Moxie: A Novel

by Jennifer Mathieu

  I take a deep breath and uncap a black Sharpie. I need the right name to get started. My eyes glide over the well-worn covers of my mom’s zine collection. I pick up a copy of one called Snarla and hold it close to my face and shut my eyes and take a deep inhale, imagining I can smell the musty basements and warehouses where the Riot Grrrls used to play shows for three dollars. Imagining I can hear them singing out the lyrics they’ve so painstakingly copied onto the pages of their zines.

  I won’t be your baby doll

  I won’t be your pageant queen

  Girl let’s dance in our bare feet

  Let’s hold hands all night long

  Go ahead and try us boy

  We love to fight back!

  Those last lines are my favorite.

  I can visualize the Riot Grrrls—my mother among them—walking the streets at night in their Doc Martens and their bad haircuts and their dark lipstick, ready to stand up for what they believed in. What they knew was right.

  Angry. Untouchable. Unstoppable. And, if you were to use my grandmother’s words about my mom during last night’s dinner, full of moxie.

  Suddenly, I’ve got it.

  My tongue between my teeth, my mind focused, my hand steady, I make careful letters, already imagining what the end product will look like. I finish lettering the title and then at the last minute add the perfect motto. When I’m finished, I crack my neck—it’s a little sore from hunching over my creation so intently. And then I admire my work. I can feel the adrenaline pumping through me. I smile.

  This is the most excited I’ve been about anything in ages.

  * * *

  With an hour left before my mom gets home from work, I take my finished pages and place them gingerly in my math folder, then slide the folder into my backpack. Before I lose my nerve entirely, I wheel my bicycle out of the garage and hop on, making my way toward downtown East Rockport.

  Since it’s game night, the whole town is mostly a dead zone, with signs at the Dairy Queen and the Sonic that read CLOSED FOR THE GAME. The yellow glow of the streetlights illuminates the empty streets and parking lots. But U COPY IT is on the outskirts of the business district, and it’s one of the few places in East Rockport that’s always open until midnight. I coast past the Walgreens and the hair salon where my grandparents had to pay way too much money to fix my mom’s blue hair all those years ago.

  It’s so quiet I feel like one of the last surviving citizens of a ghost town. The sticky autumn air smells like grease traps and gas stations, and if I take a deep breath I won’t catch even a sliver of the scent of the briny Gulf waters just a few blocks away. In East Rockport, it’s easy to forget you live by the ocean. Not that the Gulf of Mexico actually counts as the ocean. Last summer there was so much fecal matter floating in it, they shut the beaches down for two weeks. East Shitport is more like it.

  Braking gently, I park my bike and walk into U COPY IT, my eyes taking a moment to adjust from nighttime darkness to the bright fluorescent shine of the inside of the copy shop. There are no customers and just one employee, a guy wearing a frayed red vest that I guess is supposed to be some sort of U COPY IT corporate regalia. Perching on a stool behind the register, he’s so busy reading a tattered paperback novel that he doesn’t even look up when I walk in. Taking my folder carefully out of my backpack, I approach the counter. The guy’s name tag reads FRANK.

  “Uh, hi?” I say, and Frank looks up and blinks hard a few times, like he’s trying to process that I’m here. He has a little stubble under his chin and a mass of unkempt salt-and-pepper hair that sits like a bird’s nest on top of his head. He could be thirty or sixty, I’m not sure. But before he decides to speak to me, he carefully adjusts his frameless glasses and blinks three or four more times.

  “Can I help you?” he says at last, setting down his copy of Carrie by Stephen King.

  “Uh, I was wondering … if you could make me some copies?” I hate talking to people in stores, even if there’s no one else to hear me. I’m always afraid I’m going to sound stupid.

  “Well, the store is U COPY IT, so I can help you do it,” Frank says dryly. But half a smile pops up on his face so I’m not too anxious.

  Frank pulls out a small plastic counting device, walks me over to one of the machines, and slides the device into place. He shows me how it works and offers to observe as I do a practice run to make sure I do it right.

