What Every Girl Should Know

by J. Albert Mann

  He turned back to the window.

  I didn’t move.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Miss Higgins?” His voice was muffled against the glass.

  “The others?”

  “Hopefully they’re already eating their breakfasts.”

  I stood to go. My legs, once wobbly with fear, were now wobbly with relief.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, never meaning anything as much as I meant these three words. And then I stumbled out of his office.

  So . . . he’d left me to self-reflect. Another thing I was pretty sure I wasn’t any good at.

  “Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.”

  The response arrived in a long white envelope. It was thick. And heavy. Exactly the way I felt as I held it.

  Mary. How I wished she was here. Amelia was.

  She took it gently from my hands and opened it.

  “You’re almost in,” she announced as she read.

  “Almost?”

  I snatched at the letter. She whipped it out of my reach.

  “Don’t be in such a flurry,” she scolded, continuing to read.

  “They loved your essay. And your experience. It sounds as if they’re excited about your choice of Joan of Arc making her appearance to the Dauphin of France as an audition piece.”

  I sucked in an excited breath at the thought of my performance, because I was so good at this piece.

  She dropped the letter to her side and looked at me. “You need to fill out these forms and send a set of photos. Once they’ve gone over all your information, and they approve it, they’ll send you an audition date.”

  “This is happening.”

  I sat down on her bed. Amelia took a seat at her desk.

  “I need to write to Mary.”

  “Let’s fill out the forms first. Get things moving.”

  I looked up at Amelia. “Thanks for helping me with this.”

  “Thanks for keeping me from being expelled.”

  “Remember, I’m the one who came up with the stupid idea that almost expelled us.”

  “Remember, I’m a fully formed person who made the stupid decision to follow you.”

  We laughed.

  “Yes, the forms,” I sighed. “And then I’ll let Mary know.”

  My sister would be overjoyed. She brought up the application in each letter. As for the audition, I wasn’t worried about it. I’d had so much practice in chapel. I really could be at Frohman before long.

  Principal Flack crossed my mind. Strange to think of him at a time like this. He and his surprised eyebrows on his big head. I would have thought it would be Corey who crossed my mind. Of course, now he did.

  My dearest Corey. Who hadn’t even noticed that the walks to our quiet place to spoon had not included any of that activity in more than two weeks. Who hadn’t noticed that all his talking about his banking career had not included me saying much more than “Hmm,” in more than three. I took the walks because he was a kind boy and I missed the woods, especially in winter. I’d never admit this to Nan or Thomas, who’d sure chaw over it if they knew. Margaret Higgins, missing a long cold walk through the woods after complaining her entire life about them.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. Amelia had a hold of my leg.

  “I’m measuring.”

  “My calf?”

  “Yes,” she said. “For the form.”

  I pulled it away from her. “What? You have to measure my calf?”

  “And your thigh. Your ankle. Your neck. And your—”

  “What?” I ripped the form from her desk and started reading. “My bust size? They need to know the measurement of my breasts?” I felt the blood fill my face even though it was only Amelia and me in the room. “I have to send the size of my breasts to New York? On a form?”

  “It looks as though you do.”

  “Why would they need to know that, or the length of my neck or my ankle? What does it have to do with my depiction of Joan’s determination to save France?”

  Amelia didn’t say anything. Because the question was rhetorical; we both knew the answer. I let the form fall into my lap and we sat in silence.

  “Does nothing women do not depend on our bodies?” I whispered.

  Again. Rhetorical.

  I looked down at the list of measurements that would determine if they’d even consider an audition—the size of my breasts, the length of my neck . . . even how long my fingers were, including my thumbs! And then I plucked the form from my lap, and ripped it in two.

  Amelia didn’t say a word.

  I ripped it in four.

  She smiled.

  I shredded it into a hundred pieces and tossed it into the air.

  “Maggie, for goodness’ sakes. Now I have to clean it up. You’re so dramatic.”

