Rebel Girls Read online

  We’d almost reached the front door when Melissa turned to face the woman.

  “I want you to know something—”

  I shoved her through the door, hoping the woman couldn’t hear the flow of angry medical fact-checking coming from Melissa.

  “Thank you very much!” I shouted.

  The woman looked at me, shook her head sadly, and closed the door in my face.

  14

  I shoved my cello case through the door of our house, dropped my backpack to the floor, and tossed next month’s copy of Spin onto the side table.

  Trying to maneuver everything at once felt nearly impossible.

  I should have put the magazine in my bag, but this edition of Spin was Important, with a capital I and italics. Melissa subscribed, so even though this was the October issue and it was only mid-September, she already had a copy. She’d given it to me after our Friday afternoon private instrument lessons, and when I flipped through it as she was driving me back to my house, I immediately saw why: Eddie Vedder, Helen’s favorite hot guy of grunge, had written a pro-choice essay.

  I didn’t think the essay would help change Helen’s mind about abortion—she was too stubborn for that—but I hoped it might make her care a little less what other people thought about her. She hadn’t had an abortion, and she wasn’t a slut, but neither of those things should be a reason to judge somebody anyway. If I could convince her that Eddie Vedder didn’t think abortion was a life-ruining event, I might also be able to convince her to ignore the masses who did.

  It was worth a shot. Easier, anyway, than convincing Leah to call off the dogs.

  I shoved my cello into its spot in the dining room just as Helen came walking down the stairs from our second-floor bedroom. Sara and Jennifer trailed behind her, looking like an innocuous teenage version of the twins from The Shining in their school uniforms and swinging ponytails.

  Helen stopped halfway down the stairs, her foot hovering above the next step like I’d caught her committing some heinous act like hiding a body in the woods. She had a small overnight bag clutched in one hand and her sleeping bag tucked under her other arm.

  “Where are you going?” I asked curiously.

  “Sara’s. I have a Saturday modeling class tomorrow, remember? Dad knows I’m spending the night.” She said it a little too quickly, which sent up major warning flares.

  I eyed her suspiciously. “You’re acting weird. Is there something else going on at Sara’s house? Like a party or something Dad doesn’t know about?”

  “No. No parties,” Helen said, staccato and almost shouting. “Besides, it’s not like anyone would invite me to one of them these days.”

  I couldn’t tell if her anger was at me, or the jerks at school who’d decided to ostracize her over an imaginary abortion. But I’d hit a nerve, which I should have realized was there. Still, even taking everything into consideration, her behavior felt off—though it was hard to judge what was normal now for Helen.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Helen’s hand unclenched from its death grip on her overnight bag, and she started down the stairs again. Remembering what I had to give her, I grabbed Spin from the side table and held it up as she dropped her pile of sleepover accoutrement near the front door. Sara gave Jennifer a silent shrug as they followed her.

  “I brought you something to read.” I flipped the magazine open to the Eddie Vedder essay.

  She squinted at me. “Are you a Jehovah’s Witness now? Or maybe a Mormon?”

  “It’s just Spin, Helen. There’s an essay by Eddie Vedder I thought you’d like to read.” I tried to sound friendly, but I sounded like a bad actor doing a terrible line reading. I guess we weren’t very good at this “being nice to each other” thing. Also, maybe it wasn’t so nice that I was trying to subtly convert her via pro-choice essays by a guy she had a crush on.

  She looked from me to the magazine in my hand. “Angelle told me about that essay,” she said with a withering stare. “I ask you to help me, and this is what you do?” Her voice rose in volume with the question, and her sneer landed somewhere between disbelief and disgust. “I shouldn’t have told you anything. I knew you wouldn’t be able to help me. I bet you haven’t even tried.”

