Rebel Girls

by Elizabeth Keenan

  “Oooh, did something happen between you and that Kyle guy?” He glanced at me from the driver’s seat. “If you need to talk about the birds and the bees, I’m happy to direct you to my mom, who is sure to be both factually correct and is not me.”

  I groaned loudly, covering my face with my hands. Yes, Kyle and I had made out, but I didn’t need sex ed for that.

  “No, I’m good.” I couldn’t talk with Sean about Helen now, not while we were on the topic of Kyle. And I did want to talk about Kyle with Sean. The undermining voice wheedled in my brain: You can talk about normal things before you get to the Leah stuff. “But I did have a lovely afternoon.”

  “‘Lovely’?” he asked, eyebrows wagging.

  “Okay, we made out and it was great and now that you know we can never speak of it again, because it’s too embarrassing to talk about.” I sank down in the passenger seat so far that I could barely see out the window. I couldn’t look at Sean, so I stared at the glove compartment in front of me.

  “Well, look at you! My girl Athena’s all grown-up!” He laughed. “You should see yourself.” He swiped at the corner of his eye dramatically, even though he hadn’t laughed anywhere near hard enough to make himself cry.

  “Anyway,” I said, taking a deep breath to refocus. “That’s not quite what I wanted to talk with you about. It’s something more serious.”

  “Oooh-kaay.” Sean drew the word out, signaling that he understood I wasn’t joking.

  “It’s about Leah...and Helen,” I said, watching his face for a reaction.

  As he pulled into the parking lot of Steve’s, his mouth turned into a frown and his arms stiffened. The sudden chill from him pushed at me so much I almost gave up and apologized.

  “Go on,” he said, letting out a big hiss of air saturated with doubt. “Tell me what you think is happening. But let me get my pull first.”

  The way he said it—tell me what you think is happening—seeded even more doubt in me, and so did his prioritizing his comics over the conversation. Technically, that shouldn’t surprise me, as focused as he was on the accuracy of his pull list, but it felt like a jab. As he got out of the car, he jerked ahead of me into the store and pushed the door open so forcefully that it swung back toward me with a hard bounce against my hands.

  “Hey!” I said. “It’s not like that!”

  “Pull list,” he said over his shoulder, and marched to the counter. He turned his back on me to face the eponymous Steve, who leaned down with a sigh to get Sean’s comics from the cabinet under the counter where he stored regulars’ comics.

  Sean’s shoulder formed a wall between me and the counter, and I knew better than to interrupt him at this point. I drifted toward the wall of indie comics, hoping I could keep up my courage until Sean finished his thorough review of every book he was supposed to have, and their condition. This part could take forever.

  I didn’t get it. I hadn’t even said anything yet. We’d been having a good time, and then, as soon as I mentioned Leah and Helen, he’d flipped. Maybe I should have phrased it differently, not involving Leah, but focusing on the rumors instead, and their impact on Helen. Or not asked him right before we got to the comic shop. Or led him in more gently, by talking about how it was great that he came to support Helen, but that she’d cried in front of me after the show. He would have to care about that. He’d cared enough to show up for her after all.

  I circled the shop aimlessly until Sean finally nodded at me, silent and stern, like an angry stone monument come to life. I swallowed hard as I walked over to where he was standing next to a crate of old Batman comics in the back corner of the shop. He’d chosen a location with the fewest eyes and ears—far enough from the counter that Steve couldn’t overhear, and out of direct sight of the other guy working there, who was diligently stocking the shelves along the opposite wall with this week’s comics.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, facing me with arms crossed.

  “I don’t know,” I said, which was partially true and partially not, since Helen had told me about the abortion rumors. I did know, but I didn’t know how to talk about it, or which way might possibly not offend Sean. “But something’s been festering for a while—”

  “Oh, come on.” Sean scoffed, shaking his head. “‘Festering’?”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. I didn’t understand what nerve I’d just pressed on, but it was clear that I’d hit something. I couldn’t give up, though, because now I had two goals: first, figure out what I’d said that bothered him so much, and second, talk with him about Helen.

