Rebel Girls

by Elizabeth Keenan

  “We were offering Jamie some support.”

  Trip’s smile morphed into a knowing look. “Is everything going to be okay?”

  Helen nodded at me to indicate that she was going to leave us alone—and suddenly I got that this was definitely a setup on her part, if not Trip’s or Sean’s. She pulled Jennifer and Sara behind her, but let go and waved when she was about fifteen feet away. I tried to ignore her and looked up into Trip’s face.

  “Yeah, I think so. Maybe not now, but eventually.”

  “That’s great! Hey, do you want to dance some more?” He looked down at me with excitement. “They’re going to be playing some reeediculous stuff, and I bet you’d feel better if you could let loose a little after all that. Like, I think ‘I’m Too Sexy’ is coming up, and Andre and Matt have a thing planned.”

  After seeing their “dances” to “Jump Around” and “Walk This Way,” I could only imagine what they had planned—it probably involved lots of flailing and inaccurately synchronized moves. Suddenly, I was smiling.

  “I don’t think I could match their energy. But it’s pretty entertaining,” I shouted. “I—”

  The DJ suddenly cut the music in the middle of my sentence, and I swallowed my words.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special request from one of your young gentlemen,” the DJ said in his cheesy voice. He sounded less than enthusiastic, though. He probably wanted to return to normalcy, like post–World War I Warren G. Harding, after the near world war that had erupted around the homecoming court.

  Whatever. One of Trip’s buddies probably requested “Strokin’,” like they tried at every dance, only to have a chaperone cut it off once they realized how smutty it was. Or maybe it was “Me So Horny,” the other song that guys liked to get the DJs to play. I raised my eyebrows at Trip, who shook his head. He and the football players didn’t have anything to do with it.

  “I need to apologize to someone tonight—”

  I froze. Kyle. It was Kyle’s voice. I didn’t want to turn around to look at him, but somehow my feet moved for me.

  “Athena, I know you’re mad at me.” He looked super charming and adorable to a slightly hateful extent in his black button-down and black jeans. “But I wanted to let everyone know how awesome you are. Not because you’re smart and pretty and a good musician, which you are, but because you stood up for your sister and for what you believe in. You may never want to speak to me again, but I wanted to let you know I’m sorry.”

  He turned to give the microphone back to the DJ, then pivoted once more.

  “Oh, and this was the only song that the DJ had that I know you like, so I’m sorry if it’s not really an apology song.”

  The opening chords of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blasted through the PA system, to the sound of applause from everyone but me.

  “Take him back!” someone shouted. It was Wisteria, of course.

  I didn’t know what to do. I should talk to him. No, I shouldn’t talk to him. It would be rude to talk to him, when I was there on a date with Trip, who was probably vaguely embarrassed by the spectacle of the whole thing. But it would be rude not to talk with him after that speech.

  I had wanted this. I’d wanted Kyle to say something other than a litany of excuses for why he liked the most loathsome human I’d ever met. And he hadn’t—not really. He’d apologized after Leah disappeared, which didn’t show a tremendous amount of intestinal fortitude, as my dad would say.

  I didn’t feel the way I’d thought I would—though, honestly, I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d thought I would feel.

  I looked at Trip, not sure what to do next, except pretend the last fifteen minutes hadn’t happened.

  “You know that scene at the end of Pretty in Pink, where Duckie tells Andie to go after Blane?” I asked Trip, looking up at his still-nervous face.

  Trip nodded enthusiastically and then blushed again, a deeper scarlet than the red he already had from running around like a maniac all night. Boys, especially linebackers, weren’t supposed to have an extensive, play-by-play knowledge of Molly Ringwald movies.

  “That’s my sister’s favorite movie,” he mumbled.

  “Don’t be Duckie,” I told him. “Be the anti-Duckie. And don’t let me go talk to him, so I don’t have to hear his bullshit variation on how he always believed in me and didn’t believe in himself.”

  “I can’t do that.” He shook his head so hard that little droplets of sweat spattered out. “I think you should talk with him. Not that you should get back together with him—we can still have that jazz funeral we were talking about—but I think you need to kick around the dead body a little first.”