  “I have tried,” I protested. “It’s only been a week since you told me, and I’ve been working on trying to figure something out every day. I asked Melissa for help, and she couldn’t come up with anything, so I talked with Sean, and—”

  “I told you not to tell him!” she shouted. Sara and Jennifer backed away from us, looking scared. Helen and I had fought in front of them before, but usually Helen was antagonizing me with sarcasm. This was different. She was mad. I don’t think that any of us had ever seen her like this.

  “Of course I told him!” I was shouting back at her now. I could feel my face growing red with shame and failure. Nothing I had done had helped, and I might have made things worse by talking to Sean. If he told Leah about our conversation, she might retaliate in ways I didn’t expect.

  “I don’t know what you wanted me to do,” I said, exasperated. “I’m not good at manipulating people or combating gossip or whatever. You’re the one everybody instinctively adores, so if you can’t fight this, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know! You’re smart! You’ve been around Leah more than I have—you must know something I could use against her! Something like what she did to me!” Helen threw her hands up in anger.

  “That’s not going to work.” I shook my head. So that was the only reason she’d asked me for help. She wanted dirt on Leah. I did know something we could use against Leah, but it would mean betraying Sean’s confidence—and I wasn’t about to go that far. Guilt already nagged at me for telling Melissa.

  The last thing I wanted was to get into a continual one-upping with Leah, and not because she was way better at figuring out how to destroy people and could easily add me to her list. And it wasn’t because I would ruin the remnants of my friendship with Sean, though that was certainly something to be considered.

  No—it was just plain wrong. Wrong in the sense that I felt an in-the-bones betrayal of riot grrrl principles even thinking about it. Tearing down another girl by sharing all the messy details of her parents’ divorce wasn’t feminist; it was the exact opposite.

  Helen glared at me, and I swore for a second that her eyes were filling up with angry tears. But then she blinked, took a deep breath, and turned to Sara.

  “Where’s your mom?” she barked. “I can’t wait to leave.”

  Sara jumped back at Helen’s command. Her brown eyes were wide with surprise.

  “I’m sure she’s on her way. Are you all right?” Sara’s eyes darted from Helen to Jennifer to me, like she was afraid Helen and I would start throwing punches.

  “No, of course I’m not all right!” Helen rolled her eyes. “Everybody knows that.” She waved toward Sara and Jennifer, who exchanged worried looks. “But I thought you actually cared enough about me to help.”

  “I do care!” I shouted. “But I can’t help you. Not this way, at least.”

  A honk came from the driveway outside. Helen nodded her head at Sara and Jennifer and snatched her things from the floor.

  “Come on,” she said to her friends. “I need to get out of here.”

  “Helen, wait—” I tried to come up with something to keep her here, but she was already out the door, followed by Sara and then Jennifer, who closed the door softly behind her.

  If Helen had been alone, I’m sure she would have slammed it.

  I dropped onto the overstuffed couch in our living room. Everything I did to help turned out wrong. Though I probably shouldn’t have shoved Spin in her face like that—Helen would have been mad at me regardless, but I really stepped in it.

  I needed a break from Helen’s problems. Calling
Melissa or going over to Sean’s was out of the question, since they would inevitably remind me of my failure to help Helen. Instead, I did something I never would have seen myself doing a week before.

  I dialed Kyle’s number on the phone next to the couch. We were supposed to go for dinner and then to the movies tonight, but he wasn’t picking me up for another two hours. I hadn’t seen him today because his mom took him to get his driver’s license, but maybe if I caught him now, we could go out earlier—and I wouldn’t be stuck in my house thinking guilty thoughts for an extra few hours.

  His mom answered. “Hello?”

  “Um, may I please speak to Kyle?” I asked, sounding ridiculously formal. The phone greeting my grandma had taught me rushed out before anything less rigid could take its place.

  “I’m sorry, but he’s...tutoring someone right now, and I’d hate to interrupt,” she said. “Can I take a message?”

  “Um, sure. Can you let him know Athena called? He has my number.”

  “Okay, dear. I’ll let him know.”

  After I hung up the phone, something nagged at me. That pause. He’s...tutoring someone.

