The Feminist Agenda of Jemima Kincaid

by Kate Hattemer

  She brightened. “Yes. And. Drumroll, please. On Saturday, we are going to—hey, where’s the drumroll?—dinner and a movie.”

  “WHAT?” I clutched my chest. “A guy of our day and age who knows what a date is?”

  “He even called it a date,” she said, brimming over with smiles. “We’re not chilling. Or hanging. We’re going on a date.”

  “I’ll come over and take pictures as you get into his car,” I said.

  * * *

  —

  I walked to the football field slowly. Andy was all business, blowing his whistle, setting drills, and absolutely not making eye contact with Jemima Kincaid. I ignored him back all practice, but I couldn’t resist lingering afterward, stuffing pinnies in net sacks and jogging the field to collect cones. At last it was just Andy and Tyler and Melanie, who I think was hanging around for the same reason as me except for Tyler.

  “We’re all set here,” said Andy. “You guys got big plans tonight?”

  “Might go game with Joey and them,” said Tyler.

  “That sounds so fun!” said Melanie. “I love watching video games!” Sure you do, Mel.

  “What about you, Monroe?” said Tyler.

  Andy checked his phone. “Yeah, I gotta bounce. I’m meeting up with some friends at Tysons. Nice practice.”

  He fist-bumped Tyler and gave Melanie a nod. He looked at me. I must have looked weird, because he said, “All good, Kincaid?”

  “Oh yeah!” I said brightly. “Yep! I’ve got to get going too! Thursday night!”

  The four of us were walking from the field, and I realized I was about to fall into the super-awkward position of having claimed an urgent need to leave and then ending up in a near-empty parking lot with no car and no ride. I veered sharply toward the front circle. I’d wait there for my mom. Or my Lyft. Whatever. “Enjoy your evenings!” I cried. I sounded like a teacher.

  “See ya,” said Andy. “You’ve got a ride?”

  “Oh, well, no,” I said, “not yet, but I’ll just, you know, make a few calls, deploy my contacts, drag my mom out of hibernation”—I found myself waving my phone madly in front of my face—“utilize this amazing piece of communicative technology….” Shut up, shut up.

  “Okay, cool.” Tyler and Melanie looked back questioningly, and Andy said, “Go ahead, I have to ask Jemima about a Triumvirate thing. Maybe I’ll see you later at Joey’s.”

  He turned to me, and for one hopeful, desperate second, I thought we were going to talk. I really like you, Jemima. You’re really cool. Do you want to make out in my car?

  And then I remembered. The debate, the lunch line, the transitive property of mortal enemydom. The flags had been planted, and we were on opposite sides.

  “Everything okay?” he said.

  “Oh, sure!” I said, maybe too loudly. “I’ll get a ride.”

  He grimaced. God, did he hate me, or did he pity me? Rideless, planless, on a Thursday night in May? “Sorry I can’t take you,” he said. “But you could come to Tysons. I’m chilling with some buddies from my old club lax team.”

  “I don’t need to tag along,” I said in a chilly voice. “Don’t worry about me.”

  He raised his hands in that annoying Don’t shoot gesture. “Have it your way.”

  “I will, thanks.”

  “Sweet.” He rattled his keys in his pocket. “Have a good one, then.”

  “You too.”

  I wanted to spin around so I could march away before he did, but I was fixed to the spot. He raised a hand and left.

  It was Mom’s birthday Friday, and Dad made a reservation at Founding Farmers in DC. It’s this sleek restaurant where everyone’s a hotshot lawyer or lobbyist or congressional staffer. There are lots of ankle boots and glossy lipsticks. I always walk into places like that and instinctively suck in my stomach.

  The hostess tapped around on her iPad and told us it’d be a few minutes. “We had a reservation for seven-thirty,” said my dad, “and it’s seven-thirty-five.”

  Crispin and I made a flicker of eye contact. It was comforting to know there was someone else who wanted to sink into the floor. The hostess had white-blond hair that was scraped into a very tight bun. “Aesthetic: bald with a doorknob,” Crispin whispered to me. I allowed a small smile.

  “We simply don’t have a free table,” she informed Dad. I guess she was used to dealing with overaggressive DC types. “Would you like to wait at the bar?”

