The Trouble with Emily Dickinson

by Lyndsey D'Arcangelo

  “Argh!” JJ hid her face with her hands, and spoke through her fingers. “I’m never going to be able to do this by Monday!”

  “Yes, you will,” Kendal reassured her. She reached for JJ’s hands and tugged them from her face. “I believe in you.”

  When JJ looked up, she saw Kendal’s generous green eyes peering down at her.

  It was the simplest of phrases, and yet it carried so much weight. JJ had never heard anybody, not her coach, or even her parents, say those words to her before. It confused her to the core. How could someone who hardly knew her believe in her so deeply? It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. It was trust without reason and it didn’t make any sense.

  “Why?” JJ asked. “Why do you believe in me? You don’t even know me that well.”

  It was the first time Kendal had seen JJ without her confident grin, without her carefree attitude or charismatic charm. JJ was vulnerable, exposed. And it only made Kendal fall for her even more.

  “Why do you believe in me so easily?” JJ repeated.

  “Because I like what I’ve learned about you so far.” Kendal laid her hand over JJ’s . “And you make it hard not to.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Saturday flew by in a blur, as Kendal kept replaying her night under the scorers’ box with JJ over and over again. They’d sat there and talked until close to one in the morning when Kendal’s cell phone rang, startling them both. Kendal only answered it because she knew it was Christine, wondering where in the world she was. The call somehow catapulted them both back to reality.

  “I’ve got to get back to the dorm,” Kendal had said, with regret. She dreaded seeing Christine and the conversation she knew would ensue. How would she ever be able to explain why she’d ditched the soccer party to hang out with JJ?

  They awkwardly parted ways, neither wanting to leave or knowing how to end the evening. JJ had offered Kendal a genuine and heartfelt smile. Kendal took it, and gave JJ one in return. That was it. That was how the night had ended.

  In her imagination Kendal had dared to picture a different ending. In her version JJ had asked her to stay a few minutes longer. They nestled gently against each other on the blanket as Kendal stared longingly into JJ’s baby blue eyes, eyes that made Kendal weak in the knees if she stared at them long enough. Kendal’s heart had been racing and she didn’t know whether she wanted to run, scream or wrap herself around JJ like a snake. The kiss that followed was unlike anything she’d ever experienced—the softness of JJ’s lips, the gentleness of her touch. She’d even dreamt about it the following night. When she realized that it wasn’t real, and only her imagination, Kendal found herself pouting.

  Pouting? She was actually pouting?

  It seemed so absurd, yet Kendal didn’t know how to explain it. She needed a word, a definition to describe the feeling, to give it a name so that she could understand it better, or maybe so she could understand why JJ was making her feel this way.

  That thought alone frightened her deeply. She felt as if she were losing whatever part of herself she thought she had control of. And it stuck with her every minute of every hour. Nothing she did or said could distract her from her thoughts. Saturday might as well have been a pause, a brief interlude until she and JJ would meet again.

  “I’m waiting,” Christine sang, tapping her fingernails loudly against a locker. She and Kendal were in the girls’ locker room at the athletic center, getting ready to walk a few laps around the track. Kendal had to beg Christine all morning to talk to her, to let her explain. Christine’s only response was, “I need to work out. You can come if you want to.”

  Working out was not something Kendal enjoyed and never did on a regular basis. In fact, this was only the second time she’d ever been in the athletic center since her freshman year. The first time was during the tour of the campus when she’d visited, before transferring to Sampson.

  “Well—” Christine said, still tapping.

  Kendal found the tapping distracting, irritating, and yet oddly comforting. Once she finished tying her sneakers, she stood up and stretched.

  “Let’s wait until we get to the track,” she said.

  “Fine,” Christine spat. She burst from the locker room, with Kendal jogging behind her to keep up. It had been the same when they’d walked from the dorm to the athletic center. Christine had made sure to walk a step and a half in front of Kendal so that she didn’t have to talk to her, and probably to make her suffer.

  “Okay—I know—you’re mad,” Kendal huffed, already out of breath as they made their way around the track.

  “Mad?” Christine practically shouted. “I am way beyond mad!”

  They walked briskly, and Kendal couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying because she was so focused on keeping up with Christine.

  “Can you—slow down— please?” Kendal begged.

  Christine reluctantly obliged. When their pace slowed, Kendal organized her thoughts.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said as genuinely as possible. “I just lost track of time.”

  “That’s it?” Christine asked in amazement. “That’s your big explanation?”

  “It’s the honest truth.” Kendal inhaled a few quick breaths. “We were talking at the coffee shop, and then JJ had this problem she needed help with, and since she’d helped me with my Women’s Literature class, I wanted to help her out. I didn’t want to just leave her hanging.”

  “Leave her hanging?” Christine stopped walking. “You didn’t want to leave her hanging? Right. So it was perfectly all right to leave me hanging instead. Me! Your roommate? Your best friend since freshman year? Or did you forget that as easily as you lost track of time?”

