Rebel Girls

by Elizabeth Keenan

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “At least those bands tonight sounded pretty good. Or so I thought from the curb after the bouncer kicked me there.”

  I laughed. The Cute Boy wasn’t just cute; he was smart and funny, too.

  “I like Lydia’s Dream,” I said. “But I really wish I could see Bikini Kill. I can’t wait until their EP comes out next month. But they’ll never come here, you know?”

  Music and politics. I could talk about both if he knew Bikini Kill, which he should, considering that button on his backpack.

  “You like them?” he asked. “My sister goes to school at Evergreen. She’s, uh, friends with them. I, uh, don’t actually know their music, though. At all.” He looked at me sheepishly. “I hope you can forgive me?”

  My heart didn’t know whether to leap with joy or stop beating. His sister was friends with Bikini Kill. I liked Bratmobile and Heavens to Betsy, the other two riot grrrl bands whose music I could actually track down, due to their split seven-inch vinyl record together on K Records. But Bikini Kill was something more. Their shows were supposed to be life changing. They took turns on different instruments, they had spoken-word events. They did benefits for feminist causes. And everybody in the band was so cool. Kathleen Hanna was brave enough to talk about sexual harassment and tried to get girls to come to the front at their shows, and her voice could be a howl of motivating rage. Tobi Vail pounded the drums like all the anger in the world was coming out of her arms. Underneath, Kathi Wilcox played simple, but super solid, bass lines. And Billy Karren’s guitar somehow unified everything.

  All I had was a scratchy, watery-sounding copy of the band’s demo cassette, Revolution Girl Style Now, and the Kill Rock Stars compilation album with one of their songs, and a couple of zines written by or about the band. Kyle’s sister knew them. She. Knew. Them.

  But Kyle didn’t even know the band’s music. That was a major comedown.

  “Then why do you have a Bikini Kill button on your backpack?” I strained not to sound accusatory or disappointed, but cool-girl calm.

  A flare of crimson rushed up Kyle’s face. He ran his hand through his hair, the same nervous gesture he did at lunch.

  “Um, well, it’s embarrassing,” he said. “And I’ll probably lose scene points as soon as I say this, but my sister put the Kill Rock Stars and Bikini Kill badges on my backpack right before she left for school, and I didn’t notice. When I called her, she said—and I quote—‘it would help me get girls.’”

  Now it was my turn to blush. I had noticed him for exactly that pin. Well, that and the fact that he was way better-looking than the other guys at St. Ann’s. But now I knew what kind of guy would have a Bikini Kill button—sorry, badge—on his backpack: one whose sister had put it there, or one who wanted to get girls. Or both.

  “Oh.” I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice. “I like Bikini Kill. And Bratmobile. And Heavens to Betsy.”

  It was so hard to find other people who were into riot grrrl. It wasn’t like the bands were on MTV, or their music was easily available at most record stores. It had taken me a month to track down Bikini Kill’s cassette, and I listened to it all the time. Even Melissa, the only other person with musical tastes close to mine, didn’t really like them. More than anything, I wanted someone to talk about their music with, but that person wasn’t going to be Kyle.

  “Please don’t get mad at me!” Kyle held up his arms in defense. “I swear I didn’t notice it was there until like a week into school. I would never, you know, deliberately try to get girls with a badge. And if you like them, then I’d love to give their music a try—maybe you can bring their album over to my house so we can listen to it together?”

  Something about his face—maybe it was the blushing, maybe it was the wrinkled-up pleading look—told me he was being honest. He didn’t need any help getting girls, but I tried to ignore that thought. And also, he’d just suggested I could go over to his house and listen to music. Inside, I was screaming, like that old black-and-white footage of girls watching the Beatles.

  “Do you at least like the Clash?” I asked, trying to see if our musical tastes aligned at all, or if I was going to have to bring my entire cassette tape collection with me. To his house. Which he’d invited me to.

