Rebel Girls

by Elizabeth Keenan

  Melissa poked me in the back, a painful, unnecessary jab.

  “I’ve finally figured out what we’re going to do tomorrow,” she whispered. “Meet me at my car after the game. Bring Helen.”

  * * *

  Melissa’s blue Subaru was parked entirely too close to Leah’s purple Miata for my tastes, so we waited even longer than usual before I would consider it a gossip safety bubble, even though Melissa told me I was being paranoid. From the backseat of the car—Helen had called shotgun, of course, and Melissa was in the driver’s seat—I watched as everyone filed past, flush with excitement over our victory.

  A cluster of protesters was among the last to leave. A few chucked their signs in the dumpster in the parking lot as they left, but most of them tucked the posters under their arms to save for another day. Half looked disappointed that nothing protest-worthy had happened, and the other half looked pretty stoked that they’d seen a football game that went back and forth until the last two minutes of the fourth quarter. Melissa said it was a messy game, but to me it was exciting that both teams scored a lot of touchdowns.

  Helen stared out the car window. I wanted to ask her a dozen questions about what she was doing holding hands with Sean, but I held back. After what felt like an eternity, she finally turned to me and leaned over the seat back, biting her lip in the way that meant she was nervous to ask for something. She usually had that look in front of Dad, not me.

  “So, uh, do you want to swap dates with me?” I asked, hoping I could put her out of her misery without saying something like “Oh, hey, I saw you holding hands with Sean, and it was adorable.” She might interpret it as teasing or sarcastic, when I didn’t mean it that way at all.

  Helen’s head bobbed with relief and agreement. “Oh, man! That would be amazing, Athena. Thanks so much,” she said, her face lighting up. “I was really nervous that you’d be weird about it, because you and Sean just started being friends again. And, well, I mean... Do you mind going with Trip Wilson?”

  Huh. So that was who she was supposed to go with—Trip Wilson. With everything going on, she hadn’t told me. It made sense, though. He was popular enough, since he was on the football team, and he was super nice. Plus, he’d told me early on that he didn’t believe Leah’s lies, and he’d supported our So What? campaign. Still, Helen deserved to be going with the guy she actually liked, especially after all she’d been through lately.

  “Trip’s fine,” I said, not liking how it sounded once I said it. Trip honestly deserved much better than fine, but I couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for anyone after what Kyle had done. “I mean, he’s nice. It’ll be fun. And then you and Sean can have a real date.”

  A huge smile broke across her face. “Athena, you’re the best sister ever!”

  Well, that was a first. But I’d take it.

  “I hate to interrupt this lovefest,” Melissa said. I had almost forgotten she was in the car. She’d been eyeing the crowd silently for the past few minutes. “But it looks like Leah is finally leaving.”

  I let out a snarl when I saw Leah. She’d managed to disregard the age-appropriate business casual directive entirely, but of course she hadn’t gotten into trouble. Instead of a knee-length skirt, she’d worn a teeny-tiny skater skirt that flared out and barely covered her butt. Instead of a modest top, she’d worn a deep, too-tight, scoop-neck bodysuit. Mrs. Turner, and even Sister Catherine, would have given a strong warning or worse to anyone else who’d worn that outfit, but yet again, Leah had somehow wiggled around the rules.

  But her clothes weren’t what made me snarl. No, what made me snarl was that while Aimee flanked her left as usual, walking on Leah’s right side was Kyle.

  I suddenly feared that they’d think we were stalking them, not just waiting for the crowds to clear out before we left. That would be worse than anything, because so far I’d managed to publicly demonstrate a whole lot of not-caring.

  Fortunately, Leah didn’t seem to notice us. She marched toward her car with a scowl marring her perfectly Revlon Rum Raisin–lipsticked mouth. It was the same color that Melissa normally wore, more alternagirl than Leah’s usual style. I wondered for a second—almost gleefully—if she was trying to look more like the kind of girl that Kyle would go out with. More like me.

