The Nowhere Girls

  Rosina follows Melissa’s eyes to Erin in a ball beside her. “Erin?” she whispers.

  “So we’re fucked,” Serina says. “We can’t do anything.”

  Morose faces around the room.

  Erin is unreachable.

  “That’s not true,” Grace says. “Look at us. Look at what we’re doing. We’re changing things already.”

  “What’s changing?” Serina says. “Lucy still got raped. Those assholes are still free. We’re not doing anything.”

  “These meetings are something,” Grace says. “We’re changing ourselves.”

  “We’re changing the culture at Prescott,” Melissa agrees.

  “Erin,” Rosina whispers. “Do you need to go?”

  “But we don’t even talk about Lucy anymore,” Serina says. “We hardly ever talk about Spencer, Eric, and Ennis, either. And aren’t they the whole reason this thing started?”

  Without thinking, Rosina places her hand lightly on Erin’s back. In a split second, Erin bursts out of her quiet huddle, arms flailing, knocking Rosina over in the process.

  “Jesus, Erin!” Rosina says, rubbing her arm. But by the time Rosina gets herself upright, Erin is already on her way out the door.

  “And we can’t forget about the girls who aren’t here,” Sam Robeson says. “The ones who aren’t fighting yet. We need to fight for them.”

  “So what do we do?” Melissa says. “How do we help them?”

  “We could host a self-defense class,” Connie Lancaster says. “We could pool our money and hire someone to teach us.”

  “That’s good,” Sam says. “We should definitely do that.”

  Rosina runs out of the room after Erin. The last thing she hears is Serina Barlow say: “Yeah, but it’s still not enough.”

  It takes a few moments for Rosina’s eyes to adjust to the darkness outside. The wind has been replaced by a downpour. The world outside the leaking shelter of the porch is a wall of solid water.

  “Erin?” Rosina says softly. “Where are you?”

  She hears wood creaking. She searches with her flashlight until the beam finds Erin, sitting on an old crate in the shadows at the far end of the porch, rocking to a rhythm only she can hear.

  Erin holds her hand over her eyes. “Will you please not shine that in my face?”

  “Sorry,” Rosina says, shutting the flashlight off. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t seem fine.”

  “You’re entitled to your opinion.”

  “Can we talk?”

  “Why don’t you go talk to your cheerleader instead?”

  “Erin, what’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  As Rosina moves closer, she notices Erin flinch.

  “Come on,” Rosina says. “You had near meltdowns in the past two meetings.”

  “You know I don’t like large groups of people,” Erin says, looking out at the rain. “I need to be alone sometimes.”

  “I don’t think that’s it, though. This is about more than that.” Rosina pauses, waits. But Erin says nothing. “They were talking about things. About sex. About rape. Things that triggered you.” Rosina takes one tentative step closer. “You can tell me. I’m your best friend.”

  Erin stands up and starts pacing the length of the porch. “What about what your cheerleader said? What about not forcing people to talk about it?”

  “I want to help you. I—”

  Erin stops abruptly in front of Rosina. Her entire body is shaking. “It’s none of your business!” Erin shouts. “Why do you think everything about me is your business?” She starts pacing again, this time faster, this time with her hands flying. “You’re as bad as my mom. You think I can’t handle my own feelings. You think I’m completely helpless.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rosina says. “That’s not what I—”

  “I don’t need your help,” Erin says with a strained voice. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can.”

  “Don’t patronize me!”

  “Erin—”

  “Just go away,” Erin says, returning to the shadows in the corner of the porch. “Just leave me alone. I don’t need you. I don’t want you here.”

  There are no words for what Rosina’s feeling, no response to what Erin has said. She could tell herself it’s Erin’s stress talking right now, that she’s lashing out because she’s scared, that she doesn’t really mean what she’s saying. But Rosina knows there is something real in Erin’s anger, something damning, and a heavy pressure seizes her from inside her chest and grabs her throat like a hand, strangling her.

