The Nowhere Girls(56)

They talk about women’s solidarity, but it’s only for certain kinds of women. There’s no place in their feminism for girls like her—for conservatives, for Christians, for people who are pro-life, for women who value family. They call girls like her an idiot. They say all girls who disagree with them are wrong. As if you have to call yourself a feminist, as if conforming to everything they believe in, is the only way to be a strong woman. But this girl knows she’s a strong woman. She doesn’t need their dogma or their labels to validate that.

*

Sam keeps telling herself the sex strike is just about the guys at Prescott High. It doesn’t include guys outside the school. So this is fine. She has nothing to feel guilty about. Plus she never wanted to do the sex strike in the first place.

But she can’t help feeling a little bad. Even if she doesn’t agree with everything in the Nowhere Girls’ manifesto, does she have the responsibility to do it anyway, out of solidarity? Is there room for dissent? Is she a traitor for listening to her body?

As soon as her boyfriend puts his mouth on her nipple, she’s suddenly confident the answer is no.

She knows it is not just his body she is responding to. There is something inside him that seeps into the air and wraps itself around the something inside her. It is not just their skin touching. They are something more than flesh. Sam suspects that maybe she is starting to love him.

She had always planned to go to UCLA or USC for college, but the University of Oregon has a theater department, doesn’t it?

No, she thinks. She is not going to change her plans just because of some boy. But then he touches her in a brand-new way that gives her wings, and maybe, just maybe, she might consider it.

*

A girl searches on the Internet: Where is the clitoris?





GRACE.


The morning bell rings, but nobody’s quieting down. The class is way too animated for a Monday morning.

“Oh my God,” Allison Norman says, and it takes Grace a second to realize she’s talking to her. She’s still not used to having friends. “Did you hear what happened over the weekend?”

Besides Grace going to church on Sunday and avoiding Jesse Camp, reading two entire books, emptying the bucket under her leaky ceiling, and eating frozen pizza two meals in a row? “No,” Grace says. “What happened?”

“The rumor is that Eric Jordan and Ennis Calhoun showed up at Bridget Lawson’s party over the weekend and, like, half the people there wouldn’t even talk to them,” Allison says.

“Then Fiona and Rob had a huge fight because she was mad at him for still being friends with them,” Connie Lancaster adds. “And then she totally dumped him. In front of everyone.”

“Pipe down!” Coach Baxter yells, but the room quiets only slightly.

“And did you hear about Friday’s football game?” a boy sitting near them says, a member of the marching band. “The team was practically laughed off the field. The other school made signs making fun of them. One of them said something like, ‘Prescott can’t score any kind of touchdowns.’?”

“Hey,” Connie whispers, leaning forward. Grace and Allison follow, until they are almost touching foreheads. “Do you know when the next meeting is?”

A loud bang silences the room. A metal filing cabinet is dented from where Coach Baxter just kicked it.

“Do I have your attention now?” he growls.

“Yes, sir,” say a couple of jocks in the front row. The rest of the class is silent.

“Everybody open your books,” Coach Baxter says. “Silent reading for the rest of the class.”

“He’s really going for teacher of the year, isn’t he?” Connie says, and Grace doesn’t even try to mute her giggle.

“You!” Coach roars at Connie. “To the principal’s office. Right now.”

“Are you serious?” Connie says.

“Take your bag and get out of my face.”

“This is crazy,” Connie says as she stands up. She looks out at the class, as if they might have some answers for her, some explanation of what she did wrong. All Grace can think to do is say a little silent prayer, God, please help her to not get in trouble. And then Connie is gone, the door whispering shut behind her.

When Grace gets to lunch, her usual table is almost full. Rosina’s practically glowing, but Erin’s face is buried deep in a book. Sitting with them are a handful of people Grace recognizes from the Nowhere Girls meetings, including Elise Powell and Melissa the cheerleader. A popular girl. At her lunch table.

“Hi, Grace,” Melissa says as Grace sits down.

“Um, hi?” Somehow it feels different to be talking to her at school, outside the meetings. Here, Grace is just her normal, boring self. But at the meetings, she’s becoming someone different. Someone who can talk to people without everything being a question. Someone with ideas. Someone with an identity.

“Melissa was just telling us how she quit the cheer squad,” Rosina says.

“Yeah,” she says. “Some of the girls are kind of mad at me right now.”

“I’m sorry,” Grace says.

“They’ll get over it.”

“Why’d you quit?”

Melissa crunches thoughtfully on a chip. “I think I finally got honest with myself and realized I didn’t really like it. I thought I was supposed to like it, and I kept waiting to like it. But it wasn’t anything like what I thought it would be. Most of the girls don’t even know anything about football. Like they literally have no idea what is going on at the games. That’s crazy to me.”