  My cheeks heat up, but I pull my pages out of my bag and try to program the machine so it will copy double-sided, like Frank showed me.

  “A lady boxer, huh?” Frank says, nodding his chin at the front cover.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Cool,” Frank says, ignoring how flustered I am. He makes sure my test copy turns out okay, even folding it in half so it’s all finished. When he hands it to me, it’s still warm as toast.

  Holding it in my hand, my idea feels so real that all of a sudden I can’t decide whether I should scream with excitement or stop now.

  “This looks good,” I manage.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Frank says.

  Once he’s back at the counter, I busy myself making copies. I do a mental count of how many girls’ bathrooms I think there are at East Rockport High and punch in the number of copies I need. While the machine whirs, I check my phone for the tenth time. I have to make it home before my mom or she’ll never buy that I was so sick I decided to skip the game. It’s possible Mom would understand what I’m doing, but I can barely grasp the fact that I’m doing this, so I don’t know how I would even begin to explain it to her.

  And anyway, there’s something delicious about it being my secret.

  At last I pop out the counting device and head back to the counter to pay with some of my birthday money leftover from last month. Frank offers me another half smile before I walk out. And then, just as I step through the door, he calls out, “See ya, Moxie!”

  It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking to me, and by the time I turn around to wave, his eyes are already buried deep in his book again.

  * * *

  I beat my mother home and slide the paper sack into my backpack—I’ll have to fold the rest of them over the weekend. That is, if I don’t lose my nerve.

  I should listen to “Rebel Girl” on repeat tomorrow and Sunday so I don’t.

  I pull my Runaways T-shirt over my head and brush my teeth, and as I turn out the lights and slide into bed, my mom’s car pulls into the driveway. Soon there’s a sliver of light shining across me, and I squint my eyes like I’ve been sleeping all this time and have just been taken by surprise.

  “Viv?” My mom’s silhouette is peeking through the doorway, her voice a whisper. “You feeling better?”

  “Yeah,” I answer back, hoping the kitchen doesn’t smell like pizza. I’m supposed to have a stomach bug, after all.

  “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

  “’Kay,” I whisper.

  After my mom shuts the door, I slide deeper under the covers and feel my body buzz with anticipation when I think about the copies inside my backpack. No one else on the planet knows about them. Well, except Frank at U COPY IT. And anyway, he doesn’t know the next step of my plan.

  Finally, after a few minutes, I sense myself drifting off and when sleep overtakes me, I dream about marching through U COPY IT with Frank, the two of us dressed in matching Runaways T-shirts, leaving copies of my creation on top of every Xerox machine.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A school super early in the morning feels haunted. It doesn’t look all that different on the outside, but without teenage bodies filling its halls and slamming its lockers, it seems like a cavernous, creepy space on the outskirts of some parallel universe, full of the spirits of teenage dreams that died sad, tragic deaths involving multiple-choice quizzes and prom-night disasters. All I can do as I pull open a side door is shake off the weirdness and hope there isn’t anyone inside to catch me.

  I pick the language hall as my
secret entry point. I know the head custodian, Mr. Casas, gets here crazy early to unlock the doors and turn on the lights and power up the air-conditioning or the heat—both always seem to break on the hottest and coldest days of the year, respectively. It’s not technically against the rules to be here at 6:30 on a Monday morning, but if this plan of mine is going to work, no one can see me.

  My heart thrumming, I slide into the first girls’ bathroom I see. Once inside, I take a breath and reach inside my backpack for my copies of Moxie. My hand slips around a stack of about twenty zines, then pauses. If I pull them out and put them down and walk out, I can’t take it back. Not with the early bell ringing in thirty minutes.

  The plink plink of a drippy sink taunts me in the background.

  You. Can’t. You. Can’t. You. Can’t.

  I’m a girl who studies for tests. I’m a girl who turns in homework on time. I’m a girl who tells her grandparents she’ll be over in five minutes and shows up in three. I’m a girl who doesn’t cause a fuss. I even shrink into my desk when a teacher calls on me in class. I’m a girl who would prefer to evaporate into the ether rather than draw even positive attention to herself.