  “Fine,” Rosina manages to choke out. “I’m walking home. You can get a ride with Grace.”

  Rosina steps off the porch and is instantly drenched. She does not turn around, does not check for Erin’s response. Erin’s right—she doesn’t need Rosina. Nobody does.

  Rosina is grateful for the rain, grateful that she can focus on the sound and the feel of it on her body, the new heaviness of her clothes, the cold wet of her skin. She does not turn on her flashlight as she walks away, even though the moon is covered by thick rain clouds and there are no streetlights nearby, even though the road is overgrown and rocky, even though the trees are tall and thick and slightly terrifying. Rosina does not try to fight the darkness. If she can’t see, then she has to be even more aware of her surroundings. She has to use all her inner resources just to manage walking. She has to focus on moving forward, focus on surviving. And when you’re focused on surviving, there’s nothing left for pain.

  You’re alone, the darkness tells her. Nobody wants you.

  The rain is so loud, even if Rosina was crying, no one would hear her. The night is so dark and she is so drenched, even if there were tears on Rosina’s cheeks, no one would be able to see them.

  Two miles later there is not a single part of Rosina that is dry. She’s careful to clean up the puddle she makes when she strips off her clothes in the living room. Best to be invisible. Best to leave no trace. Best to not create any new reasons to make Mami mad again.

  The house is silent. Mami and Abuelita are both asleep in their rooms. Rosina and Mami have barely spoken to each other since their fight last weekend, except for what is absolutely necessary. Take the garbage out. Order ready for table four. Help Abuelita with her bath.

  Rosina doesn’t know which is worse—this Cold War silent treatment or the sporadic high-octane screaming fights. At least actual fights are over quickly. They usually have some closure. They burn themselves out. But this, whatever it is, is like a smoldering fire, a constant ache. There’s a voice in Rosina’s head, so soft it’s more like a subliminal message, on repeat, a low dirge: You are not even important enough to scream at anymore.

  GRACE.

  “Oh my God, you guys,” Connie Lancaster says. “You’ll never guess what I heard.” It’s Monday morning, the bell for homeroom hasn’t even rung yet, and Connie is already primed for gossip. “A bunch of girls just started a feminist club at East Eugene High and, like, guys are joining.”

  “That’s awesome,” Grace says.

  “But this is the best part,” Connie says, leaning in. “They’re calling themselves the Nowhere Girls.”

  Something catches in Grace’s throat, a mix of gratitude and pride. A great gasp of love.

  The homeroom bell rings. “Attention, please,” Slatterly’s voice booms over the loudspeaker before the class even has a chance to get seated.

  “This is gonna be good,” says Connie.

  “I am pleased to announce that the administration has made significant progress in our mission to uncover the perpetrators responsible for the Nowhere Girls activity.”

  “ ‘Perpetrators’?” Allison says. “Is this a joke? Did she really use that word?”

  Grace’s momentary high crashes. Hard.

  “Our technical advisers have successfully traced e-mail correspondence and have identified several people o
f interest.”

  “Oh, shit,” says Connie.

  “Would the following people please come to the office immediately?”

  Grace closes her eyes. She cannot remember how to breathe.

  “Trista Polanski,” Slatterly says.

  “Oh no,” Allison says.

  “Elise Powell,” Slatterly says.

  The jocks in the front row bust up laughing. “No surprise there,” one of them mutters. “Fucking dyke.”

  “Fuck you!” Connie yells across the room.

  “Language,” Baxter scolds half-heartedly. But he is leaning back in his chair, almost smiling; this is his first win of the season.

  “And Margot Dillard,” Slatterly says, and even over the loudspeakers, Grace thinks she can hear something like pain in the principal’s voice.

  “Holy shit,” laughs one of the trolls. “Queen Margot’s going down!” The boys are beside themselves. They haven’t been this happy in weeks.

  “Oh my God,” Allison whispers, tears welling up in her eyes. “Not Margot.”