  “We’re not falling for the ‘wait at the bar, bump up the bill’ routine,” Dad blustered.

  Mom, either tired or embarrassed, edged over to a bench by the door. Dad paced. I sank into the morass of my mind. At school that day, I’d seen Andy across the Commons, poking a giggling Brittany in the ribs. Then we’d passed each other in the hallway and he hadn’t made eye contact. I’d messed everything up. Maybe I should have taken him up on the pity invite, gone to Tysons, and fake-laughed at dumb bro jokes.

  Crispin elbowed me. “Quit it,” I said.

  “I’m bored and my phone’s at eight percent. Play a game with me.” He nodded toward the three hosts huddled around the iPad: Ol’ Doorknob, a rail of a white guy with emo-band bangs, and a black guy with a compact dancer’s body. “Those three,” said Crispin. “Marry, bury, bang?”

  It took me a minute to recognize the game. It’s otherwise known as Do, Die, Marry or Kiss, Marry, Kill, or a much more explicit name that had scarred me when I’d learned it at a slumber party in ninth grade. “I’m not playing that with my brother,” I told Crispin.

  “Yeah, because you’re so dignified and prudish around me…”

  He had a point. “Okay. Fine. I’d bury Ol’ Doorknob. Marry the black guy. Look, he’s smiling. Sleep with the white one really fast and get it over with.”

  “It’s cute that you still say sleep with,” said Crispin. “Give me a group.”

  I gave him a table of three guys in suits. After a grossly detailed inventory of their physical attributes, Crispin made his call. “All right, Bump,” he said, leering. “Marry, bury, bang: Mack Monroe. Paul Cunningham. Andy Monroe.”

  My mind lurched at Andy’s name. “That’s unfair,” I said. “For one, Jiyoon has a thing with Paul, and for two…” I didn’t want to explain the whole Andy thing. “I didn’t give you anyone you knew in real life.”

  “Too bad for you.”

  “Fine.” I crossed my arms. “Assuming Jiyoon’s out of the picture, I guess I’d marry Paul, bury Mack, and Andy, I’d definitely ba—”

  “What are you two whispering about so seriously?” said Dad, popping up between us.

  I jumped. “Dad! God!”

  “I am your dear sire, Jemima, but ought not be confused with the Heavenly Father.” He was in a good mood. I bet they’d comped him a drink. Yep, there was the bartender, catching his eye as he slid forward a tumbler of something on ice. Dad sipped. “That’s more like it. Don’t let me interrupt. Go on talking about whatever it was you were talking about.”

  “Yeah, Bump,” said Crispin, “you were right in the middle of a sentence, weren’t you?”

  Dad turned to beckon Mom over. I hissed at Crispin, “Stop.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll never betray you.” He patted my shoulder. “But I will make you feel extremely uncomfortable.”

  I tried to glare. I ended up smiling instead. I hadn’t wanted to be in a good mood tonight, but it was like Crispin had heaved up a rock inside my mind and discovered that there was actually some cheer there. We were seated in a booth upstairs. Crispin slid in after me. “What was that you were saying about Andy Monroe?” he said innocently.

  “How is Andy Monroe?” said Mom. “Such a nice boy, I’ve always thought.”

  Her opinion might change if she knew what he’d done to me in the back of his Jeep. “He’s good,” I said.

  “G
ood at what?” said Crispin.

  Luckily, our parents never picked up on anything. “So!” I said, glaring at Crispin. “Jamboree’s coming up. Powderpuff, prom, all that stuff.”

  Dad was surveying the wine list, reading glasses on his nose, but Mom said, “Prom! Is it still in the Commons? I remember that from my Parent Board days. So much decorating!”

  Back when Crispin was at Chawton, she was big into school volunteer stuff. She stopped because the migraines got worse.

  “Jemima’s idea for the prom theme got chosen,” said Crispin.

  “Really!” said Mom. “Tell us about it!”

  “Well, we wanted to avoid all that stupid, patriarchal, heteronormative promposal stuff.”

  “Promposal?” said Mom.

  So that took a minute. Even Dad looked up from the wine list long enough to say, “Astounding. Truly astounding, the effort that today’s youth plug into the silliest things.”

