Six Angry Girls

by Adrienne Kisner

  MARCH 23: JUSTIFICATION FOR NONDISCLOSURE

  I lived and breathed the new case. I’d only had the materials a few days and even Megan was now pretty well versed on First Amendment precedents. It wasn’t that hard to inhabit the character, since there was only five pages of it. Also, a drama queen, yarn-bombing high school senior really wasn’t that much of a stretch. At this point, I didn’t even know if it could even be considered acting.

  I rolled into The Dropped Stitch prepared to curse out vest patterns. Considering how a pair of socks caused my eye to twitch in frustration for about a week, I was hoping Grace would do most of it. She could finish an entire reproductive system in the time it took me to hook a foreskin.

  “Good evening,” I said to Grace. I helped myself to cornbread and what looked like chili.

  “Compliments of my sister,” said Carla, “visiting from out of town.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Or tried to say with my face stuffed with free food.

  Grace appeared unusually somber.

  I swallowed. “You okay over there?”

  “Have you studied the case more?” she said.

  “The one for states? Yeah. Millie would psychically sense if I hadn’t.”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Bother me? How?”

  Grace shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems pretty clear cut. The plaintiffs seem so righteous to me. The Real Love group took over the entire free-expression board. The picture of what they did is included!”

  “I saw,” I said. The visual had been in my witness materials.

  “Look at all it. ‘Marriage is between one man and one woman. Gender is determined by God. Blah, blah, blah.’ Are you kidding? Could they be any more obviously trite or cliché? Then the Social Justice League took them on for their shit, and then they were called out by school administration? There. Are. Pictures. Here. The Social Justice League posted about toxic behavior in their community and was unduly punished. The defendants are hate-mongering jerks. I know Izzy and maybe Veronica agree with me. I tried to talk to Millie about it, but she either doesn’t see it or doesn’t care because she wants to win.”

  I hadn’t gotten that out of the witness statements. At worst, everyone seemed a little too attached to a school bulletin board.

  Grace kept going. “But Millie says that if we go to nationals, we will have to dig into the case and mount the best defense possible. I mean, we might not make it to nationals so maybe I’m worrying for nothing. And it feels like she’s pulling away from me. Things were great there for a minute, but then it’s like she panicked.”

  “This is so important to Millie. But she can see reason. I say, since you like this side of the case so much, you might as well put your energy into pounding the defense into the ground.” I didn’t know about the second part. Millie and I didn’t talk much about dating, beyond me occasionally bursting into Brandon-induced tears.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I just wished she could see where I’m … where we’re coming from. How we might not be comfortable with it.”

  “Let us cross this bridge when we must,” I said. My dad always said that. “For now, please help me knit a vest for the cause of justice.”

  Grace laughed in spite of herself. “I’d bet all the chili that you just want me to do it for you.”

  “I didn’t say that,” I said.

  “You know you can do it, don’t you? I’ll help if you need.”

  She might have been right. I was getting better every day.

  “Okay, people, listen up,” said Carla. “There have been developments, and we are moving to phase four of the resistance.”

  “What were phases one through three?” I whispered to Grace.

  “Probably the vaginas and courthouse steps and the town meeting, don’t you think?” she whispered back.

  “Okay, good point,” I said.

  “People think knitting is for young women from the fifties, knitting sweaters for their boyfriends. Or for old biddies, making baby booties. Gretta, am I right?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “But we know that’s not true.”

  “I finished those penises that you wanted. Were they for someone in particular?” Beatrice said.

  “We’ll talk about it later. But this is what I’m saying. If you look at a tombstone, and you see the years there, you know what is between them? A line. A simple line. But to me that line is a stitch. It represents that the fiber arts weave life. Blankets for births, socks and scarves and sweaters for birthdays, a prayer shawl after a death. But needles are sharp, and sometimes you need to stick them into politics. Some of you might be too young to remember, but the AIDS quilt is an example. Crafters have to come together.”

  “Carla?” I raised my hand like I was in school. “Did something happen?”

  Her eyes flashed. “Oh yes, it did,” she said. “A certain local magistrate decided to make life a little worse for some people last week again. So did some Supreme Court justices. So did a lot of people in power. And we had a chance to make one of them answer for it, and he didn’t. Another man had his back and shut that down before we could even get it started. And I’ve had it up to here.”

  “I see,” said Grace.

  “A couple of police officers visited the store yesterday. They seemed to think we might have something to do with recent shipments of anatomy to elected and appointed officials. Or the courthouse street art. Or the giant yarn bomb after the town hall,” said Carla.

  “Apparently the knit placentas in trees scared people. Or maybe it was the ‘consent’ blanket. Or any of the various items we left in the gardens and shrubbery and windows at City Hall,” Alex said.

  “Are you going to jail?” I said.

  Alex winked at me. “You’re in Mock Trial. You tell me.”

  “I’ll let you know after states,” I said.

  “Great,” said Carla. I’d never seen her so fired up, which was saying something. “Anyway, apparently the police are visiting several local yarn stores, and rumor has it, a certain big-chain-that-shall-not-be-named. They are trying to deter ‘vandalism.’”

