*
A girl sits in her classroom, her body pulsing with a formless, pressured yearning. She looks around at the boys, some of them hot, some of them mildly disgusting, and she thinks to herself, I’d probably hook up with any of these guys if they asked me.
She wonders if this makes her pathetic, if the desire to be wanted is some sign of weakness.
She wants to make someone hungry. She wants to be devoured.
*
Rosina, Grace, and Erin are standing next to the third-floor girls’ bathrooms, which have been out of order since the beginning of the year. It is a place nobody goes, which makes it an excellent location for a clandestine meeting.
“Let’s make this fast,” Erin says. “We only have three minutes and twenty-eight seconds to get to our next class.”
“Okay.” Grace scans the hall and sees no one within earshot. “The group never decided on a time for our next meeting.”
“Large groups are not capable of making decisions,” Erin says. “I liked it better when we made all the decisions.”
“But that’s not how democracy works,” Grace says.
“But aren’t we the leaders?” Erin says. “I thought we were the leaders.”
“We’re not the leaders,” Grace says. “We just started it.”
“Doesn’t that make us the leaders?”
“It makes us the founders, that’s all,” Rosina says. “I think we should have a meeting on Saturday night. We can make it like a party. I know the perfect spot.”
“But the meetings aren’t supposed to be parties,” Erin says. “We’re supposed to talk about serious things.”
“I think the last meeting was serious enough to last at least a couple of weeks,” Rosina says.
“Maybe we don’t have to be serious all the time,” Grace says. “Isn’t being happy part of empowering ourselves?”
“But parties don’t make me happy,” Erin says.
“Erin, honey,” Rosina says, holding Erin’s shoulders for just a moment before Erin wiggles away. “This is a good time to practice being flexible and compromising.”
Erin sighs an epic sigh so Rosina will understand how hard this is for her. No matter how many times Erin explains it, Rosina will never truly understand the sensory overload of the crowd and the unfamiliar surroundings, the exhaustion of processing how to act in front of so many people who already think she’s weird. But maybe the last meeting wasn’t so bad, at least until her meltdown. Maybe it’s actually kind of nice to have something to do on a Saturday night besides read and take a bath and watch TNG. “Fine,” she says. “I’ll compromise. But I won’t like it.”
But they are not the only people in this forgotten corner of the hallway.
Grace notices Amber Sullivan hovering nearby, within hearing range. How long has she been there? What has she heard?
Grace smiles, and Amber smiles too. There is something like trust in her eyes, something like light. Grace decides they have nothing to worry about. Grace has faith that their secret is safe.
GRACE.
“Hey, Grace,” someone yells. “Wait up.”
Grace’s instinct is to freeze. Most of her semirecent experiences with people yelling her name in a school hallway resulted in either tripping or name-calling, or the occasional cruel-eyed promise to pray for Grace’s soul that sounded a whole lot more like a threat than Christian compassion. But that was a different school, a different school year, a different state, and what Grace is starting to think of as an entirely different Grace.
She turns around and finds none other than Margot Dillard, two-term Prescott High School student body president, striding in her direction. Grace didn’t know Margot even knew her name.
“How are you?” Margot says. “Got any exciting plans after school?”
“Not really,” Grace lies. For some reason, she has decided to keep her real plan a secret. It’s embarrassing how excited she is, and how terrified. It’s confusing how the combination of these feelings is making her feel something strangely similar to happy.
“I have a favor to ask you,” Margot says.
“Okay,” Grace says. People ask favors of their friends. That means Margot considers Grace her friend.
Margot leans in closer. She smells like watermelon candy. “I can’t make it to the meeting tomorrow night,” she whispers. “The debate team is traveling to Salem for a really important meet, and I can’t get out of it. I’m so bummed. Can you lead the meeting for me?”
Grace’s first instinct is this must be a joke. A cruel trick. Like that movie Carrie. A bucket of blood will be waiting for her at the meeting, ready to dump on her head for thinking she could possibly lead anything.
“Grace?” Margot says. “Can you do it?”
The only thing Grace can think to say is “Why me?”
Margot smiles. “Your comments are always thoughtful and smart. You seem really steady and calm, and not swayed by people’s disagreements and emotions and everything.”
“But I’m too quiet,” Grace says.
“You don’t have to be loud to be a leader,” Margot says. “People respect you. That’s what’s important.”
Grace is light-headed. Her body, which usually feels so heavy and cumbersome, is suddenly made out of feathers.
There are so many things running through her mind, so many ways to respond. In her brain, new synapses are firing, working frantically to make connections where none had been before. They are trying to rewire her, trying to make sense of the disparity of how others see her versus how she’s always seen herself. They are trying to let Margot’s words in, trying to make them stick, trying to make Grace believe them.
A tiny spark ignites inside her, a soft voice finds its way through her depths, through the previously empty expanses that are slowly filling, through the place in her throat where so many thousands, maybe millions, of words have gotten stuck over time. The spark finds Grace’s tongue, her teeth, her lips, finds Grace’s voice, and opens her mouth: “Yes,” Grace says. “Yes, I’ll do it.”
“Great!” Margot says, and hugs her quickly before bouncing away. “You’re going to do great!” she calls when she’s halfway down the hall. Grace knows Margot is rarely wrong about anything.
But still, the question remains: Why her? Why Grace? Of all people? Margot could have asked Melissa or Elise, born leaders. Even Rosina would have been a stronger, though possibly volatile, choice. Was it because Margot was in a hurry and Grace was simply the first person she saw? Or was it something deeper, one of God’s mysterious workings, one of His miracles? Was Margot right? Is Grace a leader? Is there something of her mother in her after all?