Sophomore Switch(36)
Author: Abby McDonald

“That’s terrible,” I say honestly.

Brooke just shrugs again. “It’s like with Ryan, she wanted him because he usually dates smart girls, you know?” I raise my eyebrows. “She wanted to show she could get anyone. And sure, she liked him, but not enough to, you know . . .”

“Be faithful,” I finish for her.

“Right.” Brooke gives me a weak smile. “You learn to live with it. She just can’t help herself.”

It seems to me that keeping your hands off somebody else’s boyfriend is a rather simple thing to manage, but for whatever reason, Brooke is standing by her. “If you say so.”

Finally placing her water glass down, Brooke sends one last look to the backyard. “Want to get out of here?”

I nod. The whole afternoon has been nothing but tension, small betrayals, and inevitable awkwardness. I’m more than ready to leave. “You just lead the way.”

19

“I’m done with this stack.” Licking the final envelope, I seal it shut and pass them down the table to Carrie. The whole group has taken over the warm back room at Blackwell’s, stuffing campaign packets in preparation for our big showdown with the board in a couple of weeks.

“Great.” She checks off a box. “Why don’t you take a break before the next batch?”

“No, I’m good.” I shrug, taking another stack of letters and relaxing back into the battered brown leather couch. “I’m in a groove now, and, anyway, I kind of like the taste of mail glue.”

We fall back into companionable silence: Carrie, Uma, and me with the envelopes while Mary and Louise do some reading for class. We have a kind of rotating schedule now, some girls showing up just to drink coffee and talk if there’s no work to be done right away, or just hanging out to work in a crowd when the library gets too much. I love it. The room is lit by cozy lamps, and as well as friendly faces, I have a constant supply of caffeine to get me through the afternoon. It’s way better than those cold library carrels, plus I find I actually get more work done when I don’t have to go take breaks at the vending machine or blast my iPod just to wake myself up.

“Has anyone done the Okin reading?” It’s starting to get dark outside the paned windows by the time Louise takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. She’s almost hidden from view behind a table stacked high with books. “The material on justice and the family? I need a summary, but I just don’t have the time.”

“Sorry.” Uma sticks another address label on and adds the envelope to our already-impressive pile. “Law, remember?”

“Right. And DeeDee is in a tute.” Louise sighs. Out of all of us, only a couple are taking the same classes. “What about you, Natasha — have you covered it yet?”

“Hmm?” I look up. “Okin. Who was he again?” I’m hopeless with names, and the dead theorists all blur together for me. In the end, Will had to come up with a color code for me to keep them apart: red for right wing, blue for libertarian, pink for feminist-friendly.

“She,” Louise corrects. “Susan Moller Okin. She critiqued Rawls from a feminist perspective.”

“Oh, right!” I exclaim. “We did her a couple of weeks ago. Basically, her work forced Rawls to incorporate the idea of family as, like, integral to social justice.” I quickly run down the main points.

“So Rawls responded?” Louise scribbles furiously.

“Yup. He caved — clarified that the family isn’t exempt, it’s the first school of justice, all things must be equal. Wait, there’s a good quote . . .” I think hard. “OK, ‘Unless there is justice in the family, women will not be able to gain equality in any other sphere.’” Ha. Tell that to my mom: still organizing Frank’s laundry for the maid and throwing those way over-the-top dinner parties for him to woo new clients. She hasn’t earned a dime her entire life, but she works more than most people just to keep the household going and my stepdad happy.

“You’re the best,” Louise swears, shooting me a grateful smile. I glow.

“Anyone want more coffee?” I ask, getting up and stretching out my shoulders. A chorus of “No thanks” and “I’m fine” follows, so I take my time wandering the bookshelves and picking out some interesting titles before re-caffeinating and buying a couple of slices of cake with five forks.

“Lost Girls.” Carrie spots the title of Elliot’s book when I get back. “Have you read that yet?”

“No, I figured I should take a look.” Especially since my professor used to think I was one of those lost girls, wandering helplessly around and, like, blinded by my mascara.

“It’s quite good,” Mary adds, looking up from her thick chemistry textbook. “Quite an old-school perspective, but then when I see those girls in Playboy T-shirts . . .” She gives this kind of long, disapproving sigh. The other girls all nod along. “It all makes so much sense.”

“What do you mean?” I ask carefully, thinking of my own Playboy logo shirt. It’s a cute shade of baby blue and perfect for working out.

“You know, that some women are as much an enemy of feminism as the misogynists.” Mary looks at me quizzically. “I mean, think of raunch culture — all those stripper workouts and full bikini waxes —”

“As if women really should be emulating  p**n  stars,” Louise mutters. I shift uncomfortably. Morgan and me did cardio striptease a couple of times at the gym. It didn’t herald the end of the world. As far as I know.

“You must have seen far more of this than us,” Carrie interrupts. “California’s the home of the bleached-blond-babe standard of beauty, isn’t it?” They all look at me expectantly, like the fact I’m a brunette totally makes up for my hometown.

“I don’t know.” I try and stay casual, suddenly aware that I’m on pretty dangerous ground. I remember Emily’s order to agree with them. “It’s not a big deal, right? I mean, if we — if those girls enjoy that kind of thing, where’s the harm?”

Carrie snorts. “They don’t enjoy it. They’ve just been brainwashed into thinking they need to be sexual objects.”

“That Girls Gone Wild thing, for instance,” Louise adds through a mouthful of cake. “Writhing around half naked on-screen for somebody else’s amusement. You can’t tell me that they’ve made a genuine, intelligent informed choice to act that way. It’s ridiculous.”