I guess I just feel like something bad happened, you know? So I took the liberty of calling Planned Parenthood and scheduling her an appointment. It was really the least I could do. If she can’t talk to me—and I’m her roommate!—then maybe she’ll be able to open up to one of the medical and counseling professionals.
Miriam is driving us tomorrow afternoon—if Flora hasn’t run off by then, I mean.
Love,
Juna
To: All-staff
From: Miriam Row
Subject: this afternoon
February 6, 7:18 p.m.
Dear Friends,
I know some of you were alarmed by the massive bang this afternoon. I’m writing to assure you that nobody was injured, and to explain that the noise was simply one of our first-years, Flora Goldwasser, transporting a vending machine (with the help of the Oracle and a few pieces of our heavy-duting lifting farm equipment) from the storage shed to her cabin. Although the machine did fall on its side—producing the bang in question—it fell into the bed of the truck and not, as many of you called me in various states of panic to suggest, on someone’s head.
Blessings,
Miriam
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Juna Díaz
Subject: meeting now!
February 7, 2:51 p.m.
Hey, Flora! We’re meeting now—not sure where you went after Peace on Earth. Miriam and I are waiting by the van in the parking lot. Take your time, but we were hoping to be on the road in a few minutes!
Another Thee letter, again published with Juna’s permission
Theodora Sweet
1330 Corrida De Agua
Santa Fe, NM 87507
February 9
Thee,
Miriam and I took Flora to Planned Parenthood in the van today. We both tried to be cheery—me especially—but Flora didn’t say one word to anyone on the car ride over. I mean, I get it: it was hardly her choice; Miriam and I just about forced her, and I guess it was easier to relent than to keep deflecting. She scribbled in her notebook the whole way over.
“I think it’s a great idea that we’re going,” I said, trying to be helpful and cheerful. “It’s always good to get to know your body better.”
Flora barely looked up from her notebook, but I detected a tiny eye roll. I decided to let it, like pretty much everything she’s done and said in the last few weeks, slide.
Everything out the window was bleak and gray. Thee, I miss the sun so much.
In the building, she silently accepted the forms and filled them out. She didn’t want anyone to come into the examining room with her, even though I offered more than once. (I was so grateful that you were there, holding my hand, when I got my first pap smear over winter break!)
After, we went out for ice cream—Miriam’s idea. It was freezing, so we sat inside this depressing little shop right off the highway. I got a chocolate cone with sprinkles, but half of it fell into my lap. Flora barely ate anything, though she did order a small cup of mango sorbet. She just twirled a coin around and around on the linoleum table. She was in this huge bulky cream sweater that she hasn’t taken off in weeks, and these dirt-stained pink corduroy pants. (Again, excuse the shell speak.)
When we got back to campus, she and Sinclaire tinkered with the vending machine outside of our cabin. I don’t know how their hands didn’t freeze off. I watched them from inside at first, but I decided to go outside and chop wood in the shed right next to Sinclaire and Flora. I didn’t eavesdrop, per se, but I did keep an ear out for anything interesting. But Sinclaire is dead silent—to be honest, she kind of freaks me out. She always wears these woolly animal hoods with ears on them and panels that swing down really low. GOD, I need to stop with the shell speak! I always try to be welcoming, as she’s new, and invite her over all the time, but she usually just kind of shrugs and stares at me.
Later Flora came back inside and read all the back issues of Nymphette on her computer. I almost told her that you’re a photo editor for the magazine—not that she would have really cared, to be honest—but I didn’t want to interrupt her. She was reading so fastidiously. I hoped she wasn’t reading any of the (many) articles that idolize Elijah, but it sort of just looked like she was researching DIY wrap skirts from my vantage point.
Now that you’re taking a semester off, I think you’ve run out of excuses to not come and visit me. I don’t care about the no-visitors policy. I need you. Now.
Juna
Part III
Pages 1–2 from a draft of my play
Onstage is the vending machine. One by one, spread out over the course of the play, students approach the vending machine and interact with it, silently inserting coins and collecting whatever falls out. No characters appear onstage; all speak into microphones backstage.
URSULA, aside
Today was one of the worst in recent memory. It’s a good thing I know my rights as a patient, because like any good feminist, I refused to be weighed. Your healthcare provider works for you, you know.
I realize I sound like one of those too-cool teenage girls who skips school to dangle her legs in the river, or whatever. But believe me—my story is not that one. Right now I’m at Planned Parenthood. In the examining room. A nurse’s finger is in my vagina. Well, not yet. We’re still in that preinsertion stage, when you sit on the examining table in two ill-fitting paper gowns and talk about girl stuff.
Person dressed in black walks onstage and sets up an examining table, which remains empty, and gynecological stirrups. She places a speculum at the foot of the table gingerly.
