Moxie

by Jennifer Mathieu

  “Several,” says Meemaw, not skipping a beat, and Grandpa just sighs, but I know he loves that Meemaw never lets him have the last word.

  I appreciate how utterly grandparentesque my grandparents are. I like listening to their banter, to their gentle teasing, to the way two people who have been together for over forty years communicate with each other. I like how my grandpa has funny little sayings that he trots out over and over again and delivers in a voice of authority. (“Remember, Vivian, you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.”) I like how Meemaw has never once solved a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune but still insists on watching it every night and yelling out whatever answers strike her in the moment. (“Mr. Potato Head! Fried Green Tomatoes! Sour cream and onion potato chips!”)

  They’re cozy, basically.

  But like most grandparents, they’re totally out of it when it comes to knowing what it’s like to be, like, a girl and sixteen and a junior in high school.

  “Anything exciting happen at school today?” Meemaw asks, wiping the sides of her mouth with her napkin. I push my green beans around with my fork and consider my day and the homework still waiting for me in my backpack.

  “Nothing too exciting,” I say. “I got stuck with a bunch of extra work in English because Mitchell Wilson and his friends are jerks.”

  Grandpa frowns and Meemaw asks what I mean, so I find myself telling them about Mitchell’s stupid comment.

  “I don’t even understand what that means,” says Meemaw. “Why would he want someone to make him a sandwich?”

  I take a deep breath. “He didn’t really want a sandwich, Meemaw,” I say. “It’s just, like, this stupid joke the boys use to try and say girls belong in the kitchen and they shouldn’t have opinions.” My voice gets louder the more I talk.

  “I see. Well, that certainly wasn’t very nice of Mitchell,” Meemaw offers, passing Grandpa the salt.

  I shrug, briefly fantasizing about what it must be like to be retired and able to spend your days puttering around with your ceramic rooster collection, totally oblivious to the realities of East Rockport High School.

  “What he said…” I pause and picture the bright red hives of embarrassment burning up all over Lucy Hernandez. Remembering makes me burn for a moment, too, from my scalp to the tips of my toes, but it’s not embarrassment I’m feeling. “Well, I think it’s totally sexist.” It feels good to say it out loud.

  “I suppose, I’d expect better manners from the principal’s son,” says Meemaw, sliding past my last remark.

  “Can you imagine what Lisa would have done over something like that?” my grandfather says suddenly, looking up from his enchiladas at my grandmother. “I mean, can you even picture it?”

  I look over at Grandpa, curious. “What?” I ask. “What would Mom have done?”

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” Meemaw says, holding her hand out like a crossing guard ordering us to stop.

  “Your mother wouldn’t have done just one thing,” Grandpa continues, scraping his plate for one last bite. “It would have been a list of stuff. She would have started a petition. Painted a big sign and marched around the school. Exploded in rage.”

  Of course my mother would have done all of those things. The tales of her teenage rebellion started long before she moved to the Pacific Northwest and took up with the Riot Grrrls. Like the time she showed up at East Rockport High with her hair dyed Manic Panic Siren’s Song blue the day after the principal announced the dress code would no longer allow unnatural hair colors. She got suspended for a week and my grandparents had to spend a fortune getting it covered up without my mom’s hair falling out. I briefly imagine what it must have felt like to walk down the main hallway of school with everyone staring at you because your hair is the color of a blue Fla-Vor-Ice. I cringe just thinking about it.

  “The problem was your mother was always looking for a fight,” Meemaw continues before draining the rest of her sweet tea. “She had more than her necessary share of moxie. It made things so difficult for her. And us, too, as much as we love her.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say. I’ve heard this speech before. And maybe it did make things difficult for Meemaw and Grandpa, but the girl in the Polaroid picture from the MY MISSPENT YOUTH shoe box didn’t seem to find life so tough. She seemed to be having fun. She seemed to enjoyed starting battles, even if she didn’t always win.

  “The good news,” Meemaw announces definitively, “is that the rebellious gene seems to have been some strange mutation.” She smiles at me and starts stacking the dirty dishes.

