The Princesses of Iowa

by M. Molly Backes

Halfway through first period, the PA interrupted Mr. Silva’s endless drone. “Excuse the interruption, Mr. Silva,” the voice said. As always, everyone turned to look at the speaker box.

  “YES?” Mr. Silva shouted. He didn’t trust technology.

  “Is Paige Sheridan in class?”

  Twenty heads swiveled to look at me. Lacey gave me a huge, delighted smile. “YES!” Mr. Silva shouted.

  “Could you please send her down to the office?”

  “NO PROBLEM,” Mr. Silva yelled, and gestured to me, then to the door. I gathered up my books and hurried through the class’s stares and whispers into the silent hallway.

  In the office they were ready for me. “Go right in,” the secretary said, sounding sympathetic. I clutched my books to my chest and stepped hesitantly into Dr. Coulter’s office.

  “Paige,” he said, “come right in! Have a seat!”

  There were two chairs in front of the principal’s desk. Coach Ahrens was already sitting in one; I took the other. My mind was running through a thousand possible reasons I could be here. Just a homecoming thing, I told myself. Princess business. But of course I knew Coach wouldn’t be there on princess business, and my heart pounded in my throat.

  “It has, uh, come to our attention,” Dr. Coulter began, “uh, events on Friday night . . .”

  Oh God, the fight at the bonfire! Were they going to kick Jake off the team? “Nothing happened!”

  Dr. Coulter blinked. “Well, uh, we’ve had reports of an altercation between Jacob Austin and —”

  “Nothing happened,” I said again. Fighting fell under the zero-tolerance policy; if Jake got dinged on both drinking and fighting, he’d be off the team for the rest of the year. His dad would kill him. “They were just messing around. You know how boys are.”

  “Uh . . . huh. Well, we have various, uh, reports about the bonfire . . .”

  “Seriously, it was nothing.” I tried my best to find the innocent princess face that Lacey always used in order to get Dr. Coulter to do whatever she asked. “There was a misunderstanding but it was fine.”

  The principal looked at Coach Ahrens. “Okay, so what about afterward? There was a party. Was there drinking?”

  “Oh! No.” I laughed nervously. “I mean, maybe a few theater kids or something were drinking, you know, but no student athletes or members of court. We value our . . . school . . . too much. To drink.”

  Dr. Coulter smiled at me. “What about after the party? Where did you go after that?”

  Flashes of thunder and rain. Running, stumbling. Losing Jake. Losing everything.

  “Home?” I asked, and then decided. “I went home.”

  “With Jacob?”

  “No, I walked. Jake, um, wanted to get home early to rest up for the big week, you know. Homecoming.”

  “So you weren’t with Jake outside the school on Friday night.”

  “I — oh.” What were they asking? Had we been outside the school? I had a sudden memory of Jake punching someone. Ethan? But he’d seemed fine later . . . hadn’t he? I shook my head. “No.”

  Dr. Coulter leaned across his desk. “You didn’t see Jake, uh, attack anyone?”

  “What? No.”

  Coach Ahrens asked, “Did you see anyone attack Jake?”

  “No!”

  They looked at each other and sighed. “All right, Miss Sheridan, you may be excused. But, please, uh, feel free to come back if you, uh, remember anything.”

  “Sure.” I clutched my books to my chest again and stood. “Jake’s a good person.”

  Dr. Coulter coughed. “Thank you, Paige.”

  I hurried out into the empty hallways, keeping my eyes on the dirty linoleum tiles, not looking at Mr. Tremont’s door as I passed it. Somehow I found my way to the library, where I fell into a corner chair and stared at the wall, trying not to ask myself the obvious questions. What was that all about? What happened Friday night? My memories were hazy and full of gaping holes. I didn’t want to remember. I didn’t want to know anything about it. I wanted to start the weekend over, maybe the whole year.

  And poor Mr. Tremont. I hated to think about his reaction when he walked in this morning. Fucking Willow Grove! My throat tightened. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Ethan walk into the library. At least, I assumed it was him because the moment he saw me, he turned and walked out again. Awesome. I rubbed the flats of my hands across my face.