NURSE
So, Ursula, why are you here?
URSULA
It wasn’t my choice.
NURSE
Oh! Your—is that your mother out there?
URSULA
No. My aunt.
NURSE
Okay … Let’s see. When was your last period?
URSULA
Um …
NURSE
Just so we can know how far along you are.
URSULA
I’m not pregnant.
NURSE
Ursula, your—your cousin, I think she said she was? She told me what happened.
URSULA, shaking voice
What?
NURSE
She told me about your situation. When you were getting undressed.
URSULA
What situation?
NURSE
Nothing you say leaves this room, Ursula.
URSULA
What exactly did she say?
NURSE
She said that there was—a school retreat? With an all-boys school? That there was an incident there, and that you might be pregnant.
URSULA
To nurse: [Laughing] She told you that?
Aside: I was fucking with her.
NURSE
I’m not saying she got everything right.
URSULA
I’m literally a virgin. I don’t know exactly what you heard, but I’m not the kind of girl who gets drunk on smuggled vodka and lets some random Lutton Academy boy have sex with her on the top bunk of a bunk bed in a cabin in Massachusetts.
Aside: Things pretty much went downhill after that.
And yeah. I was pregnant.
CUE LESLEY GORE’S “IT’S MY PARTY”
Readers, lest you think I’m dropping some sort of heavy-handed hint here, let me assure you that I was not pregnant. My play was a distorted mirror held up to my experience, in which I could recognize threads of myself—the desire to be admitted to a secret club, the confusion about sex—but which ultimately turned away at the critical moment from mimicking my life exactly.
To: Flora Goldwasser
Cc: Dean Elliot
From: Susan María Velez
Subject: Application for Indep
endent Study
February 9, 4:25 p.m.
Dear Flora,
I’m happy to let you know that you’ve been accepted to complete an independent study in playwriting under my guidance. Are you available to meet Wednesdays at eight p.m. (Dean, this includes you)?
I took a look at your proposal, and I’m excited about the project. I’m intrigued by the idea of an offstage play, and the use of the vending machine looks promising. I’d like to meet as soon as possible to discuss the timeline.
SMV
Lael Goldwasser
Harvard College
2609 Harvard Yard Mail Center
Cambridge, MA 02138
February 14
Dear Lael,
Happy Validation Day! That’s what we’re supposed to call Valentine’s Day here, so as to not prioritize romantic relationships over nonromantic ones. I’m doing a bit better than I was when we talked on the phone. You’re right that he isn’t worth my time. A new project I’m working on (sorry to keep it so vague) is really getting me going too. I had this realization that there’s a lot I can’t control—Elijah’s behavior, for instance—but also some stuff that I can control. Like, I can still do things even though he doesn’t love me. For some reason, that’s a refreshing realization. I ordered a vending machine for the project, and of course I had no idea how to get into it!
But this new girl, Sinclaire, and I finally cracked it open the other day. We both cut ourselves a few times, but we were okay. Sinclaire is fascinated by blood, especially when it freezes while running down her wrists and congeals in a neat way.
“How horrible,” Sinclaire kept whispering in her little Irish accent, but in a delighted way, looking down at her hands with fascination. She doesn’t speak above a whisper, and she’s whippet-thin, with long black hair and skin that’s almost translucent, but she’s as strong as an ox. She doesn’t say a whole lot, but I feel calm around her. She Skypes her boyfriend at three in the morning, which breaks pretty much every rule: streaming, quiet hours, and romantic relationships.
The vending machine kept getting soot and grease all over our hands, but we buckled down and got it open. Girl power, and all that. She handed me stuff one by one, and I stocked it. It took me forever to decide on the configuration. I wish I could say more, but I’m keeping it hush-hush for now.
Love,
Flora
QUARE TIMES
The Quare Academy Student News Collaboration February 15
CELIBACY PLEDGE CONTINUES TO GAIN SIGNATORIES
By Darcy Lu
A celibacy pledge that began last month continues to grow. At last count, the pledge, which hangs on the validation board in the teep, has twenty-six signatures out of thirty-four total students. Of the faculty, two have signed.
Michael Lansbury explained his decision to add his name to the list.
“Sometimes, something just wakes you up and helps you see the light,” he said, but he declined to say what, exactly, that thing was. “I think it’s good for us to take a step back and reevaluate the choices we’re all making about sex.”
Sam Chabot, whose statement at the top of the pledge reads, “We, the undersigned, pledge to remain celibate and tackle tough conversations about sex rather than tackle each other,” started the pledge.
“I see it more as a stance of solidarity than anything political,” he said.
Celibacy for nonreligious reasons is almost unheard of.