  Kendal didn’t know what to say, except, “You’re blowing this out of proportion.” By the look on Christine’s face, it was obviously the wrong thing to say.

  “Kendal, you pinky swore with me!” Christine screamed. “You can’t go back on a pinky swear!”

  It was as if Kendal had signed a contract without reading the fine print. “What are we, in first grade?” she asked, bored and impatient with way the conversation was heading.

  At that moment she noticed the women’s basketball team taking the court below. The raised track was built on the second level of the athletic center, offering a full view of the courts below. She spotted JJ, noted where she was, and then somehow shifted her eyes back to Christine’s frustrated face. “I just don’t see what the big deal is.”

  Christine smacked her lips together and appeared to swallow a scream. Her face contorted, and Kendal wondered if she were experiencing some severe gastric pain, or if she was just really upset by what Kendal had said. Either way, Kendal felt amused.

  “You are infuriating!” Christine shouted. “You have no idea what this means, do you?”

  “What are you talking about?” Kendal asked. “What does this mean?”

  “You stood up a member of the squad, Kendal. You went back on a sacred oath.”

  “Sacred oath?”

  “The pinky swear!” Christine shouted again.

  Two other girls walking the track had passed by at that moment. They turned to each other and giggled.

  Christine cast icy eyes at them, and continued with her rant. “I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, but your priorities are all messed up.” She folded her arms evenly across her chest. “Do you really think I’m the only one who’s noticed?” Her voice sounded smug.

  Kendal flung her hands to her hips, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Everyone knows who you’ve been hanging out with lately. That’s what it means. People are starting to wonder about you, and they’re starting to talk.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you? When you start hanging around a girl who’s gay, it’s assumed that you are hanging around her for a reason.”

  “They think I’m gay?”<
br />
  Christine shrugged. “What do you expect?”

  “But I’m not gay!”

  “Some people on the squad don’t think you care about your reputation anymore. They think you’ve lost your devotion and interest in the squad.” She leaned in and whispered, “And you know what that means.”

  The color instantly drained from Kendal’s face. She knew she hadn’t exactly been singing the praises of the cheerleading squad lately, nor bearing the school colors. Yes, she had her frustrations, and yes, she had her complaints, but that didn’t mean she wanted out. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.

  “That’s crazy!” Kendal screamed, a little too loudly. She saw a few of the basketball players look up in her direction, and wondered if JJ had been one of them.

  “It’s the truth,” Christine told her. “They are having a meeting. It was supposed to be a secret. They didn’t want you to know. But I wanted to tell you because I thought you should know. Unless you wake up and snap out of this phase you’re in, you might as well kiss the squad goodbye.” She narrowed her eyes and pointed her sharp chin and added, “You know how these things go down.”

  Kendal knew exactly how these things went down. She’d seen how these things had gone down. Last year, she was in on one of the secret meetings about a sophomore who spent more time hanging out with her skater friends on campus than she did attending practice or other cheerleading-related activities. She’d seemed like such a promising prospect during her freshman year, by way of her 3.6 GPA, her involvement in the drama club, and her participation in student government activities. But, as it sometimes happens, she soon went astray and started hanging out with what the squad thought was the wrong crowd.

  Suddenly, the rest of the squad didn’t see her as being so promising and wholesome anymore. She was dismissed, cast aside, and her membership in the most popular organization on campus ultimately revoked by a single, unsurprising, unanimous vote.

  The fact of the matter was that the cheerleading squad had a reputation to uphold. They went after only the most involved, the most athletic, popular, prettiest, and smartest students on campus. Unless you carried at least a 3.0 GPA and were part of some organization, be it academic or otherwise, you had no shot at making the squad, no matter how good you were.

  Kendal had been lucky. She’d been the exception to the rule. Her popularity outshined her GPA and lack of involvement in campus activities. She had zero athletic ability. But she could fake a good split and leg lift any day. Aside from being pretty and popular, Kendal didn’t have much on her résumé as far as school activities went.

  Standing there in the athletic center, arguing with Christine over something so trivial, Kendal felt small and shallow. For the past couple of years she’d been doing to others exactly what she feared others would now do to her. She’d judged people, voted as to whether or not they were good enough to be on the cheerleading squad, and she’d been happy doing it. She’d been happy to belong to what she saw as a loving and supportive organization that appeared now to be nothing more than a superficial, stuck-up bunch of girls with meaningless friendships, and future networking possibilities that would serve them well only until the high school bubble burst.

  It shouldn’t have mattered. Kendal shouldn’t have cared. But for some reason, one that she couldn’t put her finger on, it did matter. For some reason, she did care.

  She felt her chest expand with panic. The squad was all she knew at Sampson. What would she be without it? Who would she be?

  She’d have to make all new friends. She’d have to start over, as if she were a freshman. And the thought of that was too overwhelming to entertain.

  “When’s the meeting?” Kendal asked.