  Drip. Drip. Drip. You. Can’t. You. Can’t.

  Total truth? Sometimes I catch myself lip-syncing lyrics into the mirror alone in my bedroom, and I get embarrassed for myself even though there’s no one there to see me but my own reflection.

  DripDrip. DripDrip. DripDrip. YouCan’t. YouCan’t. YouCan’t!

  If I get caught distributing Moxie, I can only guess what kind of punishment Principal Wilson will dream up. A zine criticizing his precious school would definitely earn me a huge, public punishment. Way worse than anything that would have happened to my mother when she walked down the hallways of this very building with illegal blue hair. I glance at the lady boxer on the cover of Moxie, trying to channel her total badass attitude.

  But damn it! I’m dutiful Vivian, and I’m going to be dutiful about this, too. After all, these zines exist because I made them. They’re real. I can’t stop now.

  And with my breath held, I slide the stack onto the windowsill, just underneath the filmy first-floor windows that the girls crack open sometimes so they can smoke without getting caught.

  There. It’s done. I look at the copies for a moment, trying to imagine how they’ll appear to someone who has no idea where they came from. Hopefully like a Christmas present. Or a treasure hunt clue.

  Walking quickly through the hallways, my mind running excuses as to why I’m here so early. (I’m supposed to meet a teacher to make up a quiz. I wanted to see my college counselor. I had insomnia so I decided, what the hell, I might as well get here early.) I stop at each girls’ bathroom and drop off stacks of Moxie until there’s only one copy left. I never see Mr. Casas or any other adult. Finally, I make it to my locker and slide the final remaining issue underneath some old spirals.

  The first bell rings, and it’s not long until bodies start streaming into the building as the sun rises. As I walk to American history, I scan the faces of my classmates, wondering if every girl I spot has already been inside a bathroom. Wondering if an issue of Moxie is tucked inside a notebook or folded inside the back pocket of a well-worn pair of jeans. I feel my heart pulsing, full of something important.

  I take my seat in the second to last row as the bell rings, and Claudia runs in a beat later, sliding into the seat next to me. Our teacher, Mrs. Robbins, is fiddling around with papers at her desk. She doesn’t even look up to greet us.

  Our friend Sara is seated in front of us, and she takes advantage of Mrs. Robbins’s lack of preparation to turn around and face Claudia and me. It’s then that I see a copy of Moxie in her hands. I can feel my cheeks redden and tip my head forward so my hair covers my cheeks.

  “Did y’all see this?” Sara asks.

  Claudia reaches her hand out. “No, what is it?”

  Sara hands the zine over, and I watch as Claudia’s eyes skim the words I wrote Friday night while she was half-heartedly cheering the East Rockport Pirates on to a win over Refugio.

  “Whoa,” Claudia says.

  “What is it?” I ask instead, praying I look normal as I peer over Claudia’s shoulder.

  “See for yourself,” Claudia says, and I lean over the zine so I can read my own creation. I try to contort my face into one of surprise and curiosity.

  “Huh,” I manage. I feel so unnatural I can’t believe they’re not all staring at me.

  But my friends’ eyes are on the zine. “It’s totally right on,” Sara says. “I mean, all of this is totally accurate. But I wonder who made it? Like, who are these Moxie girls it’s talking about? Are they some sort of club or something?”

  “Did you see the thing on the back?” Claudia asks. “About coming to school on Friday with stars and hearts on your hands?” She shrugs and raises her eyebrows. “Not sure what the hell that’s going to accomplish.”

  Claudia’s words sting because it hits me that I never really thought about what the stars and hearts are going to do. Riot Grrrls used to do similar things to help like-minded girls find each other at punk shows. But I’m not sure what the girls with decorations on their hands will do on Friday. I’m not sure any girls will show up to school with their hands marked up at all.

  “I guess it’s cool it got made, at least,” I say, fishing for some validation.

  “Too bad Mitchell Wilson and his asshole friends won’t even realize it exists when they’re the ones who need to read it,” Claudia says. “Here.” She tosses Moxie over Sara’s shoulder and slumps back in her seat as Mrs. Robbins heads over to her podium to begin her millionth lecture on the Teapot Dome Scandal or something else equally mind-paralyzing.

