by Katie Henry
When I get to history, though, Lucy looks uncomfortable. For a second, I wonder if it’s my fault. We spent a lot of winter break together, at her house and mine, but maybe it’s strange for her to see me at school, in my tie and blazer. But what she says is “Something really weird happened in Latin.”
Before I can ask her what, Sister Joseph Marie calls the class to order, and Lucy turns back around.
At lunch, I meet Avi at our usual table. He’s staring into his soup. Not eating it, just poking at it with his spoon. Lucy throws him a worried glance as she sits down, and I remember what she said at the beginning of history.
“What happened in Latin?” I ask.
Lucy grimaces. Maybe she didn’t want me to ask right then. “We have a new teacher,” she says, looking at Avi out of the corner of her eye.
“Halfway through the year?” I’ve seen the Latin teacher, and she’s too old for maternity leave.
“Ms. Simon resigned,” Lucy says.
Avi looks up from his bowl of soup. “She did not resign.”
“She left voluntarily,” Lucy says. “They said she agreed to—”
“That’s bullshit. They found out she got married and they made her leave.”
I know the Catholic Church has a strong celibacy message, but I thought they were generally cool with weddings. “They fired her for getting married?”
Avi stirs his soup. Lucy sighs. “For getting married to another woman.”
Oh.
“That’s obviously not what they told us,” Lucy continues. “But Jason Everett knew because his mom did their flowers, and so now everyone knows.”
“That sucks,” I say.
“No shit,” Avi mutters.
“It does,” Lucy says. “It really does. And everyone’s upset about it, especially since apparently Ms. Simon was with her wife for ages, and it wasn’t a secret, but they only made her leave when she got married. Some contract the teachers sign. A morality clause.”
“Nothing more moral than firing someone for having a wedding,” Avi says. Jenny from history class approaches our table, nervous and clutching a clipboard in her right hand.
“Hi,” she says, eyes darting from Avi to Lucy. “We’re sending around a petition about Ms. Simon and how unfair it was, and once we have all the signatures we’re going to show it to Father Peter. Do you want to sign?” She thrusts the clipboard out at them.
Avi stares her down. “What do you think is going to happen?”
“Huh?”
“When you give that to Father Peter, what do you think is going to happen?”
Jenny blinks. “We’re going to try to get Ms. Simon her job back.”
Avi laughs, and it sounds awful and bitter. “A bunch of children signing a piece of binder paper is not going to get her job back. Every single person in this school could sign that and Ms. Simon would still be out of a job, because she is gay, and the church you choose to belong to thinks gay people are ‘intrinsically disordered’ and should suffer through that disorder, chaste and alone, for their entire lives. Ms. Simon didn’t. So she’s not coming back.” He pushes the clipboard back at Jenny. “Petitions are a joke. You are a joke.”
Jenny’s mouth drops.
“Avi, unnecessary.” Lucy grabs the clipboard and signs. “I’m signing your name, too,” she tells him. “Sorry, Jenny.”
“You can sign even if you weren’t in her class.” Jenny’s staring down at her shoes, but I think she’s talking to me. “Anyone can sign.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Of course.” I sign the petition and hand the clipboard back to Jenny. She hugs it to her chest but doesn’t leave. She draws her head up and looks straight at Avi.
“You don’t know me,” she tells him, quiet and clipped. “You shouldn’t act like you do.”
Avi opens his mouth, but before he can respond, Jenny’s moved on to another table.
Avi is quiet during theology and goes to the school nurse with a “headache” during PE. By the end of the day, I hope he’s gotten all the anger out of his system, because Angry Avi is like regular Avi on sarcasm amphetamines. When I meet up with him after sixth period, he’s calmed down. But only a little.
“What bothers me the most is the hypocrisy,” he says as we walk past the chapel on our way to HA. “So okay, Ms. Simon works at a Catholic school. And the Catholic Church thinks gay people should lead lonely, lonely lives. But if you’re going to go there, the Catholic Church thinks no one should get divorced, and I know Mr. Cartwright is on his second wife. I’m also pretty sure he only coaches lacrosse because he likes creeping on teenage girls in flippy skirts, but that’s beside the point.”
“Yeah, I think the Bible might be okay with that,” I say.
“So why fire Ms. Simon but not Mr. Cartwright?” Avi continues. “If Catholics believe sin is sin, like Sister Helen always says, why is what Ms. Simon did so much worse? She’s not even Catholic. What did they expect her to do? Be alone forever because she wanted to keep her job?”
“I’m sure she’ll find another one.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not the point. You don’t get it.”
I open my mouth to argue, because of course I get it. I’m an atheist surrounded by priests and portraits of popes. Of course I know what it’s like to feel alone, to feel closed in by people who want me to change to fit their worldview. I almost say that, but then I stop. Because Avi’s right. What happened to Ms. Simon will never happen to me. No one will fire me for not believing in God. No one will kick me out of school, or it would have happened already. No one will stop me from living my life exactly as I want to, without religion. People might want to convert me, or think I’m going to hell, but they can’t hurt me, not really. Not like people hurt Ms. Simon. Not like they could hurt Avi.