  Grace’s tears are already falling.

  “What are we going to do?” Connie says.

  What have we done? Grace thinks.

  * * *

  Rumors fly like crazy. Some say the girls have been suspended for a week. Others say they’ve been expelled, even arrested. Rumor is Elise has been kicked off the softball team and will lose her U of O scholarship; Margot is disqualified from Stanford. Trista is being sent to some kind of boarding school where they do things like “convert” gay kids. The truth is impossible to decipher from all the gossip.

  “I tried calling Margot and Elise,” Melissa says at lunch. “It keeps going to voice mail. Have you talked to Trista?”

  Krista can barely even shake her head. She’s inconsolable. She’s been crying since homeroom.

  “Margot wasn’t even at the first meeting,” Grace says. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why her?”

  “They wrote to the Nowhere Girls e-mail address,” Erin says. “That’s how the computer techs must have identified them.” Everyone looks at her. Everyone but Rosina. “Maybe,” she adds. “I don’t know. It’s a theory.”

  “So that’s it?” Melissa says. “They sent an e-mail and now they’re taking the fall for everyone? That’s ridiculous. That can’t be legal.”

  Rosina and Erin are sitting in their usual spots across from each other, but they haven’t spoken; they haven’t even looked at each other. Grace knows almost nothing about what happened between them on Saturday night, only that she came outside after the meeting was over to find Erin alone, pacing the porch and crying. All Erin told Grace was they got in a fight and Rosina decided to walk home in the rain. She was silent on the ride home as she stared out the window and, Grace suspected, searched for signs of Rosina.

  “This is so fucked up,” Melissa says. “Look at Ennis sitting over there. He thinks it’s safe to show his face again.”

  “What are we going to do?” Krista cries. “We have to help them.”

  “Hey, bitches!” one of the guys from the troll table yells across the cafeteria. “How’s your revolution going?”

  “Catch any rapists lately?” says another, and the table explodes in laughter.

  The girls say nothing. Not even Rosina has the energy for a response.

  Grace stares at Rosina until she meets her eyes, but nothing passes between them but fear.

  In the three hours between lunch and the end of school, Grace experiences a kind of regression. She goes back in time to a pre-Rosina, pre-Erin, pre–Nowhere Girls version of herself. Fear can do that to a person. Fear can do all kinds of things.

  There is nothing lonelier than fear. In Grace’s language, it is the opposite of faith. It is when you need God the most.

  But Grace cannot think of God right now. She is stuck inside herself with her shame, her secrets. Grace did this. Grace made this mess. Good people are being punished, and it’s her own damn fault. Three lives are being ruined because a nobody wanted to be somebody, because pride got in the way of a good sheep staying a sheep.

  What made Grace think she could change anything? What made her think she could even change herself? People can’t change. That’s just a lie to keep therapists and preachers in business. She never should have bothered. She should have just kept her head down, just kept to the invisible middle of the herd where she belongs, where she’s always belonged, along with the other sheep, with the other invisible girls.

  She should have painted over those words on her bedroom wall as soon as she saw them. She should have never learned the name Lucy Moynihan.

  Grace wants to go back to being empty. Being empty did not hurt like this. There is no risk when you are no one. There is nothing to lose when you have nothing.

  Emptiness. What Grace wants is emptiness.

  But where can she find it? The house is not empty. Is that Mom Grace sees through the kitchen window? Is she boiling water for tea? Or is it another ghost, another figment of Grace’s yearning?

  Grace considers turning around. She could go to one of the places the girls have claimed—the model home, the old Dixon Mansion, the vacant warehouse, the library basement. But as usual, she’s too slow. Mom looks up and sees Grace through the window, and a smile spreads across her face, the kind of smile Grace has been aching for, a look of acknowledgment, the look of being seen, and suddenly all Grace wants is to fill up that not-empty house with her. All she wants is to be her mother’s daughter and nothing else.

