FOUR
It’s possible to make a day good, or at least better, by starting it off with a small dance party in which you get dressed in some of your favorite clothing items.
Or that’s my theory.
That’s why I chose to prepare for my first day at Greenville High with “Le Freak” by the band Chic (from the album C’est Chic, released 1978) blasting while I dug through a bunch of boxes I was supposed to unpack but didn’t, because I was making the pieces of my, let’s say “failed” or “ill-received,” disco moment.
All my clothing is vintage, or most of it, partly because my moms don’t like buying anything new that we can buy used. For most of my life I’ve made kind of a game of finding clothing that’s the perfect match for my aesthetic. It’s like searching out magic gemstones, only those gemstones often smell like mothballs. And need to be hemmed.
For my first day of school, I rummaged for one of my favorite finds, a pair of legit seventies suede shorts in orange, yellow, and blue, pairing it with peach sparkly leggings, and a lavender-and-neon-orange sweatshirt with massive bell sleeves I think someone made and then hid in a Value Buys in Arizona just for me to find. The tag on the sweatshirt says DAZZLING DUDS, which is like a secret piece of awesome just for me or whoever is doing the laundry.
What’s the best kind of dud? A dazzling dud!
Of course now you’re asking, what kind of shoes go with that ensemble? The answer is, obviously, neon-green kicks that someone was generous enough to add a three-inch platform to before they donated them to Good Willing in Eureka, where I found them.
Really what you want as the finale to that sort of dressing routine is a slide down a banister, but our new house didn’t have one, so I settled for dancing down the stairs like the Beatles in their “Your Mother Should Know” from the Magical Mystery Tour movie. (You can view this sequence online without having to see the whole, not great movie. It’s not disco, but it’s very cool.)
Millie was in the kitchen, which was momentous because Millie is an artist who once told me that the whole point of being an artist is you don’t have to wake up early in the morning.
But it was the first day of school, so Millie was there with a pot of fresh coffee and a few inspiring words of encouragement.
“Finally! I’m getting you guys out of my hair.” She sighed with exaggerated contentment.
But Lucy didn’t catch said exaggerated contentment, as she was clearly very nervous.
“What time is it?” she asked, searching the counter for the phone that was right in front of her.
“You’ve got lots of time,” Millie said, filling up a travel mug and setting it next to Lucy’s phone. “I’ll take the kid to school. You go on ahead.”
I searched the fridge for the leftover fried rice, which is the best breakfast, especially when served with coffee.
“Does this look okay?” Lucy stood back and pressed her hands down the front of her green jacket and matching pencil skirt.
I thought she looked a little military-ish, but I was clearly in no position to criticize, as I was wearing what could easily be interpreted as the uniform of a psychedelic cheerleader from Jupiter.
Also there’s a time and place for thoughts about a person’s outfit. I think these things are always better noted in retrospect. Or internally.
Plus Lucy clearly needed a boost, so I gave her a whomp on the back and said, “HEY! YOU LOOK SUPER PROFESH!”
I also (mentally) noted she’d set her hair in a strange bob helmet that looked protective and maybe older? Also she was wearing eyeliner, which she normally didn’t.
“You look very. . .in charge,” Millie said, dropping an apple into Lucy’s lunch bag. “You’re going to knock them dead.”
“Principal Lynde already left six messages,” Lucy fretted, pocketing her phone. “She must have expected me to be there at the stroke of six.”
Millie looked at me with a silent Yikes Lucy didn’t see because she was already searching for the phone she had just slid into her pocket.
“You’re going to be amazing at this,” Millie said, taking Lucy’s face in her hands and giving her a peck. “Your phone is in your pocket.”
I paused scarfing my rice to point at my outfit. “How do I look?”
Millie squinted. “A little like me when I was your age, which is disturbing, but only to me.”
“Double bonus,” I cheered.
“You look lovely,” Lucy said, grabbing her keys and doing a cool backward walk out the door. “Love you.”
“LOVE YOU!” I scooped the last of the rice out of the container. “See you at school, sort of.”
“Have a good day, sweetie!” Lucy called back as she blasted out of the house like a military hurricane.
