Vera laughs, a husky, windblown snicker that sends goose bumps threading up my own skin. “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody Boomerangs it and adds it to their story, did it really even happen?”
“Trin,” says Madison, pulling her hand away from her face as a thread of drool extends, glistening like a spider’s web, “most of your followers were old perverts who just liked ogling those pictures of you so you could star in their gross fantasies. Not to sound judgy or anything, but that would make me feel so, like, violated.”
“Oh, shut up, Madison. One time I was on the train, wearing baggy sweats, no makeup, every inch of my body covered, and some fool whipped his dick out at me anyway. There are certain kinds of men, girls our age give them nasty thoughts just by being alive. So if you can’t control other people’s fantasies, why not at least make money off them?”
“I get that logic,” says Vera. “Too bad your mom didn’t.”
“She’s super Christian,” Madison explains.
“And a United States congresswoman,” adds Vera.
“Former United States congresswoman,” Madison corrects her. “She lost her reelection last year. People figured, if she couldn’t control her daughter, how could she control, like, the economy or whatever?”
Trinity just yawns. She doesn’t look sorry.
“Anyway, you’ll get used to it, not having a phone,” Vera says to me. “I barely even remember how to take a selfie. Or why someone would want to take a selfie. I’m like a pioneer woman. Or a cult wife. Or a fucking astronaut. I don’t live in the world anymore—I live in Red Oak.”
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“Almost two years.”
“Two years?”
I thought maybe my dad and Alanna would stick me here for a couple weeks, thirty days at the absolute most. Just long enough to teach me a lesson. It hadn’t even occurred to me until now that I could be stuck here for the rest of high school. They would never do that to me, though. Would they? Well, Dad wouldn’t. But Alanna . . . I start to feel that tingling sensation in the center of my chest, the first whispering tendrils of a panic attack. If I don’t get in front of this, the tingling can turn quickly into a drowning feeling, like someone’s just pulled a plastic bag over my head and is starting to tie it up tightly. I want a narcotic intervention. Like, now. But since my last psychiatrist discontinued all my prescription meds due to my “addictive personality,” and a strip search, a confiscated phone, and several hundred miles of highway stand between me and one of Xander’s little orange pills, I put a hand up to my throat and breathe deeply through my nose the way she taught me. It’s better than nothing, I guess.
“Don’t worry, Mia.” Madison’s eyes behind her glasses are filled with roommately concern. “Most people don’t stay that long. Vera’s a special case.”
I nod gratefully and breathe out.
“Yeah, it’s been a minute.” Vera kicks a long stubbly leg up onto our lunch table and points to her scuffed Docs. “I’ve completely lost touch with contemporary culture. Are these even cool anymore?”
“Docs never were cool, in my world,” says Trinity. She sighs. “I miss my Louboutins.”11
“Oh, Trinity,” Vera says. “It’s so sad how you succumb to toxic princess culture, not to mention the hegemonic structures that equalize femininity with walking around on torturous stilts. Not to mention the fact that Louboutins, despite their absurd price tag, are just so tragically basic.”
“Only white girls can be basic. We’ve been over this.”
“I disagree,” Madison begins. “There was this one girl at my old school—”
“Shut up, Madison,” the other two say in unison, and I feel like I can breathe again, because even though (if the Who Is a Red Oak Girl? list is any indication) these girls are all insane, the way they bicker with each other feels reassuringly normal.
“My point,” Vera says, kicking her feet back to the floor, “is that I prefer, whenever possible, to be comfortable.” She begins sawing at her pear with a plastic knife. I see Dee, the Red Oak equivalent of a lunch monitor, standing in the middle of the room and holding a clipboard. I notice that she doesn’t take her eyes off us until Vera puts down her knife.
“So if two years isn’t the standard,” I say, trying to sound casual as the rhythm of my heartbeat starts to even out, “what is?”
“Every girl comes to us exhibiting her own unique battery of issues,” explains Trinity, and I can’t tell if she’s still making fun of Mary Pat or if Red Oak girls are so therapized that this is just how they talk. “And every girl’s treatment plan and LOS12 varies. Not sure if you heard, but we do not adhere to patriarchal, militaristic methods, which means that your release date will be soft and negotiable, depending on how well Mary Pat and your individual counselor think you’re doing the emotional work.”
“My individual counselor?”
“Yeah, there’s three of them. Everybody gets assigned one. They meet with you two times a week and they’re like your point person here. Your counselor pretty much holds the key to your exit. Lemme see your schedule, and we can see who you’ve got.”
I produce the printout Mary Pat gave me at intake, and Trinity points to a name in the top right-hand corner of the folded paper. St. John, Dr. Vivian.
“Lucky.” Madison pouts. “I’ve got Carolyn, and Carolyn sort of sucks.”
“And I’ve got Bad Breath Brit,” Trin says, with an epic eye roll. “You’re lucky, Mia. People love Vivian.”
“And those people,” Vera says, “suffer from Stockholm syndrome.” She forks a slice of pear, nibbles off a tiny corner of flesh, and looks at me. “I’ve got Vivian, too. Our sessions are painfully pointless—don’t expect miracles. And anyway, it doesn’t even matter who you’ve got, because what an LOS really comes down to is how fucked up you actually are. So the question is: Are you someone like me, who is truly and incorrigibly bad? Or are you simply a girl who isn’t ‘good,’ with parents who don’t know how to deal, like Trinity here?”
“I may have been an Instagram porn star,” Trinity says, sitting up straight and primly lacing her fingers together, “but I’m still a virgin who loves Jesus.”
“So which one are you?” Madison looks at me eagerly. “Bad, or just not good?”
“No, let us figure it out,” Vera says before I can answer. “It’s more fun that way! The first thing we need to know is why you’re here. You didn’t threaten to shoot up your school, did you?”
“Nah,” says Trinity. “She doesn’t look like the violent type. I say drugs.”
“Meth? No—that’s not really a Chicago thing. It’d be coke. Or some sort of opioid.”
“You banged your teacher.”
“Or your best friend’s daddy.”
“Or your best friend’s mom?”
“Did you steal a car? And then crash it through the front window of a Build-A-Bear Workshop?”
“Shut up, Madison. That was Olivia who did that. The same thing isn’t going to happen twice.”