The Feminist Agenda of Jemima Kincaid

by Kate Hattemer

  “They love our idea!” Gennifer whispered to me.

  “Cool idea, right?” said Andy, right on cue. “Gotta say, I want to take credit, but it was one hundred percent the brainchild of Jemima Kincaid.”

  That was a surprise.

  “So when you get with the guy-slash-girl of your dreams? Thank her.”

  Credit! I’d never expected credit. I blushed and tried not to grin too hard. Gennifer grabbed Andy’s arm when he sat down between us. “You forgot to tell them when chairman applications are due,” she said, and I knew she was jealous.

  Mr. Duffey started a long spiel about lunch cleanup. “Thanks,” I whispered to Andy.

  “You deserve some acclaim,” he said.

  “It was a group decision.”

  “You want me to go correct the record?”

  I giggled. Yep. Straight-up giggled. “That’s okay.”

  “So Kincaid does want something besides academic glory.”

  That was the time for a witty riposte, but my mind went blank. I gave him the slit-eyed look, the one that’s like, I am so annoyed at you! Not! Tee-hee!

  Andy turned to gaze diligently at Mr. Duffey. He seemed to be concentrating hard.

  Me? I was not concentrating. Not in the slightest.

  Because Andy’s knee was touching mine.

  It was probably accidental. We were in folding chairs, and Andy’s not a small person—he’s six-one or six-two, with muscular lacrosse quads, and I, I mean, I’m not your petite pint-sized cutie pie either. Lots of leg and not a lot of space is what I’m trying to say. It was an accident. Right?

  No. He had to have noticed. The pressure was not incidental. Was it a subtle hint that I move over, à la the classic airplane-armrest situation? But he was in my territory.

  If it had been anyone else, I thought, I’d have just moved my leg. Like when you realize that the chair you’re bumping is actually someone’s foot. You’re like, Oops, let me awkwardly withdraw, let’s pretend this never happened, cool.

  But I didn’t want this to have never happened.

  My knee liked it. I liked it. Despite his khakis, despite my tights, the contact was sending my stomach into flutters, my breath into quivers. All I wanted was for Town Meeting to last all third period. Or all day. Or forever. Keep talking, Mr. Duffey. Please, explain to us how to deal with lunch detritus. What can be composted? What can be recycled? What, alas, must be placed in the trash? Go into detail. Wax eloquent. Don’t stop.

  * * *

  —

  We had Latin class right after. The class was small, a dozen or so, the survivors of the four-year forced march across the Alps of Latin grammar. It was the one class Jiyoon and I had together. Juniors could only take Latin IV if they were super good at Latin (Jiyoon Kim) or if they’d gone to a classical elementary school that had pounded so much Latin into their still-developing brains that it actually would have been embarrassing for them to be on level, despite the fact that they still translated more like a trouser-wearing Gallic barbarian than a properly togate Roman (Mack Monroe).

  “Jemima!” Victoria said when I walked in. I jumped. Victoria Heinle was not known to speak to me. “I just wanted to say, I love your idea for the dance!”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thanks!”

  “Same,” said Lacey.

  “We’re already talking about who we’re going to put,” said Larchmont. “There’s really no limit?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Like Andy said, put a lot.”

  “But not too many,” Victoria told Larchmont and Lacey. “You don’t want to be a skank.”

  “Well—” I started, but Mrs. Burke cut me off.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “the bell will ring imminently.” It rang. We instantly fell silent and opened our books. Mrs. Burke taught at Ansel Academy for Girls before the merge, and she’s been at Chawton ever since. She is an institution: a purple-spectacled, maroon-lipsticked, bejeweled, brilliant, borderline-terrifying institution.

  “Miss Kim,” she said, “translate. Start at line forty-seven.”

