The Princesses of Iowa (36 page)

Under Jeremy’s leadership, we picked up the whole operation and moved it to our creative writing classroom. The room that — until yesterday — had been Mr. Tremont’s. His plants were still on the desk, but the room had a slightly stale, empty feeling, like an old-time ghost town. “We should water the plants,” I said.

“It feels so empty,” Jenna said, rubbing her arms.

The sub, a young Asian woman named Ms. Chen, laughed. “He just left yesterday, didn’t he?”

“She’s right, though,” Elizabeth said. “This used to be more than just a room.”

Ms. Chen cocked an amused eyebrow at us and offered to take a seat while Jeremy addressed the class.

“Great,” Jeremy said, taking charge. In the front of the classroom, he laid out his plans on the chalkboard, his authority more natural than the sub’s. He delegated responsibilities quickly and efficiently. A few minutes later I found myself bowed over a large placard with Shanti, sketching out the letters of protest in light pencil.

“Where’s Ethan?” I asked, overly casual, tracing a giant
H
across the tagboard.

Shanti didn’t mince words. “Between you and Mr. Tremont, he’s pretty devastated.”

I winced, searching my mind for anything that wouldn’t just make her hate me more.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said.

Shanti sat back, perching on her heels. “What’s wrong with you, Paige?”

I laughed bitterly. “Funny you should ask. . . .”

“I’m serious.” She caught my eye, holding my gaze until I had to look away. “How could you reject him like that?”

I pulled the thick paint marker over shadowy outlines and shook my head, letting my hair fall across my face. “He’s a great friend,” I told the tagboard. “I just don’t feel that way about him.”

“Like hell you don’t,” Shanti said. She walked away, leaving me on the floor with my traced outlines, empty words.

Lying in bed that night, I heard a faint tap on my door. “It’s me,” my sister said, pushing the door open a crack.

“Come in.” I wiggled over, making space for her on the edge of the bed. “What’s up?”

She looked sad. When we were little, she used to come into my room like this, late at night, when our parents would fight. She’d crawl under the covers and look to me to make everything okay, and I’d whisper stories to her, stories I’d make up on the spot, about princesses who didn’t need any princes to rescue them, they could rescue themselves just fine, thank you. I hadn’t thought of those nights in years.

Mirror settled herself nervously on the edge of my bed. “I heard what you did. At the Austins’? Sorry I wouldn’t let you use the phone last night.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“I’m serious,” my sister said, looking like every word was a struggle. “I’m really impressed. I never thought you . . . you know.”

“Thanks, Mirror,” I said, genuinely touched. “That means a lot.”

“You know,” she said. “I think Mom’s going to be okay, in the end.” We were quiet for a moment, sitting together in my dark room, and all the walls we’d built between us in the last five years suddenly didn’t matter, didn’t even exist.

I pulled the quilt between my thumb and finger. “I hope so.”

“She will. Stella was never going to promote her.”

“Tell that to her.”

Mirror grinned. “I think I’ll leave that to you. I’m kind of enjoying being the good daughter for once.”

I snorted, and she laughed, and then we were both laughing hysterically, pounding on the bed and falling on the floor and clutching our stomachs like we hadn’t done since we were little kids, giggling after lights out, with our mother screaming from the living room for us to settle down and go to sleep. It was wild, helpless laughter, a paper-thin edge from crying, and we laughed and choked and gasped for breath and wiped away tears until we were both lying on the floor, side by side, rubbing our abs. “Shit,” I finally said.

She nodded solemnly. “I couldn’t agree more.”

After she left, I lay in bed, feeling better than I had in days. At least I had my sister, I thought. I decided I’d ask her to blow off first period and go to breakfast with me the next morning. Maybe we could even get our dad to go with us.

A cool breeze brought the tapping of raindrops against my bedroom window. Far in the distance, I could hear the static buzz of traffic on the highway, wet tires through water, the occasional semi.
Here I am,
I thought. All the questions of loyalty and identity seemed so unimportant at that moment, and I wondered how I’d wasted so much energy on them in the last few weeks. How I dressed, who I kissed, what I forgave, who I loved — what did it matter under the comfort of the late September night?

