap, at the expectation bulging in his jeans. “Like physically painful.”
“So go to the bathroom and take care of it if you have to,” the girl says, her resolve back. She has lost all sympathy for decisions made by body parts.
He looks her in the eye. “I’ll survive,” he says, trying to smile. He puts a pillow on his lap.
“You will,” she says. She can see that he is trying. She softens. “Thank you.”
He looks out the window, at the relentless, pounding Oregon rain. God, what a perfect day to have sex. What a perfect day to be warm and close and under the blankets. “So what do we do now?” he says.
“I don’t know,” the girl says, sitting up on her bed, making sure none of her body parts touches any of his. “I guess we talk.”
The Real Men of Prescott
We have to stop letting the bitches manipulate us. They think their passive-aggressive games are going to force us to behave how they want, but we’re stronger than that. We call the shots, not them. We will not bow to a mob of feminazis. We don’t need them. They’re too much trouble.
Don’t worry, men. In the great scheme of things, these girls are nothing. Real women want a strong man to take control. They want to please. They want to be wanted. They’ll do anything to get you to say you love them.
So let’s move on. These bitches aren’t worth our time. There’s plenty of other pussy out there, and we know how to grab it.
—AlphaGuy541
ROSINA.
Fuck this school. Fuck Principal Slatterly.
“Come on, Miss Suarez,” says the dopey security guard. “I don’t have all day.”
Fuck you.
A handful of girls sit on the plastic seats in the school office, the best selection of burnouts and antisocial weirdos the school has to offer.
“What is this?” Rosina says to the black-haired girl with white streaks sitting next to her—Serina Barlow, the girl who notoriously just got back from a summer in rehab.
“I have no idea,” Serina says.
Mrs. Poole steps out from the back, fanning herself with her short chubby fingers. Her forehead shines with beads of sweat.
“You all right, Denise?” the security guard asks her.
“Yeah, Denise,” one of the burnouts says, and a couple of others cackle with her.
“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Poole chirps. “Busy day, that’s all.”
“What are we here for?” Serina asks. “I haven’t done anything.”
“I haven’t done anything,” one of the burnouts mocks. “You think you’re some kind of princess just because you have three months sober? All of a sudden you’re better than us?”
Serina ignores the girls’ hateful stares. Rosina likes her immediately.
“Hey,” Rosina says. “Did you know our names are almost the same if you rearrange the letters?” Serina just looks at her and blinks. “If we get out of here alive,” Rosina whispers, “I have something I want to talk to you about.”
“Rosina Suarez.” Mrs. Poole sighs. “Why don’t you go next?” She waves her in the direction of Principal Slatterly’s office.
This isn’t the first time Rosina’s been in the principal’s office. There was that time she spit in Eric Jordan’s face, of course. There was also the time she defaced the library book about Intelligent Design as a birthday present to Erin (which Erin did not appreciate nearly as much as she should have). There was the time she called her PE teacher an asshole when he shouted “Hurry up, hot tamale!” at her during a running test.
“Why am I here?” Rosina says as she sinks into the way-too-soft armchair across the desk from Principal Slatterly. Everything in the room is floral patterned and wicker. An oil painting of baby rabbits in a gaudy gold frame hangs above a filing cabinet. If a person didn’t know any better, they might think this was the office of a sweet old grandma. But they would be oh so wrong.
“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Slatterly says, leaning forward in her chair and folding her hands on top of her desk.
“I’m here because you told the security guard to come get me out of class.”
“And why do you suppose I did that?”
There are a lot of things Rosina could say, most of which would probably get her suspended. So Rosina says nothing. She leans back, shoulders relaxed, and looks out the window at the dreary wet parking lot as if she couldn’t care less. This is a look she has perfected, which comes in especially handy in moments like this, when she cares way too much.
“You were quite vocal last spring about how you felt about those allegations against three of our male students,” Principal Slatterly says. “You created quite a few disturbances.”
“I created one disturbance,” Rosina says. “And it wasn’t much of a disturbance.”
“There have been quite a few disturbances lately,” Slatterly says. “Would you agree that I am justified in suspecting you might be behind those?”
“Really?” Rosina laughs. “You think I’m a part of this protest or whatever?”
Slatterly doesn’t blink.
“Dude, I’m not a part of anything,”
Rosina says. “It’s like a group, right? Like a bunch of dumb girls got together and decided to play pretend freedom fighters and change the world? Do you really think I’d be a part of that? Nobody likes me. I like nobody. I don’t do groups, and I definitely don’t do optimism or whatever it is you need to believe anything you do can actually make a difference.”
