A Special Place for Women

by Laura Hankin

  Vy Larsson was an experimental mixed-media artist, a millennial Marina Abramovic. Her most attention-getting project to date was an art installation that had premiered about a year ago, inspired by menstrual huts. Vy had become fascinated by an article about how, in some cultures, women and girls continued to be sent away from the rest of the tribe when they were on their periods, made to stay in huts so that they didn’t “contaminate” everyone else. A few years back, a girl in Nepal had died in her menstrual hut because it was so cold, and she’d been sent out there without the proper provisions. She’d been only twelve years old.

  After reading about that girl, Vy had decided to “reclaim” menstrual huts, to change them from a place where women were shamed to a place that celebrated women on their periods. The installation consisted of two parts. The outer room, which anyone who had paid the entrance fee could access, featured a series of black-and-white photographs that Vy had taken of menstruating women. Some whirled in the midst of activity, balancing babies and binders of important documents. Others reclined with hot pads on their stomachs. But all of them looked into Vy’s camera with frank, challenging eyes. She’d even gotten a few well-known women to pose for her: a pro tennis player who bloodied her tennis whites, a sex symbol actress smearing blood all over her lusted-after legs.

  That part was attention-grabbing, sure, but it wasn’t the part of the installation that dominated the news, and then turned into a scandal. That was the second room. A door led to an inner sanctum, a “hut” containing . . . something. The press releases wouldn’t say what it was. And the only people allowed to enter this inner sanctum were women, nonbinary, or trans people on their periods. (Or at least people with uteri who said they were on their periods. No one was going to ask women to pull out their used tampons to prove anything.) Two young women guarded the door and asked anyone who wanted to go in if they were currently menstruating. Even Vy followed the rules. For a few hours a week, exceptions were made for older women who had already gone through menopause, for women who were pregnant or on forms of birth control that suppressed their cycles, and for transgender women, because Vy didn’t want to discriminate against those who had, as she put it, “felt the weight of oppression.”

  For a few weeks, it had been the most intriguing secret in town, with lines down the block. The women who were allowed inside reemerged blissed out, relaxed, a little giggly with their shared knowledge. And then a man had screwed it all up. Some asshole who had worked himself into an outrage over the way Vy’s exhibit discriminated against straight white men showed up at the door claiming to be transgender, insisting that he’d been born a woman but now presented as male. He told the women guarding the door that he was on his period, and that if they didn’t believe him, they were bigots. Once they let him into the inner sanctum, he took a recording on his phone and put it all on Reddit so that anyone could see.

  It wasn’t that special, really. Just a room covered in woven rugs and pillows, dark and smoky with incense, with a video installation projected onto all the walls. In the video, women of all shapes and sizes, dressed as various goddesses, danced on the screen, the colors turning vibrant, then fading, then becoming vibrant again. Meanwhile, a series of atonal, beautiful chants played, while “hut guides,” women who Vy had hired to keep an eye on things inside, passed out chocolate and cups of green tea. (People in New York went wild for any kind of free food and drink with their culture.) It was hypnotic, the kind of place where one could get a little trancey.

  The guy mocked it mercilessly, encouraging other men to try the same trick. Vy had to shut down the inner sanctum sooner than planned because dudes kept showing up at the door, demanding to be let in.

  But there was a story in the New York Post, a month or so later, about how the guy had woken up one morning to find his house in New Jersey covered as if it had been TP’d, but not with toilet paper. With tampons and menstrual pads, all heavily used. The police hadn’t been able to prove who had left them there.

  Now I made my way over to Vy. “Seeing anything interesting?” I asked her. She looked down at me—I was tall, but she seemed somehow much taller—and didn’t say anything. “You know, from watching the party?”

  “No,” she said. “But I am smelling things.”

  Okay, I thought. “Mm, yeah,” I said. “Love smelling stuff. Flowers . . . tuna fish. Underrated sense, I always say.”

  She looked at me, her face inscrutable, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose. “You’re a very nervous person, aren’t you?”

  “What? No, I—”

  She opened her eyes again and locked them on mine. “Yes, like a seagull gliding along the surface of the waves, afraid to plunge into the depths.”

  “Well,” I said. “If a seagull flew into the depths of the ocean, it would drown.”

  “Hmm,” she said, still staring at me. One pale eyebrow inched up her forehead, then back down. Abruptly she turned and walked away. I certainly hoped she wasn’t a member of the club.

  I downed my glass of champagne and got started on a second. The idea of inserting myself into one of the groups of people I didn’t know felt more and more impossible with each passing minute. I spotted Raf sitting on a couch next to Margot, talking animatedly to her as she twirled her hair around her finger. Dammit, he was totally going to fall in love with her. There was one part of the plan ruined.

  Who was I kidding, though? How the hell were a fake relationship and a fake novel supposed to get any of these women interested in someone like me? I didn’t belong in a club with them, and they could smell it. (In Vy’s case, apparently, literally.) I drained my second glass of champagne. I needed to get out of the pulsing swirl of laughter and meaningless talk before it suffocated me. I ducked into a hallway, then leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I could just go home. I could get into my bed, and eat a pint of ice cream, and hate myself in the comfort of my childhood bedroom.