  She kind of spat out that last part.

  “Just awful,” said Beatrice.

  “The craft community from the surrounding counties wants to do something. We are holding a crafting circle on Sunday.”

  “Here?” said Grace.

  “At the Inclined Plane. There’s that little park across the street. That will do nicely.”

  “What are we going to do there?” I said.

  “Knit uteruses. Cross-stitch ‘Screw the Patriarchy’ samplers. Embroider rage. Quilt apoplexy. Whatever. There are some plans to get it onto the actual trolley cars so you can see it when they ride up and down the mountain on the tracks. I expect all of you to be there. It’s going to be in the sixties, so it won’t freeze Gretta.”

  “Don’t you worry about me, young lady. You forget I was a girl in Canada. We didn’t have plumbing until we moved here when I was seventeen. Cold doesn’t bother these old bones as much as you might think.”

  All of us blinked at Gretta. Her tiny, bent frame wouldn’t alert you to how badass she actually was.

  “Great. Well. There are public restrooms around there. No need to relive your younger years, Gretta.”

  “Whatever is needed for the cause.” She raised her wrinkled fist, the delicate skin as thin as vellum but probably tougher than all the rest of ours put together.

  Carla handed us flyers to put up on our way out. “You bring as many people as possible. There is power in numbers. And it doesn’t have to be fiber arts. Photographers, painters, comic artists. Whatever. Bring them. At least two people each, please.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Grace.

  “Wow,” I said. “Shit’s getting real, here.”

  “Seriously,” she said.

  “You are new to town. Have you ever been to the Incline?”

  “Aunt Kay took me when I came to visit. Leave it to Pennsylvanians
to build a trolley into a mountain. Are we going to yarn bomb that?”

  “I don’t know how that’s possible. At least in the middle of the day. But I wouldn’t put anything past Carla.”

  Grace laughed. “Hell hath no fury like a LYS owner scorned,” she said. “She’s at her knit’s end.”

  “Aren’t we all,” I said. “Aren’t we all.”

  MARCH 26: ORDER DENYING INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

  The Mock Trial team was not as excited about the Inclined Plane as I had hoped they would be. The division over the case had lowered morale considerably in a matter of days.

  “What are we supposed to be doing there, exactly? I have a manicure at ten that day,” said Nikita.

  “Crafting for social justice. Like the people in our case!” I said.

  “Is this trying to get us into character?” asked Izzy. “I don’t actually knit.”

  “Do you paint?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Take pictures?”

  “I act,” she said.

  “You could start to learn to knit. Or crochet. Keeps your hands busy. Calms the mind. It’s good as a preshow ritual. Or if there’s something else you should be doing, like homework, you still feel like you are accomplishing something if you yarn instead. I call it ‘procrastiknitting,’” I said.

  Izzy shook her head at me.

  “I got my chic new walking boot,” said Veronica. “I could come.”

  “I count you as my person!” I said. Megan agreed to come because I told her we could get Em’s Subs afterward. “This gives me two. I’m doing my part for freedom.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but I’m happy to help,” said Veronica. “Gives me an excuse to get out of another Sunday playing video games with my little brother.”

  “Millie, you have to come,” I said.

  She glanced at Grace.

  “Uh. I’m not much of a crafter,” she said.

  “But Grace will be there!”

  Grace opened her mouth to speak but closed it again. She looked down at the ground.

  “Isn’t this against the magistrate? What if he ends up being one of the judges we see at states? There aren’t that many judges who do this,” Millie said. She looked over a Grace, as if she hoped for reassurance. Grace said nothing.

  “What are the odds of that? It’s in Harrisburg. Come on, Millie,” I said.

  “I’ll see.”

  “You would make two for Grace. We have quotas to fill.”

  She didn’t say anything. Grace turned and walked over to talk to Ms. McClain without looking at either one of us.

  “Grace isn’t too happy with me,” said Millie.

  The bell rang and I didn’t have the chance to investigate further.

  Later that evening, I took the city bus to support Steelton High theater. It felt like a million years had passed since I’d been on the auditorium stage, even if it’d only been a few months. I went inside to the mostly empty theater and found Millie dead center.

  “Hey there,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine,” she said stiffly.

  “It doesn’t seem fine. Something going on with you and Grace?”

  Millie wilted a little. “She’s so bothered by this case. And I told her it’s fiction, but she said it’s based on reality. She doesn’t want to play the defense. She said all I cared about was Mock Trial. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. But I want to win.”

  “That sucks,” I said. “But we have to get to nationals for this even to be a problem.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  More people filled in the seats around us, including Megan. Millie didn’t seem like she wanted to keep talking about it.

  The lights went down, and Mr. Cooper came over the loudspeaker, warning us all to turn off our cell phones and threatening our lives over the use of flash photography. The curtain rose on the sparse set. The Stage Manager took the stage. Some freshman kid I didn’t recognize. I wondered why Claire didn’t go for this part. She was probably too annoyed.

