Dear Rachel Maddow

by Adrienne Kisner

“So, let me get this straight,” said Michaela. “Adam made T-shirts for every single Westing High student?”

  “All two hundred and fifty-three of them—you got it,” I said.

  “How come I didn’t get one? They sound great.”

  Adam had upped my Steelers bid by making a Penguins-Pirates mash-up T-shirt that was pretty epic. I admit I was annoyed I couldn’t have one because I would have been campaigning against myself.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Adam has his own super PAC in his dad. Remind me to ask the new superintendent candidates about their campaign finance views if I get this stupid committee seat.”

  “When.” Michaela smiled, pulling me close. “When you get it.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, but Michaela muffled my words. Her mouth indicated she was clearly done talking about politics for the evening.

  I might have raised my profile a little with one person at that party. But really she was the one who mattered most to me. I could tell Lacey that I came to the party to try to be social and meet the voters. It wouldn’t exactly be a lie. I had met and been very social with one voter.

  It’s the best new thing in the world, Rachel.

  Sincerely,

  Brynn

  Folder:

  Drafts

  To:

  Rachel@msnbc.com

  From:

  Brynnieh0401@gmail.com

  Date:

  December 17

  Subject:

  Political briefs

  Dear Rachel Maddow,

  So here’s a thing: If underwear is returned to Aerie, even if the person swears up and down that it’s never been worn, then out it goes. If it is found in the changing room and bears evidence that it has been tried on, out it goes. Last week this one shipment came in with defects and we gave it a mad discount, but no one wanted undies with obviously faulty stitching.

  Anyway, the point here is that there was a lot of extra underwear that had nowhere to go. Technically it was to be “destroyed,” but I decided to borrow it in the name truth and justice. After Adam’s T-shirt stunt, I had to seriously up my game to capture the people’s hearts and minds and butts before the superintendent committee seat runoff. I only had a week to make up ground. Erin said no to my plan about a thousand times when I asked her for all of it, but she eventually gave in to say that if it went missing, she’d conduct a search and ask questions until it showed up again.

  Thank you, Citizen Erin.

  Thus I came to get a ride from Leigh way too early this morning, since I had many assloads of boybriefs and cheekies to bring to Westing High. He parked down the street and helped me carry my sketchy garbage bags up to the school. There was a small problem that every door we tried was locked. But then Space God, perhaps because of some sort of clerical error, decided to deliver unto Brynn once more. Mr. Bill, the sixty-year-old hottie of janitorial services, came out a side exit while Leigh and I were staring at it.

  “Uh, hi, Mr. Bill,” I said.

  “Hiding bodies?” he said, eyeing the bags.

  “Actually, I’m trying to enact a peaceful yet poignant protest against this guy Adam, who is the devil’s own testicles.” (Those were Lacey’s words for what we were doing, minus the testicle bit.)

  Mr. Bill raised an eyebrow at the bags. “Yeah, okay,” he said. He held the door open for us and looked up into the doorframe. “The cameras aren’t turned on, by the way. I don’t boot up the system until the first bell. They are a pain in the ol’ keister, you know?”

  “Mr. Bill, I hear you,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Leigh nodded to him, and Mr. Bill nodded back.

  “Good luck. Your brother was a good kid,” he said, and he let the door shut behind me and Leigh.

  Nick had believed in being kind to people like Mr. Bill. “Everyone is important, Brynnie,” Nick used to say to me. “’Cause you never know who could get you your next fix. Or pull your sorry drunk ass out of a ditch. It could be any bitch or junkie, you know?”

  Again, my real-life examples aren’t the greatest, but you get what I’m saying? This was Nick’s lifestyle. An addict with a heart of gold, who was right that a person should be nice to everyone. Score one for Nick, patron saint of his ridiculous sister.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I told Leigh. “Don’t you have to get to work?”

  “Eventually,” he said. “But I haven’t pulled a prank in years. This used to be my life. I was king of this kind of stuff. And it annoys Erin to know I’m helping. That’s a hobby of mine.” He winked at me. “Let’s do this.”

  With that, we were off. We decked the halls with boughs of undies, fa la la la la, la, la, la, la. We only had enough for the first floor, though Leigh made a lovely arch over the doorway out of duct tape and thongs. I pulled out my a stack of construction paper “Strip Off the Spin, Vote for Brynn” signs and Scotch tape, generously crafted by the red and yellow roomers who worshipped Bianca. We rainbowed the lockers and the doors. It was like an Aerie-sponsored Pride event. Up and down the hall, the letters on the signs spelled out “It’s Not a Sin, Vote for Brynn.” Lacey thought it was essential to rhyme to “make an impact on the voters.”

  Leigh and I were finished before 6:00 a.m. He took me to a diner nearby. I scarfed pancakes and coffee. Leigh watched me.

  “He’d have been proud of you,” he said. “Real proud.”

  I stopped chewing. The pancakes in my mouth sat there like a wad of wet paper.

  “Too bad he’s not here to see,” I said, barely swallowing.

