Dear Rachel Maddow

by Adrienne Kisner

  I clutched my brown paper bag containing leftover Chinese takeout and sat down. I could hear kids snickering as we settled in. They always snicker. This time, the laughter sounded unfortunately familiar. This bothered me more. There was Sarah, Adam (and, oh my Space God, Michaela), and a few others from the Honors crew. Usually they sat by the door. Why were they over here? Adam got up from his table, and Sarah followed. He stood at the head of ours and cleared his throat. Sarah just stood there, looking uncomfortable.

  “Hi, guys!” he said brightly. I cocked my head at him.

  “What the fuck?” I said out loud. I hadn’t meant to. It just sort of slipped out. Bianca, Riley, Greg, and Lance snorted simultaneously. Sarah fidgeted as Adam cleared his throat again.

  “Hi! Listen. As you know, my friends and I,” he said, gesturing over to Sarah, previously perfect Michaela, and the other Honors goons, “are really working hard on making some changes to the school. Good ones! That can benefit everyone. We really think that with representation on the committee to choose the new school superintendent, the student’s voices can be heard.”

  I sat there, still with my head cocked, still with “WTF” written all over my face. “Go away,” I said to the two of them. “You already have your … whatever the thing is.” I sighed.

  “But,” Adam continued, ignoring me, “the principal just informed my colleagues and I that a student has been asked to represent us already.” Sarah narrowed her eyes at the end of the table. “Without a vote, or anything.”

  “Listen, dude and Brynn’s ex, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I really don’t care. Do us all a favor. Go away,” Bianca said.

  I thought I heard Michaela suck in her breath over there at the next table when Bianca said “ex,” but I might have imagined it.

  “You don’t seem to understand,” said Adam. “It seems Lacey here is your … our representative.”

  All of our heads swiveled toward Lacey. She looked at us, and at Sarah, and Adam. Her hands went to her keyboard. But she just rested them, there, on the keys. She didn’t speak.

  “And we don’t think that’s fair,” he said. “I mean, for instance, seniors shouldn’t be able to—”

  “Oh, seniors my ass. This again,” I said. “You have something against anyone who isn’t you.”

  Maybe the smell of Adam’s cologne was a trigger for me from the last time. I don’t know. I was about to stand, when Lacey’s voice broke through.

  “I didn’t ask for it,” she said.

  “We know,” Sarah said.

  “And you can turn it down,” Adam said flatly. “We know that, too.”

  “Adam,” said Sarah.

  “Maybe you should turn it down,” said Adam. “After all, it’d be a lot of time. And stress. And surely you don’t need that.” He sounded as if he were talking to a small child.

  “Adam, you better…” I started to say, but a body stepped in between us before I could continue.

  “Hello, Ms. Harper. Mr. Graff. I trust your day is going well?” Mr. Grimm magically appeared on cafeteria duty from his blue room meeting. He’s a tall guy. Actually pretty intimidating for a teacher. Adam shrank back.

  “Yes, sir, certainly. Just”—Adam looked at our table—“just saying hi.” He moved around Mr. Grimm and didn’t stop back at his table. He left the cafeteria. Sarah turned and wordlessly followed him. Mr. Grimm looked at me.

  “All right, Brynn?” I just nodded. I sank back into my chair. I was just too mad to speak. As I think of it now, all over again, I’m still no less angry. Elitist prick asshole Honors shitheads bother me. I can say this definitively. Everything else pales in comparison to them. I couldn’t even look over at Michaela. She was one of them.

  What would you have done, Rachel? That’s my question for you. What should I have done?

  Lacey left after lunch for a doctor’s appointment, and I couldn’t talk to her. So I did the only thing I could think of, and went to Sarah’s locker after the final bell.

  Because I obviously had started liking life too much.

  I stood there and I waited. Sarah got there right after I caught my breath from taking the stairs two at a time.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Why are you helping him?”