  “Rough day?” Mr. Tremont asked, easing himself into the chair next to me.

  I couldn’t look at him, didn’t trust myself to talk. “Mm-hmm.”

  “Me too.” He sighed. “I guess I had the naive idea that things had gotten better since I was in high school.”

  “No,” I whispered. “It’s still terrible.”

  I sensed he was smiling in that way of his, as if he had some inside joke with himself that he wouldn’t mind sharing, if anyone asked. “The good thing is that it will give you something to write your sitcom pilot about.”

  I had to laugh. Any sitcom about my life would be set in hell.

  “Use it, Paige,” Mr. Tremont said. “Use it all. The pain and the anger and the stupid, shallow absurdity of it all. Use it. Write from anger, from love, to get revenge, to win dates, whatever. Just write.”

  He had the strange ability to say exactly the words that you needed to hear. “Mr. Tremont?” I looked up at him and gasped. His left eye was swollen and puffy, and there was a ring of dark red and purple around it, like an angry moon.

  He smiled at me, just like the first day among his plants and his writing secrets, like nothing had happened. “Yes?”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. Images flashed before me: Jake’s hands under my skirt. Mr. Tremont pulling him away. Jake swinging his fist. “It was you! I mean, Jake punched you! I’m so sorry.”

  Mr. Tremont shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Um,” I stumbled. I thought about apologizing for the day, the week, for talking him into chaperoning, for not protecting him from Jake. I thought about what Shanti would say if she were here, or Ethan, or Jeremy.

  “On behalf of the senior class of Willow Grove High, I’d like to apologize for the a-holes and d-bags.” I gave him a tiny smile, the most I could manage.

  Mr. Tremont laughed. “Thanks, Paige. That actually means a lot.” The morning sun spilled through the skylights above us, illuminating small patches of bookshelf here and there. Mr. Tremont laughed again. “A-holes and d-bags. Padma will love that.”

  I managed to avoid any encounters with the enemies I called friends, or vice versa, all morning. In trig, Nikki was too busy passing notes and making googly eyes at Marcus Truman to notice anything else. He grabbed her after the bell, ushering her out the door ahead of him. Lacey stalked past me in the halls like I didn’t exist. Jake — well, I couldn’t even think about Jake without feeling like I was about to implode, taking everything down with me as I fell.

  I threw myself into my classes, diligently taking notes all morning and spending my lunch hour in the library, poring over an article for my physics project, thinking perhaps that if I could regain perfection in one area of my life, the rest would fall into line. By the time I emerged for my afternoon classes, the janitors had cleaned Mr. Tremont’s door and the gossip had died down.

  Shanti caught me before creative writing, snaking her arm through mine and holding me against her as we walked through the crowded halls. I braced myself for her anger, for choosing Jake over Ethan, for letting things go so far at the bonfire. She would lecture me. I actually cringed, waiting for the attack.

  It didn’t come. When she spoke, she just sounded sad. “You picked Jake.” It was half question, half verdict. We stopped in the hallway and let students flow around us. I couldn’t look at her.

  “Oh, Paige.” Her voice nearly broke my heart.

  There was nothing for me to say.

  I left her to wait for Ethan while I hid myself in the back of the room, between Elizabeth and Jenna. “You okay?” Jenn
a asked.

  I shrugged. “Monday.” Liar.

  She studied me a second. “You know, Mr. Tremont would say to use it.” I had to smile. She didn’t know how right she was.

  “It feeds the muse,” Elizabeth added. “Not to eavesdrop or anything.” I nodded absently.

  Jeremy walked in. The moment I saw him I remembered that I’d never apologized to him. At least, I was pretty sure I hadn’t. A loud movie briefly played in my head. Leaping flames, loud music, and drunk Paige, yelling something about how everyone hates gays. God, I was such a bitch! I closed my eyes and dropped my head into my folded arms. I was practically as bad as whoever tagged the door.

  Shanti and Ethan walked in with Mr. Tremont a second after the bell. Mr. Tremont quickly checked attendance while everyone got settled. There were gasps from the people who hadn’t seen him yet, hurried conversations in whispers and passed notes: What happened? I heard . . .