  “Oh, Rick, you don’t remember how you asked me to your spring formal?” Mom looked healthier than usual: her skin didn’t have its usual wan, papery look, and her eyes were sparkling. It made me realize how flat she’d gone. She used to be sparkly all the time.

  “Of course I remember,” said Dad. “I was a senior, your mother was a sophomore….”

  I’d heard this story before. Dad had borrowed his roommate’s Mustang and surprised her at her sorority house so that he could ask her to the dance on a fancy joyride. That’s a protopromposal if I’ve ever heard one. They never got to go on the joyride, though, because a neighbor called the police about all the engine revving, and when Dad’s name wasn’t on the registration, they thought he’d stolen the car.

  Nobody our age talked about what it was like to watch your parents get older. To know that all their hijinking teenage charm had turned into middle-aged bluster, that the dashing young buck who talked his way out of a disturbing-the-peace ticket had become an old guy raising a stink about a restaurant running five minutes late. And we imagined we were forever young, I thought, but this would happen to us, too, soon enough. Even so, I couldn’t stop believing we were different. Would we really get old? It was—

  “Incomprehensible,” Dad growled at the menu. “Absolutely incomprehensible. Why must they be so cutesy? Tomato chow-chow and bacon lollis. Really? Who wants to suck bacon?”

  Mom let out a light sigh, her hand resting on Dad’s arm. “Back to your prom, Jemima.”

  “Right. Yeah. So we wanted to get out of the paradigm where a girl has to wait around until a boy asks her.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” said Dad.

  I ignored him. Either he was trying to rile me up or he was too far gone to bother. “But Sadie Hawkins is just as heteronormative, and besides, it posits girls asking boys as a major reversal of roles, right? Like ‘This is sooooo weird, but for one day a year—’ ”

  I was interrupted by the waiter. Dad ordered a bottle of wine. “Four glasses for the table, sir?” said the waiter.

  “Four, yes,” said Dad.

  I tried to be cool. His answer had always been three before. The waiter brought the bottle to Dad and they did the wine rigmarole while the rest of us watched in our due reverence: the knowing nod, the thoughtful swish. “Excellent,” Dad pronounced. “A triumph.”

  The waiter poured four glasses. Dad lifted his. “To my beautiful wife.”

  “And our beautiful children!” chirped Mom.

  “It’s your birthday, Mom,” said Crispin.

  “Cheers,” said Dad. We clinked. I faked nonchalance, though Crispin acted like a dork at me, widening his eyes in shock as I sipped my wine.

  “Mmm,” said Mom.

  “Robust,” said Dad. “Full-bodied.”

  “Full-bodied, indeed,” said Crispin, lifting his glass to catch the light. “Voluptuous. Overflowing its corsets.”

  “So what we came up with for prom—” I said.

  “Do I detect a note of strawberry?” said Dad.

  “Like a pink Jolly Rancher,” said Crispin.

  Dad rolled his eyes. “I won’t bother treating you as an adult, Crispin, if you can’t take anything seriously.” He returned to the menu.

  “We set up this website….” I stopped talking as a test. Nobody even reacted. Mom was whispering in Dad’s ear, and Crispin was doing this thing he did sometimes where he stared really hard at an inanimate object. Right now it was his wineglass. So much for conversation.

  The waiter came with appetizers. “Chèvre-bacon dates,” he said, “and devilish eggs.”

  Dad snorted at devilish. Before the waiter was even gone, he said, “This place. The liberties they take with basic English.”

  Usually I was all about that discussion—you know, descriptivism vs. prescriptivism, slang, the youth, inventing words, Shakespeare, language serving a purpose, clarity, rules—but not tonight. It felt stale. The waiter must have been over it too, because he just said, “And a crab cake for the lady.”

  “Oh!” said Mom, pleased. “I didn’t see that on the menu!”

  “It wasn’t there,” said the waiter. “We understand it’s a special day.”

  “Honey,” said Mom once the waiter left, and kissed Dad on the cheek. “Thank you.” She loved crab cakes. Dad wasn’t always great at showing it, but we all knew the truth: Mom was the love of his freaking life.

