“Can I tell you a secret?”
I roll my eyes. Jess asks permission for a lot of things, but spilling their heart all over me is not usually one of them. “Always.”
“I could have gone to camp. I mean, divorce is expensive. My parents are absolutely screwing themselves in screwing each other. But it would have been worth a few thousand to get me out of their hair for the summer.”
“So why didn’t you go?”
“I guess I thought I might keep them from killing each other. You always hear about people staying together for the kids, right? If I was right there, maybe they’d make more of an effort. Lord, what fools these mortals be.”
They bump my shoulder toward the entrance of a massive, shiny glass building in the heart of downtown.
“It’s not foolish to want to help the people you love.” I reach for my wallet as we approach the ticket window at the museum.
“First Thursdays are free,” Jess says, waving at the lady in the booth and pushing through the doors into a blast of air-conditioning.
Jess gives a friendly wave to the security guard, like maybe they come here all the time. Maybe they come with Summer, when she’s not off at theater camp. Or maybe this is something Jess does alone, but now they’re letting me in, like I’ve let them into my book.
No one’s in the Illuminated Manuscripts exhibit. Probably not a huge demand to see medieval religious texts on a weekday morning, but people don’t know what they’re missing.
When I think of manuscripts, I think of words on pages, mostly. Like the Constitution or pictures of the King James Bible. They look cool because they’re written in flowery script, but otherwise, they’re only text.
These are different.
They’re song books and prayer books and calendars, Bibles and histories and sometimes documents I can’t decipher (mainly because they’re in Latin or French). They’re written in beautiful calligraphy, with very few words on a page, in most cases. Which makes sense, because the art needs room to shine.
In person, the manuscript pages are so much more stunning than the images online. The gold leaf on most of the pages shimmers magically, making them look not only valuable, but almost holy.
Sometimes the images depict familiar scenes—Madonna and Child, David slaying Goliath. Other times strange, indecipherable things are happening. A woman is harvesting . . . fruit? . . . from a tree that seems to produce penises.
And sometimes the illumination isn’t a specific illustration—sometimes it’s intricate designs surrounding the text. Flowers, vines, fleurs-de-lis, beautiful adornments I don’t even know how to describe.
On some, the first letter of the text takes up the entire left-hand page, a giant, intricately decorated letter B, before the right-hand page continues the word: –ehold.
They’re really, really breathtaking.
“Can you imagine how long these must have taken?” I say. Days for even a single page, I think. The love my parents have for words, for stories, the way they’ve built their lives around them, these take that passion to a whole other level.
“Forever. And multiple monks worked on each page. Sometimes they left little notes in the margin, complaining about their hand cramps. One says, ‘Just as the sailor yearns for port, the writer longs for the last line.’”
I don’t long for the last line, though. I might even dread it. But the monks who created these works of art weren’t telling their own stories. Maybe that’s the difference.
“Was it only monks?”
“Mostly, until books became a more commercial product. But there were female scribes too. Orders of nuns who worked like the monks. And the earliest-dated manuscript about Lancelot was written by a female scribe in the thirteenth century. We know because it ends with a line asking the reader to pray for the scribe. And uses a feminine pronoun to refer to her!”
Could that scribe have imagined two people would be discussing her work eight hundred years later? Would know at least something of her identity, or care?
It’s not a very big exhibit and by the time I’ve rotated through all the manuscripts in the room, Jess is still standing at the very first page they stopped at.
It makes sense, I guess. They’re the artist. I’ve always been about the words. I appreciate visual art, but sometimes I feel like I don’t get it. And then, if I’m honest, that makes me feel sort of inferior, like I’m not sophisticated enough to get it.
Jess traces their finger on the glass, along the curving line of a gold-leaf vine. I return to the page they’re still looking at. It’s written in Latin, but I’m guessing from the angels it’s a Bible. Or a prayer book. Jess is looking at it with a reverence I haven’t seen from them before.
“Are you religious?”
I know they’ve heard me because their finger stops its path across the glass. But they’re quiet for a bit.
“My nana used to take me to her church,” they finally say. “I loved the choir, the organ. The giant stained-glass windows. And the way Nana would parade me around after, introducing me to all her friends and letting me eat as many of those pink and white circus animal cookies as I wanted.
“I get why lots of people don’t feel this way, and maybe it was Nana or maybe it was her church, but I always felt safe there, you know? Welcome.”
They finally move on to the next page. It isn’t religious—this one is written in French, and I can make out enough words to know it’s a calendar listing feast days. But they still stare at it like it’s holy.
“Did she die? Your nana?”
“Last summer. She was in a home for her last few years and I was the only one who ever went to visit her.” They pause. “People are so fucking awful. But they also make things so beautiful they break your heart, you know?”
* * *
—
We’re at the Starbucks closest to my house, despite Jess’s grumblings about corporate overlords. I get it. But sometimes I like how every Starbucks is exactly the same. When I walk in, I know what’s on the menu. I know how to order. I don’t have to decipher a million cutesy new names for the same old drinks, written on a smudged chalkboard.
