The chaperone, p.5
The Chaperone, page 5
It’s not a uniform, but it might as well be.
Deflect attention.
In my tan corduroy skirt and blue striped button-down, I’m no different.
A group of Climbers passes the girls’ line on their way to the other side of the cafeteria, and one of them lets out a long whistle.
Our collective response is to flip our heads in their direction and then immediately turn away. They leer at us like a pile of juicy steaks. We don’t acknowledge them. If we’re caught responding, we’ll be the ones disciplined—detention, suspension, or worse—not them. It’s our job to keep them at bay. We’re the ones with the power of seduction. We’re the ones who have to stop that from happening.
Embrace purity.
I focus on the tray in front of me, so I won’t be tempted to peek at the boys again.
Abstain from sin.
The cafeteria workers dish our food without meeting our eyes, but I overhear their flirtatious chatter with boys on the other side. Having a good day, Liam? How are your classes, Blake? Would you like more fries, Drew? Boys get steak frites, pork loin topped with fried onions, pizza loaded with meat, but girls are expected to eat low-cal, low-carb foods that taste like nothing. If we want anything else, we have to find it on our own. Liv is an expert, stealing money from her father’s wallet and paying for contraband. Today we’re eating overcooked salmon and green beans with an apple for dessert. It could be worse. It could be chicken again. Or tofu.
“Salmon?” Bonita says when we sit down. “Again?”
Before the words are out of her mouth, a teacher with a pinched expression stops at the end of our table. They take turns monitoring us. We pick up our forks before he tells us to eat what’s in front of us.
Give obedience.
“That was creepy,” Bonita says when he’s out of earshot.
“I know, right?”
“I hate shadows.” Liv turns to me. “Is your new chaperone like that?”
“Yup. And she’s already annoying me. She’s changed everything.”
Respect your chaperone.
“What did she change?” Bonita asks.
“She took over Shea’s room. She’s insisting on eating dinner with us.”
“Just like Sister Sophie.” Liv nods. “You better pray she’s not as bad. Did I tell you how excited she is about Mandy Martin?”
“What about her?” I ask.
Liv gasps. “Oh my gosh, did you not hear?”
“No, what?”
“She got engaged. It was, like, over a week ago.”
“But she hasn’t even finished high school.”
Bonita gives me her best don’t-be-ridiculous voice. “You know this happens every fall, Stella. One girl in the senior class gets engaged, and all the others follow.”
“Doesn’t she know what happens to girls who get married too young? Hasn’t she heard of Jane Eyre?”
“I guarantee you,” Bonita says, “no one in all of Dull Run has read that book besides you. Sister Helen let you read books the rest of us aren’t even allowed to look at.”
“Brooklyn read it.”
“But she—” Liv’s head turns, tracking something across the cafeteria.
“What is it?” I follow her gaze.
Two uniformed police officers are walking into the cafeteria. Principal Terry appears at their side, pointing them in our direction.
“Are they here for me?”
When they get to our table, the principal says my name. “Miss Graham?” I stand, and the whole cafeteria goes quiet. “These officers are here to…uh, ask for your assistance.” When he glances at them, they nod for him to continue. “This is Officer Alvarez and Officer Poole.” He points to each of them. “They’re with the Bull Run PD.”
I’m too afraid to speak.
The shorter one, Alvarez, folds his hands in front of him. “There’s no reason to be afraid, Stella. You’re not in any trouble.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Just protocol, Miss Graham,” the taller one, Poole, says.
Alvarez holds a hand out in the direction of the hall like a game show host. “We’ll start at your locker.”
“My locker?”
Poole jumps in. “Just a formality.”
Officer Alvarez starts for the hall, and Poole gestures for me to follow. I have no choice but to do what he wants.
* * *
They take everything out. Books, backpack, sweater. Even the linen pouch where I keep my feminine products. It’s humiliating. Blood races through my veins as I try to remember if there’s anything incriminating. Any contraband or banned books.
After they return the last item, Officer Alvarez turns to me. “Very good, Stella.”
I let out a long sigh. “What were you looking for?”
Poole gives Alvarez a look that says, Don’t tell her. So they were looking for something. What did they hope to find? A knife? A gun?
Officer Poole glances at his watch, impatience oozing off him. “We need to keep moving.”
Alvarez holds his hand out. “One more stop in the nurse’s office, Stella, and then we’ll let you get back to class.”
Everyone who sees us drops their mouth in astonishment. Who wouldn’t? I’m walking down the hall with the principal and two police officers just days after my chaperone has dropped dead. I’d stare, too.
In the nurse’s office, Officer Alvarez presses each of my fingers on a moist black pad and a clean sheet of paper. My prints are more art than fingertips. At the sink, I can’t get the ink to wash off.
Alvarez rolls a long Q-tip along the inside of my cheek. Now I know why we came to the nurse’s office. It takes everything I have not to vomit. Nurse Weeks writes me a hall pass and shoves me out the door. Is she hurrying so she can tell people?