“You’re right,” I say to Avi as he pushes open the door to the janitor’s closet and the stairs down to the HA room. “I don’t. I’m sorry.”
Avi looks back at me, shocked, then promptly falls headfirst into the closet.
I step in and close the door quickly, scared someone could hear the crash and find us.
“Ow. Shit,” Avi says. I can’t find the light. I turn my phone’s brightness up as far as it’ll go. Avi’s still sprawled on the floor.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He takes his phone out too, and shines it right next to him. “Watch out, somebody put all these boxes right in front of the stairs.”
I shine my light at the cardboard boxes. They’re all labeled HUMAN RESOURCES. I open one of the boxes and pull out some of the folders. The dates are old, some from almost ten years ago, and each folder is labeled with a name.
“What are they?” Avi asks.
“Records, I think.” I rifle through the papers inside. “It looks like for teachers. Staff.”
Avi takes a stack, too. “God, it’s everything, tax forms and notes from meetings . . .”
“Why would they leave this stuff in here?”
“It’s a storage closet. I guess they’re storing it.” Avi puts down his stack. “Come on, let’s move it out of the way so the others don’t trip over it.”
I don’t move. People talk about gears turning in their heads, but that makes everything sound so orderly. When I have ideas, the pieces rub against each other, but never line up right at first. That’s what’s happening right now. I know I have an idea, but I’m not sure what it looks like.
“Avi.”
“Yeah?” He stops moving a box.
“You were talking before about hypocrisy, about how there’s probably lots of things teachers here have done that didn’t get them fired from St. Clare’s.”
“So?”
I put the folder back and pick up the whole heavy box. “So let’s find out what those things were.”
“No.”
“Lucy—”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Absolutely not to what?” I ask as Lucy returns a stack of files to its box. “We haven’t plann
ed anything; I’m only saying we should look through them.”
“But we shouldn’t,” Lucy says. “These are private documents, with people’s pictures and social security numbers, and you shouldn’t have even touched those boxes.”
“Yeah, didn’t have much choice there, Rosary Rita,” Avi says. “I tripped over them.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Eden says to Lucy, sitting cross-legged on the couch and thumbing through a file. “It’s not like Michael’s suggesting we steal their identities.”
“I’m not sure what Michael is suggesting we do.”
I didn’t expect Lucy to be such a wet blanket about this, but as soon as she, Eden, and Max got down to the HA room and Avi and I filled them in, she immediately shot everything down.
“What happened to Ms. Simon wasn’t right,” I say. “And it wasn’t right especially because other teachers get away with stuff the Catholic Church isn’t okay with, like divorce, and they don’t get fired. And that’s not fair.” Lucy just blinks. “So I’m suggesting we let all the students know about how unfair it is, and let the administration know that we know.”
“And how are you going to do that without throwing those teachers under the bus?”
Avi shrugs. “Casualties of war.”
“Avi, no,” Lucy says, with a hard shake of her head. “You can’t.”
“Well, you can,” Eden says, looking up from her stack of files, “but you don’t want to.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I do,” Avi says.
“You don’t,” Eden repeats. “Because that’s exactly what St. Clare’s did to Ms. Simon, you know? They took something private that was her business and they used it to hurt her and set an example for us.” She picks up another file. “So I really don’t think that’s what you want to do.”
“Thank you,” Lucy says, her hand outstretched at Eden. “I know this is a tough situation, but us playing investigative reporter isn’t going to help. Let’s be rational about this.”
“Just because you don’t like the plan doesn’t mean it’s irrational,” I protest.
“That’s so fucking easy for you to say.” Avi interrupts me, zeroing in on Lucy. “This is your church. What they did is something you choose to believe in.”
Lucy looks taken aback. “What? I don’t think she should have gotten fired.”
“Because she isn’t Catholic.”
“Right. Why should she have to follow the rules of another person’s religion?”
“What if she were Catholic?” Avi asks. “Do you think she should be able to get married then?”
“I believe in marriage equality, you know that.”
“Do you believe in it in your church, though? Do you believe in two men or two women standing at your altar, not just at city hall?”
Lucy hesitates. “That’s—”
“What about two years ago, when the school found out that senior girl got an abortion? They kicked her out; do you believe in that?”
“No!” Lucy throws her hands up. “Of course she shouldn’t have been kicked out.”
“But do you believe she did something wrong?”
“It’s not what I would have done.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Lucy stares at him. “I don’t know why you’re acting like this. What happened to Ms. Simon isn’t my fault.”
“If you put money in their collection plate, you’re supporting them. You’re literally financially supporting what they do.”
“You’re being a jerk, stop it,” I tell Avi.
“Why?” Avi snaps back. “Because it hurts her feelings? Her feelings aren’t the only ones that matter.”
Lucy spins back on Avi. “What do you want me to do, Avi? I’m not the pope. I’m not Father Peter. I’m not allowed to speak for my church; what exactly do you think I can do?”
“You could leave,” Eden says softly. Lucy stops short. “The church isn’t going to change. The only thing you can do is find something better.”
“I’m not going to leave,” Lucy says. The way she says it, it’s like Eden asked her to sacrifice her firstborn.