  We stopped at those words . . . at the irony of them, and sighed.

  “Principal Flack told me I should put my talent into activities that will do me, and others, credit. I think I will disappoint him.”

  “Because you don’t send a boodle of men your breast size?”

  “Amelia!”

  She shrugged.

  “I guess I just love the stage.”

  “You love being filled with passion. Whether it’s as Joan of Arc or Margaret Higgins.”

  She was right. Amelia was often right. Very much like Nan and Mary. Amazing how it hurt a good deal less when you weren’t blood related.

  “Have I told you how much I love you, lately?”

  “This morning over breakfast when I gave you the rest of my almonds.”

  “Yes, I remember the moment,” I told her. “I really felt it.”

  “I know you did.”

  “How will I tell Mary?”

  “That I can’t help you with. But tell her soon. Hope seems to warp over time.”

  Again, she was right.

  I sat down and carefully composed the letter to my sister before I climbed into bed, and posted it before chapel the next morning. As I was writing it, I realized once again how Frohman was truly Mary’s dream, and not mine. I also understood why she’d ask me to perform it for her, as I was her best hope for achieving it. This made me unendingly sad, yet at the same time more determined to make something of my own dreams, even if I wasn’t completely sure what those dreams were. For the first time, I felt it was enough to know I had them. Somewhere along the way I’d figure them out.

  With the letter for Mary on its way to Corning and the application to Charles Frohman lying at the bottom of Amelia’s wastebasket, I actually felt a tremendous sense of relief as I took my seat in chapel the next morning. I still had a letter to write to Esther, whose hope in my following her to Frohman’s seemed almost as great as Mary’s. I tried out different phrases in my head that I might use to gently give her the bad news as the next speaker stood up at the pulpit.

  “Should free-thinking men and the Catholic Church always be at odds?” a young man boomed. I immediately sat up and listened. I’d seen him on campus but didn’t know his name.

  “If there is a universal truth—and I believe there is—cannot the Church be seeking this truth as well as the individual? We Catholics call this truth, doctrine. And though it may not contain the entire truth . . .”

  He paused for dramatic effect. Its actual effect was to give me time to question if partial truth was still truth.

  “. . . the Church has worked diligently for centuries to identify this truth as specifically and completely as possible.”

  I wondered at the Church working so diligently to discover a truth that didn’t support my hardworking brothers in a union. Or a truth that believed women shouldn’t have the right to vote.

  “The Church lives only to declare and breathe this truth.”

  Yes. This truth. Not the truth. Now I was getting huffed.

  “Truth is not true sometimes. It is not true for me but not for you. If it is true, then it is true always and everywhere for everyone, whether or not
she understands it.”

  Had he just referred to women?

  And here he gave one last pause. Yes, yes, yes . . . we realize your next words will be your last. We are not fools. As you seem to be.

  “The Catholic Church, and its truth, is a rock on which to build a worldview.”

  There was applause.

  Amelia politely joined in.

  “I’m not clapping for that,” I said.

  “Maggie,” gasped Minnie.

  “I shall join her protest,” Marianne said, placing her hands in her lap.

  Amelia dropped her hands in her lap.

  Minerva rolled her eyes, but also dropped her hands. And I knew instantly, I’d be up there on Monday morning arguing against this fellow.

  * * *

  The news spread across campus that I was to present my essay, “Women’s Rights,” in chapel next week, and the boys, following much of the male attitude, jeered at me wherever I walked.

  I was undeterred.

  I’d been beaten with overripe vegetables and spurned as spawn. If there was one thing I knew, besides how to do a load of washing, it was how to ignore a sneer. I added to these valuable skills the lesson I had learned in Principal Flack’s office: Be prepared.

  I found different places to sequester myself to practice my speech—in the library early in the morning, in the basement laundry room, and on my walks with Corey. Corey kept careful watch while I stood on a rock and declaimed for women.