  “Tomorrow night, at the school lounge,” Christine said. Her eyes instantly softened. “I told them you’d be busy with tutoring, but if you skip that, then you can come.” She uncrossed her arms and reached for Kendal’s hands. “It’s only going to be a discussion, nothing final. Don’t even mention what I said. Just tell everyone you’ve been working hard studying, that you still care about the squad and your reputation, and that JJ is just your tutor and nothing more. I’ll vouch for you.”

  “You’ll vouch for me?”

  “On one condition.”

  “Which is—”

  “Which is that you stop hanging out with JJ.”

  “What? She’s my tutor!”

  “Get another one,” Christine said plainly, “or how do you expect me to vouch for you?” If you continue to hang around her no one is going to believe me, or you either for that matter.”

  Kendal glanced toward the basketball team again. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw JJ sprinting from one side of the gym to the other. “Okay,” she said without looking away. “I’ll stop hanging out with JJ.”

  CHAPTER 24

  By Sunday evening, JJ still hadn’t been able to get through the entire poem. It was discouraging, to say the least, seeing as how she’d spent the greater part of the weekend practicing in her dorm room.

  She hadn’t heard from Kendal at all on Saturday, and assumed she was busy smoothing things over with her roommate. In the meantime, JJ had mustered up enough courage to read a few lines of her poem to Queenie. But that wasn’t the same as reading it out loud to her class, because JJ wasn’t exposing herself. Queenie already knew everything there was to know about her. Not like a classroom of strangers. Queenie wouldn’t judge JJ, nor would she ever criticize her work.

  When JJ had finished reading a few lines, Queenie said, “That’s awesome!” and went back to charging more clothes online at her parents’ expense. Every thing she’d written that JJ had ever shared with her, which wasn’t much at all, Queenie loved. JJ could probably scribble out the alphabet, and Queenie would love it.

  JJ paced nervously across the floor of her dorm room, as Queenie looked on in amusement. Time was running out.

  “What do you suppose they were arguing about?”

  JJ stopped pacing, noting Queenie’s smirking face.

  “Who are they and what are you referring to?”

  “Those two cheerleaders. They were involved in quite the heated discussion, don’t you think?”

  “So what? What’s your point?”

  JJ had seen Kendal and her roommate arguing. How could she have missed them when Queenie had poked her hard in the side to get her attention? She hadn’t cared then, and she didn’t care now. There were other, more important, things on her mind. Like the fact that she had fewer than twenty-four hours until she had to read her poem in front of her entire class.

  “My point is that it’s quite the coincidence that they were arguing so soon after your late night study session.” Queenie made sure to enclose her phrase, study session, in quotes with her fingers. “Don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  JJ immediately regretted telling Queenie how she and Kendal had stayed up practically all night together talking under the scorers’ box at the soccer field.

  “Rumors are starting to circulate,” Queenie said. “You know how this school is a hub for gossip.”

  “Since when have I cared about rumors?”

  “I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about THE Kendal McCarthy. Once she gets wind of the fact that people think she is batting for the other side now, she might not like it so much.” Queenie let out a long-winded whistle. “My guess is that her cheerleader friends aren’t going to like it much either.”

  “I’m not playing this game with you right now,” JJ warned.

  “It isn’t a game, JJ, that’s the point.” Queenie stood up, the playful smirk gone from her face. “This is reality. And it’s about time you came back from the wonderful world of make believe.”

  JJ resisted the urge to argue, because in a way she knew Queenie was right. She’d been fooling herself for a few weeks now, convincing herself that she wasn’t enamored with Kendal, when she was all JJ could think about.

  �
��All right, I’m in love with the girl,” she confessed. “Are you happy now?”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Queenie said. “I know you’re in love with her. I’ve known since the first night you tutored her.”

  “How?”

  “Because you’ve been walking around in this dizzy haze ever since.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that you actually believe she could be in love with you. It’s a fantasy, JJ, and it’s never going to happen. Once Kendal realizes she can’t play with the lesbians any longer because of what the rest of the school might think, once she realizes the weight of it, she’s going to stop talking to you.”

  “She’s not like that,” JJ maintained.

  “You think so? And you’ve known her how long?”

  “Why are you doing this?” JJ asked, a lump forming in her throat. “Why are you saying these things?”

  Queenie shook her head, “Because you never learn. You keep falling for girls you can’t have. I hate watching you go through this. I want you to get out this time before it’s too late.”

  “I appreciate what you’re saying, really I do. But you’re wrong this time,” JJ said. “And you’re wrong about her.”

  “Am I?” Queenie checked the clock on her iPhone. “You have a study date with her in an hour, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I bet you a hundred bucks she doesn’t show.”

  “That’s absurd,” said JJ.

  “Why? Because you know I’m right?”

  “No, because neither of us has a hundred bucks and I won’t accept your parents’ credit card!”

  “Fine. I’ll bet you a pizza instead.”

  Now this was a bet JJ could afford. It was high time that she put Queenie in her place. Queenie was the kind of person who thought she was right about everything and everyone. It was time to show her that she could be wrong just as easily as everyone else.

  JJ extended her hand.

  Queenie shook it.