  Mr. Tremont clapped his hands to bring us together. “Okay, folks, let’s get started.”

  The editor of the school’s literary journal, Alison Conforti, along with a senior named Jessica Hudson, and Jenna were all up for workshop that day. “I’m nervous,” Jenna admitted.

  Elizabeth reached across my desk to squeeze Jenna’s hand reassuringly. “You’ll be great.” Her gesture caught me by surprise. I hadn’t known that they were friends. Then again, there was just something about this class that made people act different, better. Mr. Tremont’s classroom was the truest place I’d found in four years of high school, and looking around the room, I saw that it was the same for my classmates. No wonder we sometimes felt like a family.

  “I’m sure you all have some feelings about, or reactions to, the message on my door,” Mr. Tremont said. The class looked around at one another, nodding seriously. Shanti’s eyes flashed with anger. Jeremy stared down at his desk. I accidentally looked at Ethan, and he turned his head quickly to avoid my gaze.

  Mr. Tremont smiled. “Use it.” Jenna turned and grinned at me. I managed to grin back.

  We started with Jenna’s piece, a personal narrative about tutoring kids in Minneapolis over the summer. Her writing was vivid, full of colorful and surprising word combinations. “There’s something really painterly about her use of language,” Elizabeth said. “This writing reminds me of Frank O’Hara, his poems about New York.” The group murmured its agreement, and Jenna smiled to herself, dark roses on her cheeks.

  I was so deeply involved in the analysis of Jenna’s writing that I didn’t hear the classroom door squeak open, and when Dr. Coulter’s excessive throat clearing interrupted our discussion, a couple of kids actually jumped. “Please excuse the interruption, children,” he said, smiling squintily at us, “but I need to, uh, borrow your teacher for a moment.”

  Mr. Tremont unfolded himself from the student desk where he sat. “Sorry, you guys,” he said, looking around the circle. “Keep going, I’ll be right back.”

  He followed Dr. Coulter into the hallway. Jeremy cleared his throat. “Okay,” he said, ever the editor in chief. “Back to the metaphor of the geese in Loring Park. . . .”

  Halfway through our discussion of Jessica’s story, our concentration fell apart. “Why hasn’t he come back yet?”

  Alison went to the door, first peering out the narrow window and then opening the door. “They’re not out there,” she said, returning to our circle.

  “That’s weird,” Elizabeth said.

  Shanti and Ethan looked at each other, having one of their silent conversations. Jenna frowned at me like she expected me to understand what she was thinking, but I couldn’t read the sudden thunderclouds in her face.

  “You don’t think . . .” Jeremy said, trailing off.

  “What?” Alison asked.

  “Never mind,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  But we all sat silently until the bell rang.

  After class, I followed the force of the pushing crowd through the hallways to the commons and toward the front door. Outside, the day was fiercely bright and unusually warm for September. I squinted into the sun and waited for my eyes to adjust.

  Jake was sitting on a bench, slumped over, with his elbows on his knees. “Hey,” I called, walking over to him. “Where have you been all day?”

  He stared at the ground. “I’m off the team.”

  “What?”

  “Someone told them I was drunk on Friday night.”

  I sank down slowly on the bench beside him. “Oh, shit. Oh, Jake. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said woodenly.

  Wasn’t it?

  I opened my mouth to say something, to find some word that could possibly make things okay, but before I could speak, Mr. Austin punched through the front doors and came out yelling. “Jake! Get your ass over here!”

  Jake jumped to his feet. “I gotta go.” He hurried to catch up with his father, and I heard slivers of conversation cutting through the air like glass. “No son of mine . . . How could . . . so stupid . . . That prob . . . aken care of . . .” They stood together in the parking lot, Mr. Austin’s arms waving wildly, Jake curled over like a fern. Mr. Austin jumped into his truck, slammed the door, and peeled out of the parking lot. A moment later, Jake’s silver car followed suit.

  That night, Mirror refused to eat dinner with the family. My mother smiled gamely and served the green beans while my sister stalked through the dining room, holding the cordless phone to her ear. Pausing, she pushed the mouthpiece against her chest and screamed, “I hope you’re fucking satisfied, Paige! You make me sick!” She ran upstairs.