  We’d stopped kissing altogether. And I’d spotted Corey on campus in the company of Kathryn Benson. We hadn’t spoken about it, but I was happy with the way things were turning out. Kathryn would take over in the career-talk and kissing areas, and Corey and I would be left as good friends. I’d filed this lesson away for a later date: Allow men to believe they’ve moved on from you, and you are left with a smooth path for retreat without having to deal with their emotions. I adored Claverack. I was learning so much here.

  * * *

  The night before my big speech I couldn’t seem to settle. Amelia brought me tea and told me jokes. Thank goodness Marianne was there to laugh at them, since none of them seemed able to penetrate the fog in my head.

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  “It’s snowing,” Amelia noted.

  “I love the snow.”

  Thomas would have snorted had he heard me say this. But I did love the snow. I also loved to complain about it. You can love something and still be annoyed by it. Ethel Higgins was proof of this.

  The dormitory door closed behind me. I trudged through the few inches of accumulation and out toward the road. It was cold, and the dry flakes collected in my eyelashes as I walked.

  Once I hit the road, I took a left, for no real reason.

  The only sound I heard was the crunching of my boots. I stopped walking so I could hear nothing. Closing my eyes, I could have been anywhere. I could have been standing out in front of the old barn by the tracks. But no. I couldn’t. Because it wouldn’t be so silent. Somebody would be wailing. Like Clio. He was always the loudest of us . . . so far.

  I opened my eyes and headed to the cemetery. I’d come to enjoy the company of a cemetery at night since the days of making myself visit Henry’s grave. Cemeteries made me feel insignificant enough to be brave.

  Struggling through the gate wedged shut by snow, I marched past rows of gravestones until I found a spot next to a group of pine trees. Using the sleeve of my overcoat to brush the snow off one of the monuments, I hopped up and took a seat.

  Night. Dark with snow. Among the dead. The perfect place to give my speech. They had nothing to lose by listening to it. No tomatoes to throw. No side to support.

  “What do you know about the dead, Margaret Higgins,” I whispered.

  I shimmied to my knees and then to my feet on top of the gravestone . . . and raised my voice for women’s rights.

  * * *

  The next morning, my attempt to grasp Utopia from the skies and plant it on earth did not go over well with the crowd at chapel. The room was thick with frowns and folded arms. And as the passionate words poured forth from my mouth, the audience didn’t loosen. Toward the end of my speech, I noticed the young man who had spoken about the truth of the Catholic Church last week sitting to my right. He was smirking. I pointed him out.

  “Here sits Mr. Weber, who delighted us last week with his truth. He told his truth, and many applauded. Because it is a truth many believe. And is this the measure of truth? When many agree? Let me challenge this with another truth many agree with. Things change. Truth changes. So perhaps I am not alone in my truth, but instead, standing at the edge of a new truth. If so . . . every word I’ve spoken this morning is true. Women should own and control their own property. Women should run their own businesses. Women should have the right to vote.” Women should be allowed to speak their thoughts without being smirked at. But I didn’t say this last one.

  I took what I felt was the right amount of time for a pause, and finished strong.

  “Women should be equals of men.”

  Tomatoes might not have flown, but applause was extremely light across the room, albeit exceedingly heavy from a small area of the chapel where even Minerva was breaking a few fingers for my cause.

  My heart swelled like an old woman’s feet on a hot day. But I needed to get myself, and my swollen heart, to geometry.

  “It couldn’t have gone better,” I crowed.

  “Well, the booing as you left wasn’t so wonderful,” Amelia pointed out.

  “And the boy who called you a—”

  Amelia put up her hand to quiet Minerva. “You don’t need to repeat it, Minnie. We all heard him.”

  “New Hampshire heard him,” Marianne mumbled.

  “I’ve tasted the fruit of knowledge,” I informed them.

  “We’re not reaching her,” Amelia said.

  “She’s too far gone,” agreed Marianne.