A few seconds after the door slammed shut and Monty barked her the-door-is-shut bark, Millie stretched. “All right. How do you feel about grabbing a doughnut chaser for your leftovers?”
“Good, obviously.”
Millie fished her keys out of her robe pocket and took Monty’s leash off the wall hook. “Let’s go.”
“In your robe?” I asked, in what I hoped wasn’t a judgmental tone.
“Says the girl dressed like she’s hosting an aerobic marathon on Mars,” Millie noted, standing in the doorway. “Are those shorts suede?”
“Yeah.” I pointed at my legs. “Suede and polyester and nylon in one outfit!”
Millie shrugged. “What you will soon learn, my dear sweet child, is that while small-town folks might not dig your perfectly reasonable cacophony of fabrics, wearing your pajamas out of the house is going to be totally acceptable.”
And with that, Millie swung open the door, twirling her keys around her finger. “Come on, MONTY!”
By the time we got to the school, full of doughnuts (no one blinked at Millie’s pj’s at the doughnut place, by the way), the road was jammed with people dropping off some kids while other kids zipped past on boards and bikes, and other kids in groups charged the door and shoved one another. As Millie idled and finished her jelly doughnut, I took a moment of respite to breathe in Monty’s doggy smell and give her doggy kisses.
“Wish me luck Monty o’ Mine,” I whispered into her fur.
Monty snuffled and licked a spot on my face very close to my eyeball.
“Right.” Lifting my head, pulling my knapsack up on my shoulder, I shifted into happy voice. “High school! Hooray!”
I hopped out of the car, full of forced vigor.
“GOOD LUCK!” Millie called out as she skidded out of the parking lot, Monty’s head hanging out the window like a party favor. I watched as Millie drove off with the rest of the doughnuts and my stomach.
That morning, before I even got up, I had three texts from my actual real best friend, Danny, who I’ve known since I was ten.
Danny and I share the following things in common: We are both half-Japanese, we have both read all the books people give you to read when you are, we both prefer brightly colored hair, and we both love clothes other people deem to be tacky. Danny is “aggressively gay” and I am “deliriously queer.” We haven’t lived in the same city for like many many years. So. Lots of texts.
I had already messaged Danny about my disco debacle. He was unsurprised and helpfully enraged.
DANNY
Never stop throwing your balls in their faces.
ANNE
I don’t think that’s helpful but I appreciate the sentiment
I paused in front of the school to take a photo.
From the outside, Greenville High was a redbrick building with the grid of windows you expect to see in high schools. In every pane, there were little green paw prints taped to the glass, which made it look like someone’s green cat had walked over the front of the building and no one had bothered to clean up afterward. Clearly the most important thing about the front of the school was the massive marquee sign that towered over it. Squatting on top of the sign was a giant green plaster creature with the body of a tiger and the neck of a giraffe (maybe?), with a pointed spiky head. I’m guessing this was probably the creature responsible for the paw prints in the windows. Its muzzle was pointed, like a hunting dog, away from the school. Its eyes were made of what looked like yellow lightbulbs. Were they lit up at night?
From the ground, I could see the little white teeth, bared. It looked like someone probably cleaned those teeth, and the sign, on the regular.
The text on the sign read: GO, DRAGONS, GO! DON’T COME FOR US!
“ ‘Don’t come for us’?”
As Lucy’s sweatshirts can attest, every school has a mascot. They’re all kind of weird.
I wondered what this mascot was standing on watch for.
I mean, I had a guess. But I wasn’t letting my brain follow up on those thoughts. Instead, I forced my feet to walk the twenty steps between the parking lot and the front entrance.
“Okay, Anne, let’s do this.”
Inside, Greenville High smelled like every other high school in the world: a mix of floor polish and sweat. The music of kids yelling bounced aggressively off the walls of green and gray lockers as students crisscrossed the green tile floor and did what kids do, which at Greenville High seemed to be punch one another on the shoulder and say stuff like “WHAT UP, DICK?”
Three people smashed past me as I dug into my pockets and pulled out the piece of paper I’d printed with my locker number and schedule. As if on cue, the final kid slammed past me so hard he knocked my bag onto the floor, spilling its contents everywhere.