  The Stage Manager started talking.

  “I don’t get it. Is this a play within a play?” whispered Megan.

  “It’s a metaphor,” I muttered. “Fucking Thornton Wilder.”

  They didn’t have an intermission. Maybe they wisely thought we all might flee the single-most produced play in all high schools everywhere.

  At the end, Claire rose from the dead as Emily Webb, the woman who died too soon. I watched Claire act the day of Emily’s twelfth birthday. Watching Claire’s face turn from utter joy to the somber realization that people don’t appreciate the simple joys of life made my chest hurt. My throat burned.

  “Take me back—up the hill—to my grave,” said Claire. “But first: Wait! One more look. Goodbye, goodbye world. Goodbye, Grover’s Corners … Mama and Papa. Goodbye to clocks ticking … and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths … and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?” Claire placed her face in her hands.

  “No. The saints and poets, maybe they do some,” said the Stage Manager.

  Ugly tears over Claire’s performance of fucking Our Town rolled down my face, right there in front of everyone. I quickly fished a tissue out of my pocket. There was sniffling all around.

  After the curtain call, Megan took another tissue from me.

  “I’m going to hug my mom and clean my room,” she said.

  “I should apologize to Grace,” said Millie, wiping her eyes.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have quit. I could have made people openly weep through that overdone play, damn it all. That was what I wanted, to have people feel what I wanted them to feel. To not just hear my words, but to live them with me.

  We left the auditorium and hung around just outside. As theater kids milled around to meet their parents and rides, Claire emerged positively glowing.

  “You were brilliant,” said Millie. “I cried.”

  “Same,” said Megan. I don’t know that she’d ever spoken to or even met Claire.

  “Thank you,” said Claire.

  Millie held out flowers to her. “A placeholder for your Academy Award,” she said.

  “Love you,” said Claire.

  “You were great,” I said. It was true. I couldn’t even deny it.

  “Raina.” Claire looked taken aback. “Were you crying, too?”

  “Of course not,” I lied. “Allergies.”

  “Sure,” she said. But I could tell she knew she’d moved me.

  Afterward, Megan and I went to Eat’n Park. It was a postshow ritual, even if I wasn’t in the show.

  “I’m also going to be nicer to my sister,” she said. “I barely talk to her since she went away to school.”

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  “I am. And I’m really going to give swimming my all at college. I’ve been half-assing on the municipal team. But at school, I’m going for it. You have to appreciate the moments in life. Because you can’t go back once they are over.”

  I kicked her under the table. But after I got home, I went up to Mom’s room and curled into bed next to her.

  She rolled over. “You okay?” she said.

  “Yes, Mommy.” I kissed her and snuggled close.

  “You sure?” Mom could go from a dead sleep to lifesaver in three seconds.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Okay.” In another three seconds, I felt her deep breaths against my chin.

  “Fucking Our Town,” I whispered. But then I shivered in delight as I breathed in the scent of the clean sheets and my mom’s hair, which I probably hadn’t done since … I was twelve years old.

  MARCH 28: CONFIDENTIAL MEDIATED SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT

  There is a church close to the Inclined Plane. I watched as men and women and little boys and girls in dresses and suits left the building carrying long palm fronds. A little boy
jabbed one into his sister’s face.

  “Cut it out! This is a symbol of peace!” she yelled.

  The mom grabbed the little boy and moved him to the other side of her, out of palm-violence range. Church bells echoed on houses and hills, the clear blue sky climbing up forever around gathering crafters.

  “Morning.” Alex yawned. “What’d you bring to work on?”

  “A baby blanket? I think? Squares for Carla. Possibly to go on”—I paused and looked at the Inclined Plane car rising into the air—“that?”

  “Shhhh,” said Alex. She glanced around. “That’s on the down low.”

  “You asked,” I said.

  Alex put her finger to her lips.

  “I am here,” said Megan, coming up behind me. “I am the best of all best friends.”

  “You are,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t text you. I don’t have my phone. I hope it’s at home.”

  Veronica hobbled over, followed by Grace. “Hey, knitter dorks,” she said. “My gran was so excited to hear about this, even if she didn’t understand what I was talking about.”

  “Same,” said Megan.

  “Oh, hey, you came,” said Grace, clearly surprised.

  I turned and saw Millie joining the group.

  “Yeah. Well. Emily Webb,” she said.

  Grace threw her a blank look.

  “The rest of you are here. I wanted to be a team player,” she said.

  “It wasn’t enough that I asked you to come?” said Grace.

  “I … It’s just that…” said Millie.

  Just then, an aggressively loud siren pierced the air, and my skeleton nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Hello, crafters!” said Carla into an incredibly effective bullhorn. “We’re here to quilt new beginnings! To macramé justice! We are here today to stitch a new world!”

  A cheer rose up from the crowd. Gretta and Beatrice and all the other Dropped Stitch ladies had brought friends and family. The two of them alone were forming a whole generation of male knitters.

  “Should we get a bench?” said Megan.

  “We should probably save those for the elderly.”