“Thanks,” I said again.
I clinked the bell on the door on the way out. I passed a woman who could have been my mom’s age coming in. Her face looked blotched and her eyes puffed. How many breakups had Steelton had lately? And who knew so many people read the paper?
Maybe she just had winter allergies.
JANUARY 19: DISCUSSION
“I need you to come with me tonight,” I said to Megan.
“But I don’t want to learn to knit. I’m not heartbroken.” She turned the steering wheel and navigated her car into a parking space in the slush-filled Steelton High lot.
“You should do it for me,” I said.
“I’ve come to every production you’ve ever been in. That’s about three plays and maybe a musical a year. I hate sitting still. Why do I have to do this, too?”
“How many swim meets do you have in a year? Ten? And I came to the swim-camp mixer because that dude you liked stopped by.”
“Michael Phelps is an Olympic world record holder. You got to hug him. I was doing you a favor.”
“Ten meets a year. You’ve been swimming since third grade. I’ve helped you wax your legs. Tell me one knitting class is worse than that.”
“Okay, okay, fine.”
“Good,” I said. I took a deep breath and got out of the car.
“All clear,” said Megan.
A best friend who did a visual Brandon/Ruby sweep was a keeper.
“Great,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to run lines or something at lunch? Usually by Presidents’ Day you are forcing me to run lines for spring auditions.”
“They’re doing fucking Our Town.”
“I know.”
“I hate that play.”
“You also made that pretty clear.”
“So, what’s the point?”
“Don’t you have to audition for Carnegie Mellon soon? And Claire? Doesn’t she want to go there, too? And they take about minus seven people into the program?”
I shrugged.
“Girl, forget tonight; obviously we need to go knit now.” She looked at her watch. “At 9:30 a.m. I’ll ditch school. I am seriously worried here.”
“The group meets at seven.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“Okay.” I waved as she walked into her homeroom. I moved through a sea of bodies toward my locker and there, of course, came Brandon and the new woman. Heads together. Happy.
Why were these assholes constantly walking down hallways, visible in public?
I ducked into the girls’ room to do more breathing or possibly sobbing. The restroom wasn’t a great place for this because the odor of pee and illicit strawberry vaping did not exactly create a calming atmosphere. I slid into my favorite stall, the one with the FEMINISTS WIPE THE SEAT graffiti. All my breakup grief had helped condition a pretty powerful new lung response. I bet I could project to the back of the auditorium without a mic now. Or maybe the entirety of the gym. In happier times, maybe this would have …
The sound of unmeasured gasps pulled me from my pity party. For a second, I thought I’d sat next to happy people getting it on in the girls’ room, but no. I could recognize the sound of someone else sobbing, as well-acquainted I had become with my own. I weighed my options. Personally, I wanted to disappear when I hid in the bathroom. But this person sounded worse than I thought I ever felt, which was saying something.
I left my stall and looked at the closed door next to it. The sobs kept coming. I knocked gently. “Hello?” I said. “Are you okay?”
The sobs lessened a bit.
“Listen, I know this probably sounds weird, but I totally come in here to cry, too. Actually, I’m likely closing in on detention, I’m late for homeroom so much, but I think Mr. Plaza is just happy I’m not crying there. Are you hurt?”
“No,” came a voice.
“Do you need a pad or something?”
“No,” said the voice again, though it shook less than the first time. I heard shuffling and the door opened.
“Oh! Millie!” I said. I recognized her from Brandon’s Mock Trial team. “What’s wrong?”
She hung her head. “N-nothing,” she said.
“Oh. Okay?” I said. She and I weren’t exactly friends. I’d talked to her at a party once. She said her favorite musical was Waitress, and I could find no fault in that.
“No,” she said. “It’s awful. I’ve been kicked off Mock Trial! I think I was in shock before when I found out. Now that I’ve had some time for it to sink in, I couldn’t keep it together in American Government class,” she said.
“They can do that?” I’d never heard of such a thing.
“Since the team did so well last year, we had three times the number of people come out. So, they had tryouts. Made us go through old, weird case law that wasn’t even related to this year’s case! I usually have to spend way more time preparing my stuff, and they gave us no time to prepare. They picked a freshman whose dad went to Columbia to be the third lawyer. Who cares if he went to Columbia?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. God, the poor girl. If drama actually kicked me out, fucking Our Town or not, my head might explode.
“The Mock Trial president is such an ass. Jeffrey. His dad went to Columbia, too. He thinks he’s a sure thing for early decision. Dumped by that loser. I’m a huge reason the team made it as far as it did. I always made them do the extra research. It never hurts. But no. Some new person just swoops in. Brandon said I could be part of their research initiative. I’m not even an understudy.”
Millie and I were starting to have a lot in common. She seemed to realize that at the same time I did.
“Oh, I mean, um … sorry…” she said.
“No, it’s all right.” I sighed. “The Mock Trial vice president sucks, too.”
“Everyone who ran the group was boys. There were only three girls on the whole team. Two graduated last year, and I was the last one. Now it’s all boys, even with all the new people. The rest of us can be understudies or fake paralegals, but eff that, you know?”