So I was on all fours trying to get my stuff together when I heard a familiar voice.
“Welcome to Greenville High!”
I smiled as I recognized the paint-spattered work boots.
“Hey!” I looked up.
It was still-unknown person from the day before, who was wearing pretty much the same thing, only with a bright blue sweater on over their coveralls. They held out their hand, which was also covered in freckles (and a little blue paint?) and yanked me off the floor.
“Nice outfit.”
“Thanks,” I said, flooded with relief. “I didn’t ask your name yesterday, or anything else really,” I apologized, wiping the dust and pain from my knees. “Sorry, it was kind of a weird—”
“It’s Berry.” Berry smiled and adjusted their ponytail/pile of hair. “I mean, I’m Berry. Uh. She/her. If that’s also what you’re asking.”
“Oh, it wasn’t but that is cool?!” I said, dazzled. “Is it, uh, with an ‘e’? Your name?”
“Yeah like Blueberry, or whatever.” Berry scratched her chin. “I didn’t ask your name because. . .I mean it’s Anne, right?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” Berry held up her hands, “Sorry. Welcome to small-town high school life, where like everyone knows everyone. Like, I mean NBD, but I kind of already know everything about you. Not to freak you out.”
I pointed at my chest. “Freaked out.”
“I mean.” Berry shrugged. “Just maybe close your curtains when you get home.”
My eyes popped open. “What?”
“Joke.” Berry smiled. “Small-town humor. Not very funny. More menacing, really. I have no idea if you have curtains.”
“I mean. . .” I looked around, suddenly realizing how aware of me everyone else seemed to be. “We don’t, but now I’m gonna put some up.”
“Maybe not a bad idea.” Berry pulled me to the left so I would avoid being slammed to the floor for the second time in the all of ten minutes I’d been at Greenville High. “So. Okay. Here’s what I know.. . .”
Berry held up a hand and ticked off the facts about my existence on her fingers, which really were dotted in paint. “I know that your moms are gay. That one of your moms is a big-time photographer who takes pictures of naked people.”
“Uh,” I said as I mentally scanned Millie’s gallery of works, “she takes portraits. Sometimes. They’re not ALL naked. Not that nudes are, like, bad.”
“I mean around here that’s porn,” Berry said. “Just so you know. People will say your mom makes porn.”
“Cool.” I sighed. “I’ll let her know.”
“You moved here from California; some people say LA.” Berry raised an eyebrow as if to check on this one.
I shook my head.
Berry looked disappointed for a flash, but then she looked at her watch. “Okay, and also we have to start walking to get to homeroom.”
“It was Petaluma,” I said, walking next to Berry, “which is not LA. Petaluma is actually kind of small, but apparently not Greenville small because no one there knew my bio from the moment I arrived.”
“Well.” Berry sped up a little. “People are going to say you’re from LA. Because that’s what they’ve decided is true, and basically California around here is just west.”
“Riiiiiight.” I silently prayed Berry was taking me somewhere I needed to go. “What else?”
Berry rounded a corner. “Your other not-porn-making mom is a left-wing socialist militant who will be our first female vice principal in fifty years.”
“Yikes again,” I said. “Militant? Is that all-encompassing like west or what?”
The eyes on me suddenly seemed all that much more potent. Wasp stingers. If wasps were insects that categorized people without actually knowing the person they were talking about.
“Don’t worry,” Berry said, gesturing for me to catch up. “I’m in your homeroom. And I’m, like, maybe the only person in this town who was excited you were from LA. And that your moms are cool and gay and artists.”
“Well, good.” I mean, heck yeah, my parents are awesome.
“Whatever you need to know about Greenville, I’ll, you know, try to tell you all the stuff,” Berry assured me in a tone that was actually assuring.
“Thank God.”
Berry grinned, gap showing. “Don’t you mean ‘thank goddess’?”
“Is that a feminist militant reference, because we do worship Gaia,” I joked. “I mean not ALL the time but on the harvest moon, you know, we strip, dance in circles around a fire, that whole thing.”
“I mean that’s what people are saying.”
“I’m kidding.”
“Yeah, okay,” Berry said. Which made me think that that was what people were saying.