  “ ‘But what does it matter to me that Troy has fallen,’ ” said Jiyoon, “ ‘if I’m still waiting, waiting just as I was while Troy stood?’ ”

  “Hmm,” Mrs. Burke said, which is what she says when she has no corrections. “Ovid’s Penelope, eternally waiting. The plight of women in the ancient world. And in the modern world as well, of course.”

  Victoria waved her hand in the air. “Not with the new prom system,” she said.

  “Wishful thinking, Miss Heinle,” said Mrs. Burke. “Mr. Monroe, translate the next four lines.”

  “Wishful thinking?” I said, feeling defensive. “It’s going to change—”

  “And tuck in your shirt,” Mrs. Burke added to Mack.

  “Yes, Mrs. Burke,” Mack said, shoving in his shirttail in a literally half-assed way. “But I think Jemima has something to say.” Mack’s translation must have been particularly shitty, because he usually did everything possible to avoid listening to me talk.

  “She sure does,” I said before Mrs. Burke could tell him she didn’t have time for Miss Kincaid’s irrelevant observations. “I just think the new prom system makes it so girls don’t have to wait around for guys to ask them out. It gives girls choice. And power.”

  “Your naivete is amusing,” said Mrs. Burke without a trace of amusement. “This so-called new system will have zero effect on the gender dynamics at this school.”

  “Wait and see,” I said.

  “I will,” said Mrs. Burke. “The outer trappings may have changed, but we live within a patriarchy as solid and as implacable as that of Ovid’s day. Or, for that matter, of Penelope’s. Now translate, Mr. Monroe.”

  “I agree with Jemima,” said Mack. What? This was unprecedented. Probably he hadn’t even done the translation. “Girls have just as much power as guys now.”

  “That’s not at all what—” I said.

  “Ancient ladies, sure, they couldn’t vote or stuff. But modern girls have it pretty good. They can vote and own stuff and work and run for president.”

  I was waving my hand so hard I was creating a breeze. So were Jiyoon and Victoria and Larchmont.

  “Nowadays girls have it better than guys in a lot of ways,” said Mack. “At least girls aren’t accused of sexual assault all the time.”

  “Maybe guys should stop assaulting us, then,” Jiyoon snapped, and pandemonium broke loose. Mrs. Burke struck her ruler on her desk. No one listened. She struck it again.

  “Quiet!”

  We settled down, which is a testament to the fear Mrs. Burke inspires. In her ponderous old-lady voice she said, “The level of critical thought and insight present in this room is truly abysmal.”

  Cool. Thanks.

  “You are wrong, Mr. Monroe, and you are wrong, Miss Kincaid, and I would wager that every one of you who so impolitely shouted a hasty opinion is wrong as well. I suggest you garner more life experience before expressing such generalizations on the fortunes and misfortunes of women.” She lifted her penciled eyebrows to survey the class. “Any questions? Or shall we proceed with our work?”

  I considered saying something, but I didn’t dare. Neither did anyone else. She’d subdued us as surely as Caesar had those Gauls.

  “Good. Now. Translate, Mr. Monroe.”

  I sat back and didn’t look at anyone but passive Penelope, moaning and groaning in elegiac couplets. After class, Jiyoon waited for me at the door. We widened our eyes at each other. “What a cluster,” I said.

  “Mack is a douche,” she said.

  “So is Mrs. Burke.”

  “You just don’t like being told you’re wrong.”

  “Yeah, no.”

  “But at least she’s got some idea of what’s actually going on in the world. And
at this school.”

  “I really think the new dance system is going to help.”

  “I know you do,” said Jiyoon.

  “You don’t?” The defensiveness roared back.

  “I like your white-girl faith in humanity. I’m just not so optimistic myself.”

  I know it’s bad of me, but I hate it when Jiyoon reminds me that I’m white and she’s not. I get that she has an experience I can’t understand. I just wish she wouldn’t rub it in. “We’ll see,” I said, because that was about all I could say.

  “Yep,” said Jiyoon. “We’ll see.”

  “Lift, Jemima!”

  “I am!”

