About a week and three or four dodged Chem classes later, I resolve to go to a full day of school, because this is post–9/11 America, after all, and you can’t let the terrorists win. The morning goes passably; the hissing in the halls has reduced to a dull simmer. After AP English and the pressure of avoiding eye contact with Rowie, I drag Marcy out for a walk around the school to recuperate after Precalc. She smokes a Parly. I try to breathe regular. We don’t talk. I start to feel edgy about Chem, needing a release.

“Can we go to your car and have a dance party really quick?” I blurt out.

“What?” Marcy says. “Now?”

“Yeah, now. I just — I just need to dance really hard for a minute.”

“Okay.” Marcy shrugs, heading for the James. She reaches in and starts the car. “What’s your poison?”

“Your choice,” I say. “Just something with a beat.”

Marcy cranks Brother Ali’s “Forest Whitaker.” I reach into my hair with both hands, ratting the curls out into my best Jew-fro, and start to shake my shit sans abandon. I jump around, loosening my arms, dancing from my core. For three minutes, I don’t think about Rowie, don’t think about school, think only about being in my body. Marcy laughs and busts some moves with me.

“Shake it, girl,” she hollers.

The song ends and I’m breathing hard, my heart racing. I throw my arms around her.

“Thank you,” I say. “I needed that.” I’ve worn myself out a little bit, and it makes me feel less keyed up. We trudge back to the school entrance.

“Meet me by the gym after last period,” she says casually as we throw a what-up to Mrs. Higgiston, the nearsighted attendance lady. She smiles and waves — for some reason, if you’re nice to her, she never gives you shit about coming and going at will. It makes me wonder if she’s lonely. Maybe she just feels invisible.

“For what?” I ask, stomping dirty slush off my hand-painted Timbos.

“Just something I had cooking while you were AWOL. No bigs.”

“Whatever, dirtbag. Later.”

I summon my courage, one foot in front of the other, and walk into AP Chem. Rowie’s there early, of course, already taking notes from the whiteboard, and she’s sitting at our table. Breathe. Breathe.

I sit down and she looks at me as though we’ve never met, as amazed as if I were a stranger boldly taking the seat next to her on an empty bus. She’s wearing all black again. This is the fifth day in a row that Rowie hasn’t worn a single color.

“Um. Ez?” she croaks.

“Let’s not,” I say.

“Okay,” she says, looking back down at her notebook.

The bell rings. I look up and realize twenty-six pairs of eyes, including Mr. Halverson’s, are trained on Rowie and me. I resist the urge to flip them all off.

I lean forward on the lab space, widening my eyes. “Boo.”

The room is a tomb for a moment, my crack falling flatter than the drive from Minneapolis to Fargo, until Halves the Calves clears his throat and starts his lecture.

About two minutes after the bell, who should saunter in but Prakash Banerjee in the flesh, and he’s walking toward me. The situation rapidly goes from bad to worse. He’s standing next to me. He’s leaning in — revulsion — to tell me something.

“Esme,” he trills, “you’re in my seat.”

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

“Are you for real?” I fix him with a withering stare. “Isn’t Jane your partner? Where is she?”

“She got switched into a special section that’s taking the AP test this year instead of next year, and you weren’t here, so Halverson reassigned me to Rowie, and you to a single table. Over there.” He’s practically singing. You will pay for this, nerd, I vow silently. Rockett wrath remembers.

Halves is clearing his throat again. Navy-blue sneakers today, but no point in noting it.

“Yes, um, Esme, if you’ll just move to that table over there, you and I can go over the work you’ve missed after class,” he says.