  That I thought Trip had carried the jazz funeral imagery a little too far must have shown on my face.

  “Sorry. That was gross.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, laughing. “I started it.”

  “Anyway, go get your closure,” he said. “I’ll be here when you get back, trying to get the DJ to play ‘Strokin’.’”

  I walked toward the corner of the gym where Kyle stood. I hated the fact that I still found him super hot, that my feet still moved toward him. Part of me couldn’t tell if I was being unfair toward him. I’d forgiven Sean, but that was different. Sean was my oldest friend, and we had a longer track record of awesomeness and support that predated any meddling from Leah.

  “Hey.” I didn’t have other words.

  “I’m just going to say it,” he said, grabbing my hand and looking at me with those frustratingly gorgeous eyes. “I’m lame and a coward, and I’ve wanted to apologize a hundred times. I thought maybe you’d talk with me again after I put up all of those posters, but you never even looked at me.”

  He took a deep breath. I let him talk, to see if what he said could possibly make up for all those times when I had waited for him to call and say something, anything that indicated I’d been more than his after-school make-out girl.

  “You never looked at me, but I looked at you. I saw someone who took the high road, who supported her friends, and who did things that were challenging,” Kyle said. “I saw the kind of girl I’d be proud to date, if she’d let me.”

  He was good with words. I’d give him that. He hadn’t said anything about Leah, though, or that he was sorry he’d believed Aimee about me.

  “Leah,” I said. “You came with her tonight. Would you be saying this if she hadn’t gotten pulled out of here by Sister Catherine?”

  The question would bother me forever if I never asked it.

  Oh, those amber eyes. Such confusion. Such woundedness.

  “I’ve planned this speech in my head for weeks,” he said, looking at his feet. “I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to talk about her, but I knew we would.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, here it is. Athena Graves, you were right. Completely right. Always, truly, totally right about her spreading gossip with Aimee. But despite what you think, I didn’t cheat on you with her. Nothing happened until after you stopped talking with me, and it was a mistake. I knew she had a lot of problems, especially with her parents, and I thought she needed someone to talk to. But I’ve also learned that I don’t want to be that person.”

  I hadn’t expected that answer, and I didn’t know if it made anything right. But I didn’t know what to say, either.

  “I’m sorry, Kyle,” I said finally. “But you can’t make things better in five minutes. I don’t know how I can trust you again.”

  “What would make you trust me?”

  “I have no idea.” Suddenly, I was exhausted. I couldn’t think, and I didn’t want to talk with him. I didn’t want to forgive him, or be his girlfriend, or ask him why he’d done that stealth campaign for me for the homecoming court. “But for tonight, I have a date, and I’ve got to get back to him.”

  I walked back toward Trip, who was just leaving the DJ’s table, laug
hing loudly now that “Strokin’” was finally blasting from the speakers.

  He spotted me and shimmied over, singing the song’s lyrics in time with his shuffling dance. Then he stopped, eyes widening as though he suddenly realized he was singing a very dirty song directly to me. “Uh, how did it go?”

  I shrugged. “Good, I guess.”

  “I guess the body is alive?” Trip looked a little disappointed.

  Was it? I didn’t think so. I wasn’t sure I knew who Kyle was, not really. “Mostly dead, I think.”

  “Well, mostly dead means a little bit alive, right? Do you need Miracle Max?”

  I shook my head. “This isn’t The Princess Bride, and he’s definitely not Cary Elwes.”

  Trip held out his arm. “Well, if you’re not going back over to him, do you want to dance?”

  “To this?”

  His face lit up with glee. “I can’t believe I actually got them to play it!” He sounded as excited as a five-year-old, until he realized that I was never, ever going to dance with him to that song. “But maybe we can wait until the next song.”

  I looked up at his eager face. I couldn’t figure out if he had a crush on me, or if he just liked dancing—and, from what I’d seen already on the dance floor, the possibility of the latter was as strong as the former. But it didn’t matter. As long as it wasn’t a terrible song, I was in.

  “Let’s dance,” I said, taking his hand.

