Lunatic Fringe

by Allison Moon

  “Alright, hands down. Let’s look at a definition for a moment,” Whitmeyer continued. She clicked her mouse to progress a slide show projected at the front of the room, casting a sickly-green glow on the faces of the students. On it was an excerpt from Webster’s Dictionary. It read feminism n. (1895) 1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.

  Whitmeyer tapped her index finger beneath the work “equality” as she spoke. “Everyone got that?” she asked, eliciting nods from the class.

  “Notice this word. What is equality? Is it equal opportunity? Equal pay? Equal social standing? How do we know when we achieve it? How do we know we haven’t yet achieved it? What are the hindrances any individual or community encounters in pursuit of equality, how do we recognize them, and how do we defeat them? Is it even possible or advantageous to society for everyone to achieve equality?

  “This semester we’ll explore equality and what it will take for our society to embrace this concept fully, proudly, and passionately.

  “Now, for you skeptics in the class, please note that this is the only definition. There is no number two: Must hate men. Nor number three: The lack of a sense of humor,” she said, earning more laughs from the class.

  “Now, using this definition as your only basis here, not radio shock jocks, not faux news correspondents, not your dads, your uncles, or even your mothers--How many of you are feminists?”

  Each hand in the class raised, some eager, some tentative, but they all went up. Even Lexie’s.

  “Yes you are,” Whitmeyer concluded. “Just by being here in this room, seeking to expand your understanding of the world and develop an open and critical mind about social status-quo, you are performing a feminist act. And in these next four months, we’re going to find out why that matters.”

  The sun was hot and the sky clear as Lexie walked out of the Sociology building and headed for the student union to check her email and grab a cup of coffee. Behind her, she heard Duane’s familiar voice, now attempting to charm two new girls from class, the polka-dot dress wearer and her friend.

  “Well, it still is a controversial term to many people,” he said, though he kept his voice down, as if gauging the acceptance of the women who flanked him.

  “That’s because many people are idiots,” the brunette responded in a chipper cadence.

  “Or ignorant,” the other girl concluded with a shrug.

  The brunette continued, “I blame the media.”

  “No, it’s the politicians,” her friend opined. “Men who are so threatened by equality they’ll vilify the word rather than fight us with facts.”

  “I don’t think it’s just men, though,” Duane interjected. “I mean look at all the women in the class who were skeeved out by the word.”

  “But it is the men,” the brunette insisted. “They’re the ones who taught women to fear the word. They’re the ones who’ve removed the word ‘equality’ from the definition and pretended it was something else. The status quo hates feminism because it fights for the rights all minority groups, not just women. None of us, including you, would even be getting an education without the work of feminists.”

  Duane nodded. “Trust me, I get it. Powerful women control my life,” he chuckled. It was the kind of light joke that men usually groaned at and laughed along with. The girls he walked with, however, just looked at him blankly.

  “Listen, anyone who can’t see the symbiosis between the civil rights movement and feminism is blind, stupid, or Republican,” Duane said, struggling to salvage the tenuous camaraderie. An awkward silence fell on the three momentarily. Lexie considered it her chance to break ahead and disappear into the quad.

  “That’s redundant,” Hazel said, knocking him the shoulder. The three laughed and started once again on their walk, closing in. Lexie quickened her pace, nearly jogging, her books tucked tightly under her arm. It was too late, though, as she heard Duane shout from behind her, “Hey, Lexie!”

  She bit her lip as the three caught up with her. The spunky, darker one threw elevator eyes from behind her huge plastic sunglasses, then draped her arm around her companion’s waist. She looked like a miniature version of an old-fashioned pinup girl. Her friend wore a beatific smile, angelic curls bobbing against her cheeks.

  “You running late?” Duane asked. Lexie looked into his eyes, then glanced away. She felt like a trapped animal, desperate for a burrow, a shrub, or a stone beneath which to crawl.

  “I didn’t know you were going to be in this class,” Duane continued.

  “Yeah, well. Lots to learn,” Lexie said.

  “No kidding,” the brunette said, rocking back and forth on her heels.

  “Why are you in it?” she asked Duane, trying to ignore the curious gazes of the women standing next to him.