  I was reading too much into things. He’d signed up for the same volunteer peer-tutoring program that I’d belonged to last year, where I’d helped Trip. But because Leah had said she wanted him to tutor her in math, in my mind, he was “tutoring” her, and whatever they were really doing gave his mom a reason to pause.

  Now, in addition to worrying about Helen, I was worried about Leah and Kyle. Probably for no reason. Even if she wanted to make a move, he seemed to like me. We were going on a real date in a few hours, not just hanging out under the guise of tutoring—if that was even what was going on between them. And it was just as likely that he was innocently tutoring someone else from the program, and his mom’s pause meant nothing.

  I shook my head furiously. All this speculating was ridiculous and getting me nowhere. I just needed to keep myself occupied until it was time to get ready, and everything would work out fine.

  I tried practicing my cello, but I didn’t have enough focus to work on my orchestra parts or the Bach piece I was studying in my individual lessons. My arms were stiff and jittery, and my eyes kept losing track of where I was in the sheet music. Practicing required being in the zone, and I wasn’t even in the same universe as the zone.

  Finally, after an hour of torture, the phone rang. I crossed my fingers and said a little prayer that it was Kyle before I answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Athena.” It was Kyle. “My mom said you called. What’s up? We’re good for tonight, right?” He sounded concerned that I might be canceling.

  “Oh, yeah!” I couldn’t let him think I was anything less than excited to see him. “I actually wanted to see if you could come over a little earlier. I was thinking we could go to Albasha for shawarma before the movie. It gets crowded on Fridays, though, so I figured we should probably book in some waiting time.”

  “Sounds great! I didn’t know Baton Rouge had a shawarma place,” he said. Then he paused in such a way that I could feel a but approaching. “But my mom insisted on a family dinner tonight now that she’s finally got the kitchen in order. We’re still on for the movie, though.” His voice dropped to a whisper, making me think his mom might be nearby. “And bring your fake ID, just in case. Fire Walk with Me is rated R.”

  “Sure thing!” I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t add, “Baton Rouge has a lot of shawarma places!” No matter how brightly I said it, I’d sound like a jerk for pointing out that our city wasn’t a completely uncivilized backwater. Besides, Kyle sounded genuinely into the idea, even if it wasn’t going to work out for tonight. And we were still going to the movies, which meant that we were having a real date. This wasn’t just a coordinated coffee or an after-school music playing/make out session.

  I went upstairs to get ready and tried to put everything else out of my mind. Helen. Leah. Sean. Kyle’s mom’s weird pause. But no matter how excited I was, those things kept creeping back in. During my shower, I remembered how I’d gone against Melissa’s advice. And how Sean dismissed everything I said as a consequence of bad blood between me and Leah. And how upset Helen was when she left.

  By the time Kyle finally rang the doorbell at 8:02, I had officially undermined my excitement. Sure, I looked great because I’d had so much time to get ready. I’d borrowed another going-out outfit from Melissa. This time, it was a short-sleeved plaid dress with a fitted bodice and a short, flared skirt, plus a pair of velvet Mary Janes that she’d bought in New Orleans. They’d never really fit her very well, but they were perfect for my half-size-smaller feet.

  “Wow!” Kyle said, looking me up and down in a way that set my entire body on fire. Maybe he was the right person to distract me, to get me out of my head. “You look great!”

  He was just wearing jeans and a Mudhoney T-shirt, but he looked great, too—not because he’d made any special effort, but because he was superhumanly attractive.

  “I’m glad I got my driver’s license in time for our date,” he said as we walked to his car. “I was a little nervous that I’d have to ask Melissa to drive us again, which would make everything super awkward.”

  He walked around to the passenger’s side of his brand-new Geo Metro and opened the door for me. The car was an extremely sensible parental choice that no boy would make—not showy, not cool, not sexy. No girl would choose it, either. But it was a new car. Most of my friends had gotten used ones, even Melissa, whose parents otherwise showered her with expensive items. The car was so tiny and low to the ground that I had to crouch to get in, and it felt like it could be blown off the I-10 bridge over the Mississippi River with a strong breeze. But again, new.

