Rules for Being a Girl

I spend the rest of my visit chattering on, cheerful, keeping my voice light and full of air: about summer finally coming and the tulip beds in front of Sunrise; about Katharine Graham, who I know from Ms. Klein was the first female publisher of a major American newspaper. Gram, for her part, seems content to listen to me, nibbling at her cake and nodding politely at appropriate breaks in my monologue like I’m a particularly gregarious stranger in a train station. As I’m getting up to leave, she touches my hand.

“I like you,” she says, her smile warm but somehow completely unfamiliar. “You remind me of myself.”

I tilt my head to the side, swallowing hard. “I do?”

Gram nods. “You’re a good girl,” she continues, “but you don’t always have to be so good.” Then she raises her eyebrows, mischievous. “Lord knows I wasn’t.”

For a second she looks like herself again, Gram who bought me my first journal and grew prize-winning roses and taught me to separate eggs over her immaculately polished stainless steel sink; then she blinks and it’s gone. I turn my hand over and squeeze hers for a moment, just gently, before letting go.

“I know,” I promise. “I’ll remember.”

Epilogue

The year’s final meeting of the feminist book club is on a warm Thursday afternoon at the beginning of June, a breeze blowing in through the open windows of Ms. Klein’s classroom and the trees exploding into verdant green outside. Elisa’s mom sends homemade tamales. Grace and I baked seven-layer bars. We read Warsan Shire’s Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, which was Lydia’s pick—and which comes with the benefit of letting us watch Beyoncé’s Lemonade, which is playing on a loop on a laptop at one corner of the room. Maddie and Bridget have an impromptu dance party going in one corner of the classroom, and I catch Dave singing along to “Formation” under his breath when he thinks no one is paying attention.

“You did something really good here, Marin,” Ms. Klein says quietly, coming to stand beside me with a paper cup of seltzer in one hand. The club is going to keep meeting next year, the underclassmen decided; Lydia nominated Elisa to be president, and she ran unopposed. I like the idea of the club continuing on without me—it’s dumb, maybe, but it kind of makes me feel like I’ll have a real legacy at Bridgewater beyond just being the girl who got Bex fired.

Of course, I’m not mad if that’s part of my legacy too.

Chloe and her parents pressed charges, which was hard for Chloe, but she felt like it was the right thing to do. The town paper ran a huge article on Bex, and Bridgewater caught a lot of heat for how they handled the whole situation. People were shocked by the administration’s actions—or lack thereof.

“How could something like this still happen today?” everyone said—but I guess that’s the reality, right? It does still happen.

Now I look around the classroom, my chest warm. Even Chloe came today, though she hadn’t read the book.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” she asked on the way over here, hesitating in the hallway. “To be crashing?”

“It’s not really about the book,” I promised, reaching for her hand and pulling her into the classroom. “I mean, it is and it isn’t.” Now I see her chatting with Elisa about the makeup artist who works on all Beyoncé’s videos, and I can tell she’s glad she came.

The only person who’s missing is Gray.

I sigh, smiling half-heartedly at Ms. Klein before drifting over to the food table. I thought he might show up for nostalgia’s sake—it’s our last meeting, after all—but I guess I chased him away for good. And sure, I apologized that day on the bleachers. But I know better than most people that sometimes an apology isn’t enough.

I’m just about to drown my sorrows in another tamale when I sense a movement behind me in the doorway; I turn around and there he is in his uniform and a Sox cap, smile as sheepish and crooked as the first day he joined the club. He catches my eye and grins.

I smile back, wide and honest.

It occurs to me that our story, whatever it might turn out to be, is far from over.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, shrugging a little shyly. “I needed to finish the book.”