“Eff that,” I agreed.
“This stinks. I love Mock Trial. I quit Model UN last year after it got weird because the secretary slept with the treasurer. Then Model Congress went downhill when they got gridlocked over the fake border-security bill, so I quit that, too. But I thought the mock judiciary branch was safe!” She hung her head and veered close to hyperventilating in under twenty seconds.
“Do you want a hug?” I said. It seemed the only logical thing to do with my sister-in-dumpedness, there in the middle of the girl’s bathroom.
She either loudly nodded or hiccupped violently. I gingerly wrapped my arms around her shoulders. The bell indicating the end of homeroom rang.
“Listen. I can’t be late to chem again. But I want you to know that I feel you on this. I feel you so hard it hurts. If you go rogue and form your own vigilante Mock Trial team, let me know. I could be a witness,” I said.
She straightened up in my arms. I stepped back.
“What?” she said.
“What?” I said back.
“What did you say?”
“Uh. Only, you know. If you decided to form your own team, I could act. On it. The team. Not that you would.” I had only been trying to make her feel better. I didn’t think she’d actually been listening.
“Form my own team,” she said, though it seemed mostly to herself.
“Well, I gotta go. Hang in there!” I called. I bumped out of the restroom and ran/walked to lab, which was blessedly close to the homeroom I’d just avoided. On my way there I saw Mr. Plaza and let him know it’d been another case of potential early morning waterworks. He, as expected, seemed relieved he hadn’t had to deal with me.
After lunch, I walked into drama ready to stare off into space, baffled at what my life had become. Or maybe ready to kick the wall. It could go either way with me in any second. Megan was right when she harassed me about my lack of participation in drama
. Claire had become the de facto president, since I could barely get through club period without snapping a pencil I’d been doodling with and spent most of the time breathing deeply. I hadn’t even looked at lines. Mr. Cooper had even tried calling Mom (though she slept through his calls and I was able to delete them from her cell before she detected anything).
I had started theater because Brandon said he thought I’d be good at it, and tween Raina had wanted to impress him. Ha! I had kept at it because it kept impressing him. Did I ever love it for myself? Even if I did, I hated being here because of Brandon.
The sophomores whispered to themselves and the freshman scanned scripts. All the juniors and seniors circled around Claire. I couldn’t bring myself to even go over to them.
“All right, everyone,” said Mr. Cooper. “If you want to be onstage crew or tech, come over here. Otherwise, partner up and keep getting a feel for the roles you might like. Remember, there are no small parts!”
That was a lie. There were small parts. In theater and in life. Sometimes you were the leading lady, and sometimes you were a walk-on in someone’s life. One sucked and the other didn’t. What good did it do to pretend otherwise?
Three people took Mr. Cooper up on his offer for crew and tech. Usually we didn’t have enough people in drama to run the board, so the AV Club stepped in to help. I imagined Claire would have to persuade them to do it again.
No, I would. Since I’m the president. That was my job.
“Raina?” a voice said. A junior minion of Claire’s gestured me to the circle.
I noticed Mr. Cooper sneaking glances at me, so I heaved myself up and joined the group.
“Yup?” I said.
“Auditions are this Friday. As you know,” said Claire.
Shit, really? I tried to keep my cool, but Claire could sniff out weakness. My brain fog lifted a bit, and I remembered Mr. Cooper saying something about that last week.
“Yeah. And you are running them. As president and all.”
Brandon and I had only been broken up for two weeks. Two weeks of no arguing over what movie to watch, no hours-long text conversations, no Sundays. It felt like ten years.
“Raina, are you even here with us?” Claire said, scowling.
I thought about it. “Maybe not,” I said.
This answer surprised us both.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
What did it mean? Had the center of my existence been a lie? If I didn’t care about this, what did I have left? What about the future? Could I really just go from the star of Taming of the Shrew to theater dropout in days? Over a boy?
Yes, I realized.
I could 100 percent do that.
But it was more than just the boy. This was about me figuring out what I wanted and why.
“Claire,” I said weakly. I cleared my throat and projected with my well-worked diaphragm. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided. I am resigning my position as president of the Drama Club. As vice president, it is now yours to run. I’m going to study hall with all the nonclub affiliates. Mr. Cooper, I’m sorry,” I said.
Silence followed me to the doorway. I turned, because a small slice of who I thought I once was remained. “You could do a lot better than Our Town. God. It’s so overdone.”
* * *
I spent the rest of the period alone in the bathroom.
Megan had an away swim meet after school, so I didn’t see her until she picked me up for our first knitting venture.
“You told who what now?” she said.
“I quit drama, and I might have volunteered to be on a rival Mock Trial team,” I said. “Millie Goodwin was so upset. She got kicked off because a million boys joined up or something and she bombed her audition.”
“You quit drama? That can’t be for real. And too bad about Millie. Why didn’t you invite her to rows before bros or whatever thing you are making me go to? I still smell like chlorine because I barely had time to shower.”
