Rebel Girls

by Elizabeth Keenan

  Mrs. Turner clearly knew nothing about my mom, who wouldn’t approve of me being on the homecoming court unless I used it to further a political agenda. Or my dad, for that matter, who always told us to stand up for our ideals.

  Mrs. Turner sat silently, fingers tented again, waiting for me to say something that would indicate my guilt and implicate my sister. I had to think fast, because all I wanted to do was go back out to the assembly, hunt down my friends, and yell at them for nominating me to the homecoming court. I was halfway tempted to rat them out, but I wasn’t that kind of person. Still, the thought did give me the idea to tell some of the truth, in just the right dose to make her leave me alone, preferably permanently.

  “Mrs. Turner, I’ve only ever wanted to stick up for my sister,” I said as contritely as possible. There was a huge chance she wouldn’t believe me, since she always seemed to want to believe the worst thing possible. “But I had nothing to do with the student council nominating me for homecoming court.”

  The thought of having to parade in front of everyone at the football game and the dance sent flames of heated worry through my chest, along with a simmering anger. I knew I’d panic and do something embarrassing, probably in front of Leah or, even worse, Kyle. Or worst, Leah and Kyle.

  I started to tear up a little, and I wasn’t sure if it was in anger or what. Kyle was such a jerk. Every time I’d forgotten him for a second, the humiliation of him sneaking around with Leah came back. How had I been so oblivious?

  Once he slipped into my thoughts, I couldn’t get him out.

  And I started to cry.

  In front of Mrs. Turner.

  Ugh, there was nothing more humiliating than this.

  That thought made me cry even more.

  “Now, Athena, there’s no need to get upset.” Mrs. Turner suddenly seemed to forget that she’d spent the past ten minutes screaming at me. She reached across the desk to grab my hand. “We can still work this out.”

  I didn’t trust her for a second, but my feelings of distrust for her were much smaller than the flood of emotions about everything else—anger at my friends for doing this homecoming court stunt behind my back, fear of embarrassing myself, a renewed mortification over the whole Kyle thing. But I needed to focus on Mrs. Turner, not on the things that would only matter once I got out of here.

  “I’m sorry.” I grabbed a tissue from her desk with shame. I couldn’t believe I was crying in front of her. She was eating it up, though, her dark eyes now filled with ersatz concern. “I just... I don’t want to be on the homecoming court.”

  Mrs. Turner’s eyes lit up, and she leaned toward me.

  “I believe you,” she said. I recoiled. Something about her believing me was worse than her grilling me. It meant she was about to ask me for something, and it was guaranteed to be something I didn’t want to give. “Now, Athena, I think we can work together.”

  My stomach churned. I didn’t want to work with Mrs. Turner. She was the enemy. She’d threatened Helen, over and over again.

  I nodded anyway, but inwardly I was screaming about loyalty to my friends and my sister. I had to think of something. Crying because that was what happened every time I thought of Kyle would only work once.

  “You don’t seem like you want to be on the homecoming court,” she said, a practiced look of concern on her face. “But we can’t have you withdraw from the election. That would draw even more attention to the situation, and, as I said, we do not want the diocese to intervene. That would be very bad news for your sister.”

  My stomach flipped again. That was a threat as much as it was a warning.

  “Now, Athena, here’s what I propose.” Mrs. Turner leaned back in her seat, pausing for effect. “Instead of campaigning like the other girls, you need to let this whole homecoming thing—” she gestured to the air around her head “—die on the vine. After all, it’s not like you’re your sister, who’s managed to convince the whole school to rally around her. You don’t want the attention, and unless you go after it, people won’t give it to you.”

  She looked me in the eyes, and I knew she was right. I wasn’t like Helen, and everything that had happened to me in the past week had been a stark reminder of that fact. I couldn’t even keep the attention of one guy.

  My shoulders fell. If I didn’t campaign, no one would notice. It would be an easy way out, but it didn’t make me feel so great, especially on the heels of Kyle dumping me for Leah.