  Kyle said something, shrugging his annoyingly chiseled shoulders. Leah shoved her bag at him, then searched for something inside it. Aimee looked on, squinting viciously at Kyle like a tiny dog with an underbite. After a few moments of rummaging, Leah finally pulled out her keys and yanked the bag back. She said something angrily, and Kyle shrugged again.

  Then Leah leaned in for a kiss, and he slouched away. The kiss landed near his ear, leaving a red-brown streak visible even from where we were sitting in Melissa’s car, and I let out an involuntary, loud “Ha!” I shouldn’t have cared enough to be so gleeful, but schadenfreude is a powerful force.

  Leah shook her head, likely in disbelief that Kyle would dare to reject her affection. With a final glare at Kyle, she opened her car door and got in. On the other side, Aimee did the same, but her eyes were trained on us. Whether she’d tell Leah that we’d been watching was anybody’s guess.

  When Leah and Aimee had finally driven away, and Kyle left for his car, Melissa launched into her plan like she was exploding a dam.

  “Okay, so we’ve been doing the whole So What? thing for forever, and it worked. And I liked it because it was ambiguous and rebellious and cool. And you liked it—” she nodded toward Helen “—because it lent you the possibility of innocence. But I think that, unfortunately, leaving that door open to ambiguity kind of screwed you over.”

  “You think?” Helen said sarcastically.

  “I know! And I’ve apologized, like, a hundred times for that,” Melissa exclaimed, though that wasn’t exactly the truth. “But I want to make sure it’s clear now that you are innocent. So what I’m going to propose is that we revisit the sashes idea, and instead of alternating with ‘So what if she did?’ and ‘So what if she didn’t?’, we only do She Didn’t. Because you didn’t.”

  Helen nodded. “That seems fine. It’s not super exciting, but it works.”

  I eyed Melissa suspiciously. This seemed way too tame for her—she had to have something else up her sleeve. She always did. And if she wasn’t saying something, it was because she thought Helen wouldn’t like it.

  “What else did you have in mind?” I asked her.

  Melissa shook her head. “Nothing, as far as the dance goes. But...” She paused dramatically, a gleam in her hazel eyes. “I think I know how to get back at Aimee and Leah. And it won’t get us into trouble.”

  I sighed. “Look, it’s never going to end if we do that. I want this to stop. Please?”

  Melissa’s smile evaporated. “I thought you’d gotten over that.” When I didn’t respond, she added, “I swear, I won’t be doing anything that they haven’t done. Bettencourt’s talk reminded me of something.” Helen winced at the politician’s name. “It’s that this whole thing started because Mrs. Turner believed Aimee and Leah’s fake-ass story about Helen. And Bettencourt seems to approve of that method. So what if someone told on them that they were guilty of the homecoming vote violations?”

  I knew a bad idea when I heard one, and it was clear that bad ideas were all Melissa had had for the past few days.

  “Absolutely not,” I said, shaking my head. “We are not going to tell Sister Catherine some made-up story about Aimee and Leah being behind the votes situation. The whole point of everything we did was to show that we aren’t like them.”

  Melissa frowned. “Well, we’re not. But I think you’re misunderstanding me. Aimee did do it. Josh Davis and Cody Landry did it with her, and I think they might be willing to confess. I overheard them talking about it this afternoon and convinced them they’d get a better deal right now if they confessed, using Bettencourt’s speech as bait. If they ac
tually listened to my advice, then they probably went straight to Sister Catherine’s office right after school. Since they weren’t at the game, they’re either avoiding me or they did what I suggested.”

  Josh and Cody were the type of awkward, gangly boys who’d do practically anything to get close to a girl like Leah, even if it meant being Aimee’s lackeys. But as Helen crowed with triumphant glee and Melissa smiled smugly in return, I felt my stomach go sour with dread because there was no way that getting Aimee into trouble was the only thing Melissa had up her sleeve.

  What wasn’t she telling us?

  35

  My new haircut was perfect. Helen’s hairstylist, Serge, toned down the bright red into a more even and natural color, and the short finger waves made me look like a vintage goddess.