Slatterly’s lips go tight and thin. Rosina can’t help but smile a little—no doubt she won that round. But then the principal hoists her chin in the air and raises her eyebrows. Round two.
Slatterly takes a deep breath. If Rosina didn’t know any better, she might think the gesture seemed sad.
“You may not believe this,” Slatterly says, “but I was young once too.”
It takes all Rosina’s strength to not laugh in the principal’s face.
“You might even say I was a little like you,” Slatterly says. “I tried fighting. I tried yelling to make myself heard.”
Rosina wonders what kind of manipulation strategy this is. Some kind of reverse psychology?
“But you know what?” Slatterly continues. “I didn’t get anywhere that way. I used up all my energy trying to prove something to the world, but no one was listening.” She shifts some papers around on her desk. “I know you girls think you’re doing the right thing, picking these fights. And trust me, I’m with you—I don’t want anyone to get raped. I don’t want girls getting pressured into having sex. Hell, I don’t want girls your age having sex at all. But the truth is, you can’t expect the boys to take you seriously like this. You can’t expect them to respect you when you’re yelling at them.” Slatterly pauses, attempts a smile, maybe even a real one. “Thankfully I learned before it was too late, and that’s why I’m here talking to you, as your principal, in a position of leadership. In a position of power. It was not easy to get where I am, Miss Suarez, and there’s no way I could have done it if I hadn’t been willing to make some compromises.”
Rosina doesn’t know if she’s supposed to say something now. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to think, what she’s supposed to feel. A part of her is angry, but most of her is just confused.
“It’s a man’s world,” Slatterly says, and for a moment Rosina thinks she sees something human break through Slatterly’s usual hard-ass demeanor. Something vulnerable. Something maybe even a little scared. “They make the rules, Miss Suarez. And if you want to get anywhere in this world, you have to play like a man. Being a strong woman doesn’t mean fighting men; it means acting like one.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Rosina says.
“I want you to succeed, Rosina. I don’t want you to get mixed up in any pointless activity that gets you in trouble.”
“I’m not,” Rosina says. “So you have nothing to worry about.”
Slatterly sighs. She closes her eyes for a moment, then adjusts the small fan on her desk so it is pointed straight at her face. Rosina fidgets in her seat. Is Slatterly sweating?
“How many people in your family have graduated high school?” Slatterly finally says.
“What?” Rosina says. “How is that relevant?”
“I imagine your success in school is important to them. They would be very disappointed if you didn’t graduate, for instance.”
“My grades are fine.”
“Surprisingly, yes,” Slatterly says. “But your attendance is abysmal. That can be grounds for suspension. Even expulsion in extreme cases.”
“I doubt I’m an extreme case.”
“Well, that’s the thing, Miss Suarez. You are not the judge of that. I am.”
Rosina says nothing. Here’s the principal she knows. Here’s the royal bitch.
“You don’t want to disappoint your family by not graduating, do you?” Slatterly says. “There aren’t a whole lot of opportunities for uneducated women out there. I suppose you could spend the rest of your life waiting tables at your uncle’s restaurant.”
Slatterly’s face is blank as she lets that sink in, as she lets it fester and poison Rosina from the inside. “So,” she says, “what do you think, Miss Suarez? Do you want to take those risks? Do you want to keep making trouble for yourself, for your family?”
“No,” Rosina whispers.
“Then I think we are in agreement. No funny business, right?”
“Right,” Rosina says between clenched teeth.
Slatterly smiles. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Can I go now?” Rosina says.
“Yes,” Slatterly says. “Please send in the next student, will you, dear?”
Rosina stands up, her muscles a tangle of knots and snarls. She walks out without saying anything, out of the front office, down the hall, and out the school’s front doors. She unlocks her bike and rides through the rain as fast as she can. She doesn’t care about getting wet. She doesn’t care about mud puddles. All she needs is to get to her destination, one of her favorite hiding places on the edge of town, a place where no one but her ever goes, a place where she can sing and scream as loud as she can and no one will tell her what to do, and no one will tell her to be quiet.
ERIN.
Tonight’s big event is a rare dinner at home with both of Erin’s parents. Mom has gone all out with a baked lentil loaf and mashed cauliflower. It’s a special occasion when Erin gets to eat cooked legumes. Dad drove straight home after his Friday afternoon class. He does try once in a while, but usually only after serious badgering by Erin’s mom.
“I can’t believe you still have Erin on this crazy diet,” Dad says, picking at his food.