  “Yes, festering,” I said. He raised his eyebrows at me with cynical disbelief. “This isn’t the usual thing between Helen and Leah.” I tried to sound serious and measured, but landed somewhere closer to desperate and whiny. “It started back when we went to dinner at Superior—”

  “And Leah tried to talk with Helen about the pro-life club?”

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “That’s not how the conversation went.” I replayed it in my mind. Had I misinterpreted the whole thing? Had Leah “heard” good things about Helen, or her involvement in the pro-life club, and I’d created something out of nothing? No, no way. Even with my unfavorable view of Leah, I’d seen her effect on Helen. And then there was Leah’s interruption of my lunch with Kyle. I’d asked her directly what was going on between her and Helen. If she’d had a real reason involving the pro-life club, she would have said it then.

  Sean sighed and leaned against the crates of back issues. “Look, I understand you two don’t like each other. And that Helen doesn’t, either, because she follows whatever you do—”

  “Are you kidding me? Helen doesn’t follow whatever I do!” My sister had her own backbone, much more than I did.

  Sean gave me a slow, blinking pause, illustrating his lack of patience with me. “I know you don’t think that,” he said. “And maybe I phrased it wrong. But she does value your opinion, more than you think. Otherwise she wouldn’t be constantly stealing shit from you.”

  Sean’s words reframed everything, at least in terms of my sister. Definitely not for Leah, but I could see why he’d feel that way. I let his words sink in as he flipped through the back issues in the crate he was leaning against.

  “Is something going on with you and Leah?” I asked. “I don’t get why you’re mad at me. I wanted to talk with you about Leah and Helen because their conversation seemed super weird to me, that’s all.”

  “Is that really all?” The dubious, raised-eyebrow look was back.

  “Yes and no, because there’re other things that I’m worried about with Helen, and I didn’t get to that yet. It’s a...separate issue.” Despite double daring myself, I couldn’t bring myself to connect the dots with Sean. He was already mad at me for even alluding to the possibility of Leah’s viciousness toward Helen, so I couldn’t exactly come out and say that I thought his girlfriend had started gossip about Helen that could get her kicked out of school.

  Sean nodded, which didn’t tell me if he already knew about the abortion gossip or if he was willing to back down for half a second. He didn’t turn away from Batman, though.

  “To answer your question, no, there’s nothing going on with me and Leah,” he said, sounding deliberately bored in a way that was clearly put-on, but effective enough at upsetting me. “Like Helen, she has her own problems to deal with, though. And I wish you’d be a little more sympathetic about those before jumping on her case.”

  “What’s going on with Leah?” I tried to sound casual. Instead, my voice came out strangled. I knew from the silence that followed that it was exactly the wrong thing to say—too prying, not enough sincerity.

  Sean let out a long, frustrated sigh. “See, this is the problem. I want to tell you because you’re my oldest friend,” he said. “But the two of you are like oil and water, and I’m always in the middle, and so I can never figure out if you�
��ll be supportive or not. What happened? You guys started out as friends.”

  We were never friends, I wanted to say. And when I thought we might be, Leah stabbed me in the back. Or at least started talking about me behind my back.

  “She’s not... She never wanted to be friends with me,” I said, remembering how much it had stung to hear that she’d told everyone how boring and stuck-up I was. “She treated me like a human stopgap for a few months, that’s all.”

  Sean slumped against the old comics. He didn’t have to say that he felt like giving up. I could read it all over him.

  “And she basically says the same thing about you,” he said, pointing at me. “That as soon as you realized Melissa didn’t like her, you chose a side, and it wasn’t Leah’s.”

  That wasn’t fair, I wanted to protest. But I didn’t because there might have been a grain of truth in there. It wasn’t so much that I’d dropped Leah because Melissa didn’t like her, but that Melissa not liking her helped me feel better about being dropped by Leah.