  “Oh, man! They’re my favorite band.” If it was possible, the grin across his face got even bigger when he said it, so I knew he wasn’t faking it. Not that I thought he would, since he’d confessed pretty readily about the Bikini Kill thing.

  I might have loved riot grrrl bands, but the Clash were classic. They were the whole reason I got into punk when I was twelve, when I saw the video for “Rock the Casbah” on late-night MTV. Back then, I didn’t realize that “Rock the Casbah” wasn’t real punk, or that Combat Rock was supposed to be a total sellout album. I liked it anyway, and always would, but I wasn’t going to lead our conversation with it.

  “What’s your favorite Clash song?” I asked.

  “I think it would have to be a tie between ‘London Calling,’ for the bass line, and ‘Hateful,’ because it’s catchy,” he said.

  “London Calling” and “Hateful” were both great songs that passed the punk-points test. At least he knew the Clash for real.

  “‘London Calling’ is the first song I learned to play on bass!” I blurted with way too much enthusiasm. I needed to dial it down from eleven to maybe six or seven.

  “Wow!” he said, more impressed than I expected. “It’s kinda hard, though, right? Like, to learn as your first song. I play bass, too, and it definitely took me a while to learn that bass line.”

  “It was a totally dumb idea,” I lied. I had played cello for years before I started playing bass, but it seemed easier to agree with Kyle. I inwardly kicked myself for playing dumb. I seemed to forget everything about being a feminist when I was around him.

  “Are you in a band?” He was doing that deep-staring thing again. Suddenly I felt like I was the only girl in the world, and sitting across from Kyle was the only thing that mattered.

  “Theoretically, Melissa and I are in a punk band where she plays electric violin and I play bass, kind of like the Raincoats, but neither of us have written any songs since last year, so it’s become more of a theoretical band than ever,” I said with a laugh. “I think we last practiced in May.”

  “That’s better than me,” he said. “I was in a band in Brussels, but it was a disaster, since both my French and my Dutch suck. I’m learning guitar now, though. I think I’m going to switch to that.”

  And then we could be in a band together, I thought. Because no band needs two bass players. Not even Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, which actually had two.

  I was getting way ahead of myself. It wasn’t realistic to think about long-term plans with a guy I’d known for approximately thirty seconds. But it was so, so hard when everything he said seemed to fit so perfectly into my category of “imaginary boyfriend must-haves.”

  “What was it like in Brussels?” I asked, because “has been to a foreign country, which is more than I’ve done” was not necessarily a must-have on that list, but definitely checked a bonus box.

  Kyle shifted in his chair. A quick, thoughtful frown crossed his face, but then he was back to normal, with a reassuring smile.

  “It was...hard to leave,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to sound like one of those spoiled rich kids who come back and sneer, ‘Oh, Baton Rouge is so dull compared to my grand European travels.’” He rolled his eyes, as if to further distance himself from those kids, and then he shrugged. “But it was cool to have the chance to go to school with a bunch of kids from around the world, and it was fun to take weekend trips to places like Amsterdam and Paris. And it sucks to have to start a new school junior year.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, reflexively apologizing for Baton Rouge sucking, as though it was my fault he’d moved from Brussels to a c
ity that had at best one cool street, if you weren’t in love with LSU football. And that said nothing about the other flaws with the city, like the blatant racism or the pollution that everyone pretended didn’t exist.

  “I knew it!” He grabbed my hands across the table half jokingly, half serious, and a shot of electricity ran through my body. “You’re a supervillain, capable of making a whole city suck!” He shook his head and smiled. “You don’t need to apologize. Tonight was the first time I’ve had something to look forward to. So far, you’ve been making up for the rest of the city.”

  The shot of electricity turned into a flame. I was about to say something, when Kyle suddenly looked up and dropped my hands.

  “Ahem.” Melissa stood by our table. I hadn’t thought of her once since sitting down. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but when you two need a ride home, let me know. I’ll be in the corner, reading.”

  Melissa darted back to the prized cushy armchair she’d scored earlier, unaware that she’d interrupted at the worst time.