  “Helping who?” She sighed, opening her locker door.

  “You know who.” I shoved myself in front of the books she was trying to put away. “You don’t like him. You never did. You know he’s evil. Or at least too starved to act like a normal person. Why are you doing his bidding?”

  “He isn’t evil, Brynn. He just doesn’t think like you do.”

  “And how do I think?”

  “Listen, the world is what it is. You have to play the game. In order to get good things done, you have to have allies.”

  “He is not your ally. He is only in stuff for himself. And what good do you want? Why don’t you want everyone to have a shot at that superintendent thing? And why are you going after Lacey?”

  “This is where you and I disagree, Brynn. No one is going after her. She is out of here at the end of the year. Her interests lie elsewhere—you know it’s true. She wants to win the Academic Bowl championship again. She wants to get all the tutoring extra credit to make her the super-uber-valedictorian and then get the hell out of Westing and into the Ivy of her choice. I am concerned about moving forward here and now. There needs to be someone motivated who will also be around to see the effects of the superintendent choice. That isn’t Lacey, nor is it a lot of the high school population, I’m sad to say.”

  I moved away. “How would you even know? You talk to seven people.”

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

  “You’ve changed,” I said.

  “And you haven’t.” She tilted her head in my direction. A sad look passed over her eyes. “Sorry, Brynn. Not going to change my mind.” She slammed her locker shut. I watched her back until it disappeared down the staircase.

  Fuck me for thinking it, but I still wished I were walking next to her. Even if I wouldn’t have liked where she was going.

  Sincerely,

  Brynn

  Folder:

  Sent

  To:

  mmaynard@westing.pa.edu

  From:

  JSG@GraffHunterWexley.net

  Date:

  October 30

  Subject:

  Of some concern

  Dear Principal Maynard,

  It has come to my attention that a student has been asked to fill the spot on the superintendent selection committee. This has caused my wife and I a great deal of confusion. As you are aware, our son Adam, along with many of his classmates, wrote a bill to allow that selection committee spot to be available for a student representative in the first place.

  It is categorically unacceptable that this seat would go to a student who was uninvolved in the aforementioned process. My wife and I have tried to instill in Adam a desire to see commitments through to the end. I expect that you will give my concerns all due consideration and find a way to award the selection committee seat to someone with the necessary drive and follow-through to do the best job possible.

  Sincerely,

  Jonathan S. Graff, Esquire

  Folder:

  Drafts

  To:

  Rachel@msnbc.com

  From:

  Brynnieh0401@gmail.com

  Date:

  October 31

  Subject:

  Questions

  Dear Rachel Maddow,

  I’ve been thinking about the question I asked you in the last e-mail. What would you have done when King Asshole Adam tried his weird shit with Lacey? I decided to be nice to myself for a change in my answer. Maybe you would have sat there, stunned. Maybe your throat, like mine, would have felt like a bottle full of pennies turned upside down, with nothing able to spill out because the mouth was packed tight. I was all stuck together in that moment. Maybe you are like that sometimes, too. Yo
u just have more practice getting unstuck because you are on TV.

  Then like the gracious television patronus that you are, you answered my question with your “outrage-o-meter” segment. You asked what it would take to get me so mad that I had to do something. What would have to happen to make me act?

  The answer to that, it would seem, is for someone to mess with Lacey.

  Today Lacey wasn’t herself. She was just sitting quietly in her chair, not really even looking at anything. Even when she’s a little under the weather, she still gives us all the evil eye to guilt us into doing our work. This was so disturbing I actually spoke to the traitorous Michaela when she descended into our cave.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  “Hey,” she whispered back, surprised.

  “What’s with Lacey?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s not harassing anyone about working harder. Or anything.”

  Michaela cocked her head and raised her eyebrow at me. I shook my head. She didn’t know the true ways of Lacey yet. I slid away from Michaela. But during lunch (in the blue room), I pulled a chair over to Lacey.