“Why?” Eden asks. “It hurts people you care about. It hurts you. Why can’t you leave?”
“Because it’s my home!” Lucy bursts out. “And it’s a mess. I know it’s a mess. But it’s my home, and I’m going to stay, I have to stay, and make it better.” Her voice wavers. “I won’t run away from my home.”
Everyone’s quiet.
“I don’t think we’re really mad,” Max says. “At least, not at each other. There’s just no one else we’re allowed to yell at.” Avi and Lucy glance at each other, then away.
“But while we’re still mad,” Max continues, “we probably shouldn’t make any big plans. Like, angry dancing is fun, but angry baking isn’t, because you burn yourself on the stove and forget the baking soda and then your cookies are all flat. And I think planning’s a lot like baking.”
“Yeah, me too,” Eden agrees. She starts to pack up the box of files. “Let’s all sleep on it.”
Lucy and I walk together after the meeting’s over, me on my way home, her to pick up her brothers. Lucy is weirdly quiet.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask after ten solid minutes of silence.
She sighs, long and hard. “It feels like everything’s falling apart.”
“Avi will come around. Max is right, he’s not really mad at you.”
“It’s okay for Avi to be mad,” she says. “But people do stupid things when they’re upset. And now the whole school is upset, and you want to add in all the teachers’ personal lives—”
“A very select few. And fine, we won’t do it, I’ll tell everyone tomorrow. So what’s the problem?”
“We have to do something, I know that. But when people get upset,” she repeats, “they go to extremes. Can you promise that’s not going to happen? Like, swear to God?”
“Can’t swear to something I don’t believe in.”
“What do you want to swear to?” she asks. “Science? Deductive reasoning? The ghost of Friedrich Nietzsche?”
“You,” I say, and her face softens. “I swear to you. I won’t let this go too far.”
“Cross your heart?”
I’ll do the next best thing. “I promise.”
20
BY THE LAST week in January, we still haven’t had another HA meeting. Eden proposes it once, but Avi and Lucy make it clear they aren’t interested. They’ve warmed up to each other, and Lucy told me that they had a conversation and worked things out, but maybe they’re afraid another meeting about Ms. Simon will bring it all out again.
On my own, I go down to the Heretics Anonymous room and start sifting through box after box. If I can show everyone—but especially Lucy—what our anti-hypocrisy project would look like, I know they’d get on board. If it’s laid out in front of them, the research already done, they’d see that this is the perfect response to Ms. Simon getting fired.
“Do you want to come over today?” Lucy asks, for the second time this week. “I got the boys a build-your-own-castle set at a yard sale. It’s only missing a couple pieces.”
And for the second time this week, I say no. “I have Spanish tutoring,” I tell her, and wish I didn’t have to lie. But if I told Lucy I was doing this, she’d make me stop. She’d remind me that I promised her I’d leave it alone. Though, really, what I promised was not to take it too far, and I haven’t. All I’ve done is make some posters.
They aren’t great—I’m not an artist—but I found some posterboard and made them anyway. They’ve got each teacher’s name, their sin, and the hard copy of the evidence taped up, along with their picture.
MR. MARTEL (AP Government)
SIN: Adultery
—First married to Marion Martel.
—Ten years ago, had his health insurance benefits switched to a girl named Chelsea Cantlin three months after her graduation from St. Clare’s.
—Yes. You are readi
ng that correctly. He married his eighteen-year-old former student.
MS. POPLAWSKI (Math, Grades 9–12)
SIN: Greed (and paranoia)
—Repeatedly stole colleagues’ lunches from the communal fridge.
—Maintained that she only wanted to test them for radiation poisoning.
—Caused 9th grader to have a panic attack after asserting the Chilean government was messing with the school’s water supply.
—Forced 12th grade class to build a model of the Twin Towers out of Legos . . . to prove it was an inside job.
MR. CARTWRIGHT (English, Field Hockey Coach)
SIN: Lust
—Seven separate incident reports over twelve years from female students.
—In every case, complimented the students’ shampoo and invaded personal space.
—In one case, confided in student about his failing marriage and asked for advice.
—In another, straight up texted a student and asked if she wanted to get gelato. At 10 p.m.
—All students were switched into alternate classes and the incidents closed.
I bet if I did more digging, I’d find teachers who used birth control or teachers who used IVF centers to have their babies, but I don’t think I should make posters for them. I know Lucy said the Catholic Church considers those things sins, but I don’t get why. Someone who wants a kid shouldn’t have one, and someone who doesn’t want a kid should, just because God’s sitting on his hands?
“Is that what you believe?” I asked Lucy when I brought up the topic last week.
“I believe everyone should be able to make choices, and I believe that that choice is none of my business,” she said, then put her book down. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
When the posters are done, when the time’s right—then I’ll tell her.
To my surprise, Avi calls a Heretics Anonymous meeting, something he’s never done before. He proposes Thursday, after he’s done with his after-school newspaper meeting. They print every other Friday, so it’s their most important day. Lucy and I head to the newspaper adviser’s classroom to meet Avi and go down together, but when we approach, I can hear Father Peter talking to someone inside.