As if my moms didn’t actually spend their weekends bingeing TV and cleaning the kitchen like everyone else. My moms went to sleep at like nine. Not exactly a full-moon house. Although Millie did walk around naked sometimes when she felt like it.
Curtains, I reminded myself. Must get curtains.
We rounded another corner (I was NOT keeping track of where we were going) and ended up in a small classroom where Berry navigated us through a sea of seats to the far side. In each seat sat a kid in muted earth tones who looked at me like I was an alien. Either because two of the fabrics I was wearing were sparkly or because they thought I came from a cult of angry lesbians.
Which, think about it, most cults are heterosexual. Just saying.
The bell finally rang, at which point our homeroom teacher, a tall woman with a blond bob and pearls, walked into the classroom, followed by a set of familiar faces: Tanner, the boy who had basically brought my opening number to a close in Greenville Square a day earlier, and what was clearly his crew. The four of them took their seats at the back of the class, which looked like they had almost been reserved for them.
The homeroom teacher clapped her hands. “Okay, class! Take your seats. It’s good to see you all back. Many familiar faces. And it looks like we have a new student with us, uh, Anne? Anne, can you stand up?”
Twenty sets of eyes trained on me as I slowly rose from my seat.
“Hi, I’m Anne,” I said, waving as I stood. “Uh. She/her. Not from LA.”
I had prepared more casual introductory material, including a brief summary of my three last schools, my three favorite albums, and an inspirational quote.
Apparently none of these were needed or desired.
I had just cracked my mouth open to talk when my new homeroom teacher made a clam-slamming-shut motion with her hand, followed by a “sit down” motion with her other hand.
I sat.
“Anne. My name is Mrs. Sherman,” she said, with the crispness of a snapped cracker, “and I will be your homeroom teacher. If you need any assistance, I’m sure there will be no shortage of students prepared to help the adopted daughter of our new school vice principal.”
It was like being pricked by an unexpected thorn. Why did she say I was adopted? Like, accurate but also kind of rude. Adopted daughter instead of just, you know, daughter? Kid?
I caught Berry’s glance like a butterfly net, her eyes wide with “Yes, Anne, this is going to happen. I am very sorry.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but then the bell rang.
And there ended the final (ish?) introduction of me to Greenville.
Of course, my introduction to Greenville was just getting started.
Berry continued her primer in Gym a few periods later, while we ran in circles like planets orbiting our gym teacher, Mrs. Harras, who took a moment to eye me and give me a curt handshake of introduction when I walked onto the field.
“Harras,” she said, holding out her hand. “Coach Harras. Physical education. I also coach girls soccer and tennis.”
“Anne,” I said, shaking with a firm grip that was not as firm as Harras’s. “I will be your student, but probably not on any teams. No offense.”
“Annie?” Harras looked momentarily interested.
“No, Anne. With an e.”
“Really?”
“Anne with an e?” I repeated. “It’s. . .my name?”
Harras sniffed. “I thought it was Annie.”
She was very clearly disappointed.
In addition to somehow having a preference for Annie over Anne, Harras also seemed to like blowing her whistle a lot for no reason. Like three tweets for every lap? Why? I tried to zone out and focus in on my lesson and jog, something I hadn’t done since my last gym class a few months earlier, because who jogs?
According to Berry, Greenville is made up of two groups of people.
“Okay, so.” Berry looked around. “Possibly this is weird to talk about, like, categorizing people and stuff. I mean, I think it’s weird.”
“Acknowledging before you begin that many categories of people are subjective,” I noted. “And imposed. And likely oppressive. Yes.”
“Right! Yeah, okay, so there’s people who have been here since what they would say is the beginning. They’re, like, the locals.” Berry rounded the turn, her hands balled into fists as she ran, in the boots I thought she would have changed out of. “I mean,” she added, “obviously, like, everyone in the United States came here from another country unless you are Indigenous or Native American.”
I pointed at Berry, pleased because American history and the history of what actually happened in America is sometimes a thing I think only my moms and I talk about. “Yes. That is TRUE.”
“And then there are the newcomers,” Berry said, “which is everyone else in Greenville, even if your family has been here for fifty years.”