  “Like you, lots to learn. Way better than learning about the world through a series of wars and genocides. Plus, I’ve been considering gynecology as a backup, so this’ll be a good education for me.”

  “Like a mechanic that doesn’t own a car,” the one with the curls joked, enough under her breath to indicate at least partial conviction.

  “No ma’am, more like a piano virtuoso cursed with deafness,” he said with mocking self-pity. The pin-up cracked her gum, ignoring Duane’s paltry attempts at charm.

  “You’re Lexie?” the sweet-faced one asked, her perfect white teeth glinting in the sun.

  Lexie froze like a startled squirrel.

  “You know her?” Duane asked.

  She continued, ignoring Duane. “Blythe told us she met you last week.”

  “How do you guys know each other?” the pin-up asked Lexie.

  “We went to high school together in Wolf Creek,” Duane answered.

  Lexie smoothed her hand over her hair, trying create some order out of the uncombed mess. Her migraine had swelled to the edges of her eyes. She hated being compared to Duane. Her averageness was only magnified by Duane’s perfection, and she feared these two girls would make assumptions about her based on Duane’s charisma. She shifted her weight as the girls gave her the once-over.

  “I’m Jenna.” The angelic girl placed an open palm on her chest, bare and freckled where it peeked out of the scooped neckline of her cotton tunic. Her skin was the color of birch, her eyes a yellow-tinged blue.

  “I’m Hazel,” the pin-up said, before blowing a bubble with her gum. Lexie wondered if Hazel’s eyes were, indeed, hazel, but couldn’t tell, as the giant sunglasses swallowed up the whole of her small face except for her berry-stained lips, and clear, pale forehead.

  “You’re coming to the brunch, then?” Jenna asked, a brightness in her eyes that indicated either genuine loveliness or high-grade pharmaceuticals.

  After enough silence dangled from that question to make everyone uncomfortable, Hazel chimed in irreverently, “Oh my god, you’re so shy.”

  Lexie spoke louder than necessary, “I’m not shy.” Out of a need to disprove the accusation, she continued the conversation. “Will you be there?”

  “Yeah, of course. We all will. We’re a family,” Jenna nodded earnestly. Bounce, bounce went the curls.

  Family? Lexie thought. What an odd way to refer to friends. Terrifying. Exciting.

  “Come to the brunch. You’ll meet the rest,” Jenna said, nodding and bouncing.

  “The rest of what?” Lexie asked.

  “The Pack,” Jenna said, tilting her head. “You did meet Blythe, right?” Her forehead was scrunched up with authentic concern.

  Lexie stumbled to answer, “Yeah, sure. She and her, uh, Mitch, helped me move in last week.”

  “She invited you over, yeah?” Jenna said a bit too slow, as if struggling to communicate with a non-English speaker.

  “Brunch. Saturday.” Lexie tried to prove she wasn’t as stupid as she suddenly felt.

  Hazel chimed in, “We’re the Pack, and we call our house the Den. I think it’s bullshit tribal jingoism, but whatever.”

  “Hazel,” Je
nna scolded, but Hazel dismissed the reprimand with a puff of air and a flick of her hand.

  Duane laughed. “A pack of hyenas?”

  The girls bristled. Lexie noticed. Duane didn’t.

  “Alright, enough of you,” Hazel said.

  Hazel zeroed-in on Lexie’s increasing discomfort. “Don’t worry, you’ve already met half of us. There are only three left, and they’re kittens.”

  Lexie was surprised at her relief. “Oh,” she said and then after a moment, “Sure.”

  “Excellent,” Jenna’s smile widened. Hazel clapped twice and did a small jump. She threw her slender arms around Lexie.

  “That sounds like fun,” Duane said.

  “You’re not invited.” Hazel released Lexie, and her demeanor chilled, like a waitress at the end of a long shift.

  “What if I’m gender non-conforming?” Duane asked.

  “Nice try, frat boy,” Jenna said.

  “I’m sorry for my dumb comment. Hyenas are matriarchal and--”

  “Whatever,” Hazel said. “I’m over it.”