My peace faded with the dawn. I woke up edgy, restless, dreading school and yet knowing that I couldn’t stay away. Jeremy needed me, my creative writing group needed me. Mr. Tremont needed me.

I dressed in dark jeans and a black sweater. I couldn’t explain it, but the black made me feel safer somehow, like I was shielded. The night before, I’d overheard my mother on the phone in the study as I padded downstairs for a glass of water. Her voice had been pinched. “Do you think she’s gone goth?”

I had to tell Mirror that; she’d laugh and laugh.

I missed my sister by a minute. “She just left,” my father said, lowering the
Iowa City Press-Citizen
and reaching blindly for his coffee.

“Shoot,” I said. “I was going to take her out for breakfast.”

“Can I make you something?” he asked, still holding the paper. “An omelet or something?”

I grabbed a granola bar from the pantry. “No thanks.” I slung my messenger bag across my shoulder and hurried toward the back door, but then I stopped and turned. “Dad?” I asked.

His face appeared over the paper once more. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry about Mom. I didn’t mean to get her fired.”

He nodded. “I know. She’ll be okay, eventually.”

I sighed. “I hope so.”

The paper went up again.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I love you,” I said.

He looked surprised, then pleased. “I love you too, honey.” He looked up at the ceiling, seeming to pull his words from somewhere above his head. “Paige?”

“Yes?”

He smiled. “Give ’em hell out there today.”

School was a circus of color and shouting, TV news vans, giant protest placards. Two angry camps separated by news anchors and cameras camped out in the circle of benches at the front of the building. On one side, people carried signs that said
GOD HATES FAGS
. In freshman history, our teacher made us watch a documentary about Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was tortured, beaten, and then tied to a fence and left to die in the cold Wyoming night. As we watched the video, the horror of it crept over me until the uncomfortable plastic chair and loud ticking of the school-issued clock disappeared. The worst part of it was at his funeral, where a small group of people actually protested with signs that said things like
MATTHEW SHEPARD ROTS IN HELL
and
AIDS KILLS FAGS DEAD.
I remember some girl in my class raised her hand and said, “Yeah, people used to be like that, back when the KKK was around and stuff, but, like, we’re not like that anymore, right?” Mrs. Fox shook her head sadly, “Kaitlyn, Matthew Shepard was killed in 1998.” I couldn’t believe that people could actually be that cruel.

The homophobic and hateful signs on the front lawn of Willow Grove High School shocked me. As much as the video about Matthew Shepard had upset me, I still felt safety in my distance. Matthew was killed in Wyoming, but I lived in Iowa, where people were kind. How could this be happening to us? These were our people, Midwesterners living under the same wide blue skies, standing on our school’s front lawn with signs proclaiming
ADAM AND EVE, NOT ADAM AND STEVE
and
HOMOSEXUALITY = DEATH.
Iowa was supposed to be better than that.

Traffic past the school was slow, each driver craning his neck for a better view of the action. I was no different, searching the crowds as I drove, picking out the distinctive shape of Jeremy Carpenter standing under the flagpole near the Stonehenge circle of benches. A few feet away from him stood a camera crew, its young reporter smoothing her hair as the videographer fiddled with the equipment. I watched the media crews like you watch a crush at a party, not wanting to seem too eager, too interested. A few feet behind them, I saw Elizabeth and Alison with signs that said
ERASE HATE
and
JUSTICE INDIVISIBLE.
Warmth spread through my chest slowly, a feeling I finally identified as pride. We’d done this. Jeremy and Elizabeth and Jessica and Alison and Jenna and Shanti and everyone else, working through lunch, pulling together over paint markers and tagboard signs to make this happen. We’d done this.

I parked out by the back tennis courts and hurried across the parking lot to the heart of the action.

I couldn’t get to Jeremy’s side without passing through the God Hates Fags camp. I half jogged past them, trying not to look, trying not to be seen. I was nearly there when Jake grabbed me.