  “Our dutiful Vivian,” Grandpa offers. He even reaches over and ruffles my hair with his big, callus-covered grandpa hand, like I’m ten.

  I smile back, but I’m prickly all of a sudden. I don’t like feeling prickly toward my grandpa. Or Meemaw. But I don’t like being called dutiful either. Even though it’s probably—no, definitely—true. So I don’t say anything. I just smile and try to bury the prickliness.

  After dinner I do my homework (of course), and then I join my grandparents in the family room (or what Meemaw and Grandpa call “the TV room”) to watch Wheel of Fortune. I laugh as Meemaw shouts out ridiculous answers (“‘Luck Be a Lady Tonight!’ Lady and the Tramp! My Fair Lady!”). I accept Grandpa’s offer of decaf coffee with cream and sugar. But my mind keeps remembering Lucy’s hurt face and the snickering coming from Mitchell and his stupid friends. The burning sensation that flashed through my body during dinner twists my stomach. Makes me restless.

  After the bonus round on Wheel, I tell my grandparents I have to be heading home, and they do their typical protest to try and get me to stay just a little longer, at least through Dancing with the Stars. But I beg off and kiss them each on the cheek and thank them—dutifully—for having me over.

  “Of course, sweetie,” Grandpa says, walking me to the door and hugging me tight, and I feel guilty for getting so irritated with him earlier.

  * * *

  After I get home and watch some dumb television and mess around on my phone, I decide it’s time to get ready for bed, so I throw on my pajamas—boxers and an old Runaways T-shirt my mom gave me for Christmas one year, featuring a very young Joan Jett (the human one). While I’m brushing my teeth, I hear the front door open.

  “Mom?” I say, stepping out into the hallway that leads to the kitchen.

  “Hey, lady,” she answers back, tossing her car keys onto the counter where they skid to a stop by the blender. Then she stops in the middle of our postage-stamp-sized kitchen and stares up at the ceiling before letting loose a loud exhale. “Oh man, what a night,” she says, unwinding the bun on top of her head. Her thick black hair slides down her back like a curtain after a performance. She walks over to the fridge and peeks inside, and I finish brushing my teeth and join her.

  “Where’s that leftover Chinese?” she asks me as she shifts around takeout containers and cans of Dr Pepper.

  “I finished it the other night,” I say, giving her a sorry face as she shoots me a friendly scowl over the refrigerator door.

  “Dang,” she mutters. “Well, ice cream for dinner at 10 p.m. never killed anyone. At least not that I’m aware of.” She pulls a pint of mint chocolate chip out of the freezer and makes her way to our little den next to the kitchen, the room where we spend most of our time together. I follow her and watch as she collapses into her regular spot on the well-worn couch and then pats the space next to her as a sign that I should join her.

  “You okay?” I ask as she swallows a spoonful of ice cream and finally relaxes her body a bit.

  “Yeah, just tired,” she says, frowning and digging around for another big scoop. “We were slammed from the minute I got there until the minute I walked out.”

  “Anything gross or scary?” I ask. I watch as she swallows her ice cream and tips her head back to rest, closing her eyes briefly. My mom is still beautiful, even in her cheeseball pink nursing scrubs covered in tiny white d
aisies. Her dark hair stands in such contrast to her pale skin, and she moves her tall body with total grace. Meemaw says we look alike even if we don’t act alike, and I hope it’s true even though I’m pretty sure it’s not.

  “No, fortunately nothing too weird. Just urinary tract infections and ear infections all night long.” Sometimes my mom comes home with strange stories that make us both laugh, like the time a kid stuck a bunch of Flintstones vitamins up his nose.

  We sit in silence for a bit, and I reach out and stroke one of her long, pale arms. She looks at me and smiles.

  “How was school?” she asks.

  “The usual,” I answer. “School.”

  “Such a detailed report.”

  “There’s really nothing to say,” I insist. Which isn’t true, of course. On a different night I would talk through Mitchell Wilson’s stupid remark and how sorry I felt for Lucy and how annoyed Mr. Davies made me in English class when he punished all of us instead of dealing with the actual problem. I might even be able to admit that Meemaw and Grandpa annoyed me by calling me dutiful. But I can tell from the way my mom wrinkles her forehead to try and keep her eyes open that she’s exhausted.