When I arrive at Public Safety halfway through sixth period, every girl in the room stops what she’s doing and watches me move to my seat. I share a table with Lana Lucas. The horrified look on her face tells me she’s less than thrilled when I sit next to her.
I want to yell, Things aren’t going well for me either! but I say nothing and wait for this awful day to end.
CHAPTER 15
Musical Expression is my last class of the day. And my favorite. Not only is it the class I have with Mateo, it’s interesting and the teacher isn’t awful. As long as no one acts up, Mr. Jeffrey is actually kind of great. He plays us all kinds of music, even songs by women. All we have to do is listen. After each song, Mr. Jeffrey talks about the history and what he likes about it.
Today we’re listening to something called “If You See Her, Say Hello.” Mr. Jeffrey tells us this was one of his father’s favorites: “One of the great love anthems of the twentieth century.”
I look around the room until I find Mateo in the back. His eyes are closed, and he’s nodding. Does he listen to music with his dad? I’ve never once heard my father listen to music. I don’t even know if he likes it.
The song begins. We’ve heard this man before. He’s one of Mr. Jeffrey’s favorites. The beginning sounds more like he’s talking than singing. But then he gets louder.
She might think that I’ve forgotten her. Don’t tell her it isn’t so.
His voice is the saddest I’ve ever heard. It’s like he’s standing next to me, crying his heart out.
The bitter taste still lingers on,
Now he’s wailing.
from the night I tried to make her stay.
His pain is so real I feel it in my gut.
When it’s over, the room is cloaked in silence. No one can speak after hearing such a pure outpouring of heartbreak.
“Wow,” Mr. Jeffrey says before telling us how the musician recorded two versions and claimed it wasn’t autobiographical. Wasn’t autobiographical? How could he sing like that and not feel every word in his soul?
Mr. Jeffrey calls on Mateo. Every head in the room swivels toward him. We never know what he’ll say. “But none of that is as important as how the song made us feel, right?”
“I suppose you’re right, Mr. de Velasco. How did you feel?”
“I felt like Dylan ran a knife down my chest, yanked my skin open, and gripped my heart in his hands. I felt like a fish he’d gutted.”
Several people in the room gasp. Others laugh. Most of the girls turn away from Mateo’s honesty. Deflect attention. But I can’t pull my eyes from him. That’s exactly how I felt. A second later, he notices me staring at him. Even though I know it’s not right, I let myself be caught in his gaze.
His focus is so intense, it almost hurts as much as the song.
CHAPTER 16
An hour later, my first day back at school is over.
I cannot wait to go to yoga and reset.
But when I meet Sister Laura at the gate, she says, “I have an idea.”
No, no, no. No ideas. No change. Just stop changing things.
She goes on. “I’m taking you to a safety class.”
“I already take Public Safety at school.”
“That’s different. This is about women protecting themselves, not society. It’s called Feminine Safety, but that’s a silly name.”
“That’s a requirement for most classes, isn’t it?”
Sister Laura lets out a laugh. It’s the first time she’s laughed around me, and I’m surprised she does it so easily. “It does seem that way. These days anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing.” She gives me a dismissive wave as she walks away from the school. I have no choice but to follow. Not doing so is against the law, not to mention dangerous. Respect your chaperone. When I catch up to her, she says, “It’s actually a self-defense class.”
The teenage girls on old TV shows are always going to self-defense classes. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” She stops and looks at me. “You up for it?”
I gaze across the street to the gravel path that meanders through Freedom Park and ends at the library.
“I just want to go to yoga.”
Sister Helen took me every day after school. It was part of our routine. Yoga at the library on weekdays and hiking or kayaking on Saturdays. I was lucky Sister Helen liked to exercise with me. Bonita and Liv’s chaperones make them work out in their home gyms and weigh them every morning. Sister Helen was never like that. She made sure I was healthy, but not by constantly monitoring my progress. When she filled out her weekly reports, she would often just write what the constables wanted to hear. She said being too strict about that kind of thing would make me less healthy, not more. Yoga, she insisted, was a way to stay fit without overdoing it.
“I want to zone out.”
“You’ve had enough of that.”
* * *
The class meets in the basement of an abandoned gym in Shake Rag. I’ve never been to this part of town before. Dad says it’s not the kind of place where people like us spend time, but it looks normal to me. The houses are smaller than they are in Gaslight, repair shops dotted between them, but the lawns are neatly mowed, showing off late-summer asters and concrete birdbaths in nearly every yard.
A metal door in the back of the gym leads into a room lined with lockers and gym equipment. Sister Laura goes up to the last locker and pulls on the handle, revealing a secret door hidden behind three lockers. We make our way down a crumbling cement staircase to the basement where we find a handful of women changing clothes in a long hallway.
Sister Laura pauses before going any further. “There’s one more thing, Stella.”
My eyes go to her involuntarily.
“These classes are forbidden.”
I feel several faces turn in our direction.
“And we can’t go in until you agree to keep them a secret.”
A secret? What is she talking about?
“You’ll see some things here that might surprise you. But you can’t tell anyone about them. Do you promise not to tell?”