  “Yeah.” We didn’t say anything after that. Leigh dropped me off right at the front of the school, in full view of everyone. I walked up the sidewalk, trying to look innocent. I got into the school, and the underwear was gloriously still up.

  “Well, hello, Ms. Harper.” Mr. Maynard greeted me by the steps, almost as if he were waiting for me.

  “Well, hello,” I said. “Wow, would you look at this? This is for me?” I tried to feign surprise.

  “So it would seem,” he said wryly. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

  “No, sir. I kind of like it, though.” I grinned, looking around. “Girl power!”

  “Yes. Well, Mr. Bill apparently was occupied on the third floor with a plumbing issue, and has no idea how someone would have gotten in to do it. I spoke with your junior cohort”—he paused—“but I don’t think they would have done it, either.”

  Nope. Certainly those fine, upstanding Applied folks had no part in this.

  “But this should come down. It’s causing quite a stir.”

  I looked around. The hormone level from the presence of all the fancy underwear was palpable. “Well, it has my name on it. And it’s not right that Mr. Bill should have to clean something like this up all by himself,” I added.

  Mr. Maynard looked like he was fighting a smile.

  “Let me run downstairs and ask Mr. Grimm if I can have a few minutes to help clean this up,” I said.

  Mr. Maynard nodded. I took the steps two at a time to the blue room. I burst in, and the whole room cheered.

  “Brilliant!” said Bianca.

  “You go, girl,” said Lacey.

  “I don’t know what any of you are talking about,” said Mr. Grimm, handing me the trash bags I had stashed under his desk. “You’ll be needing these.”

  I nodded and went upstairs to unhook the rogue freedom undies from the hall. I placed them carefully into the bags and stashed them in the blue room until Leigh picked me up after school. If only Nick could have seen it. My stomach hurt thinking of him. It was an epic prank that would have brought him so much joy. What’s the point of a victory, even a small one, if you can’t share it with the person with whom you most want?

  I guess I’ll share it with Michaela. She isn’t a replacement for Nick. Or Sarah, even. But she’s pretty magnificent all on her own.

  And I’ll share it with you, Rachel. You’re at least back from vacation. So I’ll see you soon.
r />   Sincerely,

  Brynn

  Folder:

  Drafts

  To:

  Rachel@msnbc.com

  From:

  Brynnieh0401@gmail.com

  Date:

  December 18

  Subject:

  Two days

  Dear Rachel Maddow,

  In two days the people will decide between Adam and me. Justin says that while I am trailing, the underwear scored me a lot of points. This gives me a little hope for the future of the world.

  But only a little.

  Speaking of underwear, Lacey-love had energized Justin so much he found me everywhere he could to give me extra moral support. Including at freaking Aerie.

  “Brynn, I’m told your grades are way up and you can come back to the paper.”

  “My grades are not ‘way up.’ And know that I will be having a conversation with a certain mutual acquaintance of ours that my academic progress ought to be confidential. Oh my God, Justin, you couldn’t have talked to me at school?”

  “Oh, come on. She does it out of love. And you need a two-point-three, dude! Two-point-three! That’s sad.”

  I gaped at him. Boybriefs and undies withered around him, caught in the cross fire.

  “Okay, sorry. Dick move. Sorry, sorry.”

  “Things suck at home, you know,” I said.

  “I didn’t.”

  “And don’t even get me started on … you know what? You are a dick.”

  “Yes. Totally. One hundred percent. I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Fine. Go away. I’m working. And if you ask me to pick something out for your girlfriend, I will choke you.”

  Justin’s islands of freckles melded to form a continent at the word “girlfriend.”

  “I am just saying, Brynn,” he said, clearing his throat, “that maybe you won’t win this thing. But the paper is there. We could use you. You could help me find out whether Adam really was involved with setting the War Memorial fire. Expose town corruption. That kind of thing.”

  “Go away,” I said.

  He did. Honestly, someone should tell him print is dead. That no one reads that anyway. That it doesn’t matter.

  I’d have told him. But I didn’t have the urge to argue things I didn’t believe to be true.

  Sincerely,

  Brynn

  Folder:

  Drafts

  To:

  Rachel@msnbc.com

  From:

  Brynnieh0401@gmail.com

  Date:

  December 21

  Subject:

  Super Tuesday Revisited

  Dear Rachel Maddow,

  This morning was a hymn to Space God.

  Michaela waited outside the main entrance for me, even though the wind chill was in the single digits. “Hey there, Underwear Queen.”

  “That’s a terrible nickname,” I said, kissing the one uncovered square inch of her face.

  “High Priestess of Thongs.”

  “Please no,” I said.

  “Bralette Viceroy?”

  “Stop. Now you’re just making shit up.”

  “Am not. Viceroys are like governors who work for kings. They are also a type of butterfly.”

  “It is too early and too cold for this discussion.”

  “Fine.” She held the door open for me, and I followed her into the lobby.

  “You nervous? Runoff is today.”

  “Yeah. Kind of.”

  “You did a good thing, Brynn. Even if you don’t get to help pick a school superintendent. I’m proud of you.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You know, I don’t remember the last time anyone has said that to me.”