  My father looked at me questioningly. “Sister issues?” he asked mildly.

  I shook my head. “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

  After school, I’d come straight home, holing up in my room. I’d tried to call Jake a number of times, but he hadn’t been answering his phone. On the plus side, I’d made some progress on my physics research, with my personal insight into the problem of our expanding universe: As the amount of dark energy in the universe increases, it pushes the galaxies farther and farther apart, meaning that every single day we become further isolated, increasingly alone in a universe of dark energy and evermore distant galaxies.

  My father and I got into a discussion of Hawking’s theories while my mother whisked away the dirty dishes and reappeared with steaming cups of coffee, each in its matching saucer. “You two and your astrology,” she flirted.

  “Astronomy,” I said.

  “Speaking of which,” she said, bringing her cup to her dark red lips, “I talked to Stella just before dinner.”

  My father winked at me over his coffee.

  “You know, Stella . . . like star?” My mother laughed at her own little joke, impressed with her segue.

  “We get it,” I said, dreading the conversation we were about to have. Kicked off the team! Did you know that Jake was drinking? Did you let him drive? After last spring?

  “Well,” my mother said, “she told me that they finally did something about the problem at the high school.”

  “Wait, what?” I looked at my dad, but he shrugged.

  “You know,” my mother said conspiratorially, savoring the delicate flavor of gossip. “The gay teacher.”

  I struggled to breathe, as if the oxygen in my lungs suddenly doubled in density. “What?” I gasped.

  “Yes,” my mother said, “they fired him.”

  “Mr. Tremont?” I asked. As if I needed to hear it. As if there were any question.

  “That sounds right. The substitute for Beulah Mueller.”

  “They can’t do that!” I said, looking to my father for reassurance. “Just because he’s gay?”

  My father frowned. “That’s discrimination. Homosexuality is not legal grounds for dismissal.”

  “Oh, of course not!” My mother’s lipstick left red smears across the white china cup. “But this man was a pervert. Jake told his mother that this teacher att
acked him after the school bonfire and tried to sexually assault him. Can you imagine? Richard went to the principal to demand his resignation.”

  “WHAT?” All the little boxes inside my heart flew open at once, releasing years of stuffed rage. I could feel it inside me, swarming like Pandora’s thousand demons poised to wreak havoc on the world. “THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

  My mother’s cup clattered into its saucer. “Language, young lady!”

  I ran up the stairs to find my sister. She was tucked into the third-floor window seat, one of our favorite hiding places. I thrust out my hand. “I need the phone.”

  She glared at me like a cat. “Fuck you!”

  “Mir, I have to call Jake.”

  Her eyes flashed blue diamonds. “Oh, in that case . . .” she said sarcastically. Into the phone, she softened her tone. “No, it’s Paige. I know, she wants to call her boyfriend.” Pausing a moment, listening. “I know, exactly.”

  “Fine!” I turned and clattered back down the stairs. Cell phone, cell phone. A part of my mind wanted to rehearse what I’d say to Jake, but all I could hear was my own voice in the dining room, filling the vaulted ceilings. The words became a mantra, pushing me through the house. Fucking. Asshole.

  My cell phone was dead, its little battery box empty of bars. I punched at the POWER button, but all I got was a cheerful little message: PLEASE RECHARGE BATTERY NOW. I threw it on the bed. Where the hell was my charger? I ran upstairs again. “Where’s my phone charger?”

  Miranda held her hand over the phone. “Like I care!” And then, into the phone, “No, sorry. It’s nothing. Anyway, what?”

  I ran back down to my room and looked around as if I could will a phone into existence. On my desk, my car keys glinted in a sliver of moonlight.

  Seconds later, I was running out the door, yelling over my shoulder as I flew. “I’m going out!”

  The drive out to Sauvignon and Jake’s house normally took about eighteen minutes. I made it in twelve. Before I knew it, I was marching up to his front door and smashing at the doorbell. The night glowed silver in moonlight, and I could see my breath. Doorbell chimes echoed dimly through the house.