  None of it made me feel good about myself. Also, none of it mattered now. Both of us could be at fault for being jerks to each other. But I’d also never said anything about Leah that I wouldn’t say to her face. And I would never do anything to anyone at our school—no matter how horrible I thought they were, or how deserving—that could get them expelled.

  “You don’t like each other, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” he said, frustration in his voice. He dropped the Batman in his hand back into the bin, where the bagged-and-boarded back issue hit the plywood bottom with a firm thunk. “But I don’t want to fight with you about it.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you, either,” I said, resisting the urge to back down entirely. “But I wish that you’d believe me when I say I have real concerns about Leah and Helen.”

  He turned to me and smiled, suddenly and a little sadly, like he wanted everything to be normal, but wasn’t willing to give an inch on the possibility that his girlfriend had done anything wrong to Helen, or possibly ever to anyone.

  “I do believe you’re worried,” he said. “But I really don’t think it’s what you think it is. And so we’re back to where we started, full circle.”

  I leaned against the bin next to Sean. Maybe I couldn’t get him to stop Leah. Maybe no one could. And somehow she had gotten into my head, too, via Sean, so that I started to doubt my version of things. I even started to reconsider bringing up the rumors about Helen because he’d probably tell me I was wrong about that, too.

  Double dare ya. Yeah, sorry, Kathleen. And sorry, Helen. I failed you both.

  I couldn’t fail Helen, though. Sean had to at least care about her. He’d been so proud of her at the fashion show, and that was just a few days ago. I had to turn this around to be about her, not Leah, if I wanted to get anywhere. And not have him pissed at me for months.

  “Sooo.” I took a deep breath. “Someone’s been spreading the most awful lies about Helen.”

  “And you think Leah has something to do with it.” Sean turned to look at me. His eyes were flat again, like he couldn’t have been more disinterested. “Yeah, I know that’s what you and Melissa think. That’s exactly what Leah said you’d say.”

  Heat flushed my neck, a flare of frustration that our conversation kept circling back to the simple fact that I didn’t like Leah and never went anywhere more productive, like toward Helen, whom I was trying to help.

  “That’s not what I said! Don’t get pissed off at me,” I said, holding up my hands defensively. “I’m worried about Helen, and I thought you would be, too. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Look, leaving Leah out of it for one second—just one—can we agree that something’s going on with Helen? Because I have a feeling you know what it is.”

  Sean let out another big sigh and slumped against the comic bin, his body weighted with futility.

  “Of course I heard about it.” He looked me in the eyes. “Leah thinks Helen started them herself in order to get sympathy. You know, the whole ‘no publicity is bad publicity’ thing.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked, incredulous. My voice crescendoed as I launched into all the reasons Leah was wrong. “You know Helen. Has she ever started a rumor about herself? And if she did, it would be about a modeling contract or something else that made her look good. Why the hell would she want people to think she had an abortion? You know how stubbornly pro-life she is! And you know how everyone at our school is! And even if abortion was suddenly a cool new fashion trend, and Helen changed her views, and she was into gossip, she’s not dumb enough to start a rumor that could get her kicked out of school.”

  The comic shop stock boy, Brad, glanced over at us. I guess he could hear my diatribe, but I didn’t care. Sean needed to hear how flimsy Leah’s reasoning was, because surely he wasn’t so dazzled by her charms that logic couldn’t pierce his brain. He might defend Leah, but saying Helen made the rumors up about herself was ridiculous.

  Sean’s shoulders dropped with acceptance. He nodded slowly.

  “You’re right about that.” At another time, I might have savored a moment of Sean saying I was right. In this one, though, I was waiting for a “but,” and invariably, it came. “But Helen’s strong. She survived middle school. Hell, she thrived in middle school. I’m sure she’ll get through this fine.”

  The problem was, Helen wasn’t fine. It had taken me a while to see that, and I didn’t have Leah trying to convince me up was down.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.” I thought back to how Helen had crumbled, how desperate she’d seemed. “She was super upset after her fashion show. Snotty crying and everything.”