  Michaela peeled off her scarf. “I’ll put a note in my phone so I remember to tell you every week. Because it’s true.”

  Sarah had never once said she was proud of me. Probably because she had never once felt pride in anything I did.

  “Though, in addition, I also realized you could probably buy me sexy underwear at a discount.”

  At least I could still blame the raw December wind for the fact that my face reddened darker than a tomato. “Um. Would you like me to buy you sexy underwear?”

  “Well, I could buy it. But you could save me money.”

  “Forty percent.” I tried to swallow, but damn that Pennsylvania winter for also drying out my mouth entirely. “Sometimes I can get extra on clearance.”

  “There you go. More matching sets for me!” Michaela leaned in until her breath tickled my ear. “I’d be happy to share with you.”

  “We aren’t the same size,” I said. Michaela was tall and stick thin. I had the body type of a tater tot.

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. Fucking cold froze my brain, too. I just stared at her until she laughed.

  “Speechless. Well. That doesn’t happen often. I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  “I’m working most of winter break.”

  “Noted,” she said.

  The first bell rang, and I realized people streamed around us.

  “You are glorious in your perfection,” I blurted.

  Now Michaela’s face took on a berrylike tone. “Good luck today, Brynn.”

  “Thanks.”

  My legs fortunately cooperated in moving me away from Michaela, toward the cafeteria. The runoff started as soon as the school doors opened, and the person chosen to help select the next superintendent would be announced at the end of the day. A table was already set up, with ballot boxes in place. I was unsurprised and pissed to see familiar faces manning the polls.

  “What are you doing?” I asked Sarah.

  “We are Student Government,” Adam answered for her. “We run these kind of things.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

  “Adam and Sarah aren’t doing anything with the runoff, Brynn,” Nancy said as she walked up behind the table and slid out a folding chair. “I am. And I’ll keep it fair.”

  I trusted her more than Adam, and probably Sarah if I was being honest. Even if rumor had it Nancy and Sarah were together now, Nancy had always been good people the few times we’d hung out.

  “Okay.” I nodded at her. I turned to Adam. “You shouldn’t be within fifty feet,” I said.

  “I’m not trying to convince people to vote for me,” he said.

  The second bell rang. I had missed homeroom completely, but Mr. Grimm probably figured it was runoff-related.

  “Then why are you here?”

  People rushed out of their classrooms and hurried to their first-period classes.

  A few kids I knew from the auto shop next to the journalism lab looked at the table. “Oh, is this the thing we’re supposed to vote for today. The underwear thing?”

  I opened my mouth, but Adam beat me. “No. That happened already. This is for something else.”

  “What? No, it’s not. This is for the superintendent selection committee!” I said.

  The kid looked from me to Adam. “Uh. Yeah. That. Will it take long? If I’m late again, I’m going to get detention.”

  “Only about ten minutes,” Adam jumped in. “You can get started by presenting your student ID.”

  “No, you don’t. It’ll take two seconds!” I said. I glared at Sarah. At Nancy. Neither of them spoke.

  “Whatever, man. I gotta go.” And the kid walked off.

  “Wait,” I called after him, but I lost him in a sea of bodies and backpacks.

  “This is your game? Are you fucking kidding me?” I said.

  “It might take you a while to read the ballot,” Adam said.

  “He isn’t stupid!” I yelled.

  “And everyone does need their ID. All student elections require proof of attendance to vote. It’s in the school’s bylaws.”

  “Put there by you, no doubt, without anybody noticing,” I said. I looked at Sarah. “Does he have some dirt on you or something? Why are you putting up with this?” S
he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “It might have been one of my better ideas last year,” said Adam.

  “No one brings their ID to school.”

  Adam shrugged. “Pretty sure everyone I know does.” Adam glanced at Nancy and then at Sarah. “See you later.”

  I was so pissed I couldn’t even look at either of them. Crazy thoughts bounced around in my head. Maybe I should convince Justin to go to the principal with the rumors about Adam being involved in the War Memorial fire, even if we didn’t technically have any proof.

  I marched to Mr. Maynard’s office without a definite plan.

  “Sorry, dear, he’s out until this afternoon,” said Esther.

  I swore under my breath all the way to the blue room.

  “There you are,” said Mr. Grimm. “Has the runoff started?”

  “Adam and his team have started a campaign of voter suppression! And you have to have your stupid Westing High ID to even get a ballot. Did you know that?”

  Mr. Grimm frowned. “I did not.”

  I slid into my desk. “Is there anything I can do? You don’t even need your ID to get books out of the library. Who is going to lie to vote in a stupid runoff?” I asked him. “Like, two hundred people go to this school. You’re telling me Nancy or whoever is manning the table won’t know if someone doesn’t go here?”

  “I’m sorry, Brynn, I don’t know. I don’t usually run those sorts of things. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  When Mr. Maynard got into school, he and Mr. Grimm looked up the student activity bylaws. Turns out that the ID thing was real. It conveniently went into effect in September. Mr. Maynard had signed off on them without really paying attention. Because why should he?

  Of course Adam changed the ID rule. Of course he wanted fewer people to vote. Of course he targeted the people more likely to vote for me.