  “Lift harder!”

  Apparently it was true: Crispin was moving out of his lair in our basement. I would have been more interested in the details if I weren’t so consumed with wondering how his furniture looked like plastic but felt like marble. I’d practically gotten a hernia trying to pick up a coffee table.

  “Where did all this stuff come from?” said Mom.

  Crispin was only in his sophomore year of life, but he’d somehow amassed the amount of furniture you’d associate with a titled dowager. “Yard sales, Mother dearest,” he said airily. “Thrift stores. Antique shops. Some pieces here will be worth a lot one day.”

  I was struggling up the stairs with the complete works of Proust. “Have you even read these?”

  “I’m sure I’ll get to them eventually.”

  “Do you know how heavy they are?”

  “Do you know how sophisticated they make my bookshelves look? Bump, here’s a tip: Books are the perfect accessory. They’re functional and decorative. They position you as one of the literati—the glitterati, if you will—while also—”

  “Spare us the theories, Crispin,” huffed Dad. He was only carrying a potted plant, but he didn’t get a lot of exercise these days. A small mound of dirt fell to the stairs. Mom squawked in dismay and hurried over to sweep it into her hand.

  Crispin surveyed the empty basement. “Well, that was easier than I expected.”

  I gave him a death glare.

  The U-Haul in the driveway was packed to the gills. I climbed into the passenger seat and yelped in horror when I saw myself in the rearview mirror. My hair has never met a hair tie it couldn’t escape, and sweat only frizzes it up further. I looked like a rat that had been electrocuted in the bathtub.

  “How am I supposed to back up?” asked Crispin, squinting at the mirrors. “I can’t see a thing.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s the go-slowly-and-pray method.”

  “This is the real reason Mom doesn’t want you to teach me to drive,” I said. “Do you want me to get out and— Oh! Eek! Bip!” I gripped my seat as we whizzed backward.

  “Excellent,” said Crispin. “No bumps, no screams.” He revved the truck and headed down the street.

  “Shouldn’t you wait for Mom and Dad to follow in the car?” I said, craning back.

  “Dad has a call, and Mom got an aura.”

  That’s the pre-migraine signal, the thunderclap of the migraine storm. “Poor Mom.”

  “Yeah. I thought this might be a bit much for her.”

  “Dad, though—”

  “He wasn’t much help anyway.”

  “Don’t you have any strapping friends you can call?”

  “I’d never burden my friends with this. Cheer up, Bump. I’ll help you move out in six years.”

  “I’m never moving back in,” I told him. “Once I’m out, I’m out.”

  “That’s what they all say,” he said darkly.

  “Are you sure you want to move out, anyway? Do you really want to live in Clarendon? Bro Central?”

  “I love bros. Bros are my people.”

  This was true. His last three boyfriends had all been of the backward-baseball-hat, pumped-up-pecs, UVA-basketball-maniac variety, and his friends weren’t much different. “But you’re my people,” I said.

  He merged the U-Haul onto 66 East, if merge is the word to use when you cut off three sedans and make a semi screech on its brakes. “I’m not dying,” he said. “I’m moving. Six Metro stops away. You can come hang out whenever you want. Sit in the leather chair, admire the Proust, consider how lucky you are to be kin to such a well-read young man.”

  Maybe it was the prospect of hauling the Proust up to his new apartment, but I felt too gloomy to laugh. “You won’t be home all the time.”

  “You survived fine when I was in college.”

  Yeah. I’d survived. I had read a lot. I’d nagged for rides to Jiyoon’s. Mom and I had played double solitaire, an oxymoron that pretty much described our family until Crispin, four years and one bachelor’s degree later, came back. Suddenly I could stay up late and not get the postapocalyptic feeling of being the only human left on earth. I could text him from the same room, and he’d read it and smirk at whatever ridiculous thing our parents were doing. I had competition for the tortilla chips, for the washer, for the marginally bigger cookie. We revived our ancient nicknames for each other: Bump for me because that’s what they’d called me in utero, Bip for him because that had been as close to Crispin as my toddler tongue could manage.