  My dress was perfect, too. Melissa’s mom had hemmed it so it skimmed the top of my shoes, a pair of patent leather T-strap shoes that Melissa had found in an antiques shop in New Orleans on her last visit to her aunt a few weeks ago. I don’t know how she’d managed it, but they fit me perfectly.

  Even my makeup was perfect. Helen had pulled out her makeup bible and picked out my colors and an evening look that wasn’t ridiculous. My lips assumed a perfect cupid’s bow. My cheeks looked like I had real cheekbones, and my eyes blazed a dazzling blue green, offset by Helen’s complementary color palette. I looked like some new, improved version of myself—a picture-perfect doll.

  I did not, however, feel perfect.

  As the hours until the dance grew fewer and fewer, my fear of seeing Kyle and Leah together loomed greater and greater. I’d been shoving him into a corner of my mind for weeks now. I didn’t think about him when I was doing Gang of Five stuff. I didn’t think about him while I was picking out age-appropriate business-casual clothes. I didn’t think about him at the game last night. I didn’t even think about him all that much after we saw him and Leah in the parking lot.

  But now, when Helen and I were waiting for Sean and Trip to arrive, I couldn’t think of anything else. My skin prickled with heat, and I hoped I didn’t lose my dinner on my pretty blue dress.

  “Just so you know,” Helen said, “I told Trip to get you a wrist corsage. That way it won’t poke a hole in your dress.” She looked me over and added, “Don’t touch your hair. I know that Serge put a lot of hair spray in it, but it looks great. You don’t need to fix it. And don’t touch your face. Here, I’m giving you the lipstick...”

  She said some other things, but mostly they were about makeup and the pocketbook I would be using and tips for keeping my sash straight when all the girls from the homecoming court had to go to the front of the gym. While she talked, I stared out the window and thought about Kyle.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Helen asked.

  “Mmm-hmm,” I said. “Check for lipstick on my teeth. Don’t cry if overcome with emotion. Don’t cry if Leah insults me. In case I do cry, go to the bathroom and grab you on the way so you can redo my eye makeup.”

  “Athena, that’s not anything I just said,” Helen said. “Are you thinking about Kyle again?”

  “Yes, I’m thinking about Kyle. I’m wondering where he could be, who he is with, what he is thinking, is he thinking of me, and whether he’ll ever return someday,” I said. Better to dismiss it with a joke than get into a real discussion about my feelings right before Sean and Trip were going to show up.

  “Do not half-ass quote Kids in the Hall at me,” she snapped. “I’m serious. You never talk about him, but you get this distant, hurt look in your eyes at least twice a day, and I’m not oblivious.”

  Since the start of school, Helen had matured a lot. But not so much that I wanted to talk about Kyle with her. I didn’t want to talk about him with anyone, really, but especially her. I didn’t think she would understand. She’d always been pretty and perfect and popular and blah, blah, blah. Until the abortion rumors, nothing shook her. And even those were because she was pretty, instead of in spite of it.

  “You know, I’ve liked Sean for years,” she said, applying another layer of blush to my cheeks. “Do you think he even noticed me? No. He thought of me as a little sister. And he went for her. And she was always hanging on him, sitting in his lap, making out with him on our couch. Do you know how that felt?”

  I honestly didn’t. When I thought about Kyle and Leah, my mind supplied the images, but at least I didn’t have to see it in real life. But I did know how pissed I was when I walked in on Leah and Sean making out on our couch. Our couch. Not his. It was vastly inappropriate. And gross. And generally upsetting.

  “And now she’s manipulating Kyle,” Helen continued. “And you are so much prettier, and so much more real than that spray-tanned, plastic, stripy-highlighted, fake-personality girl.”

  Helen’s inability to say Leah’s name struck me for a moment. So did the fact that she’d said almost verbatim the inverse of what Aimee had said to Kyle about me.

  “But you know what?” Helen asked, grabbing my shoulders and looking into my eyes. “You’re the one who has to decide if he’s worth it.”

  I didn’t know. I didn’t think so, but somehow that made it all worse. Tears came to my eyes, and my lip quivered.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” Helen said. “Eyes to the ceiling. I’ll grab a tissue. Do not ruin the work of art that is your face.”