I can’t believe this. Humiliation churns like vomit in my middle as I pick up my stuff and march it over to the single table — the single table — on the other side of the room, where I have a perfect view of Rowie and Prakash. I would rather have a million of Chuckles’s babies, literally rather be barefoot and pregnant making Tater Tot hot dish in his kitchen for the rest of my life than be in this class right now. After a few minutes, I put my head down on my crossed elbows, watching the cracks of light between my arms, breathing in the antiseptic smell of the table. Maybe I can just hide here for a while, I think. Maybe when I look up, it’ll all have gone away. No such luck. I look up and Prakash is leaning over Rowie’s notebook just the way I used to; she gives me a guilty look when she sees me seeing them.⁶⁰ Miserably, I turn my attention to Halverson’s drone, making a halfhearted attempt at taking notes. I’m such a phony. Rowie knows I never take notes.

60. Text from Rowie: I’m so sorry. We got switched when u weren’t here. Super sorry.

Ten thousand years later, the bell goes off in a soul-saving scream and I’m on my feet before it’s finished ringing. I barely pause at Halves’s desk to pick up the pile of papers he has waiting for me and flee, taking third lunch instead of my usual first, because more face time with Rowie is out of the question today.

I merge into the lunch line. All I want is French fries. At the cash register, I grab a handful of ketchup packets and a Coke, and scan the room for a good, removed place to sit and read. God. I haven’t read through lunch since elementary school. Some days Marcy would make me play kickball with her and the boys at recess, but most days I curled up against the side of the school and buried myself in a book. I spot an empty corner of the cafeteria and head for it, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

“Esme!”

I hear my name and have an off-kilter moment of searching for its source. Turning around like a dog bedding down for the night, I finally see Jane waving at me, motioning for me to come sit at her table. I melt in relief.

“Hey, dude,” I greet her, taking an empty seat. Jane’s sitting with Angelo and a senior girl whose name I’m pretty sure is Courteney. “How’s it going?” I wave to them. “I’m Esme. Courteney, right?”

“Right.” Courteney smiles. “What’s good?”

“You know, not a lot right now, but I’m trying to be optimistic,” I answer honestly.

“Girl,” Jane responds in a rush. “I feel so bad about the other day. I’m so sorry I spilled the beans like that. And then I heard Halverson made Prakash Rowie’s lab partner when I switched my section, and I felt like I had probably just ruined your whole life.”

I wave her apology away. “Don’t sweat it. The lab thing isn’t your fault, and as for Rowie and Prakash, I would have found out anyway. I’m sorry I was so weird when you told me.”

“Oh, my God, don’t even worry,” Jane says. “This shit about you, like, will not die. I’m pretty much sick of hearing about it, so I can’t even imagine how you must feel.”

“Oh, snap, you’re the one everyone’s talking about?” Courteney asks. “Damn, even I’ve heard that shit.”

“Yeah,” Angelo adds. “People are saying some crazy shit. I heard you tried to feel up Mary Ashley Baumgarten at a pool party and that you were, like, secretly dating Rowie Rudra.”

I laugh for the first time all day.

“Wow,” I say. “First part, very false. I did once tell Marcy I wanted to have hate sex with MashBaum, but that was before I really knew what it was. Or what she was.”

They laugh, which feels even better than laughing myself.

“Second part, true. But I’d kind of appreciate it if you guys didn’t feed the gossip flame too much, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“No worries there,” Angelo chimes in. “You should hear the shit they say about us.”

“For real?” I ask. “Like what?”

“Okay, you know Mary Ashley’s little flat-assed friend Annaleigh?” Courteney launches in. “So I was on the danceline with her for a semester before I realized all those bitches were no-talent white girls — no offense — who’d get laughed out of auditions at my old school, and one time I was at a party with them and this girl Annaleigh, like, got so wasted on Malibu shots that she lost her Tiffany’s bracelet with the little silver heart on it, and she accused me of stealing it in front of the whole team. Like, hold up, hide your valuables, we got a Negro in the house. I almost decked her.”

“Seriously?” I reply, dumbfounded.

“Welcome to the outside,” she says, toasting me with her Diet Coke.

“Yeah, and then there was that rumor that we’d all just gotten out of juvie and our house was like a halfway house,” Angelo remembers. “That one was kind of funny until all the white girls started switching sides of the hall when they saw me coming.”

