“I don’t really care about Lucy Moynihan,” Connie says, flipping her hair, reminding Grace that she’s the meaner half of the homeroom pair. “I just want Eric Jordan to stop staring at my tits all the time.” Krista and Trista giggle nervously. Rosina cringes.
“He totally groped me in the photography darkroom freshman year,” Allison says. “I told Principal Slatterly, but she basically told me it was my fault and I shouldn’t put myself in compromising positions.”
“That’s horrible,” Grace says. “I can’t believe she did that. Did you tell someone?”
Allison shrugs. “She’s in charge. There was no one else to tell.”
“You’re new, right?” Connie says. “So you probably don’t know yet that everyone in Prescott who’s in charge of something—they’re all friends. Principal Slatterly, the mayor, the police chief, city council, everyone. And they all go to Prescott Foursquare, the same church as Eric’s, Spencer’s, and Ennis’s families. Chief Delaney’s wife is cochair of the volunteer committee with Ennis’s mom. This whole town is totally corrupt. There’s a word for that, isn’t there?”
“Nepotism,” Erin says without looking up from her book.
“My parents go to that church, too,” says Krista, or maybe it’s Trista. “They force me to go. They’re total fascists.”
“Totally,” says the other blue-haired girl.
Erin looks up from her book, blinks a couple of times as she looks around the room, then returns to her reading. Other eyes scan the circle, then stare back down at their laps or into some dim corner of the room. Sam pulls her phone out of her purse and reads a text message.
“So I have something I’d like to talk about,” Elise Powell finally says. Eyes turn to her expectantly. “I’m the manager of the football team, and I overhear a lot of stuff in the locker room—”
“Oh my God,” says Sam. “Do you see anything? Is there, like, hot guy-on-guy action?”
“Um, no,” Elise says. “I’m not allowed in the actual showers.”
“Bummer,” says Sam.
“Anyway,” Elise continues. “The other day all the guys were talking about making bets on how many girls they could sleep with this year. They’re keeping track and everything. There’s even money involved. Eric Jordan is the leader of the whole thing. He told everyone to start with freshmen girls because they’re easiest. It was like he thought he was the guys’ teacher or something, like he was really helping them. Like he had this whole science about getting laid.”
“Castration,” Rosina says. “I’m telling you, that’s the only solution.”
“You’d think that after everything that happened last year,” Sam says, “he’d try to fly under the radar a little, maybe try not to be such an obvious douche bag.” She shakes her head and the beads of her dangling orange earrings clink together. “I can’t believe I used to think he was hot.”
“But maybe he feels even braver now that he got away with it,” Elise says.
“It’s kind of a tradition,” says Connie. “The guys competing about sex. Poor freshmen don’t see it coming. They actually think the guys like them. I almost fell for it once.”
“I did fall for it,” Allison says, lowering her eyes.
“We have to warn them,” Elise says.
Krista’s and Trista’s eyes are big and round as they nod their heads in agreement. “How?” one of them squeaks.
“Maybe put up signs or something?” says the other.
“That’s too dangerous,” says Allison. “Couldn’t they catch us with, like, forensic evidence or something?”
“CSI is not going to dust for fingerprints on a few construction-paper signs,” Rosina says.
“I think we should make signs,” Elise says. “And flyers maybe, too. We have to make sure everyone knows.”
“At least you don’t have anything to worry about,” Connie says under her breath, but it is a small room with only nine people in it, so everyone hears.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Elise says, her freckles even darker against her skin’s new crimson shade.
“I mean, like, you’re gay, right?” Connie says. “So you don’t have to worry about asshole guys like the rest of us.”
“I’m not gay,” Elise says, eyes on the floor, her enthusiasm snuffed out like a candle.
“Um, hello?” Rosina says. “Guys are still assholes to gay girls. Sometimes even worse.”
“You know what I mean,” says Connie.
“No, actually. I don’t,” Rosina says, leaning forward in her seat. “What exactly do you mean?”
“I mean, like, you’re pretty so no one can really tell, but Elise looks like a—”
“I’m not gay!” Elise cries. Grace reaches over and tries to comfort her, but Elise pulls her hand away, shaking and sniffling as she grabs her backpack off the floor.
“Not cool, Connie,” Rosina says. “What is your problem?”
“This is bullshit,” Connie says. “I have better things to do than sit around complaining about boys.” She stands up and Allison reluctantly follows, smiling apologetically as they walk out the door.
“Elise, wait,” Grace pleads.
“I have to go,” Elise says, fighting back tears as she leaves the room. The blue-haired freshmen duck out quietly behind her.
“Yeah, um,” Sam says, wrapping her scarf around her neck. “I have to go run lines with my scene partner.”
“Wait!” Grace says, but there’s nobody left to hear her.
“I guess the meeting is over,” Erin says as the door swings closed.
“Well, that was fun,” Rosina says.
“I think I’m going to go back to my regular life now,” Erin says.
“No,” Grace says weakly. “You can’t. We can’t give up.”
“Why?” Erin says.
“Because this is important,” Grace says.
“But what’s the point?” Rosina says. “We can’t actually change anything.”
“Maybe we can,” Grace pleads. “If we keep trying.”
“Lucy never asked us to do this,” Erin says. “It’s not our responsibility.”
“Then whose responsibility is it?” Grace says.
Rosina hangs her head. Erin shrugs. Grace looks at them, back and forth, but they do not meet her eyes.
“I have to go home,” Erin says. She looks at her phone. “I’m already six minutes behind schedule.”
“I gotta go to work soon,” Rosina says, picking up her backpack and standing up. “You coming, Grace?”
“I’m just going to sit here for a while,” Grace says.
“Are you going to pray or something?” Erin says.
“I just want to think.”
“Come on, Erin,” Rosina says. “Time to return to our regularly scheduled programming.” Erin follows Rosina out the door, leaving Grace to think or pray or whatever it is she does when no one’s looking.
GRACE.
Lucy speaks to Grace from her gouges in the wall paint. You failed me, she says. Nothing you did matters.