Rules for Being a Girl

I look down at the title: Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay.

“You know,” she says, looking at me thoughtfully, “if you’re not happy with the way things are around here, you ought to do something about it.”

She heads down the hallway before I can ask her what she means exactly, then turns back to face me. “By the way,” she calls, “I really liked your piece.”

I read Bad Feminist in the library at lunchtime and in between classes and tucked into my bed late at night, and two mornings later I go to see Ms. Klein before the first-period bell rings. She’s sitting in the bio lab going over lesson plans, classical music playing softly on her phone beside her. Her shirtdress is a deep hunter green.

“Hi, Marin,” she says, smiling. “How’d it go with the book?”

“I think I have an idea,” I tell her, instead of answering. “But I need your help.”

Twelve

“I’m just warning you now, I don’t think anyone’s going to come,” I tell Ms. Klein two weeks later, perching nervously on the edge of a lab bench after the eighth-period bell. When I first had the idea for a feminist book club, the night after she gave me the Roxane Gay book, it seemed almost brilliant—what a great fuck you to Mr. DioGuardi’s ridiculous dress code and Bex’s sexist reading list, right? What a great fuck you to everything that’s been going on. I made fliers and agonized over our first book before finally deciding on The Handmaid’s Tale because that was what the library had the most copies of; I filed new-student-organization paperwork with Ms. Lynch in the admin suite.

Now that it’s the day of our first meeting though, I just feel like the host of a party nobody wants to come to: even Chloe begged off in favor of an extra shift at the restaurant, which probably shouldn’t have surprised me at this point but still sort of sucked. The fact that I couldn’t convince my own best friend that a feminist book club was a good idea doesn’t bode super well for its success.

Ms. Klein shrugs. “So then no one comes,” she says. “You and I can talk about the book ourselves.” She nods at the Dunkin’ Donuts box on the desk beside her. “And eat twenty-five Munchkins apiece.”

I laugh, which calms me down a little; I’m about to ask her if she’s read anything else by Margaret Atwood when a couple of nervous-looking freshmen I vaguely recognize as members of the jazz band sidle into the classroom. My heart leaps when I realize they’re both holding copies of the book.

“Hey,” the taller one says, a white girl with her blond hair in two Princess Leia buns, looking around with no small amount of trepidation. “Um, is this the book club?”

“Sure is,” Ms. Klein says. “Have a seat.”

It’s a little bit awkward, but to my surprise, a handful of other people trickle in one by one: this kid Dave, an AV dude with carroty hair and a pale face full of freckles, and Lydia Jones, who’s black and works on the lit mag. Elisa Hernandez, the five-foot-tall captain of the girls’ volleyball team, shows up with a couple of her teammates.

“You guys have a big game coming up, right?” Ms. Klein asks, and Elisa beams.

“We were state champs last year,” she explains with a nod. “We’re defending our title.”

“Seriously?” I ask. I don’t exactly have my ear to the ground around school lately, but I’ve heard exactly nothing about this. I think of how everybody—me included—always shows up to cheer for our sucky football team, even though they won like twice all of last season. “How come they’re not doing a pep rally for you guys?”

“Are you kidding?” Elisa asks as her teammates giggle. “We can barely even get a bus for away games most of the time.”

I frown. “That’s so obnoxious.” It’s like now that I’m looking for inequality, I’m seeing it everywhere, categorizing a thousand great and small unfairnesses everywhere I go. Why didn’t I really see this before?

“Sounds like a great topic for your next op-ed, Marin,” Ms. Klein says pointedly, popping a Munchkin into her mouth.

Which—huh. I look over at Elisa, raising my eyebrows.

“You want to do an interview?” I ask, and Elisa grins.

Eventually Ms. Klein steers us back around to The Handmaid’s Tale. I’ve never been in a book club before, and I printed a list of discussion questions off the internet in case there were any horrifying lulls in the conversation, but it turns out we don’t even need them: Lydia and Elisa are big talkers, and Dave is quietly hilarious, with a sense of humor so darkly dry it takes me a full beat to realize when he’s joking. We’re talking about the similarities between the Republic of Gilead and modern-day America when somebody knocks on the open door. I look up, and there’s Gray Kendall in his Bridgewater Lax hoodie, backpack slung over one bulky shoulder.

“Uh,” he says, his dark eyes flicking around the room. “Sorry I’m late. Is this the book club meeting?”

Right away I sit up a little straighter. “Why?”

“Marin,” Ms. Klein chides mildly. “You’re looking at it, Gray.”

“Cool,” Gray says. He looks at me a little strangely, then holds up a book—a battered paperback copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, a bright orange USED SAVES sticker peeling off the spine. “Can I, uh—?”

“You did not read that book,” I blurt before I can stop myself. I know I’m being hugely rude, but he’s obviously got some kind of ulterior motive. For one insane second I wonder if Jacob sent him to mess with me.

“Um.” Gray huffs a laugh, good-natured but slightly disbelieving. “Yeah, I did.”

My eyes narrow. “The whole thing?”