“Damn,” I say. “That’s cold.”

“Yeah, especially ’cause we all actually had to get good grades to get into the”— he sighs —“ABS program.”

“Dude, do you, like, hate that name?” I say.

“Yeah, it’s bad,” Courteney says. “But you can’t let that shit get to you or it’ll make you crazy.”

“Yeah,” I say, not sure if I’m actually agreeing with her or not. “Well. I was gonna ask you guys how you like Holyhill so far, but I guess you already answered that.”

“Pssshh, I’m just here because I wanna get into college,” Angelo says. “Colleges love A Better Shot. Especially when Holyhill has the best AP program in the state.”

“More so if the ABS kid’s in the best AP program in the state,” Courteney teases him. “Some of us are taking one for the team there more than others, friend.” She takes one of my fries and looking at me all Can I take this? I nod, chuckling.

“Whatever, Harvard girl,” Angelo says. “You can tell Cornel West what up for me when you get there. I don’t gotta put myself through that shit to get a good scholarship at Madison or the U of M.”

“Cornel West’s at Princeton,” Jane says.

“You already know where you’re going to college?” Jesus, I’m facing all kinds of dragons today. “I have no fucking clue where I want to go.”

Angelo jerks a thumb toward Courteney. “I still got a year. She just applied to Harvard.”

“And about fifteen other schools,” Courteney says, sizing me up. “For you, offhand, I’d say small eastern liberal arts, serious but not too serious, maybe a girls’ school. Like Vassar, maybe? You’d probably pull down more ass at Smith.”

Jane giggles. “You’re so snap judgmental. I’m getting more of a Berkeley vibe. You know, smoke a little ganja, talk some lit theory, hit a protest or two, go to class when you feel like it. I could see that working for you.”

“That’s funny,” I say. “Both my parents went to Berkeley.”

“Ah.” Jane smiles. “That explains it.”

“Christ on a bike, you guys are better than the Princeton Review,” I marvel. “I should be taking notes.”

Oh!” Jane claps her hands. “I almost forgot to ask you. Are you going to Marcy’s hip-hop thing after school?”

“She told me to meet her after last period, but she didn’t say why,” I say. “What the hell does that girl have cooking?”

“Oh, no! Maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell you.” Jane looks worried, gun-shy after her faux pas about Prakash. “Marcy was trying to get some people together for a meeting of Hip-Hop for Heteros and Homos. We’re meeting in the warming house after school today.”

“Oh, God.” I dissolve into laughter. “I can’t believe she got it together for another meeting without me knowing. That girl is something else.” As I laugh, I feel a strange edge of tears rising, out of exhaustion, or gratitude again. Thank God for Marcy, that fearless beast.

“Are you coming? I was trying to talk these guys into coming too,” Jane tells me earnestly.

“Hold up,” Courteney says, waving her hands. “Hip-hop for who? What the fuck is going on in the suburbs right now?”

“My friends and me, we — well, we used to — my girl Marcy and me are heavy into hip-hop. She’s the beat maestro and I write rhymes sometimes, and a while ago we were thinking that it might be cool to make Holyhill lift its ban on hip-hop by forming a student group to, like, study it and shit. And we sort of worked sexuality in there too, because we’re trying to figure out what sex-positivity in hip-hop is all about, and because Holyhill’s never had a gay-straight alliance before, and because, well, you know”— I point to myself —“big gay girl here — I guess we’re basically just trying to make Holyhill recognize a group about everything Holyhill thinks is taboo, because hip-hop is sweet, and because — because fuck them, that’s why.” It all comes out in a thrill of memory, all the big fat ideas we had together, and it suddenly makes me sad.

“Girl, it’s a damn shame you’re into women, because I think I’m getting a crush on you,” Angelo says. “I’ll come if you can find me a ride home.”

I throw back my head and laugh.