  And then I was crying all over again, when I should have been raging at Mrs. Turner for shoving my supposed inadequacies in my face.

  “You’re right,” I sobbed, a numb feeling in my chest. “I won’t campaign. It’s the easiest way out.”

  A smile crept across her face, the first honest one I think I’d ever seen on her, and I started to feel the rage I should’ve been feeling all along.

  “Good girl!” Mrs. Turner said approvingly. “I knew I could count on you, Athena. You’ll see. This is the right choice—for you and for Helen. Remember, we don’t want or need attention from the diocese. There’s a strict policy about abortions, and the circulation of these patches here practically confirms her guilt. And even if no one can prove your sister had an abortion, you have violated the school’s dress code and the pro-life code, and disrupted the selection of the homecoming court.”

  “But we didn’t!” I insisted. “I swear, the student council—”

  Mrs. Turner held up her hand to silence me, her nostrils flaring. “I know your sister got a bit of sympathy for that incident at her locker, but I cannot see how you or Melissa Lemoine got nominated without help.”

  I opened my mouth to point out that Melissa had been nominated last year, but Mrs. Turner held up her hand again, adding a pursed mouth to her flared nostrils.

  “I am not finished,” she said. “These are gross interferences with the student council’s processes. If you do anything else, I will go around Sister Catherine to Principal Richard, or to Superintendent Guidry, and your sister will finish out her freshman year at Greenlawn. And you know how our public schools are.”

  I suspected if I answered, Yeah. They’re crap because they’re underfunded due to racism, I wouldn’t get very far with Mrs. Turner. At any rate, this was very effective blackmail. If I campaigned, Mrs. Turner would use it as an excuse to boot Helen from school, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that. Helen would never forgive me for separating her from her friends.

  “I...I understand,” I said, my voice hollow. “I, um, need to get back to class.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” Mrs. Turner reached for her stack of hall passes with a smile. “I’m so glad we came to an agreement. Then, as I said, let’s just let this die on the vine, shall we?”

  I took the note from her, but my mind was already somewhere else—trying to figure out how I could possibly explain to everyone that I would have to let them all down.

  29

  That night, Dad sat down with us for dinner at the kitchen table. He’d rearranged his work schedule at the law firm to keep a closer eye on Helen, which meant an earlier departure time for work in the morning and later nights in his home office. I think he was still worried she might run away to New York. He hadn’t yet decided on a concrete plan for Helen’s modeling callbacks, but I knew he’d been in touch with the Ford scout. He kept giving Helen just enough details to know that he was working on it, so she didn’t get any ideas about going off again on her own, but also controlled the flow of information enough so that he didn’t seem to be rewarding her while she was grounded.

  The effort of balancing it all was starting to catch up to Dad, though, and he’d fallen asleep on the couch earlier while the tuna-noodle casserole he’d prepped for dinner was in the oven. Needless to say, his ill-timed nap hadn’t worked out very well for the casserole. The smell of burnt tuna lingered in the air, mingling disgustingly with the scent of Chinese
takeout now wafting from cartons on the table.

  I concentrated on piling lo mein onto my plate and avoided talking to or looking at Helen. Every once in a while, I thought I caught her looking at me, but I averted my eyes just in time. I’d avoided everyone all day, which included eating lunch by myself in the yearbook room. I couldn’t figure out how I was going to tell her about Mrs. Turner’s threats, and I didn’t want to do it in front of Dad. Helen would probably understand, but she might not. Plus, somewhere underneath the fear of Mrs. Turner’s threats, another feeling kept creeping up. I didn’t want to say it—or even admit it to myself—but I was angry that my friends hadn’t told me they were going to put my name in. Helen had to have at least known about it—she and Sara had coached Jennifer through the plan and plotted out who to lobby for.

  Dad looked back and forth between us, trying to figure out if our silence meant we were up to something, or if we’d gone back to our usual nonassociation with each other.