“Paige, wait.”

“Don’t touch me,” I said, struggling to pull free.

He squeezed my arm harder, imploring. “Paige. Will you listen?”

With one good twist, I broke his grasp. “No! I can’t believe you brought those people here!”

“Babe, I didn’t. That’s what I wanted to tell you.” He reached out again, but I stepped back. Unable to look at his face, I trained my eyes over his shoulder instead, seeing Lacey and Geneva down near the street. They stood before a camera, earnestly nodding as a J. Crew–model type held a large microphone to their faces. Just feet away, a pale woman marched back and forth carrying a large sign. Her thin lips were pinched in a line.
KEEP OUR STUDENTS SAFE,
screamed her sign. Her body was rigid as she turned north, toward Jeremy’s half of the school’s wide lawn. The other side of her sign said
SCHOOL DAYS, NOT SCHOOL GAYS.

“Look at this!” I said, sweeping my arm across the whole spectacle. The news vans, the protesters, the students, the worried teachers, the crowd growing larger every minute as curious neighbors and parents and townspeople joined the milling herds of students. “You did this.”

Jake shook his head miserably. “I didn’t mean to, Paige. That’s what I’m trying to say. I never meant for it to get this big. My dad —”

“Oh, your dad? It’s never your fault, Jake. It’s your dad, your mom, it’s Lacey, it’s your friends, it’s alcohol, whatever. Take responsibility for once.”

He grabbed for my sleeve. “Paige, no — I didn’t — my dad was the one who called these guys . . . I didn’t mean for all this . . .”

“It was
you,
Jake. You told the lie that got Mr. Tremont fired. You caused all of this, even if your dad was the one who made the call,” I said, then spun on my heel, leaving him alone in the hateful mob.

When I reached the other side of the yard, my sister dropped her placard (
HATE IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE
) and threw her arms around me. “You’re here!”

“Hi!” I said, startled and pleased.

“Jeremy’s over there, talking to the media,” Mirror said, tossing a hitchhiker’s thumb over her shoulder. “Isn’t this great?”

I looked past her to where Jeremy stood, his red hair catching the morning sun as he spoke earnestly before the camera. Funny, on the surface he looked so much like Lacey and Geneva talking to that reporter, I thought. But Jeremy actually belonged in front of the camera, while Lacey and Geneva, I was certain, were butting their way into the spotlight merely for the chance to be on TV. “Great?” I echoed.

“Yeah,” Mirror said, nodding eagerly. “Jake’s bringing in the God Hates Fags people makes our position so much stronger.”

Feeling sick, I thought about Jake’s words. His voice had sounded so small, so lost. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time when he’d sounded worse. It set me off balance, made me nervous. Since when was Jake smaller than the world he built around himself?

A familiar voice called for my sister across the quad. “Mirror! Mirror!” Ethan ran up, stopping abruptly when he saw me. “Oh.”

“Hi,” I said.

He took a long breath and looked at my sister. “Mirror, Jeremy needs you over by the Channel 27 people.”

My sister’s ocean eyes searched the crowd. “Okay,” she said, smoothing her dyed hair. “I’ll be right there.”

Ethan ducked his head. “Great.” Without looking at me — looking anywhere but — he said, “Catch you later,” and hurried off.

Mirror sighed. “Not good, huh?”

I shook my head unhappily. “Not good.”

She glanced toward the Channel 27 van. “I would stay —”

“Jeremy needs you,” I said. “You’d better go.”

“Okay,” she said, looking as though she wanted to say something else. After a moment, she shrugged and ran off across the lawn.

The crowd had to be more than a thousand strong now, between the students and the bystanders and the teachers and the protesters. Above my head, I heard the low
chopchopchop
of the news helicopter. I shivered, pulling my jacket more tightly around my shoulders. Jeremy was still talking to the Channel 27 people, still nodding solemnly. The picture would be appealing to TV viewers, I thought, Jeremy standing beneath the flag and the turning autumn leaves.