  “Come on, Lexie. We’ll walk you to the cafe.” Jenna put her arm around Lexie’s shoulders as they left Duane on his way.

  So this is what it’s like to be chosen, Lexie thought as she walked with the women away from Duane. This is what I asked for. This is what I hoped for, she repeated like a mantra. It felt more like a death knell signaling her doom. If she could take it back, she would run back to her father’s house, get a job at a diner, and call it a life. But she’d been swept away in a river of expectations and ideals, and she was faced with the classic evolutionary dilemma: adapt or die.

  Chapter 4

  Blythe’s house was on the western edge of campus, just beyond the library and dining halls. The cornflower-blue sky bid Lexie to leave her truck at the dorm and walk. After five days of unrelenting stimuli, she had finally managed to catch up on sleep, despite the bedlam in the hallway outside her room the night prior. The students had wasted no time in taking full advantage of their newfound freedom, partying with kegs and blaring music. Throughout the evening, revelry clanged throughout the campus, a celebration of the freedom that would soon become shackles, tying students to their books, schedules, and reputations for the next nine months.

  Lexie’s dormmates had made sculptures with handfuls of the free condoms given out by the Safer Sex Center, filling them with water, blowing them up like balloons and tying them in strange configurations. In their packages they looked fun and lively, like latex lollipops. Released from their wrappings, they became pathetic creatures whose natural habitats were, indeed, where one was often likely to find them, like parking lots or littered gutters. In the lobby, students had spent the whole night playing a spirited game of Truth or Dare, compelling many of the dared to run naked across the lawn outside Lexie’s window. Lexie had received invitations to these parties, as well as a few tamer snack-and-chat nights, but in spite of the resolution she’d made just days before, she only smiled a “maybe later” to them all.

  As she made her way through the patch of carefully cultivated trees in the town square, a familiar chill stirred her shirttails and wafted up the cuffs of her jeans. It was around this time ten years ago that her mother started staying away from the house for longer and longer periods of time. Though Summer would often not come home at night and be gone for days at a stretch, without a word to anyone, Lexie’s parents never fought about it. Lexie recalled those disconcerting nights when she’d be tucked into bed by her sweet-faced, raven-haired mother, only to hear a series of doors squeak open and closed: bedrooms, cabinets, the hall closet to retrieve a coat, and finally, the front door. The sounds heralded her mother’s disappearance for yet another night. Her father never protested; he had always been a man of few words, even back when he was happy.

  After the elusive Summer Pace had finally left for good, Lexie spent months blaming her father for not making her mother stay. She knew it wasn’t his fault even then, but she couldn’t help but wish for him to unbridle himself from his classical masculine restraint and become the kind of man who fought for what was his. Though Summer never belonged to him, Lexie would have liked to believe that her mother belonged to her, and that Lexie was worth fighting for, or at least sticking around for.

  Turning the corner onto Umpqua Road, Lexie spotted the massive Victorian house that belonged to the Pack. Or rather, she heard it: laughter, conversation and music stacked in layers on top of one another, like hastily shuffled cards. As she approached the house, she saw that it edged up onto the forest. Between the deck and the tree line, a couple dozen women milled about on the grass, lounged in lawn chairs, and picked over folding tables that held platters of food.

  Sunshine filtered through towering storm clouds, shaped and reshaped by an autumnal breeze. A fire pit sat at the far edge of the lawn, the A-frame of fresh, dry logs waiting for dusk and their chance to shine. Beyond the pit, a worn path led into the woods. Lexie scanned the crowd for familiar faces until she spotted Mitch manning--womaning?--the barbecue. Her dimples flashed as she flipped burgers and spun spatulas like a juggler in a gustatory vaudeville act.

  A warm hand enveloped Lexie’s shoulder from behind. Blythe smiled as she leaned forward, icicles of blond hair falling softly against the frames of her glasses. The lenses glinted in the storm-filtered sunlight.

  “Lexie, I’m glad you came.” Blythe reached around her chest for a hug. Blythe’s beer, cold and wet, skimmed Lexie’s arm as she pulled away.