  A woman’s voice, high and reedy, intruded on my thoughts, coming down the hallway toward me. “Well, you think about it,” the voice said, efficient. “Because you would be incredible.”

  I opened my eyes to see Caroline Thompson pacing back and forth, talking into her phone. She shot me an apologetic look for intruding on my privacy. I waved it off. “Okay, get some sleep. I promise you it will all seem clearer in the morning.” She hung up and let out a sigh. “The work never ends, does it?”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, my heart starting to boom at this potential stroke of luck. “Sometimes you’ve just got to sneak off into a hallway and get it done. Truly any space can become your office if you have the right mind-set.”

  She let out a polite laugh. “Totally. I’m Caroline.” Up close, her face—her reddish coloring, her small nose against her full cheeks—made me think of a chipmunk.

  “Jillian,” I said, and shook her tiny, outstretched hand. Her nails were painted a sensible pale pink. Surprising that she could lift her arm at all, given the size of her engagement ring.

  “What do you sneak into hallways for?” she asked me.

  “I’m a novelist,” I said. “So really, at the most random moments I’ll have a flash of inspiration—or what feels like a flash of inspiration—and have to go think it over.”

  “Wow, novels,” she said. “I admire people who can do that so much. I need a schedule, coworkers. And calendars! Don’t get me started on how much I love calendars.” She spoke like someone who had been the star of her high school debate team, quick and clear.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I have to force myself to a coffee shop every morning to work, and pretend the baristas are holding me accountable.”

  “What’s your coffee shop of choice?” She focused on me as if she were making her way down a line of voters, determined to spend one to two quality minutes with each one. And yet somehow she gave me the feeling that she was asking these questions only because
she was supposed to, and as soon as she had checked off Interact Pleasantly with This Person from her to-do list, she would move on without a second thought. Maybe it was the almost imperceptible drumming of her fingers against her thigh, the studied brightness of her smile.

  “Well, if you’re ever in Park Slope, it’s called BitterSweet, and it’s the best. I milk that free Wi-Fi all day.” Back when I lived in Park Slope, like a normal twentysomething with roommates, it had been my favorite place to stop each morning on my way to work. And ever since Quill shut down, I’d been spending a lot of time there. It got me out of the house, gave me a commute so that I could trick myself into feeling like I still had my job.

  “BitterSweet,” she repeated. “I’ll have to check it out.” Her eyes flitted back in the direction of the party. I couldn’t lose her, not yet.

  “What’s your current work emergency?” I blurted.

  “Mine?” she asked, a bit surprised by my interest. “I’m trying to convince this woman to run for office, and she keeps waffling. She’s a perfect candidate—great credentials, fantastic ideas, incredible backstory—but she’s afraid of . . .” She paused. “She’s afraid to just go for what she wants.”

  “That’s infuriating,” I said. Caroline nodded, slipping the back part of her foot out of her heels, as if she were trying to prevent a blister. I glanced down. There, on the back of her heel: a small, delicate tattoo of a dark bird in flight. Holy shit. It was the same one Margot had.

  “I know,” Caroline was saying. “And honestly, I hate to say it, but it’s a problem I run into with women all the time.”

  I yanked my eyes away from her foot. Maybe they’re afraid because they saw what happened to the last woman you picked, I thought, while saying, “It makes sense. We’ve been taught not to ask for things, so we don’t seem too greedy or ambitious. All that subtle social conditioning will keep you down.”

  “Exactly. No wonder true equality still is nowhere in sight. It’s just like, ugh!” She shook her fist at the sky. “Ask for what you want, ladies!”

  “It’s tough, though, because it’s a legit fear,” I said. “Everyone else has been socially conditioned too, right? So sometimes when a woman does stand up for herself, everyone around her is like, Wow, what a bitch.”

  Caroline nodded very seriously at me. “You’re so right. I have to check my own biases all the time. I never want to be the kind of person who penalizes a woman for speaking up.”

  Maybe it was the champagne kicking in, making me brazen. But suddenly I knew exactly what to do. “I want to get better at asking for what I want,” I said.

  “Yes!” she said with such enthusiasm that I half expected her to shout, You go girl! and then tell me that I should run for office.

  I squared my shoulders. “Like, hypothetically speaking, if I knew I could be an excellent addition to an exclusive club, and then I met a member, the bold, feminist thing to do would simply be to ask them if I could join. Right?”

  Caroline’s encouraging smile froze, and she grew very still. Something shifted in her eyes. “Hypothetically speaking,” she said, her tone still light, “I guess so.”

  “And like you just said,” I continued breezily, “if that member were truly an advocate for women, she wouldn’t penalize me for it. She would recognize that it was admirable, the right thing for a liberated woman to do.”

  “Mm, that would all be very progressive,” she said, then glanced down at her phone in her hand as if it had just buzzed, although the screen hadn’t lit up. “Oh, excuse me. I have to—” She waved the phone in the air. “It was very interesting talking to you.” Then she turned and walked back into the party, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors.