  Would I ever order an off-the-menu crab cake for the love of my life?

  Would anyone ever order an off-the-menu crab cake for me?

  If earlier Crispin had flipped a rock to uncover my good mood, now all the maggots of jollity were wriggling away into the earth. We ate the appetizers. Nobody asked me about the dance. I didn’t bring it up again. Dad had a moist, glistening piece of glazed bacon stuck in the corner of his lips. “Jerry finally got back to me about the court costs,” he said, obviously just to Mom. She nodded along at his story. Crispin had returned to staring at his wineglass.

  I finished my wine. Oops. I was the first. I could feel the alcohol. It was like my head wasn’t totally attached to my body anymore.

  The chunk of bacon was still hanging at the corner of Dad’s mouth. I poked at Crispin. “My turn,” I whispered. “Those three waiters.”

  “What? Oh. Maybe later.”

  I felt trapped. I couldn’t even get out of the booth. The bacon chunk quivered, reflecting the candlelight, as Dad talked. Why hadn’t I gone with Andy to Tysons? We could have talked in the car. Look, I would have said, I didn’t know that Jiyoon was going to be so good.

  God, I’d kill right now to feel his mouth on my neck, his back beneath my hands. I probably never would again.

  Dad’s story ended. “How’s your apartment, Crispin?” said Mom.

  “Oh, fine.”

  “Is your furniture still working out?”

  “It’s all the same as I had at the house. So, yeah.”

  Silence. Dad had the twitchy look of someone who wanted to check his phone but knew he shouldn’t. Mom closed her eyes. The appetizer plates were empty but still on the table, and I was worried Dad would start complaining about the service.

  Keeping the mood up was Crispin’s job, but he was running his finger along the bottom of his wineglass. I cast around for something to talk about. “Powderpuff practices have been surprising,” I said. “I’m somehow, like, good.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said Mom. But I’d told her that when I’d gotten home yesterday. Dad’s head ostrich-swiveled in Where is my waiter? indignation.

  “Soccer skills help, obviously, but it’s also like I have all this built-up aggression I get to use, and I like plowing through the other team, which makes me worse at soccer, but…”

  Mom nodded encouragingly, but she had heard literally the same thing yesterday. I trailed off. What was the point? I tipped back my empty wineglass and licked the ri
m. At other tables, people were talking and laughing. Why was it my family that had to be weird and antisocial and moody? What kind of family were we, anyway?

  “Did you see what I forwarded you about Dale?” Dad suddenly asked Mom.

  “I think your response was entirely valid,” she told him. “I can’t imagine why he’s reacting that way.”

  He tented his fingers. “Agreed.”

  Silence reigned. I realized I was doing the ostrich look for the waiter myself.

  “I’m hungry,” I said.

  “We’re all hungry,” said Mom.

  Crispin was texting under the table. “Real social,” I told him.

  “Shut up, Bump.”

  “You shut up.”

  “Children,” said Mom.

  “Who are you even texting?” I said. “Thomas?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I bet it’s Thomas.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about Thomas,” said Mom innocently.

  “I bet you haven’t,” I said. “Thomas is Crispin’s colleague.”

  “And he’s texting you on a Friday night?” said Mom.

  Crispin was like a deer on high alert, tensed at the crack of a twig. I knew I needed to shut up like a minute ago. He slid his phone under his thigh. “It’s a work thing.”

  “Oh, a work thing,” I said.

  “Jemima,” said Crispin. He never calls me Jemima. “Stop.”

  “Stop what? Stop wishing this family would actually act like a family and be honest with each other for once?”

  “Lower your voice,” said Dad.

  “Thomas is Crispin’s colleague,” I said, “and also—”

  “Stop talking right now,” said Crispin. “For once in your fucking life.”

  “Children!” said Mom.

  “Also,” I said, “his boyfriend.”

  Dad frowned. “Your company policy allows that?”

  Crispin started to stand. I grabbed his arm. “You need to learn to keep your goddamned mouth shut,” he told me as he shook me off. “No, Dad, it doesn’t. And yes, I’m aware that’s a problem.” He slid out of the booth. “I’m sorry, Mom, but I can’t do this. Happy birthday.” He slipped down the stairs.