  “You know, I could drive you home,” Kyle said. “Except I don’t have my license yet. It’s embarrassing, but I had to get my mom to drive me here and promise I had a ride home. One of the problems with returning from your dad’s overseas trip two days before the school year is that you don’t have a lot of time to get a driver’s license.”

  “That’s all right, because I think we would probably disappoint Melissa if she couldn’t act as our chauffeur,” I said. “She wouldn’t be able to spy on us.”

  He laughed. I looked at Kyle and suddenly realized that he was looking at me in a way that meant I wasn’t just going to have this second chance, but plenty of others with him. And I was going to savor every minute.

  8

  The Pontiac was hot, despite my dad cranking the air conditioner. It was the first weekend of September, right before Labor Day, and it was already eighty degrees at eight o’clock in the morning. The car’s burgundy vinyl interior seared my thighs, but I hardly noticed. I was too busy replaying images from the night before in my head. Kyle across the table from me, laughing at my joke. Kyle telling a joke, and me laughing at it. Sitting in the backseat with Kyle, holding hands. Kyle saying a reluctant goodbye, looking like he would almost kiss me, and then both of us noticing Melissa’s rearview-mirror voyeurism.

  I’d turned away at the last minute, not wanting my first kiss to be in front of her. Kyle seemed to understand, whispering, “I’ll call you on Sunday,” in my ear. I could still feel his hot breath against my skin. I shivered just remembering it, a happy feeling of anticipation creeping up my spine.

  Dad and I waited for Helen and her friends Sara and Jennifer to emerge from the house. Helen had gotten up the earliest—much earlier than I had—but her friends had stayed up late last night, oohing and whispering when I got in just before my eleven o’clock curfew. Now they lagged behind in the house, busily preparing themselves for their big modeling show at the mall with last-minute cucumber compresses to reduce under-eye puffiness.

  I watched Helen as she locked the door to our townhouse. Everything seemed normal with her, and I wondered if I was blowing things between her and Leah way out of proportion. It’s hard to know how much you should worry when you have no idea what’s going on, and Leah knew I was a worrier. Her dropped hints could have been her messing with me. It didn’t explain Wisteria, but it had been easy enough to clear up her “bad intel” with a geographic correction.

  Helen looked positively buoyant as she darted down the front steps wearing a pair of black wayfarer sunglasses that I had abandoned as too much like Madonna, and not enough punk rock. They worked on Helen, though, like everything else. Her long wheat-colored hair was still wet, but it would probably dry straight despite the frizz-inducing humidity. Swinging her purse by her side, she slowed to a goofy, sashaying model’s walk across the front lawn. Sara and Jennifer collapsed in giggly heaps behind her, trying to imitate her.

  Jennifer and Sara—I was never sure which was which—tumbled into the car, sliding across the backseat. Helen’s two best friends were both conventionally pretty, tanned, brown-eyed brunettes with teased bangs, and neither of them was loud enough to leave much of an impression when Helen was around. I felt a little un-feminist for thinking they weren’t much more than Helen’s minions, but that was kind of how she treated them.

  Helen scooted in last, behind my shotgun seat.

  “Are you staying for the show?” Helen asked, poking my shoulder. She’d earned the first and last looks for the show, despite missing summer session at her modeling school. But she was the only one at the school tall enough to be a real model, and one of the most serious about fashion in general, so she tended to get a lot of opportunities the other kids didn’t get.

  “No. Why?” I’d planned to look for more “going out” clothes during the show, and then, when Helen was on a modeling high afterward, ask her about what was going on with her and Leah. At Melissa’s suggestion, I’d pulled out outfits from magazines that I could copy, so I wouldn’t end up with another floral baby-doll dress that Melissa said looked like it belonged to a child prostitute or maybe Courtney Love. Or Kat Bjelland, who said Courtney stole her look.

  “No one from our family ever stays.” Helen pouted. “Everyone else has someone there.”