  He got me. He got Chawton. When I’d walked in the door after Jamboree last year, he’d been draped over a countertop, flipping through the Washington Post. “So?”

  “I’m the Mildred.”

  “I knew it!” He hugged me. “Another Kincaid triumvir.”

  “I don’t know if I want to be on Triumvirate.”

  “Too late,” he said cheerfully. “You’re stuck.”

  “I like being in charge—”

  “No kidding—”

  “But I’m not into the whole Chawton spirit thing.”

  “Fake it.”

  “All year?”

  “The thing is, Bump,” said Crispin, “you fake it at first. But you’ll get consumed by it. And one day you’ll wake up and you’ll realize you’re not faking it at all.”

  * * *

  —

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” said Jiyoon, poised above me.

  “I’m sure.” I was lying on a towel on my bedroom floor, my hands above my head.

  “It’s not too late to back out. If you back out, I get to back out.”

  “I’ve been dreaming of this day for months.”

  “It might sting.”

  “No pain,” I proclaimed, “can be worse than the pain of the patriarchy.”

  “If you say so.” She lowered the foam brush smeared with bleach cream. It made contact. I jerked and giggled. “Jem!” she said.

  “It’s ticklish!”

  “It’s your armpit! What did you expect?”

  I lay back, closed my eyes, and thought of England while she slathered first one armpit with the chilly bleach cream, then the other.

  “Don’t move for fifteen minutes,” she said. “Can you handle that?”

  “If you amuse me,” I said.

  “I’m glad you’re going first. Now I get to be just as annoying when you’re doing mine.” She heaved herself to her feet. “I’ve got to gather supplies for phase two.”

  I could hear her puttering around in the bathroom. “Did you have dinner already?” I called.

  “Yeah, we got Bonchon fried chicken. Which is good until you’re left with a pile of bones. Makes me feel like a carrion bird.” She suddenly loomed over me, flapping her arms and making a deranged vulture face. “Caw! Caw!”

  “You should do that bird-of-prey impression for Paul,” I said. “It’s extremely attractive.”

  Jiyoon put her hand over her face. “God. Stop. I have to go get more supplies.”

  “You do not.” She’d already brought in old towels and a Super Soaker. “Stay right where you are and tell Great-Aunt Dorcas what’s going o
n.”

  “Nothing’s going on. As I keep telling you.”

  “And I’m going to keep pestering you until you admit it. I was there. I saw something going on.”

  She shrugged, but I could tell she was repressing a smile. “We were just talking.”

  “If by talking you mean oozing with sexual energy.”

  She grabbed the Super Soaker and shot me in the face. “Ahh!” I cried, trying to wipe my eyes with my shoulder. “Meanie!”

  “Don’t move,” she said sweetly. “The bleach needs six more minutes.”

  “Has he texted you?”

  “Nope.”

  “You should text him.”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, come on, Jiyoon. Make this interesting.”

  I meant it. Any sliver of jealousy I’d felt—and yes, I’d felt it; a tiny sliver, but it had been there—was gone. Jiyoon, like me, had never had a boyfriend. Paul was funny and weird and nice and smart and cool. I wanted it to happen.

  “I’ll renew my efforts on the driving-lesson front,” I said. “If I can get him alone, I can plant a subtle hint. See what he’s thinking.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “He used to date Katie Bishop, right?” I said. “That sophomore?”

  “I think so,” she said. Her vagueness was unconvincing. She had clearly done her research.

  “She’s so annoying,” I said. “She always wears those white jeans just so everyone knows she wears thongs.”

  “Why are you looking at her butt anyway?” said Jiyoon. “You sound like one of those creepy male teachers. ‘Your pants don’t fit the dress code’—ogle, ogle…”

  “I’m just saying.”