“If you were ever around,” Mom says, “you’d have noticed that it’s actually made a huge difference in her mood and behavior.”
“Did you know there’s a group of sea slugs that feed on algae and can retain the chloroplasts for their own photosynthetic use?” Erin says. “It’s called ‘kleptoplasty.’ Get it? Klepto?”
“That’s nice, honey,” Mom says.
“How’s school, kiddo?” says Dad. “Still acing all your classes, of course?”
“Erin has a new friend,” Mom says.
“Oh, yeah?” Dad says. “That’s great.”
“She’s the daughter of that new pastor at—what is it, honey? The Unitarian church?”
“Congregationalist,” Erin says. Spot follows the conversation from his place next to her on the floor.
“Well, at least it’s not one of those backward churches they have around here,” Dad says, sipping his wine. “You can’t go a block without running into some idiot who actually thinks the world was created seven thousand years ago.”
“Jim,” Mom says. “That’s not nice.”
“What? It’s true. There’s nothing wrong with me not wanting my daughter to hang out with ignorant and willfully anti-intellectual people. Those people are destroying this country. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to not want them to brainwash my daughter.”
“I don’t think this has anything to do with your daughter,” Mom says.
Neither does this dinner, Erin thinks.
“Honey,” Mom says. “Quiet hands at the dinner table.”
Erin stops rubbing her hands for approximately five seconds before her anxiety feels like it’s going to kill her. She stands up, even though she’s still hungry, but she’s used to being hungry. “I’m going to my room.”
“No, sweetie,” Mom pleads. “We’re having a nice dinner.”
“I started my period,” Erin says, and walks away, Spot following close at her heels. That always works.
“Look what you did,” Erin hears Mom say as she heads upstairs.
“You’re the one who turned this into a fight,” says Dad.
“Why can’t we just have a nice dinner as a family? Just once. That’s all I ask.”
“That’s all you ask? You can’t be serious.”
Erin closes her door, finally safe in the familiar order of her room, where everything is precisely placed, all her books organized by subject and then alphabetized by aut
hor. Spot goes to his usual place on the foot of the bed. Erin turns on her white-noise machine to the preset station of waves and whales singing, lies down on her side on her perfectly made bed, and presses the soles of her feet against Spot’s warm, sturdy body. She closes her eyes as she rocks back and forth, as she imagines herself deep underwater, in a ship of her own design, so far down that sunlight can no longer reach her.
But thoughts still creep in. Even this far underwater. Even inside her submersible with steel walls nearly three inches thick. There are the usual things. There is this Nowhere Girls business, how it makes her think about things she’s worked so hard to push away, how some strange urge makes her keep showing up for meetings even though they terrify her. But fresh in her mind is a newly troubling issue: the boy named Otis Goldberg in her AP American History class.
While Erin will reluctantly admit it is pleasing that Otis Goldberg slightly resembles Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, he also has a man-bun, which is unacceptable. But because he is only a teenager, he is technically not a man, so the term is not completely accurate. He is closer to a boy. Otis Goldberg has a boy-bun.
What Erin is specifically not comfortable with about Otis Goldberg is the fact that he keeps talking to her in class when it is obviously not academically required. She purposely sat in the back of the class to avoid situations like this. Also so no one would notice her stimming, which would make her self-conscious, which would make her anxious, which would make it impossible to pay attention. Sometimes she just has to flex her fingers or rub her hands together or rock slightly. Sometimes moving her body is the only thing that can still her mind. The “quiet hands” Mom always wants her to have are a meltdown waiting to happen.
Otis Goldberg is always doing strange things like asking how Erin is or saying he liked her presentation on the Iroquois Confederacy. Today was by far the worst, because he kept asking about the Nowhere Girls, if Erin is in the Nowhere Girls, if she’s been to the meetings, if she knows who started it; and Erin had no idea if he was talking to her because he was trying to get information, or if he actually wanted to talk to her, and she didn’t know which one was worse, or which one was better, and she certainly didn’t know which one she wanted, or if she’s allowed to want anything, if it’s safe to want anything. So she just forced herself to keep her mouth closed, which just made him talk more, so he started talking about himself, and how he thinks the Nowhere Girls are great, how he totally considers himself a feminist, how he has two moms who would kill him if he didn’t consider himself a feminist, and by then Erin couldn’t keep her mouth closed any longer, so she blurted out “Can you please be quiet?!” so loud the whole class turned around to stare at her, and Mr. Trilling said, “Erin, are you all right?” in that way all the teachers do, even nice ones like Mr. Trilling, which really means, “Erin, are you about to get all Aspergery on me?”