  “Well, it’s late anyway,” she tells me, “and you should get to bed. I smell like an urgent care center, but kiss me good night anyway, would you?”

  I lean in for a hug and a peck on the cheek and as I head to my bedroom, I hear my mom turning on the television to unwind. After shutting my door, I slide under the covers and turn off my bedside lamp. The glow-in-the-dark stars I stuck on my ceiling light up like they’re saying hello. Sliding my headphones on, I think about my mom’s MISSPENT YOUTH shoe box. I scroll through my phone, looking for Riot Grrrl music, and play a song called “Rebel Girl” by a band named Bikini Kill.

  It starts with this pounding drumbeat that’s so strong and angry that I think if I listen to it loud enough I might fly off the bed. Then the guitar kicks in.

  But the best part is when the lead singer starts singing and her voice shoots out of her gut like a rocket launching.

  That girl thinks she’s the queen of the neighborhood

  She’s got the hottest trike in town

  That girl she holds her head up so high

  I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah

  Rebel girl, rebel girl

  Rebel girl, you are the queen of my world

  The music thuds and snarls and spits, and as I listen, it’s hard for me to imagine that the tired, ice-cream-eating, scrubs-wearing mom on the couch is the same mom from the MY MISSPENT YOUTH box. The same girl with the platinum-blond streak in her hair and tongue sticking out and dark eyes that aren’t afraid to fight back.

  And I know that now she’s tired and exhausted and worried about paying all the bills. But there was a time when she listened to this music. When she raged and roared and rioted. When she wasn’t dutiful. There was a time when she lived out loud. And no one can take that away from her.

  When the song ends I lie there for a moment in silence and then hit repeat, waiting once more for the drums to begin their attack.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The week continues like it always does. On Wednesday I go to school, and Mr. Davies doesn’t even check the stupid extra homework he made us do in the grammar book. Lucy Hernandez doesn’t raise her hand once all class. I go home and do my homework and text Claudia and listen to music and go to sleep. Thursday is pretty much the same routine. It’s been the same each year since middle school. Every fall starts with me thinking maybe this year something will be different—something will happen that will shake up my merry-go-round life. But I’m so used to the sameness of every year at East Rockport, I can’t even identify what I want that Something to be. I only know that by the end of September it’s obvious another school year is sitting in front of me like a long stretch of highway.

  The only thing that makes today, Friday, feel at all unique is, of course, that the fate of the East Rockport High football team will be decided a few short hours after the final bell rings.

  East Rockport is just a 3A town, so it’s not like the big cities or anything, but our football team is pretty good. And by that I mean when I was in the fifth grade we made it to the state championships but we lost, and people still talk about that day more than they talk about the fact that the one of the first astronauts to fly around in space was born right here in East Rockport. On Fridays in the fall, class feels like an excuse to legally require us to come to school so we can admire the football players’ lockers decorated with orange and white crepe paper streamers and attend the mandatory pep rally before lunch and participate in the call and response cheers and observe Mitchell Wilson and his crew walking down the hallways like the second comings of Tom Landry and Earl Campbell. And the fact that I even know who Tom Landry and Earl Campbell are should tell you I really have been born and bred in this state.

  “So we’re driving out together tonight, right?” Claudia says as we file into the bleachers for the pep rally. “My mom said we could take her car. She’s staying home with Danny because he isn’t feeling good.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say, plunking my rear end down on one of the top bleachers. I can hear the pep band’s horn section getting warmed up. I wince. It sounds like a pack of elephants mourning the loss of their leader or something. In the corner of the gym, the cheerleaders are finishing up their final stretches, dressed in uniforms the color of a Creamsicle.