  I exhaled, trembling, wholly uncertain whether I had just gained entry or ruined my chances forever.

  “There you are,” Raf said, poking his head into the hallway. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “You seemed occupied,” I said. “What were you and Margot talking about for so long?”

  He stared at me like I was an idiot. “You, obviously,” he said. “I’ve got to pee, and then I need to get out of here. I’m exhausted. Want to head out together? Do what you needed to do?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “So sure, I’ll meet you by the door.”

  I went back into the party, toward the couch where I’d left my jacket. As I grabbed it, I felt a touch on my arm. Margot.

  “Leaving so soon?” she asked.

  “Yeah, long day for Raf,” I said.

  “He’s been talking about you all night,” she said, studying me. “You’ve really bewitched him, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that—”

  “No, I mean it. He loves you. I can tell.” Together, we watched as Raf emerged from the hallway and headed toward us, smiling at me uncertainly.

  “He’s a good guy,” I said.

  “Well, I’ll let you lovebirds go. Sorry you and I didn’t get to talk more. Congratulations on the novel. I can’t wait to read it.” She flitted off, disappearing back into the crowd, melting into the revelry where she belonged as Raf reached my side.

  But as we left, I looked back at the party one more time. Caroline was saying something to Margot and Vy. Then, all three of them turned and watched as Raf and I walked out the door.

  SEVEN

  Two days went by where I didn’t hear anything. I became convinced that my conversation with Caroline had been a huge blunder, that my name now existed on a blacklist and no woman from reputable society would ever associate with me again. I was Hester Prynne. Typhoid Mary. The old slutty cat from Cats, but without the vocal chops to belt out “Memory” and make everyone accept me.

  On Sunday morning, I went for a long swim at the YMCA and then dragged myself to BitterSweet for a coffee. I ordered from a barista I had never seen before. When she gave me the mug, she also handed me a plate with a ginger molasses cookie on a napkin. “They gave us extras in the shipment,” she said. “So here, on the house.”

  “Awesome, thanks,” I said, and she shrugged, then turned back to the espresso machine.

  I took the coffee and the cookie back to my seat and nibbled slowly. Miles had texted me that morning at eight thirty: Beckley! Progress report? On a Sunday, when he wasn’t even at work. Despite himself, he was getting excited about the article, just in time for me to disappoint him.

  I racked my brain for alternate plans, maybe involving Raf reaching out to Margot and setting up a time for us all to have dinner at the restaurant together. But I knew that wouldn’t work. If my move at the party had backfired, a meal with Margot wasn’t going to change anything. Maybe it was safer to go back to the drawing board and think of other pitches, so that at least I could offer Miles something to lessen the blow.

  Screw nibbling. It was time to hard-core eat my feelings. I shoved the entire rest of the cookie in my mouth, then went to wipe my hand on the napkin it had come on. I paused, my hand in midair. Someone had written a message on the napkin in small, delicate cursive: Tuesday, 8 pm, meet on the corner of Perry and Greenwich. The password is Persist.

  I looked up quickly, searching for the barista who had given me the plate. She wasn’t behind the counter anymore.

  Jangling with excitement and nerves, I stared down at the napkin again. Then I pulled up Miles’s text, typed out a response, and pressed send.

  I’m in.

  EIGHT

  On Tuesday night, as the dusk turned to darkness, I stood on the corner of Perry and Greenwich and waited. The whole way over, I’d listened to pump-up girl rock, Le Tigre and Joan Jett pounding in my ears as I power walked the streets of the West Village, passing the crowds at the ice cream shops and bars on West 4th, heading toward the river, the pedestrians thinning the farther west I went. At the corner, I attempted to act casual, pulling out a copy of a Gertrude Stein book, reading the same paragrap
h over and over again without registering any of it. Every person who passed made my hands tremble in anticipation. They all walked right by me and carried on with their nights, paying me no mind.

  I could pull this off. I was the hero of an action movie, the guy you knew was going to be okay no matter how many helicopters he jumped out of and burning buildings he dashed into. You’re Tom Cruise, bitch, I said to myself. In terms of Mission: Impossible, not the Scientology.

  A woman turned onto the block, heading my way. Something about her registered as familiar—the tilt of her head, the way she absentmindedly fiddled with her watch, the length of her hair. I knew the shape of her. The uncanny sense grew as she closed in, her face shadowy in the streetlight’s glow: she was my mother. My breath quickened. She was half a block away now, and I wanted to run to her but I was frozen in place, like one of those dreams where you can’t move your stupid feet, and I wanted to call out but my voice lodged in my throat. Vanilla, my mother’s scent, hung in the air. (I’d given her some cheap bottle of vanilla perfume for Christmas one year when I was little. She was a grown woman and probably hadn’t wanted to walk around smelling like cookies, but she’d worn it ever since.) She came closer, closer still, and the light of a passing car illuminated her face, and she wasn’t my mother at all, just a fiftysomething brunette with a completely different nose and mouth. As she passed by me on her way to who-knew-where, her distracted eyes landed on me for a fraction of a second. Then they flickered onto something else, because we were total strangers.