  After Helen fixed my makeup, we went downstairs and sat eagerly in our living room, trying not to mess up our dresses or our hair or anything. Dad walked in, camera in hand. He looked at Helen’s dress and shook his head. She had carefully applied safety pins to the back of the fabric to create a higher neckline until we got to the dance, but Dad didn’t look very happy.

  “That dress...” He shook his head.

  Helen froze in a way that reminded me of when she got home after skipping town to her modeling audition. I didn’t know what she’d do if Dad made her change, because she didn’t have anything to change into. She’d given me her fifty dollars at Maison Blanche.

  “You look so grown-up,” he finished. “I remember when you were so scared to start kindergarten. And now...” He trailed off before he got too embarrassing. Dad wasn’t the type to get so mushy over us growing up, but Helen really did look so much older in that dress. Like, older than me, which was maybe why he didn’t get as misty about my outfit.

  Helen let out an audible sigh of relief, and so did I. It was one thing for Dad to be nostalgic, and another for him to think her dress was too mature and make her change. Neither of us seemed to be able to find words, though, because there was not much you could do when your dad was being sentimental.

  “Anyway, before you two go out tonight—and you both look so beautiful—I want to say how proud I am of you both.” Oh, no. Dad was getting misty, which meant that I might start to get misty, which meant that Helen might have to redo my makeup for a second time. “I talked with Sister Catherine and Principal Richard yesterday afternoon, and they said you’ve been dealing admirably with the bullies.”

  Helen and I exchanged a very dubious “what the hell?” look.

  “Um, Dad, I’m sure they said that,” I said, hesitating. “But Mrs. Turner—”

  “Mr. Richard said she wasn’t going to be an issue anymore,” he told us. “He said that he wasn’t aware of the ‘ban’ that Mrs. Turner had enforced for Helen’s extracurriculars.” His eyes widened with skepticism at that, and Helen and I traded an even more emphatic “what the hell!” look, because we couldn’t exactly interrupt Dad. We just didn’t do that.

  “I’m going to have to be on top of that school the rest of the year,” Dad said vehemently. “You’d think they’d have it together for how much it’s costing me for you two to go there.” He sighed. “But anyway, they’re paying attention now.”

  Helen looked at me again, and this time I knew she was thinking something else. Reinstating Helen’s extracurriculars felt like a conces
sion to put out the fires that Mrs. Turner had started. No one wanted Operation Rescue lurking around our football games and dances. While it might have been fine for them to protest outside an abortion clinic, it sent another message entirely to have them protesting outside our Catholic school.

  “So...are they going to...apologize to me?” Helen asked, anger simmering in her question.

  “Sister Catherine said they were working on that, yes,” Dad said. “But she and Mr. Richard are going to speak with us further on Monday. I thought I’d ask you what you wanted before I told them to publicly apologize to you. I wasn’t sure if you wanted any more attention than you’ve already had.”

  A month ago, I would have thought Helen would want a public hanging of Leah and Aimee, along with an apology. But now I wasn’t sure what she’d want—or how tonight’s plans figured into all this. If we went ahead with our sashes plan, she’d definitely get some attention. But it could also backfire on us, now that some sort of apology was in the works.

  “Okay,” Helen said, not giving a whole lot of indication for me to figure out where she was going with this. “I guess I’ll think about it. I have until tomorrow, right?”

  “Sounds good, kiddo,” Dad said, patting her on her knee. “I’m just glad that Mrs. Turner’s been handled.” He paused, looking like he was trying to be polite and not say anything terrible about an authority figure at our school—which, before this year, he’d liked specifically for its discipline and academic rigor. “I did not like the influence that woman seemed to have at your school.”

  “What do you mean, ‘handled’?” I asked, glancing at Helen. She shifted nervously, so that she was sitting on her hands on the edge of the couch. Handled could mean anything, from a lip-service “we handled her” to being fired. I had almost no faith that it would be the latter.

  Dad shook his head. “Athena, I don’t know. It wasn’t a particularly long conversation because I had to head back to court. Your principal said we’d discuss it more on Monday.”