I nod slowly, thinking of one of the essays in Bad Feminist—the one about the movie The Help and how it was a work of science fiction, not historical fiction. I remember watching it with my mom when I was home sick once; I’m embarrassed to admit I thought it was really inspiring, not realizing there was this whole racist narrative about a white lady swooping in to heroically combat inequality, when in reality of course the black women had been fighting their own battles for years and years. The more I read and learn lately, the more work I know I have to do.
“So what happened?” I ask now, tucking one leg under me. “How come I never knew about any of this?”
She shrugs, like she’s never really considered it. “Well, Grandpa and I got married. It’s a pretty common story, I think. Your mom and her brothers needed me, and the rest of it . . .” She trails off. “Or that could just be excuses, of course. I guess there’s no way to say for sure.”
“Did you miss it?” I ask, picking the chocolate chips and cherries out of my granola bar before setting the rest of it down on a napkin. “Like, protesting?”
“Well, I suppose I was just protesting in different ways,” she says thoughtfully. “Calling my senators, writing letters, donating money to causes I believed in. I was on a first-name basis with the staffers at Senator Kennedy’s office back in the nineties.” She looks at me meaningfully. “I like to think there are different ways of being a rebel. Doing what you can with what you have, and all of that.”
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “I had no idea.”
“Well,” she teases, “maybe you’re not asking your old gram enough questions.” She smiles. “Better do it now, while I can still remember the answers.”
I frown. The idea that Gram won’t always be here burns behind my ribs. “Gram,” I start, but I think she can see that she rattled me, because she holds up one elegant hand.
“I’m just teasing, Marin-girl.” She reaches out and squeezes my arm, then glances out the window; it’s not quite so cold today, a surprising reprieve. “Now,” she says, clapping her hands together. “You want to go for a walk to the bakery, see if we can get a halfway decent cookie?”
Do what you can with what you have, I remind myself firmly. “I’d love that,” I say, snapping the lid back on the granola bars and standing up. Gram slips her hand into mine.
Seventeen
The girls’ volleyball championship is the following Wednesday, and weirdly people are actually talking about it. A couple of underclassmen have even told me they liked the piece I wrote about the school’s glaring lack of support for the team.
“I feel like we should make a banner or something,” Dave says, unwrapping his turkey sandwich at our table near the back of the cafeteria. The book club has been sitting together more lately—not every day, but a couple of times a week, which is nice considering Chloe seemingly wants nothing to do with me and otherwise I’ve been spending my lunch period in the library, working on my Title IX editorial.
“There are a bunch of supplies left over from the pep rally,” Lydia puts in. She’s a class rep for student council and always has the line on extra balloons or poster board or chocolate chip cookies floating around. “We could meet up after school.”
I nod. “I’ve got my mom’s car today,” I say, smiling, as Lydia offers me one of her carrot sticks, “so I can drive some people over.”
“No need,” Gray says. “I got us a ride.”
I turn to look at him. I hadn’t even noticed him coming up behind me, and my skin prickles like it always does when I haven’t had time to properly prepare for the sight of him. “What?”
He grins, all mischief. “You’ll see. Just meet me out front after eighth period.”
It’s freezing outside when classes let out, the barren trees waving their branches at the far end of the parking lot and our breath visible in the chilly air. I find Gray with the rest of the book club over by the picnic tables at the side of the building; he is hard at work on a sign that reads, GO BRIDGEWATER, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he concentrates.
“What?” he asks when he looks up and catches me smiling.
“Nothing,” I say with a shake of my head. “Nice sign.”
“Shut up,” he says, blushing—blushing!—just the faintest bit. “Not all of us can be fancy, clever writer types.”
“I’m not fancy,” I assure him, though it’s not like I’m mad about it.
“I think you’re kind of fancy,” Gray says.
I’m about to reply when a school bus pulls into the parking lot, the driver tooting the horn in cheery greeting.
“Oh, good,” Gray says, putting the finishing touches on his sign and straightening up. “Our ride’s here.”
“Wait, what?” I blink at him. “You got us a . . . school bus?”
“I got us the lacrosse team’s school bus,” he admits, looking the slightest bit pleased with himself, “but there’s a catch.”
“And what’s that?”
“We’re not the only ones riding it over there.” Gray nods at the gym entrance, and my eyes widen. The entire lacrosse team is trickling out of the locker room and toward the bus. Well, almost the entire lacrosse team—Jacob makes a point of scowling at me and walking off in the opposite direction.
“Seriously?” I gape at Gray. “You convinced them to come support?”
“They wanted to,” Gray says, and I shoot him a dubious look. “Well, okay, maybe wanted to is the wrong way to put it, but still.”
I laugh out loud as the rest of the club looks on in wonder. Even Ms. Klein looks surprised. “That’s really decent of you, Gray.”
“Well,” he says. “I think you’ll find that if you get to know me, I’m a pretty decent guy.”
I open my mouth, not sure how to answer. He’s not who I thought he was, that’s for sure.
“You guys ready to load up?” Ms. Klein asks, saving me from my own awkward silence. I toss the leftover art supplies into the trunk of my mom’s car and climb onto the bus, sliding into the empty seat beside Gray before I can talk myself out of it.
The game is at St. Brigid’s, a fancy all-girls’ school a couple of towns over, with floor-to-ceiling windows and state-of-the-art science labs. Gray heads over to the snack bar—an actual snack bar, not the crappy vending machines that are lined up outside our school—and comes back with a giant soda for himself and a bunch of bags of peanuts for everybody. “Are you, like, book club dad right now?” I ask, grinning as he passes them out.
“Maybe,” he says. “Everybody needs to behave or I’ll turn this volleyball game around, et cetera.”
I snort, helping myself to a peanut. “You’re kind of a nerd, huh? Is that, like, your big secret?”
Gray shrugs. “One of them,” he admits, his eyes steady on mine. The back of his hand brushes mine. I can convince myself it’s an accident until it happens again a few minutes later—the skate of his knuckles over my fingers, his pinky nearly hooking with mine. I bite my lip.