  “I got a call from Sister Catherine today,” Dad said, letting the words drop out casually.

  “Oh?” Helen asked, the slightest bit of alarm creeping into her voice. She put down her fork and placed her hands in her lap. The memory of Dad marching her to Principal Richard’s office probably wasn’t that far from her mind.

  “What I want to know is why one of you doesn’t come to me when you have problems, and the other doesn’t tell me when she has good news,” Dad said, pointing his fork at me. “Sister Catherine called to tell me Athena was nominated for the homecoming court.”

  “But it’s not good news!” Bile was rising in my throat. I shoved the lo mein away. I wanted to forget I’d been nominated, because I had no way out from Mrs. Turner’s bargain. And Mrs. Turner was right. Even if I campaigned with all my heart, I’d never be seen as anything but a low-rent version of my sister—who was a freshman.

  “Why not?” he asked. Now all of us had our forks down, and Dad and Helen stared at me in disbelief. Dinner, ever the awkward meal in the Graves household.

  “Yeah, why not?” Helen echoed. “I don’t get it. You were in on our plan to stock the homecoming court, and you knew we needed another sophomore girl. I mean, I would have wanted to be part of it. Besides, I thought you had some sort of politics you believed in.”

  I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid waterworks. I couldn’t tell her the truth about Mrs. Turner, at least not in front of Dad, but I could tell another truth.

  “I don’t want to be on the court,” I mumbled, staring down at my plate. If I looked at them, at least one would suspect a deeper truth.

  “What’s this ‘plan’?” Dad eyed Helen. Despite his diligent parenting over the past few weeks, he didn’t know anything about the Gang of Five. “You two aren’t going to do something that will require Sister Catherine—or, God forbid, Mrs. Turner—to call me again, are you? I was hoping I’d heard the last of her for a while.”

  Helen and I sighed simultaneously. I glanced at her, blinking back tears, and she shrugged.

  “No, nothing like that.” Helen didn’t have the look of panicky getting-caught-ness she’d had when Dad had been waiting for her after the New Orleans trip. Instead, she slumped back in her chair with just the tiniest hint of frustration on her face.

  “Well, then, what is it?”

  “We just wanted to stock the homecoming court with our friends,” she said. “In protest against me not being on it.”

  It was Dad’s turn to sigh. This one was less exasperation, more relief. For the first time, I noticed that he had a bit of gray in his brown hair. I wasn’t sure if it was his new job or our drama giving him the gray hairs.

  “Well, I can understand that, I suppose,” he said. “As long as neither of you does anything that requires me to speak with Mrs. Turner for the rest of the year, you have my support.”

  Helen squealed with joy. Neither of them seemed to notice that I didn’t look very happy about the nomination.

  “Athena, pleeease?” Helen wheedled. “Can you do it for me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to fight or to give an explanation. If I really campaigned, I had no doubt Mrs. Turner would make good on her promises. Helen needed to know about that, but I couldn’t tell her now. Dad would march me straight to Principal Richard’s office, and Mrs. Turner would deny everything. “I’m not going to drop out. That would be weird. But I don’t want to stand in front of a bunch of people in an evening gown.”

  “I’ll go shopping with you and do your makeup and get Melissa to do your hair and it’ll be perfect, I promise.” The words rushed out of her like an enthusiastic, burbling brook. She bounced in her chair at the prospect of painting my face with a dozen kinds of makeup.

  Her eagerness to help made me feel extra guilty for the bargain I’d made with Mrs. Turner. I had to talk to her as soon as Dad went into his office after dinner.

  “Helen, we’ll let Athena decide if she wants to cross that bridge when we come to it,” Dad said.

  Helen nodded, but excitement still lit her eyes. I turned back to the lo mein on my plate, now soggy and cold. It didn’t matter. I didn’t want it. Another ruined meal, thanks to Mrs. Turner.