  “And we’re late for geometry,” Minnie moaned.

  “I am floating on a cloud of hope,” I chirped. “Hope for new beginnings. Hope for change.”

  “Hope for arriving to class on time,” Amelia sighed.

  “Wait. No.” I stopped and grabbed the arms of each of my dear friends. “Not hope. Hope, as you pointed out so eloquently, Amelia, warps over time. I am floating on a cloud of conviction.”

  Amelia grabbed my arm and began to drag me toward class.

  “I like it,” I said, allowing myself to be dragged. “It has alliteration. I might use it next week on my return to the pulpit.”

  The three of them groaned, which only served to make my heart sing louder. Because I saw now why Bob spoke through the rotten vegetables. He knew what he was saying was right and true. He believed in it. Standing in front of a crowd and offering up your soul was amazing. Even if they barked and bit at it. One day they wouldn’t. Because what I said was right and true. And right and true always rises. Eventually.

  “I won’t squander away my vision,” I confided to my friends as they carted me into class. “I shall care for it, with sweet, sweet vigilance.”

  My friends took theirs seats. I quickly pulled out my geometry notebook and wrote that last line down. It was good.

  Ten minutes into a lecture on perpendiculars and oblique line segments, which I had not been listening to at all, I received a note to see Principal Flack.

  Right away.

  Nowhere All Over Again

  I floated over to Principal Flack’s office on top of my cloud, refusing to climb down even if the principal was about to reprimand me for my speech. My thoughts soared even higher than the rest of me. I will not deign to tarnish my vision with an apology. The truth exists whether it is agreeable to you or not. I think as much as any student here at Claverack, male or female, and therefore I want as much as any student here. I will always think for myself, Principal Flack, always. And after each new righteous statement, I puffed up further and further, so by the time I knocked on Principal Flack’s off
ice door, my noble character was near to bursting out of me, and I rapped so hard, I startled myself.

  “Come in,” he called.

  I took a deep breath, and prepared to defend myself.

  “Margaret,” Principal Flack said, clearing his throat. Not Miss Higgins. I deflated immediately.

  “Please, take a seat.”

  He was sweating. Nervous. I sat. He didn’t.

  “Your speech at chapel was wonderful,” he said, in the same tone I used to tell Ethel how much I liked her cat drawings. I did like her cat drawings. They were nice. But she drew an awful lot of them, and I wasn’t that interested in cats.

  He cleared his throat again. Although I didn’t care what it was he couldn’t seem to say. Because I’d been so sure I had just shaken up the entire world with my speech, and in reality, I hadn’t even succeeded in stirring up Principal Flack.

  “Your tuition,” he said finally.

  “My . . . what?”

  By the time the second word had left my mouth, I fully understood. He spoke on. “The bursar . . .” Something about “a second term.” And, “nothing more anyone could do.”

  My heart beat too loudly to hear anything he was saying. All I heard was . . . Mary, Mary, Mary. Because . . . the Frohman school. Mary’s enthusiasm. Her single mindedness. She was grasping at her dream even as she knew mine was about to end.

  I slid back into Principal Flack’s chair and stared up into his kind and sweaty face. I was being kicked out of school. I would have to leave here. Leave Amelia, and botany, and the kitchen ladies. But my heart was breaking for Mary. She knew this was coming. And Nan. They both knew this was coming, and they didn’t tell me. I couldn’t imagine the pain Mary must have been in to not be able to take care of this when taking care of things was what she did best of all.

  And now I would need to leave. This dream, this adventure, this beginning . . . was over. Mary and Nan’s tremendous effort, my own tremendous effort, had come to nothing.

  “Please take your time in collecting your things. Don’t feel you need to leave us this afternoon. Say your good-byes in a proper way.” He hesitated. As if there was more he’d like to say. But the truth exists whether it is agreeable to you or not.

  “You’re a good student, Margaret Higgins.”