  Claudia and I aren’t big football fans, really, but we go to all the games, even the away games like the one tonight in Refugio. That’s what you do here. You go to the games. Even Meemaw and Grandpa wouldn’t miss one. Grandpa likes to use white shoe polish to write GO PIRATES! on the rear window of their car even if Meemaw always worries he won’t be able to drive safely because of it. Claudia and I always sit in the student section on game nights, but usually on the edge of it, like we do at the pep rallies. We split a box of super salty popcorn from the Booster Booth, and we clap our greasy hands along half-heartedly while Emma Johnson and the other cheerleaders lead us in cheers, their voices veering up and down like seesaws. “LET’S go PI-rates.”—clap, clap, clapclapclap—“LET’S go PI-rates.”—clap, clap, clapclapclap.

  “Come on, let’s get this show on the road,” Claudia mutters, her eyes darting around to make sure none of the teachers patrolling the perimeter of the gym are watching us before she pulls out her phone to mess with it.

  That’s when I happen to glance over my shoulder and see him. Two bleachers in back of us and maybe like five people over.

  A new boy.

  In my experience the new boy is always someone’s cousin who’s just moved here from Port Aransas or wherever, and he’s a total goober with an incredible talent for picking his nose in class when he thinks no one is looking. That’s the new boy. That’s been the new boy since the sixth grade.

  Until right now. Because there’s nothing about New Boy that reads East Rockport. First of all, he’s wearing tight black jeans and a gray T-shirt and his long, dark hair is hanging in front of his eyes like he’s trying to hide behind it. He turns his head a little to scratch the back of his neck, and I can tell the hair on the back of his head is cut short, almost shaved. Boys in East Rockport don’t cut their hair like this. Boys in East Rockport have their mothers and their girlfriends cut their hair into neutral guy haircuts while they sit on stools in the middle of their kitchens. Boys in East Rockport go down to Randy’s Barbershop on Main Street and flip through Playboys from 2002 while they wait for Randy to charge fifteen dollars for the same terrible cut he’s been giving them since preschool. The one that makes their ears stick out for weeks.

  New Boy must never go to Randy’s. Ever.

  In addition to the super cool haircut, he’s got olive skin and full lips and dark eyes like two storm clouds. He’s watching the activity on the gym floor below him with confused interest, like the pep rally is part of some documentary on one of those strange tribes in the Amazon that has n
ever had contact with modern civilization.

  I nudge Claudia.

  “Don’t look in, like, a super obvious way, but who is that guy a few rows behind us? He’s new, right?”

  Claudia turns and glances, then flares her nose a little in disgust, like New Boy is a stain on her favorite shirt, which is so unfair considering how deeply unstainlike New Boy is.

  “Him? Yeah, I know who he is.”

  My mouth pops open and Claudia grins, relishing the moment.

  “Oh, come on, don’t hold back,” I say. Of course at a school as small as East Rockport High it’s only a matter of time before I’ll learn New Boy’s name anyway, but still, it would be nice to know it as soon as possible so I could begin fantasy boyfriending him right away. I’m much more experienced with fantasy boyfriends than actual boyfriends.

  Claudia carefully twirls her long hair with one finger, dragging out the suspense. “His name is Seth Acosta, and he’s a junior, too,” she says. “His parents are these weird artist types from Austin, and they’re renting from my parents. Their house and this finished garage that they’re using as their gallery space. Down by the bay.”

  “Near the mansion?” I ask. The Oakhurst Mansion was originally owned by some guy named Colonel Oakhurst who served in the Republic of Texas Army. Once a year each year in elementary school we were all forced to tour a musty house built in the late 1880s that didn’t have any toilets. One of the singular experiences of an East Rockport childhood, I guess.

  “Yeah, by the mansion,” Claudia offers. “Why? Are you thinking of saying hello to a real live boy for once?”

  I shoot her a look and feel my cheeks flush. I’m so awkward around boys that I don’t talk to them except when absolutely necessary—like when a teacher puts us in groups to do stupid projects. And Claudia knows it.

  “I don’t get why two Austin artists would move to East Rockport,” I say, changing the subject. I have to kind of shout because the pep band is starting its standard pep rally opening number, “All Hail East Rockport.” Some of the kids around us are stomping out the beat on the bleachers with their feet.