Right?
I’m still trying to figure out how to answer when Jacob and a couple of his lacrosse buddies sit down at the table, their trays heaped with mac and cheese so gloppy you could use it to lay bricks.
“Ladies,” he says, and I grin. “What’s up?”
“Just talking about newspaper stuff,” I say, shooting Chloe a look across the table. “We’ve got a print deadline at the end of the week.” I pop a grape into my mouth. “Actually, did you get those article pitches I texted you?”
Chloe nods, noncommittal. “I had a bunch of ideas too,” she tells me. Then, nodding at the mac and cheese on Jacob’s tray: “Do you want to write something about the new menu, maybe?”
I laugh out loud, I can’t help it.
“What?” She shrugs.
“It’s not exactly hard-hitting journalism, that’s all.”
Chloe frowns again. “Is that what you want to be doing now?” she asks. “Hard-hitting journalism?”
“I just—” I break off, not entirely sure why she seems so testy all of a sudden. “Isn’t that always what we’re trying to do?”
Chloe makes a face at that. “I mean, it’s a high school paper, Marin,” she reminds me. “Not the Globe Spotlight team.”
I’m starting to reply when there’s a commotion up at the front of the cafeteria—it’s Principal DioGuardi yet again, a miserable-looking Deanna Montalto in tow.
“Attention please!” he yells out across the room. “Since apparently some of you ladies have still not gotten the memo about the new uniform guidelines, I thought I’d have my friend Deanna here help me show you all what you should not be doing!”
“Seriously?” I look from Deanna to Chloe and back again. “Is he really about to make an example of her right now in front of everyone?”
“Looks that way,” Chloe murmurs, biting her lip.
DioGuardi paces back and forth at the front of the cafeteria like a basketball coach watching a scrimmage. “Now,” he begins, “who can tell me how Deanna is violating the uniform code today?” He nods at a freshman girl sitting at a table by the window. “How about you?”
“Um,” the freshman says, her small voice barely carrying. “She isn’t wearing tights?”
“She isn’t wearing tights!” DioGuardi echoes cheerfully. “That’s certainly one of the problems here. What else?”
Deanna stands silently as DioGuardi points out all her uniform violations one by one, from her untucked shirt to the too-big hoop earrings she’s wearing. He even has Ms. Lynch, the school secretary, bring him a ruler so he can measure the length of her skirt.
“This is awful,” I mutter, though when I look over at Jacob for confirmation I realize he’s watching the proceedings with a good-natured smirk on his face.
“What are you doing?” I ask, jabbing him in the ribs harder than I necessarily mean to. “This isn’t funny.”
“Aw,” Jacob says with a shrug, “it’s a little funny. Besides, Deanna doesn’t care. A whole cafeteria full of dudes looking at her at once is probably her dream.”
“You’re being freaking gross,” I tell him, even as his buddies bust up laughing. I look back at Deanna’s vacant face. I don’t know that I’ve ever sat back and thought super hard about why everyone says she’s a slut in the first place beyond the fact that her boobs are big and she had a boyfriend back in seventh grade. Even if she has been with a million guys, I think suddenly, even if she is dressing to get attention, how is that anybody’s business but hers?
“Ms. Montalto,” Mr. DioGuardi finishes finally, “I will see you in detention this afternoon. As for the rest of you ladies, please remember to dress yourselves in a way that’s befitting of the values we uphold here at Bridgewater.”
“Yeah, ladies,” Jacob teases. “Have some values, why don’t you?”
“I can count three different uniform violations on you right now without even trying,” I say. “You’re lucky DioGuardi didn’t drag you up to the front of the cafeteria in front of everyone.”
“Eh.” Jacob shrugs, unconcerned. I glance over at Chloe for backup, but she’s fussing with her phone inside her bag.
“Can I eat these?” Jacob asks, pointing to the rest of my grapes, and I hand them over without protest. Suddenly I’m not hungry at all.
Ten
That night I sit at my desk eating all the pink Starbursts out of a giant bag I picked up at CVS and staring at the blinking cursor on the screen of my laptop, trying with extremely limited success to put together a draft of this article about the new cafeteria menu. Normally I really like writing for the Beacon, but now it feels all mixed up with what happened with Bex, all those afternoons we spent in the newspaper office supposedly having such a good time. I mean, we were having a good time. At least I was. But now . . .
Also, damn if it isn’t a tall order to make grilled chicken on top of limp romaine lettuce sound exciting and novel.
Finally I push my chair back from my desk, catching sight of myself in the mirror on the back of my closet door. My hair has gotten long, the ends still bearing traces of last summer’s sun-and-lemon-juice highlights. When I was little I wanted to look like a mermaid—I remember how Chloe and I used to sleep in braids the night before a beach trip, then hole up in her bathroom or mine slathering on self-tanner, spending way longer getting ready than we ever did messing around in the waves. All at once it occurs to me how much time I’ve wasted in my life trying to make it look like I haven’t spent any at all.
I stand up and face myself full-on in the mirror, taking in my cropped shirt and the sliver of belly that peeks up over my high-waisted jeans and wondering briefly what I’d think if I was a stranger and saw a picture of myself on Instagram. What would I say to Chloe about that girl’s flat butt and smudgy mascara? Probably not “She looks smart and like a good friend,” that’s for sure.
I glance over at the empty place on the carpet where Chloe sat the other night, our conversation replaying like some bad radio earworm inside my head: You’re freaking out a disproportionate amount. I got so amped up at the thought of it, but what if she’s right? I went to his house, I remind myself again. I reapplied my ChapStick right there in his front seat. But was that an invitation? I didn’t mean it that way—at least, I don’t think I did—but maybe we did just have bad communication.
And then I remember: it happened. I was there. God, it’s like even I want to make myself doubt myself. How messed up is that? But there are so many unspoken rules for navigating high school—for navigating life, maybe—that I can’t help but try to figure out which one I broke to get myself into this situation. There are so many rules for girls.
I stretch my arms over my head and think again about what happened to Deanna at lunch today, the caught-animal look in her eyes as DioGuardi called her out in front of everyone. The longer I think about it the angrier I get—at DioGuardi, sure, but also at myself. I want to tell Deanna I’m sorry for all the casually nasty, sexist stuff I’ve ever heard about her, for all the times I could have said That’s not funny and didn’t. I want to tell her how unfair the whole thing is. Like, every guy wants to hook up, but if you actually do hook up, you have to worry about this? I want to ask her if she also feels like there are all these guidelines we’re supposed to be following in exchange for the alleged privilege of walking around this world as a teenage girl: Be flirty but not too flirty. Be confident but not aggressive. Be funny but in a low-key, quiet way. Eat cheeseburgers, but don’t get fat. Be chill, but don’t lose control. I feel like I could keep on going, like a full list would cover one of those old-fashioned scrolls from cartoons about Santa Claus.