“And the locals are the people who determine the newcomers,” I assumed.
“Oh. Yeah.” Berry took a gulp of air. Her cheeks were apple red. “But, you know, sometimes it’s the newcomers who call themselves newcomers, too.”
“So, I am definitely a newcomer,” I said.
“I mean, oh yeah, you definitely are, but, like, I am, too,” Berry pointed at herself. “I mean, everyone here is always like, Your family is Polish. Right? Even though we’ve been here for like two generations. In Greenville years that’s like five minutes.”
“Yikes,” I said, because it seemed the most appropriate response. Or the shortest. But also, wow. Like super prejudicial and problematic?
“Super yikes.” Berry nodded, stopping to tie her laces, which were thick with paint. “But that’s how it is here.”
I looked around at all the kids all bundled in groups. “What about Tanner?” I asked. “I’m assuming he’s local.”
Berry looked over her shoulder. “Tanner and crew? They call themselves the Forev ers.”
Tanner and the boys from his crew weren’t around (since gym in Greenville adhered to the archaic definitions of the gender binary) but the two girls from his crew were standing with a few other blonds in the center of the track, stretching.
“The Forevers are the kids whose families have been here since, you know, they would say, forever. Again, super erasing and problematic. It’s like the whole Founding Fathers–type thing. Also, they all have like tons of money. Tanner Spencer, the tall guy who always wears his soccer stuff, his family is all mayors and councilmen. The kid with the black hair and the freckles from yesterday was John Maxwell; his family owns the grocery store and the car dealership. And Gilly Henderson, the girl with the long hair, her dad is on the city council and her grandfather manages the bank. Her mom died a few years ago. The girl with the pigtails is Sarah Pye. They’re just rich. . .I don’t know how. Her mom is PTA.”
“That’s too bad about her mom.” I looked over at Gilly, who was in the center of the track, bending to touch her toes. “So, like the Forevers, they founded the city?”
“Oh, I mean, no, probably not. Maybe?” Berry shrugged as Coach Harras tweeted us back into our laps with—I thought—an excessive number of blasts. “I mean, they sort of. . .own it?”
The best way to run a place is to act like you run it.
And somewhere now Lucy, the “militant lesbian,” had been given a position of power.
I was pretty sure that wouldn’t be good.
Fortunately, for me at least, Berry and I had almost the same schedule except for Band, which Berry had (tuba!) but I didn’t, so I could pretty much follow her around all day soaking up as much information as she was willing to dish out. And clinging to Berry like a life jacket.
Berry showed me the two water fountains that worked, how to open my locker, which stuck, and how to navigate the Greenville High building, which was basically a doughnut. Also where the bathrooms with the working stalls were.
“So what do people do around here,” I asked as we walked from Chemistry to Spanish, “for fun?”
“For fun?” Berry tapped her chin. “Some kids stay home and play video games and watch makeup youvids. Mostly, though, around here, everything is sports. Like Greenville is ninety percent soccer season and ten percent academics. Soccer is the big thing at Greenville.”
“Hence the dragon perched on top of the sign outside.”
“Yeah, you don’t mess with the Dragons. Like parents here are super intense about that stuff.”
“Yeah?”
“Like”—Berry surreptitiously pointed to the arm of a kid walking next to us—“if you want to get a dragon tattoo around here, you can do that from the age of like six.”
“Do you have one?” I asked.
“Uh, no way.” Berry frowned. “When I get a tattoo, it’s not going to be a Greenville tattoo!”
“So there’s a lot of patchy dragon tattoos around Greenville is what you’re saying.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
My next class was English, which is normally my favorite class. Because what is better than a class that asks you to read a thing and then give your opinion about it? Even if you don’t like the thing you’re reading, at least you get to give your thoughts on it later, and, if you’re a super nerd, teachers usually give in and let you give an opinion on whatever else you happen to be reading.
Which is why I’ve given at least three book reports over the years on books about disco.
This teacher was a tall and reedy man with a smooth face and a thumb-size ponytail of curly hair at the back of his head. He smiled and nodded as I walked into the classroom, which was the first hint of any kind of warm welcome I’d gotten from any teacher. I nodded back and mentally told him that I 100 percent approved of his deliciously russet-orange vest with the wide shirt collar winged over top. Even if it was paired with a curious light blue denim.