“It’s almost similar to the ‘no shell speak’ rule,” said Shy Lenore, one of the pledge’s first signatories. “Sex is a very physical experience, and sometimes it can be helpful to take a break from all that in an intentional way once in a while.”
GOLDWASSER VENDING MACHINE PERFORMANCE ART PIECE
By Heidi Norman-Lester
After a vending machine was delivered to campus earlier this month, it sat idle outside a first-year A-frame for three days before its new owner, Flora Goldwasser, cracked it open with the help of Sinclaire O’Leary.
An interactive piece, “Vending Machine, or Everything Must Go” asks that viewers approach the machine, which is plugged into Flora’s cabin, insert a coin, and select any item—the hats, jewelry, scarves, bottles of perfume, tiny handbags, and the occasional pair of shoes of Goldwasser’s—she wishes.
The piece, whose written component—a play to be performed at the end of the semester—is in the works, has already garnered media attention: the Main Stream Press, as well as the Huffington Post, recently interviewed Goldwasser. At all times of the day, members of our own community can be seen gathered around the machine, chatting with Goldwasser or inserting coins into the machine. Goldwasser has already restocked it three times.
“I don’t really know what it’s about,” Goldwasser admitted. “I’m exploring the ideas of exploitation and sex, but perhaps in a way that isn’t as clear-cut.”
Particularly interesting to Goldwasser, who has spoken vaguely to media outlets of “sex and transaction,” is the interactive piece of the project.
“Everyone on campus is taking from me, even though I’m offering these things up,” Goldwasser said. “What the hell does that mean?”
SPOKEN WORD WORKSHOP DELIGHTS SOME PARTICIPANTS, ANGERS OTHERS
By Jean Noel
This Wednesday, a group of traveling spoken word artists, Dâ Vinci and Michael Angelo, visited campus for a series of workshops with the spoken word elective class. Vinci and Angelo are professionally known as the Renaissance Men; their poetry concerns itself with themes of rebirth and impressionist paintings.
“The exercises they had us do were really cool, especially the one where they made us pretend to be whale penises,” said Lia Furlough, a second-year. “I usually have such bad stage fright, but by the end of it, I felt really comfortable performing in front of everyone.”
Other members of the community, however, felt that a few of the pieces that Dâ Vinci and Angelo performed contained misogynistic undertones.
“The birth scene, for instance, denigrates people who give birth, primarily women, and particularly those women who give birth in rural areas,” said Juna Díaz, one of the students who walked out of the workshop prematurely. “This isn’t to say the workshop was useless, but it struck me as slightly disrespectful.”
SOCIETY BY SAM
By Sam Chabot
SC regrette beaucoup sa décision, et il espère que FG puisse le pardonner.
To: Benna Williams
Althea Long
Heidi Norman-Lester
From: Juna Díaz
Subject: supporting Flora
February 19, 9:02 p.m.
Hi, girls,
As founding members of and key players in the Feminist Underground, it’s important that we continually recommit ourselves to supporting Flora. I know that the new moon women’s circle didn’t go exactly as planned, so let’s shift gears and go all out in our support of this artistic expression. If you haven’t already, please come interact with the vending machine outside of our cabin—and spread the word! I must warn you—and you’ve probably observed this yourself—that Flora’s been a bit testy lately. I urge you to bite your tongues and just sort of sit with the discomfort.
Yours,
Juna
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Sam Chabot
Subject: hello
February 19, 10:07 p.m.
Are you ever going to talk to me again? Or at least let ME talk to YOU so I can explain?
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Sam Chabot
Subject: Re: hello
February 19, 10:19 p.m.
Hello? We’re in the same room. I see you sitting on that window seat, drinking tea (illegally in the stone library, I mig
ht add).
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Sam Chabot
Subject: Re: hello
February 19, 10:22 p.m.
Okay, I see that you’re going to keep ignoring me. Marigold and I are going to make Mexican hot chocolate in the dining hall now, if you want some. We’ll put the leftovers by the electric mixer when we leave.
To: Sam Chabot
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: Re: hello
February 19, 10:22 p.m.
Please stop emailing me. Thanks!
To: Sinclaire O’Leary
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: ughhh
February 20, 1:39 a.m.
Hey! Are you awake? There are a few things I need to stock in the machine right now.
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Sinclaire O’Leary
Subject: Re: ughhh
February 20, 1:42 a.m.
sorry
skyping henry
but wait
his mother just came in and reprimanded him
(she is bulgarian
and looks like a gravy-faced ax murderer)
i’ll meet you outside in five minutes
To: Sinclaire O’Leary
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: Re: ughhh
February 20, 2:02 a.m.
Thank you! And I’m so sorry about Juna—she always looks that scary when she’s woken up. It’s not your fault.
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Sinclaire O’Leary
Everything Must Go Page 20