  “I’ll introduce you around,” Blythe said, looking along Lexie’s gaze to the groupings of women dotted across the lawn. “But first, what do you want to drink?”

  Lexie pointed at the beer bottle that had pressed cold against her skin. “That works for me.” Blythe gave her shoulder a squeeze of acknowledgement and strode off into the crowd.

  With Blythe distracted, Lexie resumed her scan of the faces at the party. Hazel, wearing nothing but a smile, bounced in a steaming hot tub, dazzling the two blushing, swimsuit-clad freshmen with her. Mitch flirted with a pretty brunette who held an empty plate at the barbecue. All through the yard, girls lounged, eating food from each other’s plates and laughing. Looking at all these women, Lexie was astonished to realize that there were no men there at all. Lexie hadn’t been expecting, nor hoping, to meet men, but she had never been in a space without male presence, either real or implied. None of the conversations she overheard involved boyfriends or male crushes; no one even referenced male professors, even in dry complaint. There was a significant lack of regard for, or even attention to, malekind. Lexie wondered if this was by design, or if it was just a natural side effect of having so many women in one space. Out of sight, out of mind, she guessed.

  How strange that, in all her eighteen years on the planet, she had never been among a group of people in which there wasn’t at least one man. Well, there were public restrooms, of course, but that was circumstantial and so fleeting as to be meaningless. Having a single father didn’t help. Lexie had been raised in a world in which men were everywhere, their presence nearly inescapable, while nearly devoid of the presence of women. She had never been invited to a slumber party-- though she would have invented an excuse to say no even if she had been; there weren’t even locker rooms in her high school. Where she came from, women did not lead book clubs or athletic teams, stage all-female versions of Hamlet, or organize all-women’s canoeing trips. She was never even a Girl Scout, a fact she took pride in: her father had taught her to be a better outdoorsman than those cookie-hockers ever would, merit badges be damned.

  “Hey there.” Lexie turned. A tall woman held a celery stick like a cigarette. She nibbled at the ends as she spoke, her voice low and even, as though she had plenty of time to kill.

  Lexie choked on a response. Her jaw seized and her eyes froze for a long moment, unable or unwilling to remove themselves from the woman before her. Never before had Lexie seen a woman who looked like her. She wore her hair in a fluffy corona, a ha
lo of soft black suds held back from her broad forehead with an eggplant-colored wrap. Her skin was the color of walnut heartwood, with flecks of darker freckles sprayed across the bridge of her nose. She stood a head taller than Lexie, all smooth swishes and spindly appendages indicating a normal-shaped girl who had been stretched. Her rib cage dipped into a narrow waist, then flared out to full and sturdy hips that made the girl look like a sexy teaspoon. The woman’s full, tawny lips spread into a smile as Lexie gaped.

  “Hey,” Lexie blurted, relaxing onto one hip in a failed attempt at insouciance.

  “You alright?” The girl spoke slow and easy, a hint of bemusement in her voice.

  “Oh, yeah. My mind was just . . . wandering,” Lexie said, meeting her eyes.

  The girl squinted at her. “I’m Renee. Bloody Mary?” She held her drink out as a means of advertisement.

  “Blythe was just getting me a beer . . .” Lexie started, but when she turned toward the house, she noticed Blythe holding court with a group of girls who had short-stopped her on the way to the kitchen. Brief snippets of their conversation--something about the politics of pornography--drifted over to them.

  “Oh. Well. A Bloody Mary sounds great.”

  Renee led the way inside. The front and back doors of the house were both wide open, allowing swirls of fresh air to dance their way through the main room. A pillar of red plastic cups balanced high on the kitchen counter. Renee went to work cracking ice, pouring vodka, and shucking celery. Her arms flexed, slim and strong. Lexie leaned against the counter, admiring Renee’s lithe hands working at their tasks.

  “So, you got a girlfriend?” Renee asked, not looking up from the Worcester sauce--which was the same deep brown as her eyes--as she silently counted the drops that fell into the glass. Lexie studied the spout of the bottle as each tiny drop eked out, certain that as the next drop fell, the right response would pour from her lips as well. But the last drop was stubborn and Lexie’s voice, too, stuck in her throat.