A choice. A bold choice, really.
I could have sworn I got a little vibe back on my ensemble, but it was late in the day and I was kind of desperate for some acknowledgment, so I could have been projecting.
We were starting the semester with poetry, which was clear from the cursive message on the board.
Mr. Davidson. English.Take out your poetry intro books.Now.
“Hello, hello,” Mr. Davidson trilled, fanning his hand out over the class. “Sit, sit, sit.”
He picked up a list from his desk, his lips moving slightly as he ran down what I assumed was an attendance sheet. Mr. Davidson preferred the arena style of desk arrangement. I sat at the top side of the O, which unfortunately meant I was across from Tanner and crew.
“You must be Anne.” Davidson looked up from the list with a smile. “Welcome. We’re of course very happy to have your mother as our new vice principal, and we look forward to your contribution to our school.”
“Thanks!”
“Maybe you could start by telling us what you read this summer,” Mr. Davidson said. “So we can get a little sense of your literary tastes?”
“Um. I read a biography of the singer Sylvester and a bunch of graphic novels.”
Mr. Davidson nodded. “Excellent. Well, we’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts on our reading list, Anne.”
“Cool.” I grinned.
“Cool,” someone on my left mimicked.
Someone else stifled a giggle.
Mr. Davidson straightened. “All right. Let’s get out your textbooks.”
I looked up to see Sarah Pye staring back at me, her little cherry-red ponytails sticking out either side of her head, each tied with a green bow. “Coooool,” she mouthed exaggeratedly.
As Davidson wiped off the board at the front of the class, Tanner, his head tilted, faux-whispered to Sarah. His voice was only barely audible under the flutter of papers shifting, books coming out of bags and slapping onto the desktops. But I heard it. “Yeah, I mean I heard she’s a DYKE.”
I froze, my poetry textbook gripped in my hand.
Next to me, Berry shifted in her seat.
“Guess the city would rather give a job to a dyke than someone who can actually do it for real,” Tanner’s voice crept up in volume, as the sound of books flopping open, throats clearing, shoes on the floor, got louder.
Gilly, the girl with long hair, dropped her head into her hand, staring at her desk.
“I heard they’re all dykes,” Sarah loud whispered back.
My stomach flopped in my belly.
Suddenly there was a loud bang at the front of the classroom. Everyone looked up to see Mr. Davidson, his hands still hovering in the air over the book he’d dropped. He picked the book up. “We’re in class now. And in class we listen until spoken to.”
Across the room, Tanner gave a big stretch and yawned.
“Mr. Spencer.” Mr. Davidson stepped into the open circle of desks, walked over to Tanner and put his finger on the desk in front of him. “SIT. UP.”
Tanner slowly unfolded his body until he was sitting up straight.
I could feel Berry looking at me.
She mouthed, “Sorry.”
I could see a sheen of sweat beaded on her forehead.
“It’s okay,” I whispered back.
I opened my poetry book and flipped through it, my lips numb.
Mr. Davidson strode through the classroom back to his desk.
“Why don’t we start with. . .Gilly? Read our first poem on page six.”
Gilly raised her head slowly. “What?”
“Reading,” Davidson repeated. “Which we all enjoy. Please open your book, Gilly.”
I flipped through the contents while Gilly opened her book and started reading the first poem, by Robert Frost. The textbook was about 70 percent white guys, but it had a poem by Mary Oliver in it, “Wild Geese.” Which is Lucy’s favorite poem.
Ideally seeing Mary Oliver’s words would have carried me past this very stressful situation. Because she is a very very amazing writer. But all I could feel was a buzzing in my head during the rest of English. When the bell rang, I followed Berry to the cafeteria like there was cement in my sneakers, selecting a boat of fries to go with my apple juice. Outside, there was a paved area filled with tables. We sat at one near the edge.
“Yeah so,” Berry said, dropping down onto her seat and biting into her apple.
“Yeah.”