  “Yo,” I said. Nothing. “Laaaacceeyyyyy,” I called. “Helloooooo,” I said.

  She didn’t look at me. I looked at her aide, who sighed.

  “Lacey. Buddy. You are seriously freaking me out here. What’s the matter?” I said.

  Lacey’s eyes flicked up at me. Her hands moved on her board.

  “I’m fine,” her voice said.

  “You are not.”

  “I’m fine,” she said again. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. It’s a trick, I’m ashamed to say, I picked up from Fart Weasel.

  “Well, if you are fine, then I will just sit here. Staring at you. And we shall both be fine together. Happy Halloween.”

  Lacey rolled her eyes. This brought me some peace. “Fine,” she typed.

  “Fine.”

  “You are seriously annoying.”

  “Fine.”

  “Oh my God, Brynn,” she said. She typed for a while. “You know what, I wasn’t going to tell you this, because I knew what you’d say and I honestly didn’t want to have to argue it with you. But you might as well know. I turned down the position on the superintendent selection committee.”

  It took me a minute to process what she had said. “Oh, Lacey, why?” I asked. “Not because of…” I had to take a breath. “Not because of Adam?”

  “No. Not because of Adam.”

  “But you are perfect for this! You are the best of all of us. Down here, upstairs. In the whole school. Possibly in the whole of the Earth.”

  “Brynn, might I…” Ms. Yee started.

  “Adam is an idiot. And he has no right to treat you the way he did, and—”

  Lacey’s voice interrupted me. “Brynn, it’s not about Adam. It really isn’t. He’s a tool, and I don’t care what he or any of the others think. I’ve told you this a million times. I have enough to do as it is. I don’t need to be a poster child for inclusivity or something. Let Adam or Sarah or whoever fight for a school superintendent who will install an Honors lounge on every floor of every school or whatever thing they want. Honestly, I have better things to do with my time. I’m no one’s token.”

  I frowned. A deep seed of unhappiness implanted uncomfortably in my stomach. It was different than the dull ache that I knew well. It was sharp, like a splinter. “But what about us? The Applied people. Or even the Academic people. Or anyone other than Adam. Adam doesn’t care about us.”

  Lacey half shrugged. “True,” she said. She glanced up at me and held my gaze. She didn’t look outraged. Or upset, even. She looked like she felt bad for me.

  That made me even angrier. Angry at Adam, at guys like Adam, at Sarah for capitulating to guys like Adam, at all of us sitting in the blue room basically ignored because of … what? Circumstance? Fucking circumstance. I seethed my way through English and history and then civics, and the stomach splinter grew and grew until it was a full-on spike through my middle. I could tell everyone was watching me shift in my seat, grind my teeth, ball my hands into fists to keep from freaking out. But my outrage-o-meter was deep in the red.

  I was so mad, I ran straight home even though Fart Weasel might have been there (he wasn’t). I stopped to kick a tree twice. But as soon as my butt hit my bed, I pulled out my computer and began to type. A thought occurred to me, Rachel. Maybe’s it’s dumb, but it was a new thought nonetheless. (I can hear Mr. Grimm in my head: “Thoughts are never dumb! They are your brain speaking!”)

  Even if Lacey doesn’t want to do the school board thing, why does King Asshole get to win this one? Maybe the Asshole Kings get what they want most of the time in this life. Does that have to be the case? No. No, it does not. I’ve seen it on your show. Sometimes the Asshole Kings are taken down because they suck so much they can’t hide behind smiles. And sometimes they are put in their place by people who are just outraged enough.

  Sincerely,

  Brynn

  Folder:

  Drafts

  To:

  Rachel@msnbc.com

  From:

  Brynnieh0401@gmail.com

  Date:

  November 1

  Subject:

  Outraged. Again. Still.