Every woman in the hallway is watching me now, waiting for my response.
“Yes, of course.” I have no idea if I mean it, but I feel like I have no choice.
We go through another set of heavy doors and come to a large paneled room with a giant square mat. A man with light red hair kneels in the middle. He’s bent so far over that his forehead rests on the mat. His wide-leg white pants are identical to the ones in the karate movie I watched with Bonita and Liv last summer, but he’s paired them with a long-sleeve white shirt, the words State Street Gym emblazoned down one arm.
About twenty women kneel around the outside of the mat, almost all of them wearing sweatpants and the same large boxing gloves Sister Laura handed me in the hallway. Most are adults, but there are two other teenage girls. Each sits next to a woman I presume is a chaperone though, like Sister Laura, they’ve changed out of their caftans.
“It’s crowded,” I say to Sister Laura.
She rubs the top of her nose, “With all the kidnappings, people are scared.” Is that why we’re here? She leads me around the mat and points to the floor when we get to the back corner. “Kneel here.”
The redheaded man lifts his head gently off the mat, rising so slowly he’s barely moving. When he sits back on his heels, he speeds up, jumping to his feet in one quick motion. He spins in a circle, arms out like a ringmaster before clapping his hands together. “Good afternoon, ladies.”
Every person in the room responds the same way: “Good afternoon, Master.”
“I have a question for all of you.” I’m shocked no one laughs at how seriously he takes himself. “Are you ready to learn how to protect yourselves from men like me?”
“Yes, Master!” they shout in response.
“I see we have newcomers.” The Master points his chin in our direction. My face gets hot. “You must submit to our terms.”
A few women murmur agreement.
“I started these classes just over ten years ago. When my daughter became a woman.” He moves in the direction of a young woman with long hair the same soft shade of red as his. “Tommi, please come to the mat.”
The young woman leaps to her feet just like the Master did minutes before, her ponytail flipping from side to side. She strides across the mat, bowing when she reaches her father.
He bows back and resumes his slow spin. “I fully believe in what we’re doing in this, our brave new country. I believe it is the ethical duty of men to protect women. But I also believe avoiding danger is not the only way for women to protect themselves.”
The Master stops turning and lunges at his daughter, who grabs his arm and twists it behind him, pinning it against his back. He tries to wriggle free but eventually goes slack. I look around the mat, waiting for someone to say something about what they’ve done, how many rules they’re breaking, but no one seems to notice.
“Women also need to be able to physically defend themselves.”
The Master peers over his shoulder at his daughter, who wears a smile wide enough to crack her face. “Thank you, my dear Tommi.”
She lets his arm go and bows before returning to her place.
“I believe I have given Tommi a great gift. The gift of inviolability. It is my goal to give the same to all of you. This is no longer a popular idea in our society, but it is what I believe. If you agree, you will always be welcome here. If not, you are free to leave. But please respect our work enough not to report us.”
The Master’s eyes rest on the two of us. He wants a response, but I don’t know how to answer. Is this even allowed? Can we get in trouble? Everyone stares, waiting for us to speak. I turn to Sister Laura. She, too, is watching me.
“Well, Stella? Do you want to stay?”
I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what’s right.
Sister Laura faces forward. “We agree, Master.”
* * *
The Master goes over basic moves—jab, cross, uppercut, hook—for thirty minutes before instructing everyone to return to the edge of the mat. He spins in another circle. “Does anyone in this room feel ready to stand against me?”
I have to stop myself from yelling, No! Are there women brave enough to fight a man, especially a man who teaches people how to fight?
I expect no one to volunteer, but then a voice yells out: “I am, Master.”
I’m shocked when I turn and see Sister Laura’s hand in the air.
* * *
They face each other like boxers, hands in front of their faces, bouncing in a semicircle. Sister Laura throws a jab, swiping the Master’s chin. He barely responds. He does the same, and she doesn’t waver. When he throws a punch in her side much harder than the first jab, Sister Laura recoils before punching him in his right side. He gets her in the space she left open. They trade punches to the gut like they’re in a movie. I’m shocked the blows don’t slow them. The Master eventually steps back, studying Sister Laura. She keeps her hands in front of her face, continuing to bounce.
The Master laughs and says, “You fight like a girl, Sister!”
Sister Laura’s hands drop, her mouth falls open. The Master lunges forward and throws a cross-hook at her face, following that with a straight-on kick to her gut. Sister Laura flies backward, landing on the mat with a thump. Everyone gasps.
Her fingers go to her mouth. Even across the room, I see blood on her hand. She shakes her head before jumping to her feet and bowing at the Master.
When she returns to my side, I whisper, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she says, but her teeth are clenched tight.
The Master raises his hands in victory, spinning around for the whole room to see. “Anyone else?”
No one takes his challenge.
* * *
Outside, I feel obligated to ask again if she’s all right.
She shrugs and starts walking. “I’m fine.”
“Did he have to kick you so hard?”
“It wasn’t that hard.”
“What a jerk.”
“It can be hard to tell, but his heart’s in the right place.”
