The Nowhere Girls(78)

“It just takes one person to be brave,” Grace says. “Then others will follow her lead.”

“Yeah, well,” Melissa says, “I think Lisa’s thinking more like blackmail. But whatever, that’s between the two of them.”

“You guys?” Erin says.

“Grace, you’re friends with Amber, right?” Melissa says.

“I’m not sure you would call it that, but yes, I guess so.”

“Do you think you could talk to her?” Melissa says. “Maybe she’ll come forward too.”

“She’s on the list?” Rosina says.

Melissa nods. “Number four. I’m like ninety-nine point nine percent positive.”

“Hey, you guys,” Erin says again.

“She wasn’t in class today,” Grace says. “But I can call her.”

“You guys!” Erin yells.

But it is too late. The security guard is towering over them. “That’s it,” he barks. “Party’s over. Break it up.”

“What do you mean?” Melissa says.

“I mean move.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” Rosina asks.

“I don’t care,” the guard says. “You just can’t sit together.”

“This is bullshit,” Rosina says.

“What was that?” he growls.

“I said ‘Yes, sir.’?”

“If you girls aren’t separated in ten seconds, I’m sending you all to Principal Slatterly’s office.”

So they move. One by one, they join other tables. Rosina sits with Serina Barlow. Melissa sits with a handful of cheerleaders, who are apparently still allowed to congregate. Erin heads to the library. Grace picks up her tray and looks around the lunchroom, is stunned to realize she could join half these tables and feel something close to comfortable. But there is one in particular that catches her eye, mostly a mix of athletes from the school’s less-fashionable sports like golf and fencing. At the end of the table, with a cheeseburger in his hands, is Jesse Camp.

Grace thinks about her mom. She thinks about how sometimes doing a scary thing makes it less scary.

“Hi,” Grace says as she sits down next to Jesse, just as he takes a big bite of burger.

“Mrumph,” he mumbles with a full mouth, his eyes wide with surprise.

“You have a little ketchup.” She points to a spot on her chin. Still chewing, Jesse tries to wipe it off but misses. Grace picks up a napkin from the table and wipes it off.

Jesse swallows. “Um, thanks.”

“I just got booted from my table by the rent-a-cop.”

“You’re such a rebel,” he says, smiling.

“I know,” Grace says, smiling back.

“So you’re not mad at me anymore?”

Grace takes a bite of French fry and shakes her head.

“So we can be friends now?”

Grace chews and nods.

“So,” he says, setting his burger down. “Things are pretty crazy around here these days.”

“You could definitely say that.”

“Are you friends with the girls who got suspended?”

“Yeah,” Grace says. “Pretty good friends, actually.”

“Have you heard anything from them?”

“It sounds like Elise’s parents are pretty cool and she didn’t even get grounded. Margot’s freaked out this’ll ruin her chances at Stanford, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. Her parents are threatening to sue the school or something. Elise’s too, I think. They’re filing a formal complaint with the school board. The other girl, Trista, she got it the worst. She’s like grounded forever. Her parents are going to make her do some kind of spiritual counseling with the youth pastor at their church.”

“Wow,” Jesse says. “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Grace says. “Especially since none of them is guilty.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“Because you’re in the Nowhere Girls,” Jesse says. “I already figured that out.”

“The first rule about the Nowhere Girls”—Grace smiles—“is you do not talk about the Nowhere Girls.”

*

A girl looks around the lunchroom and can’t help but laugh a little at all the groups of girls being forced to separate by security guards. Since when are groups of white girls considered a threat? Must be that Nowhere Girls stuff. Some girls from her softball team invited her to a meeting a couple of weeks ago and she thought about checking it out, but she knew she never would.

Because this feminism or whatever it is they’re doing—it’s a white-girl thing. When they go around making demands and yelling, people call them fired up and passionate.

But black girls don’t have that privilege. When black girls stand up for themselves, people call them hostile. They call them dangerous. They call them other things.

*

Amber decides she needs a day off of school. She needs a break from being herself.

The problem is there’s nothing good on TV. There’s nothing good in the fridge. Mom’s at work and her boyfriend-of-the-week is who knows where (thank God), and the trailer is feeling damp and toxic. Some kind of dark-colored mold is growing around the edges of all the windows. Condensation drips down the glass and forms tiny puddles on the windowsills.