  “Dad really knows how to pick the wheels, right?” Kyle squeezed his lanky frame into the driver’s seat. “He has some grandiose idea that I’m going to learn how to work on cars with this thing. He thinks it’s, and I quote, ‘a valuable skill for every young man to have.’ Personally, I’m just glad that he didn’t buy the used VW bug on the lot that he got nostalgic over. Dad’s a little too into the fact that he went to Woodstock.”

  I giggled nervously, not because I thought hippies were funny, but because I couldn’t think of any response that properly modulated This car is so unsubstantial and tiny, and all the rest of the cars on the road are minivans or trucks with Wow, your parents bought you a brand-new car within weeks of moving back to the States. Somehow, my verbal acuity kept seeping out of me as soon as I got near Kyle, which I hated, but couldn’t seem to control.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing Fire Walk with Me,” I said, hoping that I could push the conversation away from cars and toward David Lynch movies, a subject I actually knew something about, since Melissa was obsessed with Twin Peaks and Kyle MacLachlan. “I’m sure it’ll be creepy and weird and not make much sense, but—”

  “—it’ll still be awesome!” Kyle interjected, then launched into a monologue about David Lynch movies. I should have piped up because I knew at least as much as he did—I’d seen nearly all his films during sleepovers at Melissa’s, when I got to watch movies my dad would never allow in our house. At first, I was a little relieved not to have to talk. I nodded and mmm-hmm’d my way through as he talked about Blue Velvet and Eraserhead as masterful demonstrations of Lynch’s avant-garde abilities. I’d seen both, but somehow couldn’t find a way to insert myself into his observations.

  As I stared out the window and watched the strip malls go by, I thought about how Kathleen Hanna would know how to put herself into a conversation about David Lynch. Or about anything, really. I wished I was more confident, like her.

  Finally, we pulled up to the theater on Siegen Lane. Kyle grabbed my hand as we walked toward the ticket booth. Near the front of the line was a large group of kids from our school: Cady Jenson and her boyfriend, Tommy Fabre, who were both in my honors English cl
ass. Jenny Broussard and Todd Aucoin, who were maybe going out but always got into disagreements in religion class, so who even knew? Spilling out of someone’s van nearby was a group of juniors wearing our school colors—basically, the kids who would otherwise be at a football game on a Friday night, if that game wasn’t forty-five minutes away in Donaldsonville.

  Cady waved me over. We didn’t normally run in the same circles, but we’d worked together on some school projects last year. She was surprisingly and consistently friendly for someone who spent most of her weekends in the cutthroat world of beauty pageants. I smiled and waved back, but next to me, Kyle stopped abruptly. He dropped my hand and patted his shirt.

  “Oh, uh, just a second,” he said. “I’ve got to run back to the car. Um, wait here? I’ll be right back.”

  Kyle jogged to his car as I walked up to Cady. At least her waving me over meant I wouldn’t have to stand awkwardly by myself near the box office. She met me halfway and pulled me away from the crowd, toward the posters that lined the side of the building. Her eyebrows—expertly plucked by her ultimate pageant mom into chestnut arcs—met in a worried crease, and tension built in my shoulders. I had the sinking feeling that I knew exactly what she was going to say, and I didn’t have any idea how to respond.

  “Hey, so I don’t want to seem like one of those people who stirs shit for nothing,” Cady whispered. Her eyes darted back toward the group of people she was with. “But yesterday in gym, when we were taking down the badminton nets, I overheard Aimee telling Casey that she’d seen some freshman named Helen going into the abortion clinic this summer during protests—not as a protester, but a patient.” She watched me carefully for a moment, then added, “And then she said your name, and I don’t know if she was saying something else about you, but... I’d just watch your back, okay? You can’t trust her or Leah.”