  When the bell rings to end class, Sara leaves Moxie behind on her desk as if it’s a forgotten homework assignment. I resist the urge to pick it up and take it with me like some sort of overprotective mother.

  * * *

  By the time I walk into English class with Mr. Davies, I feel like a firecracker dud. I’ve seen a handful of girls with copies of Moxie in their hands, but since Sara and Claudia in first period, I haven’t heard anyone talk about it. A visit to one of the girls’ bathrooms reveals half a stack of Moxie zines sitting sadly on the counter, one haphazardly knocked to the floor, a faint footprint right on the front cover. People seem more excited to discuss the Pirates’ win and the upcoming game against Port Aransas this week.

  But as I take my seat in English, I spot Lucy Hernandez in the front row with a copy of Moxie in her hands, her lips locked tight and her brow furrowed as she reads the inside. She flips the zine over to read the back. Then she opens it and reads the whole thing again. I can’t help but watch her as she studies it, and I catch the tiniest sliver of a smile break out on her face.

  The bell rings, and Mr. Davies walks in. I’m resigning myself to beginning the worst class of the day when I notice that following him is the new boy from the pep rally. The artists’ son from Austin. Seth Acosta.

  “Uh, hey?” Seth says to Mr. Davies’s back. Mr. Davies turns around and stares at Seth.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m new,” he says, handing Mr. Davies a slip of paper. “I just got put in this class.” His voice is low and thick.

  As Mr. Davies looks over Seth’s schedule, I hear snickering coming from the back of the room. Mitchell and his beefy, empty-headed buddies are cracking up, probably because Seth is new and dresses like he’s from Austin and not East Rockport, and this must be amusing to them. But Mitchell Wilson could live a thousand lives and never attain the perfection that is Seth Acosta in his sleeveless Sonic Youth T-shirt and perfectly tousled black hair.

  “Take a seat, Seth,” Mr. Davies instructs, nodding toward the desks. Seth chooses an empty one in a corner nowhere near me. He chews on a thumbnail and stares blankly at the chalkboard while I try not to stare too much. I wonder what he had for breakfast and which Sonic Youth song is his favorite and whether or not he’s ever had sex
with anyone before.

  That last thought turns my breathing shallow.

  Mr. Davies begins a lesson that is only slightly less boring than Mrs. Robbins’s from first period, and I spend my time gazing from Seth to my notebook where I’m trying to take notes. Seth takes notes, too, which makes me think he’s smart or at least cares about doing well in school, which is a turn on, honestly, even if I’m pretty sure that East Rockport High is not a place that makes anyone smarter.

  I’m so consumed with watching Seth that I almost don’t notice that Lucy has a copy of Moxie sitting on the corner of her desk. But about halfway through the tedious fifty minute class I see it perched there, like a good luck charm. She leaves it there through the whole lecture, but she keeps her mouth shut the entire class, even when Mr. Davies asks questions, so I guess she’s learned her lesson. I can’t help think, however, that there’s something deliberate about the way she keeps Moxie visible, and it’s sort of cool.

  Finally, Mr. Davies sits down at his desk to zone out on his computer while we’re allegedly “working independently” (actually messing around with our phones as surreptitiously as possible). That’s when Mitchell Wilson gets up from the back row where he’s almost certainly been sleeping without consequence and waltzes up to the front of the room to throw something away in the garbage can. On his way back, in one smooth motion, Mitchell slides Moxie into his hand and takes it back to his desk. Lucy whips her head around, her mouth in an O as if she’s about to speak, but then she just shuts her lips tight and turns toward the front of the room. I catch her crushed expression in profile, even though her face is half-hidden behind curls.

  “What the hell is this?” Mitchell says over the snap of paper that must be him opening the zine. I don’t turn around. It’s one thing to criticize Mitchell in the pages of Moxie. But being in his sightline as he reads my words makes my Moxie secret terrifying instead of thrilling.