  “‘Let’s Dance’! That’s a great song! Maybe I should ask for some Bowie! My older sister loves him!” Trip said, his face lighting up. “You’re a genius, Graves! Thanks for the suggestion! This party could use Bowie’s kind of weird!”

  He grabbed me for a spontaneous twirl, during which my feet actually left the ground. I had to grab on tight and felt a jolt of something I wasn’t expecting—actual attraction. Extreme heat, and not because he’d been sweating. Like I wanted him to kiss me after he got done swinging me around. Like Kyle didn’t exist.

  I gulped hard as he set me down and took a deep breath to figure things out. I didn’t want to ping-pong from one boy to another, but I didn’t want to push Trip away, either.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I got carried away.” He looked down at me, face flushed with embarrassment instead of his dance-induced exertion. He backed away by about three feet.

  I pulled him back toward me. Not into an embrace or anything, but close enough that it felt right looking up into his blue eyes, which were pretty amazing looking. How had I never noticed them before while I was tutoring him?

  “No,” I said, smiling up at him. “That was good. Just warn me next time.”

  “So you’re saying there’ll be a next time?” Trip grinned. “All right!”

  * * *

  Trip and I danced to all the fast songs, all the weird songs, all the old songs, and even all the slow songs for the last hour of the dance. By the time the bright lights went up at midnight, blinding all of us and destroying the atmosphere the student council had tried so hard to create, I’d almost forgotten about the earlier drama. Almost.

  “Hey, Athena!” Melissa waved to me from across the gym. She was practically dragging her date behind her, gripping his hand like she might lose him. He was a willowy, black-haired guy who, if I squinted, vaguely approximated the picture of Suede’s Brett Anderson she’d taped in her locker. He also looked about as happy as I imagined an up-and-coming English indie rock singer would be at a high school dance—which is to say, not very, and very impatient to leave the gym.

  Melissa’s olive skin was flush with the fresh experience of dancing—or, if I was reading the situation correctly, making out with her date. Strands of her purple-tinted hair had fallen out of her elegant updo into a sloppy mess around her ears, and her eggplant-colored lipstick was nonexistent, except for a lingering smear near the corner of her mouth.

  “Are you in for Denny’s?” she asked breathlessly. “Adam and I were thinking of going.”

  Adam nodded at me disinterestedly. He didn’t seem like Denny’s material, and certainly not one for ordering Moons Over My Hammy, ironically or not.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.” Adam’s dramatic sulk distracted me from Melissa’s eager invitation. “I think I’m just going to find Helen and head home. Try to figure out what to do next now that all this—” I waved my hands in a big circle, not sure what I was even gesturing toward “—is over.”

  Melissa dropped Adam’s hand and turned to me with hands on her hips. “What do you mean? We won! We should be celebrating. With milkshakes and greasy food.”

  Jamie getting a suspension didn’t deserve to be in the win column, even if it was satisfying to see Leah get the same.

  “I guess I don’t see it that way,” I said. “I don’t know if we actually changed anyone’s minds. We didn’t even change Helen’s.”

  “Of course you did.” I turned to see my sister standing behind me.

  “Wait, what?” Melissa’s eyes widened in shock, followed by a fist pump of victory.

  She rolled her eyes. “Not about being pro-life. Duh,” she said, sounding more like she would have before her recent transformation into a human being. “But about how we can work together. Just because I’m not going to be having an abortion anytime soon doesn’t mean I need to be a jerk about it. Jamie didn’t deserve any of that.”

  Melissa threw up her hands. “You’ve basically just described being pro-choice. It’s not the choice that you would make. But it’s still a choice.”

  “Yeah, you can keep saying it like that,” Helen said, somewhere between defiant and joking. “And I’ll be over here, still cherishing my values.”

  Melissa rolled her eyes, then linked one of her arms with mine and the other with Helen’s. “Sure you two don’t want to go to Denny’s?”

  “Moons Over My Hammy!” Helen exclaimed. “I’m in!”

  “Athena?”