“I bet Marcy can give you a ride,” I assure him. “If you’re willing to listen to her diatribe on the douchebaggery of Kanye, that is.”

Courteney looks less convinced.

“I don’t know. I gotta check how much homework I have tonight,” she says dubiously. “I might swing through; I might not.”

“No doubt,” I say with a nod. The bell rings. “Well, folks, I hope I see you all after school. Thanks for — I don’t know. Just thanks.” I’m kind of embarrassed by the last part, so I walk away quickly amid their farewells.

My end-of-the-day art elective passes in a gentler drone: I’m working on another sculpture piece, this time of a little girl with a purse in one hand and an alligator eating the other. I got the idea from the first girl I ever crushed on, who I met at some super-hippie Raising Empowered Daughters thing Pops dragged me to in elementary school. Her name tag said Blue and her eyes were brown, like these wide oval velvet mirrors, and she sat next to me during one of the boring talky parts doodling all these morbid little girls: a girl sitting on a high branch in a tree, captioned She can’t get down, a little pigtailed girl half-smiling with a hand on one hip and a BB gun in the other, a girl in a square bedroom with a purse on one hand and an alligator on the other. Blue and her big, sad, blinking brown eyes. She was a sphinxy little minx, and I never forgot her.

The waning afternoon sunlight is casting a drowsy haze over the art room when the last bell finally rings. I strap on my headphones to “Ain’t Nuthin’ But a She Thing,” pack up my brushes and plaster of paris, and join the current of the hallway.

Marcy is tilted against the bust of James P. Waldinger outside the auditorium named for him, crunching on an apple as she waits for me.

“Holla, balla,” she calls when she sees me approaching. “What’s crappenin’?”

“You old polecat sonuvabitch,” I crow, tackling her. “You planned a 4H meeting without me.”

“Well, it wasn’t like I was gonna get a whole lot of help from your depressed Sapphic ass.” She doesn’t miss a beat as she twists and pins my right arm behind my back like a girl who grew up wrestling guys bigger than her. We scuffle for a minute, cackling.

“Whoa, hey, sexual tension!” Elijah Carlson catcalls as he passes with Charlie Knutsen. “Get a room!”

“Fuck the fuck off, Carlson.” I roll my eyes, flipping him off. “Find some new whack-off material.”

“Oooohhhh, angry dyke,” he says, miming fright. I instinctively stick an arm out to block Marcy from charging him.

“Shut up, Elijah,” Charlie says. “You sound like a fucking redneck.”

Elijah looks at Charlie, shocked.

“Have fun with your dyke posse, fag,” he says with a pout, and disappears.

“Hey, Esme. Hey, Marcy. Just ignore him,” Charlie says shyly.

“Hey, Chuckles,” I say. “That was cool of you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He shrugs, embarrassed. “I’ve been wondering how you are with all this shit flying around.”

“Really?” I ask, surprised. “I’m okay, I guess. It’s been pretty wack, though.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Well, keep your head up.”

“Thanks, man.” I’m touched. “Hey — at least now you know why I was the way I was back at the beginning of the year, huh?”

He smiles, glancing at Marcy, embarrassed again. He leans in. “It was actually kind of a relief to find out — you know, that it wasn’t totally my fault you were so pissed off.”

I laugh. “I bet.”

“I gotta run,” he says. “But I wanted to tell you — I mean, my brother’s gay and he didn’t get up the balls to come out until after he left Holyhill. So I think you’re really brave.” Charlie blushes.

“Yo, Chuck, you should come to our Hip-Hop for Heteros and Homos meeting,” Marcy says. “In about ten minutes, in the old warming house.”

“I got practice, but thanks,” he says. “Maybe another time. Anyway, catch you guys later.”

“Catch you later, Charlie,” I say, and he blends into the exodus.

Marcy and I look at each other.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she says.

“Yeah, what a trip,” I say. “Nice to remember that everyone here isn’t all the same.”