  It wasn’t exactly true. Dad had gone to her first modeling-class “fashion show” last spring and bought the big package of souvenir photos that he’d dismissed ahead of time as a big waste of money. He went to almost everything we did, no matter how big or small. Last year, he’d been the one to take Melissa and me to lunch after orchestra auditions, the one who’d cheered Helen on at her last middle school softball games. But since Dad started his corporate job, he’d been working late during the week, and spent most Saturday mornings in the office. I could see why Helen felt suddenly alone, because I kind of did, too.

  Helen’s resentment reverberated in the car, so much that I began to feel way more guilt than I normally would about missing a modeling show at the mall. Sara and Jennifer eyed each other with worry, but Dad just sighed and looked at her in the rearview mirror.

  “You know I want to stay,” he said, sounding firm. “But I have a court date on Monday. I need to go into the office this morning.”

  “You always go to Athena’s stuff,” Helen complained. “It’s not fair. You’re even letting her go to New York first.”

  “Helen, we’ve been over this,” Dad said, frustration creeping into his voice. “You’re not going to New York with your sister. It’s for her birthday. You’ll get your own trip in the spring, closer to your birthday.”

  “But, Dad!”

  “Don’t ‘but, Dad,’ me.”

  Helen and her friends settled into a tense silence. Dad never reprimanded Helen in front of them, and the brunettes wore identical looks of surprise.

  I almost felt bad for Helen. No—scratch that—I did feel bad. She was right that it wasn’t fair for me to get a trip when she didn’t. And it sucked that Dad had to work during her big show. Plus, giving me a guilt trip and talking back to Dad were distinctly out of character for Helen. It felt oddly less capable than I was used to from her.

  “I’ll stay.” I wasn’t heartless, even if I did think of modeling as a useless hobby. I could always use the wait time to catch up on my English homework—reading The Scarlet Letter—while I waited for Helen to rotate through the cast of model kids. Her being first and last in the order made it pretty easy to kill two birds with one stone.

  “That’s great!” Helen bounced with glee. One thing to be said for her, she recovered quickly.

  As soon as we got to the mall, Helen and her friends rushed from the car, propelled by the excitement of showing off the hottest fashion trends that had made it to Baton Rouge. My cynical opinion of the city’s ability to embrace trends, whether fashion or, say, social justice, didn’t leave me with a lot of hope i
n that department, but I wasn’t going to squash Helen’s enthusiasm. I let them run ahead while I leisurely followed the signage for the fashion show’s seating.

  Aside from a few siblings too young to wander the mall alone, I was the first nonparental audience member in the crowd. Still, I struggled to find a seat with a decent view of the catwalk. The raised stage, complete with a long runway jutting into the audience, had been set up in the large atrium in front of the Dillard’s department store, with curtained-off areas to the left and right. Whoever had chosen the spot did a good job, because the skylight above the stage flooded the runway with natural light.

  Crowds of girls and a few boys were getting ready along either side of the main stage. They darted in and out of the curtained-off areas, which seemed to serve as dressing rooms. Department store makeup artists piled on foundation to cover up zits, or added sultry, sophisticated eye shadow for homecoming-themed evening looks, and hairdressers pulled unruly hair into ponytails for daytime outfits or teased and curled it into dramatic updos to accompany sparkling, poufy evening gowns.

  I couldn’t see Helen, but that was probably because she would be the first to enter the runway. Since I had about fifteen minutes before the show, I pulled out my copy of The Scarlet Letter. For a book with such a juicy topic, Hawthorne was surprisingly boring, and I had to force myself to concentrate on the crammed typeface.

  I felt a jostle from someone sitting in the seat next to me, a nudge of an elbow poking into my arm so hard that my book jerked in front of me. I huffed out my irritation at the person invading my space and nudged back, a passive-aggressive response to a passive-aggressive action.

  “Oh, hey there, watch the elbows!” Thankfully, the voice was one I recognized immediately—Sean. I looked right to see him smiling at me. “I love seeing how long it takes to wake you up when you’re nose-deep in a book.”