  It might turn into a totally awkward triple date, or Adam might abandon us after the first five minutes of realizing he was with high school girls, or Trip and Sean might end up talking the whole time about football. But it was a moment I could never have imagined a few months ago, and it was so worth it.

  “Yeah, I’m in.” And chances were, I always would be.

  * * *

  Historical Note

  While Athena’s narrative is fiction, the history behind Rebel Girls is not. When writing this book, I chose the aftermath of Baton Rouge’s early-1990s protests for a few reasons, none of which is ’90s nostalgia. The first and most important reason was that I wanted a setting parallel to today’s politics—something close, but not identical, to today—where I could open up discussion about abortion without tying it to today’s laws or politicians. This choice was both philosophical and practical. I didn’t want readers to view Athena or Helen or Melissa or Jamie in terms of today’s rhetoric, which, if anything, has become a heightened version of the early 1990s.

  More practically, I was afraid that Roe v. Wade might be overturned, or made obsolete, before this book was published. The number of legislative attempts to regulate reproductive rights at the state level have significantly increased since 1992 (mostly due to that year’s Supreme Court ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey), even though the country has remained divided in their opinions about abortion at approximately the same percentages over the past forty years.1 But in 2016, the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion policies, noted that the previous five years (2010–2015) featured more attempts to restrict abortion at the state level than any other five-year period since Roe v. Wade.2 In light of that, I felt genuinely concerned that unless I wrote Rebel Girls as a dystopian set “five minutes in the future,” where abortion was outlawed, it wouldn’t properly reflect reality.

  And so I went back to my hometown, and the events of 1992.

  Since the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade in 1973, Lo
uisiana has been one of the most active states in the fight over reproductive rights.3 It’s understandable that the state would continue to pass laws against abortion—its population is largely conservative, with a mix of Catholics and evangelical Christians. When I was growing up in Baton Rouge in the 1980s and 1990s, it wasn’t unusual to see protesters outside the Delta Women’s Clinic, which I frequently passed as my mom drove me to the orthodontist. Before I even got my braces off, the protests at the clinic had started to heat up.

  In 1989, 186 people were arrested for blocking access to the Delta Women’s Clinic in protests over potential federal funding for abortion in the case of rape and incest. In 1990, the Louisiana legislature passed what would have been the strictest anti-abortion law in the nation; Governor Buddy Roemer vetoed it. In June 1991, the legislature passed another similar law, which would have banned all abortions except those where the woman’s life was at risk, or in the case of rape or incest, either of which had to be reported to the police within seven days, and the abortion had to be performed during the first trimester. Governor Roemer again vetoed the bill. This time, the legislature overrode his veto with a two-thirds majority.

  The state’s legal situation led to the protests the summer before Rebel Girls takes place. Operation Rescue, a national anti-abortion group, chose Baton Rouge as a sequel to its “Summer of Mercy” in Wichita, Kansas. That protest focused on three clinics, including the one operated by Dr. George Tiller. The one in Baton Rouge was supposed to be even bigger, with the leaders of Operation Rescue expecting hundreds of arrests. But thanks to a hastily built fence that kept both protesters and clinic defenders apart, there were fewer arrests—only fifty-eight—though there was still plenty of verbal harassment toward patients.

  Despite the relatively small number of arrests in comparison to Wichita (and other Operation Rescue protests in Buffalo, New York, that spring), the national protests did change the atmosphere in the city. Like Athena, I went to a Catholic high school, and was pretty much the only pro-choice student in the school other than my older sister (who was off to college by 1992). My cousin was one of the clinic defenders at the Delta Women’s Clinic, and my sister drove her to the protests. But most of my friends were pro-life, and it definitely made me feel much more isolated than Athena. I got into my fair share of arguments with teachers who didn’t understand how I could be such a good student and still be pro-choice. From my perspective, I didn’t understand how they had such little empathy for rape victims, or victims of incest, or women with ectopic pregnancies (which one of my teachers said did not exist), or anyone who chose to make a decision that wasn’t identical to theirs. I also didn’t understand how my school could kick out pregnant girls, but not their male partners—a policy that made abortion a much more appealing route for many girls, as well as their parents.