The Nowhere Girls(28)

She is so tired of being invisible.

Grace will have to make her own plans, then. She will have to find her own way to matter.

If you’re already nothing, you have nothing to lose.

*

Grace prepares herself all morning for the speech she will give Rosina and Erin at lunch. She uses several pieces of notebook paper over the course of her first four classes, jotting down points she wants to make, retorts to potential objections. By the time she sits at their table, she is almost confident about her case. Almost.

Lord, give me strength.

Erin pulls out her bento box with its usual bird-food contents. Rosina plops down with a banana, a carton of chocolate milk, and some cheese crackers from the vending machine.

“That’s all you’re having?” Grace asks.

“Today’s school lunch is tacos,” Rosina says. “I hate tacos.”

“Do you think an android could be programmed to enjoy sex?” Erin says while spooning a mysterious green substance out of one of her box’s compartments. “And if it could, would there be a practical reason for it to have that ability?”

“Wow, Erin,” Rosina says. “How about you start with something like ‘how was your weekend?’?”

“But that’s small talk,” Erin says. “You know I hate small talk.”

“Now you’re just being contrary.”

“That’s part of my charm.”

“So, you guys?” Grace interrupts. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.” If she doesn’t speak now, she knows she’ll lose her nerve.

“Slow down, man,” Rosina says. “Jeez, you both need to improve your social skills.”

“Is this going to be about personal stuff?” Erin asks. “Because I don’t like conversations about personal stuff.”

“Not really. I mean, sort of?” Grace stutters. She freezes. What was she was going to say? Where are those notes?

“Hello?” Rosina says. “We’re listening.”

“Hold on,” Grace says, pulling her notebook out of her backpack and flipping through the pages of her indecipherable handwriting.

Rosina shrugs, opens her bag of crackers, and throws a handful into her mouth. “So,” she says with a mouthful of orange crumbs. “While you’re trying to remember what you were going to say, I also have an announcement. I have decided that we do in fact have to do something to stop those assholes. Not just the assholes who raped Lucy, but all the assholes. We have to keep them from breeding more assholes.” She peels open her banana and takes a big bite. “I think castration seems appropriate.”

“Sounds messy,” Erin says.

Rosina smiles. “That was funny, Erin.”

“Thank you.”

Grace puts her notebook back in her bag. Her body feels tingly, her surroundings surreal, like she’s moving in slow motion while the rest of the world is speeding up.

“Are you serious?” Grace says. “What changed your mind?”

“It doesn’t matter. Stop asking me questions or I might change it back.”

Grace glances at Erin, who is chewing her food, watching them, listening. It is impossible to read her. She seems calm, but there is something else below the surface, something she is trying very hard to keep buried.

“What about you, Erin?” Grace asks her.

“Are you in?” Rosina says. “Do you want to be a part of our rebellion?”

Erin doesn’t say anything for what seems like a long time. She is swaying slightly, her head down, like she is thinking hard, feeling hard, like there is a lot more going on inside her than what they’re talking about. Finally she says, “That sounds like subversive activity.”

“Yeah, so?” Rosina says.

“Subversive activity almost always involves breaking rules,” Erin says, her voice growing agitated.

“That’s kind of the point,” Rosina says.

“We want to break the rules,” Grace says, an energy building in her chest. The feeling of something happening. The feeling of something inevitable. The feeling of something that matters. “The rules are what keep us silent. The rules are what didn’t get justice for Lucy. The rules are what’s broken.” Her words are full of fire, maybe not a full-on flame, but definitely at least a spark.

“Wow, New Girl.” Rosina lifts an eyebrow. “You’re just full of surprises.”

Tell me about it, Grace thinks.

“But we need rules to keep order,” Erin says, looking up for a moment with pleading eyes. “If everyone broke rules all the time, there’d be chaos. Then no one could get anything done.”

“We’re not talking about those kinds of rules,” Rosina says. “We mean like the unwritten rules of our sexist culture. Like the way girls and boys are expected to act, like double standards, women only making seventy-eight percent what men make, that kind of thing.”

“Guys getting away with rape even though everyone knows they did it,” Grace says. “Girls living in fear for no reason except the fact that they’re girls.”

Grace sees something shift inside of Erin. Her face makes a pained expression and she stops rocking. She shakes her head. “But we’re nobody,” she says. “How are we going to fix any of those things?”