  Sean’s eyebrows went up in surprise, and then a look of deep skepticism followed. “Helen? Crying? The last time I saw her cry was when she was seven and I scalped her Barbie.”

  “She wasn’t faking. Then or now.” I could feel the annoyance rising in my throat. He was taking Leah’s side. Melissa was right.

  Sean looked at me like he was trying to weigh the thought of Helen crying on a scale of possibility. Anything I said would probably be a weight in the wrong direction, so I waited.

  “Look, what people are saying about Helen is terrible.” He chose each word with care. “But no one believes it. And Leah has nothing to do with it. Trust me. She’s got enough of her own shit right now.”

  I leaned against the plywood bin next to Sean. This conversation hadn’t resolved any doubts, and it made the gulf between me and Sean a lot wider because people did believe what was being said about Helen. Enough anyway.

  “So what is going on with Leah?” I asked again, trying to get us back onto steady ground.

  Sean pursed his mouth together. I knew that look. I’d seen it enough in middle school when Sean’s parents were splitting up. He never just came out and said something—he had to sculpt it in his head, turning it over until it formed the right shape, so he could eventually push it out of his mouth.

  “Her parents are getting a divorce.”

  In a way, that wasn’t major news. About half the people I knew had divorced parents—mine, Sean’s, tons of people. But Leah’s parents were the kind of rich people who stayed together and had affairs on the side because it was easier than dividing the assets.

  “Oh, that sucks.” My voice was hollow from holding myself back from what I actually wanted to say—which was that her parents splitting up wasn’t a reason for Leah’s sociopathic rumors about Helen.

  “Yeah,” Sean said. “It’s a mess. Her mom cheated on her dad with his brother. And now her dad is trying to make sure her mom doesn’t get anything in the divorce—no money, no property, no custody rights to Leah or her younger brothers, nothing.”

  “Wow.” I could see where Leah was having a tough time, but it didn’t excuse a lot of her behavior. Or any of it, really. “But you know her dad can’t do that, right? Louisiana�
�s a community property state. Her mom would have to be really awful. And she’s not, right?”

  “No, lawyer girl, she’s not.” Sean shook his head at me. “Her mom’s fine, which you’d know if you had ever given Leah a chance.” I held my tongue at Sean’s dig. I felt like this was a test to see if I had any empathy for Leah, and I wasn’t going to blow it. “And that’s part of it. Her mom and dad had a huge fight about cheerleading, and now that she’s not on the squad, she’s kind of lost. The reason... Well, it sucks. Her dad pulled her off the squad, saying it was bad for her grades to spend ‘too much time with the football team.’ I guess that means me.”

  So the whole “Coach Braden is a lesbian, so we have to quit” scam was a cover for Leah’s dad making her quit. I could understand why Leah wouldn’t want people to know her dad had so much power over her, but she didn’t need to drag Coach Braden into it. Just like any girl could be expelled if the school found out she had an abortion, teachers could be fired for being gay.

  And, unfortunately, Sean’s suspicion about Leah’s father’s motive felt spot-on. Leah’s father didn’t like Sean, or the fact that St. Ann’s was trying to bring in more black kids via scholarships, since our school’s runaway success as an institution was largely the result of many white parents pulling their kids out of public school to send them to Catholic school after integrated busing started about ten years ago. Last year, at a football game, he’d shouted for our football team to “beat those n-words from West St. John.” Only he hadn’t said n-word, but the actual word. Sean never said anything, but I knew it bothered him.

  “Well, you know that never works,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “Seriously, if you tell a girl not to date some guy, she’s going to want to date him more. It’s like crack or something. The whiff of rebellion is a very powerful aphrodisiac.”

  But even as I said them, I knew my words weren’t true. If Leah’s dad could make her quit the cheerleading squad, which she’d loved for a long time before Sean came along, he could make her dump Sean.