  Bzzzzzzzt.

  The back doorbell rang. No one rang our back doorbell except Sean and sometimes his mom, if she was working in their garden. But Sean and I weren’t speaking, and it was dark, so Estelle wouldn’t be working in the garden.

  Dad glanced at me, clearly expecting me to open the door, since I was closest, but I froze. I didn’t want to see Sean.

  Helen pushed her chair back from the table with a groaning scrape against the floor. A few weeks ago, she would have said something like “The nerd king is here,” or simply “Ugh, you again?” But once I’d told her what Sean said to me at Denny’s, that all changed. I think she was even more mad at him than I was.

  Helen peered through the small diamond-shaped window in the door. “It’s Sean.” She turned back to us. Her lip curled like Billy Idol’s trademark sneer.

  “Helen, let him in,” Dad said distractedly, intent on his plate. “Don’t be rude to your sister’s friends.”

  Dad didn’t know Sean and I weren’t friends anymore. I hadn’t told him about our fight at Denny’s.

  Helen yanked the door open with a huff, and, ignoring Sean, plopped back down at the table with a thud. She rolled her eyes at me, annoyed with Sean for daring to show up, or maybe with Dad for making her open the door. Or possibly both. Her actions were overly dramatic, but I appreciated her solidarity. Take that, Sean.

  Sean stood in the door holding a large garlic-emitting pizza box. His eyes scanned quickly around the room, landing on the cartons of Chinese food.

  “I could smell the burnt tuna from next door, so I ordered you a pizza,” he said. “But I guess you’ve already fixed that problem.”

  I suspected the pizza was his attempt at a peace offering, but the Chinese takeout on the table kind of spoiled whatever plan he’d had. I had to admit that the pizza smelled much better than the greasy lump of lo mein on my plate, though.

  When none of us responded, Sean turned to leave. Helen kicked me under the table, a sharp jab to my shins. I swallowed hard.

  “Hey, wait,” I said. “Why don’t we have a slice in the backyard? You know Chinese isn’t my favorite.”

  I hoped Dad wasn’t offended, because I’d said I was fine with Chinese food when he asked what we wanted for dinner. I followed Sean into our tiny backyard, which Dad kept tidy, but boring. We didn’t have Estelle’s flowers and vegetables, but we did have a decent patch of grass.

  Sean sat down next to me and carefully placed the pizza on the lawn between us.

  “I don’t really know where to start, except to say that I’m sorry,” Sean offered.

  “Yeah.” All the anger I’d held on to suddenly turned into sadness. “So’m
I.”

  We looked at the grass instead of each other. I felt a lump in my throat. He’d been mean to me at Denny’s, but that had been the final straw, not the entirety of our fight. Things had been rocky for a long time, and we’d both ignored that.

  As if reading my mind, he said, “I don’t know why I acted like that at Denny’s.”

  I shrugged. “You wanted to support Leah because that’s what good boyfriends do.”

  “Yeah, but I wish I could take it back. I feel like such an asshole.” He sighed.

  I snorted, with a little bit of tear-induced snot in the background. He had been an asshole. But he’d been my friend for much longer. I picked at the cool grass next to me, trying to find something to say that could encapsulate the guarded forgiveness I felt, while at the same time knowing if I did start to talk, I might cry.

  It wasn’t easy to find the right words for a feeling that went something like, “Hey, I want to be your friend again, and I’ve missed you, not just recently but for a long time, but you hurt my feelings and I needed you to be there for me these past couple of weeks, you asshole,” without a loud bang of emphasis landing on asshole.

  “Anyway, that’s what I wanted to say.” He started pushing himself up from the grass, but I wanted him to stay so we could talk things out. It was never easy to do that with Sean because it was so hard for him to open up, but I was determined to do it.

  “That’s it?” I asked, my throat tight. “I mean, I’m ready to accept your apology, but there’s a whole pizza here, and we have a lot to talk about.”