“Thank God for that. Are you ready for our meeting? We should get out to the warming house.”

“Born ready,” I say, following her.

We walk into the warming house to find a smattering of people milling around, more than last time: Jane, Yusuf, Angelo, Courteney, the theater girls, a few band kids. In the corner, a curly-haired kid is playing a Casio electric piano like the one Tess has; he plays an undulating, sonorous tune that sounds familiar but that I’m sure I haven’t heard before.

“Who is that?” I lean over to Marcy. “He’s got some chops.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s Kai,” she replies. “I tutor him in the resource room. He’s a prodigy, but he can’t really read, can’t even read music. He just plays all the time, stuff he writes himself and memorizes. Anyway, I told him we were gonna jam on some beats and talk about why Holyhill’s so full of tightasses, and he was pretty much sold. Hey, Kai!” she calls over to him.

“What up, Marce,” he says, still playing as he looks up.

A tentative knock sounds at the door, and Mrs. DiCostanza pokes her head in.

“Is this”— she looks down at her copy of our application —“Hip-Hop for Heteros and Homos?”

“Mrs. D.!” I cry. “You came! That’s so cool!”

“I reminded her we were meeting today,” Tess says, emerging from behind Mrs. D. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Score!” Marcy says. “Thanks for showing up, Mrs. D.”

Marilyn DiCostanza smiles. “Well, I’m interested to learn more about what you all hope to accomplish with these meetings, and I wanted to show some faculty support for the idea of a gay-straight alliance at Holyhill. You all just conduct this meeting as though I’m not here and let me listen to you.”

“Word,” Marcy says. “Let’s get started, then.”

My heart melts a little at the sight of Tess. I go over and wrap my arms around her, planting a big sloppy kiss on her cheek.

“I’m glad you’re here.” I squeeze her. “I’m sorry I’ve been an a-hole. I know it wasn’t really your fault.”

“I understand,” she whispers back. “I wish Rowie would’ve let me talk her into coming. Or into talking to her.” She smiles wanly. “Sometimes people just need a little time, I guess.”

Marcy coughs. “4H, let’s come to order. If you were here for our first meeting, welcome back, and if you weren’t, welcome. I specially want to welcome Mrs. DiCostanza, who’s maybe going to be our faculty adviser.” A few people clap awkwardly.

“Pretend I’m not here,” Mrs. D. says, motioning down the applause. “Just talk like you normally would. Hell, we’re not on school grounds or school time, right?” She gives us that irreverent grin I’m beginning to feel so fond of.

“Maybe we should spend part of the time talking about gender and sexuality stuff, and part of the time talking about hip-hop, and part of the time talking about them in relation to each other?” Tess suggests.

“That sounds—shockingly organized,” Marcy says. “What do you guys want to talk about first?”

“Okay.” Emma Fazzio raises her hand. “I have a question.”

“Shoot,” Marcy says.

“So, why do guys, like, love bi girls?” she asks, then cracks her gum in the silence that follows the question.

“What do you mean?” I ask, glancing over at Mrs. D., who maintains her poker face.

“I mean, so — like, I feel really comfortable in this room right now, so I’m going to tell all of you that I’m”— Emma’s dramatic intake of breath arrives —“I’m bisexual, and even though I’ve never really, like, dated a girl, sometimes, like, at parties, I end up making out with other girls, and I just really want to know why guys are always so into it, when it doesn’t, like, involve them.”

“It’s not that complicated,” Yusuf says. “Making out with a girl at a party just to get the attention of some guy doesn’t make you bi. But if two girls get together in private, on their own time, just for each other, that counts a lot more.”

“I agree, I think,” I say. “That’s an interesting, like, sexual scorecard.”

“Didn’t we say last time that we were going to talk about our favorite female MCs?” Jane asks.

“Yes! Yusuf and I made an all-girl supermix just for the occasion,” Marcy says.