“I’m not going to ask if you’re okay, by the way. I mean, it’s cool if you’re not okay is what I’m saying. It’s not okay. . .what Tanner said. I mean he’s going to say it again, but I feel like, yeah, it’s worth always saying that it’s not okay.”
“He say it to you, ever?” I asked.
Berry pulled up the edge of her overalls with her thumb and forefinger. “Obv.”
“Right. Okay. That sucks.” I took a deep breath.
“I should have mentioned the element of small-town homophobia on top of the racism,” Berry said as we walked our trays to an empty table.
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t heard it before. It’s not just small towns, BTW.”
“Wait, really?” Berry raised her eyebrows, highlighting a spatter of neon-orange paint on her eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I said.
Berry looked at the apple in her hand. “People are homophobic in Califor nia?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure there are people who are horrible in every city. I mean in some bigger cities I think it’s just not, like, as accepted. Or obvious? But it does happen.”
Berry blinked, shook.
“But I’m not, like, an expert or anything,” I added.
People having an issue with LGBTQIA people, or BIPOC people, wasn’t new. It just sucked. Consistently. I’d spent a lot of time as a kid with my moms advocating for their existence to teachers who sent me home with “draw your family tree” exercises that were tricky for me as someone who was both adopted and had two moms.
“Tell them we’re not a tree. We’re a garden,” Millie said.
Actually one of the reasons Lucy went into education was stuff like that. Like curriculum and how it normalizes stuff. Lucy came up with this whole exercise she taught to teachers in schools all over the place. So we could all be gardens.
But maybe not in Greenville. On this particular day.
Berry artfully changed the subject to what movies I had and hadn’t seen, and we were knee-deep in a debate about whether or not animation is better than live action (it’s not) when I heard Tanner’s voice rise up into the air like a flock of angry seagulls.
“Hey, NEW GIRL!!!”
I put my drink down on the table.
“NEW GIRL! DYKE!”
“Anne,” Berry said quietly.
I was already up and walking before I realized it.
Tanner and his crew of Forevers were sitting at a picnic table a few feet away. It was clearly the good table. Half shaded by tree, half in the sun, the full buffet of teen snacks spread out for those in attendance to enjoy. Tanner was spinning his soccer ball on the table, which to me seemed doubly rude, not that his friends seemed to care.
As I stepped up to the table, Tanner smiled at me, his big teeth whiter than I thought they should be.
“Excuse me.” Sarah leaned forward, her fingers spread out displaying a pale pink mani that matched her lip gloss and shirt. “I don’t think you’re invited to be near this table. And, um, maybe in whatever fucked-up place you came from being rude is okay, but it’s not here.”
Tanner grinned up at me.
“So maybe you can dyke off.” Sarah smiled acid.
Gilly covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide.
They were all eating pizza, big droopy cafeteria slices with brick-like red pepperonis, all laid out on paper plates on beat-up cafeteria trays on the table. It was the special of the day, which I didn’t get because it didn’t smell like pizza and that’s a major component of food for me.
“Here for some lunch meat, new girl?” The boy I was pretty sure was John Maxwell sneered, dropping his hands under the table.
“Nah, New Girl’s here ’cause I got a message for her mom.” Tanner leaned back, pulling his foot up on the bench.
“I don’t take messages for my mother,” I said, trying to keep my heart from jumping out of my chest. “I’m here to tell you not to use the word dyke. It’s not yours. It’s m ine.”
I turned and started walking away.
“HEY!” Tanner called after me. “Hey, I’m not finished! DYKE! You gotta give your ma a message? OKAY?”
I could hear Sarah laughing.
I was three feet away when Tanner added, “Tell your SLUT of a mother to go back to California so we can get a real vice principal who knows what he’s doing.”
I spun around.
“What did you say?”
You talk about my mom. . .
“I said your mom’s a SLUT.” Tanner grinned. His teeth were as big as boats. “You wanna know how I know that?”
I didn’t let him answer. In a blur of pure rage, I charged at him like a freight train.
Suddenly my body wasn’t a body. It was a volcano, connected to the darkest, fiercest, hottest matter on the face of the earth.
Tanner’s pretty lucky I only hit him with a piece of pizza.
I had other options.