“I did quit drama. And Millie—it didn’t seem appropriate. It was a different form of angst. Also, she didn’t seem ready to be handed spearlike objects. Speaking of which, are you going to buy needles?” I wanted to change the subject before Megan got back onto the topic of me breaking up with my second great love before February.
“No need. Got some from my grandma a year or so ago. I’ve never heard that woman so happy as when I called and told her I’d be doing it again. I had to sit through a full hour with her FaceTiming from her yarn and quilting room. Which used to be my dad’s, I’m told. He still seemed bitter about the changeover, and he hasn’t lived there in twenty years.”
“Knitting can stitch us back together, but sometimes you have to tear things apart to move forward,” I said.
“You make that up yourself?”
“No, it was on the back of the flyer the yarn store lady gave me.”
“Of course it was,” said Megan.
We pulled up to the curb, since the tiny parking lot that served the yarn store and the bakery next door were full.
Megan shoved me in the door first. My friend from before looked up as the bell jingled.
“Hello!” she said warmly. “I was so hoping you’d come.”
“Brought my ball of yarn and my needles!” I held up my Steelton Three Rivers Theater Festival tote bag.
“Excellent. And you brought a friend.”
“You know my grandmother,” said Megan.
“Oh. I bet she’s thrilled to have another generation of knitter starting out.”
“Yes. Yes, she is,” said Megan, barely holding back a grimace.
I poked her with a knitting needle through the side of my tote bag.
“Well, head on upstairs, girls. We’ve got a full house tonight.”
Megan hesitated at the base of the stairs. It was my turn to shove her. We hoofed it to the top, to a wide, open room with folding chairs formed into a circle in the middle. A long table sat covered in snacks. I hastily added my sad package of fig cookies to the pile. Most of the other stuff looked homemade. We helped ourselves to crackers and cheeseballs and fudgy brownies.
“I almost forgive you for this,” said Megan.
“Mmphf,” I answered, my mouth full of brownie.
After a few minutes, the store lady (who wore a name tag that read CARLA) whistled us to attention.
“Welcome, welcome! Lots of newcomers tonight. Thanks to you all, especially to the person who brought the crostini. Was that homemade?”
“You bet,” said a tiny woman with purple hair.
“Fabulous. Okay, question. No need to go into detail here, but just out of curiosity, how many people are here because of the recent Two Hearts letter?”
Seven hands shot up, including mine.
“Got it. Okay, listen. We are going to get you casting on and stitching here, but I want to warn you that you can knit your emotions into your work. Tighter stitches could be harder for you noobs. Not as easy to get the needle in there and often a pain to fix if you aren’t used to unraveling and trying again. Do a little finger flexing or some belly breathing before we start. That might be good for all of us.”
“What Two Hearts letter?” the woman sitting directly next to Carla asked.
“Beatrice, dear, we don’t need to talk about it. I told you…”
“She wrote it,” Megan said, pointing to me.
I tried to kill her with my angry eyes of death.
“Wrote what?” said Beatrice.
“The letter,” said Megan. She must not have gotten enough to eat after her meet. Too much exercise and too few calories made her hangry mean.
“Um. My boyfriend dumped me. The newspaper column lady told me to do something active to move on. Like knit.”
“Oh my God, you really are in high school,” said someone across the circle. “I thought the letter writer said that to hide their identity.”
“Nope,” I said. “Totally in high school.”
“Wow,” murmured t
he group. Apparently, these people all had to wait until after college to have their love stomped on. Was this what adulthood was? I thought life got better when you could vote and drink and gamble and rent cars with less insurance.
Carla cleared her throat. “Well, thank you for bringing us together, um…”
“Raina,” I said.
“Yes. Raina. Knitting is a fantastic way to pass the time and make some beautiful art. It engages the fingers and the brain and, dare I say, the soul. Get out your balled yarn, please. Beatrice is going to lead us in some casting on. The pros here for fun or yarn winding, feel free to continue with your projects. I’ll come around the circle for questions.”
Megan and I watched Beatrice. I had trouble making a slipknot but caught on after a few tries. I breathed and flexed to avoid hate flowing through my needles to make extra-tight loops.
That took a few tries, too.
After an hour and a half, my back hurt, but I’d managed fifteen rows of green. Pride swelled through my whole body.
“I made something!” I said to Megan. I looked at her foot of scarf. “Well, I started something. How did you do that?”
“My grandma had me do this when I was little. It’s been years. But it comes back to you. Muscle memory, you know?”
“You’re holding out on me, woman.”
“It’s more fun than I remember. It’s a lot easier now. I think it’s probably because of my longer fingers and fine motor control.”
“Yes. Sure. That,” I said.
Megan was exhausted exercising all her motor control in a day, so she dropped me off right after knitting.
“There you are,” Mom said. “It’s ten on a school night.”
“You are almost never home,” I said.
“Are you out like this all the time?” she said.
“Well. No. Today was an exception. I went to The Dropped Stitch to join my first knitting circle.”
“I … That is the lamest cover story I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not a cover story. It’s the truth. I’m trying to cope with my feelings through art.”
“What about theater?”
I shrugged.
Mom stared at me.
Six Angry Girls Page 4