Even though I didn’t know there was an iPod hookup to the dingy CD player Marcy brought, Yusuf wordlessly whips a cord or two out of his pocket and, fifteen seconds of dextrous rewiring later, music plays.

“So the first song is by Invincible, who’s like my biggest hip-hop crush right now,” Marcy says. “She’s a white girl from Detroit, and she’s a sick lyricist, really political and smart. This song ‘Sledgehammer’ is blowing up the underground.”

“Why aren’t there any girls who rap?” Michelle asks, not making herself sound any smarter than at our last meeting.

“I wouldn’t say there aren’t any girls who rap,” I say. “I mean, we’re listening to one. But the question of why there aren’t more is really important to what we’re trying to do here. Why do other people think women are so outnumbered in hip-hop?”

“Hip-hop is all about machismo,” Angelo says. “It’s like, if you wanna have street cred, you have to have a certain image, and bling and bitches are part of that image. No offense, ladies.”

“Instead of women creating their own images, which is, I think, what’s starting to happen now,” I say.

“Yeah, but for a long time Queen Latifah, Roxanne Shanté, MC Lyte, and Lil’ Kim were almost the only female MCs anyone knew about, and then Lauryn Hill,” Kai says.

“And Missy,” Marcy adds. “I think it’s important to look at when they emerged, which is like the late eighties and early nineties, when women were just starting to gain more power in a lot of professions,” Marcy adds.

“That’s a good point,” Mrs. D. says. “Carry on — just had to add that.”

“When white women were starting to gain power, you mean,” Courteney says.

“Yeah, but another thing I think you have to take into account is that hip-hop is one of the only industries in the world where black women emerged first, and white women had to measure their success against black women’s instead of the other way around,” Jane says. “That’s something to talk about too.”

All of a sudden we hear a strange commotion outside the warming house.

“Christ,” I moan. “Tell me we’re not about to be ambushed by goats.”

Just then, the room goes dark. I hear Emma and Michelle shriek a split second before the Roman candle goes off, illuminating the two — I squint, thinking that after the day I’ve had, I might be seeing things — yes, the two Boy George masks behind the spray of light. Everyone’s ducking and screaming and trying to get to the light switch, and the laughter coming from behind the masks sounds terrifying and disembodied, the laughter of assailants too chickenshit to show their faces. A bunch of people try to dive for cover under a bench as Angelo dumps water on his jacket and throws it onto the geyser flame. Tess and I spring to the doorway, and in all the flash and darkness, I can see two male-looking figures sprinting away into the dimming late afternoon, leaving a crackling trail of tiny noisemakers behind them, snapping like evil little turtles. I contemplate running after them, but they’ve got too much of a head start and disappear into the woods before we get it together to follow.

“Is everyone all right?” Mrs. D. rushes to turn the lights back on, the firecracker dying under the smoking weight of Angelo’s coat. The light reveals Marcy hovering in a protective stance over Yusef, her arm around his shoulder.

“Those motherfuckers burned my arm!” Jane wails, rushing to the fountain to douse it in cold water. “Who the hell was that?”

“Are you kidding me?” Marcy goes ballistic. “Was that a fucking hate crime? Was Holyhill’s first gay hip-hop alliance actually just firebombed?”

“Is anyone else hurt?” Tess asks. We look around; Jane’s arm and Angelo’s coat appear to be the only casualties.

“We’ll file a report,” Mrs. D. insists. “This is not in any way acceptable.”

“No,” I say. “No, it isn’t.” I wonder if most people can pinpoint the worst day of their lives so clearly; I lift the smoldering coat off the site of the explosion and shake off the ash, noting the exact moment when the dark matter inside me morphed from sadness to anger. I feel everyone’s eyes on Marcy and me.

“Let’s continue our meeting,” I say, livid. “We can’t let some cowards who don’t even have the guts to show their faces stop us.”

“Dude.” She brushes ash off her sleeves, boiling. “How?”

“I’m going to get out my notebook,” I growl. “And we’re going to make a plan.”