I’m researching siege warfare while Jess draws an illuminated family crest. Or not technically illuminated, since they’re not using gold leaf. Unless gold Sharpie counts? I think it’s a Bressieux crest until I look closer and see a dog that looks remarkably like Chester, alongside a cat on a leash.
“Is that . . . Vlad?”
They grin and turn their sketchbook around so I can see more clearly. “Vlad and Chester, together on the page, as they never shall be together in this life.”
The crest is divided into four sections, one of which is filled by Vlad and Chester. One includes theater masks and spotlights and curtains. One includes a sullen girl I’m pretty sure is Summer and an angry girl—
“Is that me?”
“Yes?”
“What am I doing on that crest?”
“It’s my crest. My chosen-family crest.”
My heart almost explodes.
“Shut up,” they say. “I also included your big, dumb dog.”
I hide my grin and search my medieval history book for something to change the subject. “So according to the code of chivalry, inhabitants of a castle were supposed to be allowed safe conduct out during a siege.”
“Okay . . .” They keep drawing.
“So Marguerite and all the others should have been let out before the Prince of Orange and his men stormed the castle. Unless . . . what? Her father made them stay?”
“Possible. Overconfident in their defenses?” Jess sets down their pencil. “But I’m sure the code was broken all the time. It’s not like Chalon was known as an honorable guy.”
It’s almost worse for a reasonable code to exist and be ignored.
“That’s very unfair to
all the dudes who seized what wasn’t theirs in a peaceful and orderly fashion,” I point out.
Jess snorts and goes back to drawing.
“I’m getting another chai. Do you want anything?”
They shake their head, unwilling to further line the pockets of the coffee barons.
I’ve just gotten in line when someone stands behind me, a little too close. But if I move forward at all, I’ll be crowding the girl in front of me. It’s obviously a guy, based on the toxic fumes of cheap cologne.
Toxic: the OED’s 2018 Word of the Year, appearing most frequently alongside 1) chemical and 2) masculinity.
I consider stepping out of line and getting my drink after this asshole has gone, but I don’t want him to have any power over me.
The girl in front of me is ordering six different drinks and I swear this guy is slow-dancing close. I steal a look over my shoulder, to figure out if he’s someone I want to give a withering look or full-on tell off. Then I realize why the cheap cologne was familiar.
“Marianne Morales! Man, it’s been a while!”
Not long enough.
“I mean, I saw you on the news, but you weren’t feeling so hot that day, were you?” He guffaws and slings a massive arm around my shoulder. “Looking hot now, though.”
I extricate myself, give him the tiniest smile, which I immediately hate myself for—why should I give him anything—and head back to where Jess sits, watching.
“What?” Phil calls after me. “What’d I say?!”
“He looks like a charmer,” Jess says as I sit and scowl at men in general.
“I dated him for about five minutes freshman year. He’s harmless.”
“Then why do you look so upset?”
He was a senior football player who took me to prom as a freshman. I was an idiot and thought I was special; I had no idea I was low-hanging fruit. He didn’t rape me, and that’s a pretty low bar for a decent human being.
“Let’s forget him,” I say, opening my book again.
Once he realized I wasn’t going to put out and dropped me, Phil didn’t say another word to me for the rest of his high school days. I keep my eyes on my book and don’t look up until I smell another wave of that awful cologne.
“Hello, sir,” Jess says in a jaunty tone. “What can we do for you this lovely day?”
Phil pulls up a chair and flips it around, straddling it like we invited him to sit in the most douchey way possible.
“Marianne Morales,” he booms again, basically announcing my presence to the coffee shop. “Girl reporter. Are you hot on the trail of your next big scoop?”
“No, but I am busy right now.” I shoot a look at Jess that means do not provoke this asshole, it’ll only be harder to get rid of him and hope desperately that they understand.
Phil reaches out and pulls Marguerite across the table to look at what Jess is doing. I grab the notebook and flinch when my fingers brush his.
“We’ve still got a spark,” he says with a grin. “Electric. But I’m not sure what my brothers would say if I brought you around the frat house.”
Jess takes in a sharp breath. I freeze. Around the frat house.
“Hey, Em, we’ve got to get going if we’re going to catch that bus.”
“Aw, don’t run off on my account. Was that rude? It’s not that they wouldn’t like you! But Big Sis kind of pissed off a lot of Husky fans. And Greeks.”
Jess bolts to their feet and it’s the first time I really register how tall they are. No match for Phil’s football-playing hulk as he slowly stands, but still. Eyes blazing, Jess keeps their tone light as they say, “You can fuck all the way off, my friend.”
Phil locks eyes with them. People are watching. Phil wears Husky football gear and while it doesn’t matter what the dawgs or their minions do in dark alleys, he’d never make a scene where cell phones could start filming. “That’s a sweet offer, princess. But you are absolutely not my type.”
* * *
—
As soon as he’s gone, we flee. Neither one of us can focus, and I’m so mad I want to destroy something.