  Dear Rachel Maddow,

  You are a person who loves your job. Last night you had the House minority whip on. (Hey, the whip helps the party leader get their legislation going on—oh, who knows stuff? Brynnie knows stuff, what what!) And you just looked so joyful on there, even if you were talking about how dysfunctional Congress is and fewer and fewer meaningful bills are passed these days. Maybe with hope comes joy.

  Or maybe it’s the adrenaline rush of being on live TV.

  I’ll hope it’s both.

  My job brings neither joy nor hope, though it does occasionally bring underwear. School, my other job, isn’t bringing the joy, either. I tried talking to Mr. Grimm about convincing Lacey to fight for the superintendent selection thing. He gave me a speech about free will and how she’d made up her mind and Ivys were already practically begging her to bring her genius to them already and she didn’t need another thing, etc. And then I argued with him and then Lacey again about what about the rest of us? I mean, Adam and Sarah are going to get an Honors lounge (that is a real thing that they want, by the way), but the blue room kids have leaky pipes and books where the last whip mentioned is Leslie Cornelius Arends. Do you know when that was, Rachel? Freaking 1975.

  Actually, you probably did know that.

  Anyway, when I was done, Mr. Grimm got all quiet and looked me up and down like he was sizing me up for a fight. Then all he said was, “That’s an interesting point, Brynn. Maybe you should do something about it.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, Mr. Grimm. But Lacey won’t listen to reason.” I glared at her.

  “This is actually one of the first reasonable things you’ve said, Brynn.” Lacey glared back. “Mostly you operate on emotion.”

  “So you’ll do it?” I asked.

  “No. I’m more about art than politics,” she said.

  “Oh, what does that even mean?” I said.

  Lacey chuckled. She was so over this whole thing.

  “Doesn’t anyone think this is wrong? Don’t you think all voices should be represented? Don’t we matter?” My voice was getting higher and more nasal. For a second, I felt like I actually left my body. I hovered over the room and looked at Bianca and Riley.

  Mr. Grimm smiled at me. Lacey cocked her head as if in thought. The others clapped.

  “There you are, Brynn. Maybe you are the political one of the group,” said Mr. Grimm.

  “That’s impossible,” I said.

  “Is it?” He raised his eyebrows at me. I did not like how this was going.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Well, you seem to care about this issue,” he said.

  I flinched at the word “care.” Caring inevitably pre
ceded crushing loss. I learned that after Dad left.

  And Nick.

  And Sarah.

  “And as I recall you have a hero in a political commentator. Maybe you should take action,” he said.

  He invoked you, Rachel. Oh, no he didn’t.

  “Yeah. No way. Leave it to the Honors students, then. They have the brains for it.” I sulked back to my seat. This was crap, is what it was. I felt stupid for almost giving a damn and guilty because everyone just kept giving me these little side glances the rest of the day.

  All of this could have faded away, but then Michaela found me at Aerie at my shift after school that day.

  “Hey,” she said, coming up to my bins of cotton and lace.

  “Oh, hi,” I said sarcastically. “Here to peer tutor the bras?” As far as I knew she was still in league with Sarah and Company.

  “No. I came for you.”

  “What?” My face reddened.

  “When are you done here?” she asked.

  “Um, in like a half an hour?” Not a single snarky reply could come to me.

  “Okay. I’ll wait. I’ll be on the bench.” She chucked her thumb toward the entrance and walked away before I could say anything.

  I numbly put back all the scattered items until Erin was satisfied. Erin let me go, and sure enough, there was Michaela on the bench, reading a book.

  “Lacey is already over all of you and your thing. So don’t even worry about it,” I blurted.

  Michaela sighed. “Listen, Brynn,” she said. “I’m still new here. My dad knows Adam’s dad, so I met him right before I started. That’s why I hung out with them. But…” She trailed off. “I was thinking about the thing in the cafeteria. And that maybe it isn’t right to exclude any particular group of people from being represented. Which basically is what would happen.”