  “Hey, sweetie,” Mom says when Grace enters the kitchen. “Want a cup of tea?”

  What Grace means to say is yes, but instead she starts crying. Mom’s arms are instantly around her, and they are not the pastor’s arms. Grace is a girl again, before everything changed, before all this caring and worrying and growing up, and for a few brief moments she is no longer afraid.

  “Oh, Gracie,” Mom says, and leads her to the couch. For a moment love makes Grace brave, and she thinks maybe if you miss someone, you should tell them. Maybe if you want something, you should do something about it instead of feeling sorry for yourself.

  “I miss you, Mom,” Grace says.

  “Oh, honey, I miss you, too.” And now Mom is crying too. “I’m so sorry I’ve been so busy. I haven’t been here for you.”

  “Everything’s changing,” Grace says. “Every single thing in my world is changing.”

  “I know,” Mom says. “I know. But I’m here. I’m still here. I promise.” And she rocks Grace in her arms, and she is something Grace can hold on to, something solid and familiar and hers.

  “Can we do something?” Grace says. “Just you and me.”

  “Let’s have a dinner date,” Mom says.

  “When?” Grace sniffles.

  “Tonight. I’ll cancel my meeting at the church. Anywhere you want to go.”

  Was it always this easy? All that time missing her mom, all she had to do was say something? All that time wanting, all she had to do was ask? Grace wonders how much of her life she has wasted waiting for things to come to her, too afraid to take chances, too afraid to make herself and her desires known. As if it is everyone else who knows things, as if they are the ones who hold the secret to God’s will for her. As if God doesn’t speak through her, too.

  Grace decides she is sick and tired of waiting. Her fear is not gone, but it is wavering. It is love that did that, love that gave her the need, and then the faith, to open her mouth and risk speaking. Maybe that was her prayer. She spoke to her mother, she asked for help, and God answered through her.

  ROSINA.

  Rosina sits in the front passenger seat of Melissa Sanderson’s car. Right next to her. In her car. Their legs are inches apart.

  “It feels weird, like, just hanging out while Margot, Elise, and Trista are in such big trouble,” Melissa says as she pulls out of the school parking lot.

  And while my best friend and my mother both hate me, Rosina thinks.

  “I wish ther
e was something we could do for them,” Melissa says.

  “Do you want to cancel?” Rosina says. “We could do this another time.” For a moment she hates those three girls for potentially ruining her first maybe date with the girl of her dreams. She hates Mami and Erin for infiltrating her thoughts.

  Melissa looks at Rosina and smiles her intoxicating smile. “Of course not.”

  “Keep your eyes on the road, lady,” Rosina says, mostly so Melissa will not see the goofy grin she cannot keep from forming on her face, despite the toxic sludge of gloom swirling around in her chest.

  “What should we do?” Melissa says. “Where should we go?”

  “We could go to my house,” Rosina says. “No one’s there.”

  “Great,” Melissa says. “I happen to know exactly where that is.”

  The few seconds of silence that follow are too much for Rosina. She must fill them. “So, um, you like football, huh?”

  Melissa laughs. “I love it. You probably think that’s really stupid.”

  “I think it’s surprising,” Rosina says. “I like surprising.”

  “Can I tell you something and you promise you won’t laugh?”

  “I will try not to laugh. I will promise to try.”

  “What I want to be someday, more than anything in the world, is a professional sportscaster. I want to do Monday Night Football.”

  “Wow,” Rosina says. “That’s so . . . surprising.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I have no idea,” Rosina says. No way she’s going to admit to her dream of being a rock star.

  “I think I’m so into football because my dad is,” Melissa says. “I’m an only child so I’m the one Dad watches games with and takes to Ducks games. Football’s our thing. Always has been. There’s a series of photos of me in the stairwell at different ages since I was born, and I’m next to a football in all of them. Newborn me. Three-month-old me. Six-month-old me. It goes all the way up to ten years old.”