“That asshole was my first kiss.” I kick a pile of rotten dogwood blossoms. “Not that it was this precious flower I can never give away again or anything, but for the rest of my life, when people tell first-kiss stories, I’ll have to think about Phillip Fucking Russell. Around the frat house.” Jess is quiet, so I keep going. “Did you notice how he called them his brothers?! Like, I get that it’s a fraternity, so they’re ‘brothers’ or whatever, but they’re not. They’re not family. They’re a group of misogynist meatheads thrown together by patriarchy and . . . and privilege, and—”
Jess isn’t beside me anymore. I stop and turn to see them frozen on the sidewalk.
“Jess?”
I rush back when they don’t respond. They’re standing there, trembling, as shaken as I am pissed. I take their hand and hold it steady. “Hey. Is this okay?”
They manage a nod.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I don’t. We stand there, hands clasped. I’m such a selfish asshole, focusing on myself when Jess just got misgendered.
“I’m so sorry.”
Jess gives a tight shake of their head. “Not here.”
We don’t say another word all the way back to my house. Inside, they curl up with the quilt on our beat-up couch and cup the tea I bring them, hands finally steady enough to hold it without spilling.
“Phil’s your typical asshole jock. Trying to get a reaction. He wasn’t really threatening me.” I don’t think. “But what he said to you—”
“It happens.”
“It’s not okay.”
“I know that.”
Of course they know that. A million times better than I do. As awful as it can be to be a girl in this world, people talk about it. There are hashtags and movements and marches. They don’t always amount to action, but at least there are people who’ll listen and relate and commiserate if I speak out, if Nor tells her story, and that’s not nothing.
But for Jess, for others whose stories get swept into the darkest corners—they have more in common with Marguerite than I’ve thought about. And that’s on me.
They’re silent for a long time. Finally: “When I was in fourth grade, I spent months making this replica sword for a social studies project. I got special permission and everything, because weapons and school, you know?”
I curl up on the other end of the couch and tuck my toes under the quilt.
“I made the hilt out of clay, so I could do all these really cool, intricate carvings in them, and when I glazed it, it looked really cool. The blade was foam covered in aluminum foil. It wasn’t the best part. But the hilt . . .”
My stomach twists. I know where this is going. Sweet little Jess makes this precious thing and then some douche-canoe like Phil Russell destroys it on the bus.
“Some kids might not have been allowed to keep their toy sword with them, but I was a good kid, right? Perfect grades, perfect attendance. I usually spent lunch reading. So my teacher let me take my sword with me.”
I want to shield baby Jess from what’s coming. I also kinda want to smack this teacher. How could they not see what would happen? Teachers, with their big hearts all thinking kids are good and pure or whatever, are clearly idiots.
“This one kid, Skylar Pressman—I still remember exactly where he sat on the bus because he and his junior dudebro friends always saved their straws from lunch and shot spitballs at anyone who wasn’t them, so trying to avoid the line of fire was a strategic, stressful part of bus rides. But that day at lunch, Skylar stopped and asked if he could see my sword and I didn’t want to hand it over, because he was Skylar Pressman, but also I had to because he was Skylar Pressman. He looked at it really carefully, like really examined it, and then he hand
ed it back to me and said, ‘Dude, that’s sweet.’ I never got hit by a spitball again.”
I wait, to see if there’s more. Like, I’m expecting Skylar Pressman to ambush them on the bus on the way home and steal the sword or something. Finally, I say, “I guess not all boys are monsters?”
“No, Skylar Pressman definitely was. His parents sent him to military school after he set fire to the girls’ locker room in middle school.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. It’s too predictable. “Do you still have the sword?”
“Oh, well. A few months later this new girl moved in across the street? Do you know Rajani Agarwal? She’s on the swim team.”
I try to place her, but can’t.
“I saw her out in front of our house, and this other neighborhood kid was chasing her with something gross on a stick, I don’t even know, like dog poop or a squashed slug or something, and I was overcome by a fit of chivalry—”
“Oh no . . .”
“Oh yes, so I grabbed my sword, which I had hung on my wall because I was so proud of it, and I ran out knowing full well the blade was foam, but hoping it would look impressive. I ran up to them, and without missing a beat, Rajani grabbed the sword from me, neatly disarmed the other kid, shoved the sword back at me, and said, ‘I didn’t need saving.’”
I need to figure out who Rajani is and become her best friend immediately. “Do you still have it?”
“Yeah, no. After Rajani went back in her house, the other kid grabbed the sword and destroyed it.” Jess stares into the remains of their tea, like they’ll find an answer there. “I wish I still had that sword.”
I wish Jess had that sword.
I wish I had one of my own. Nor and Rajani too. That swords were something granted to us at a certain milestone, like tampons and puberty, and we were taught to use them, responsibly and with honor, that chivalry was an actual thing, not in the damsels in distress sense, but in the sense that we look out for one another and sometimes you might need my sword and sometimes I might need your sword, but we’re never standing alone in the middle of a battlefield, defenseless.
We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire Page 8