Juniper Green wasn’t bluffing: she really did quit the show. (Her part was reassigned to Rollerblading Maddy.) I didn’t miss her, exactly, but it felt weird to do a show without her. Especially because Bottom and Daylily, in her absence, seemed totally checked out of the rehearsal process. A month or so into it, they even began to miss rehearsals.
I was getting increasingly annoyed with them. Especially Bottom—I’d never known him to miss a rehearsal before. In his defense, though, he turned out to have a pretty good reason.
The first time was in February.
Every Monday morning we had Meeting for Announcements, and there was one in February that began with a special announcement from Skip, the principal. “Have you ever noticed,” said Skip, “that the iron fence posts in front of the Meetinghouse are blunted at the top? Believe it or not, they used to have decorative spikes. But in 1917, the spikes were sawed off as an act of protest. Can anyone guess what the Quakers were protesting in 1917?”
There was a long pause. Fay and I looked up and tried to pretend we weren’t playing hangman in my notebook.
In the bench in front of us, Bottom raised his hand. “Wasn’t that when the US entered World War I?”
“That’s correct,” said Skip. “As a Quaker school, Idlewild has historically stood in opposition to all wars. And now that we have yet another war looming on the horizon, I want to talk to you all about filing for conscientious objector status.”
My stomach jerked with fear. Everyone I knew was against invading Iraq, but I was really against it. Based on what little I’d read—every morning over breakfast I scanned the front page and op-ed section of my mom’s New York Times—I fully believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I also believed that they were aimed directly at New York and he was just one bad day away from nuking us. I can’t blame the New York Times for that one; I’m not sure where I picked up the idea, or if I completely made it up, but it weighed on me.
“What does it mean to be a conscientious objector?” said Skip. “In 1651, George Fox said …”
I zoned out, looking at the back of Bottom’s head. He was sitting next to Daylily, who was sitting next to Juniper. I wondered if he was still mad at me for spreading the story that his parents got Wanda fired. Which I hadn’t, I reminded myself furiously. I’d told Fay, but she hadn’t told anyone else, so it rounded down to not telling anyone. I had nothing to feel guilty about.
“God willing,” said Skip, “you won’t end up needing this information. But if you’re eighteen, or about to turn eighteen, and male—”
Daylily lifted her hand and gave Bottom’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.
I leaned over to whisper in Fay’s ear. (It never felt sacrilegious to whisper or pass notes during Meeting for Announcements as it did during Meeting for Worship.) “I just don’t get the logic,” I said, “of attacking a guy who has nuclear bombs. Shouldn’t we be sucking up to him?”
That was actually what I believed. Appeasement, in general, has always been my policy. This might be my least favorite thing about myself.
“Sucking up to him?” Fay whispered back. “He’s a brutal dictator.”
“Yeah, but so is Bush,” I edgy-teenagered.
“So’s your mom,” said Fay.
“Will you shut up?” Juniper hissed, twisting around to glare at us.
“It’s a very personal choice,” said Skip. “But if you decide this is the right path for you, the forms are available in the front office—”
Juniper said, “Some of us actually want to hear this, okay?”
“It doesn’t apply to girls,” Fay pointed out.
“They could draft women this time,” said Juniper.
“—and every teacher on the faculty is committed to supporting you,” said Skip, “so don’t be afraid to ask for help with the application.”
“There might not be a draft,” I whispered. “There might not even be a war.”
Mr. Prins shushed us. Juniper turned back around. Fay and I pantomimed jacking off and ejaculating onto her head.
“Whatever your decision,” said Skip, “we hold you in the Light.”
He sat. Trudy stood. “Thank you, Skip,” she said. “Any other announcements?”
On the bench in front of us, Juniper Green raised her hand. Trudy called on her. She stood.
“Do you feel helpless to stop the invasion of Iraq? Well, you’re not! Together, we can make a difference. I’m Jennifer Green. The hot babe next to me is Lily Day-Jones. We’re throwing a letter-writing party, and you’re all invited. We’re gonna write to Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton and let them know that their constituents are against the war. We’ll supply paper, envelopes, stamps, Gelly Rolls in all the colors, actual jelly rolls if you get hungry—trust me, you don’t want to miss out. The time: this Friday, after school.”
Fay and I sighed with frustration: that conflicted with a full-cast On the Town rehearsal.
“My place,” said Juniper. “Come up to me and Lily after Meeting, and we’ll give you the address. Be there! Or else …” And then, in this absolutely repellent sexy-baby voice, she cooed, “Me and Lily will just have to play alone in my room, alllll by ourselves.”
People giggled. Some stupid boys hooted.
“And no one wants that, right?” From behind, I saw Juniper lift her hand to her mouth; I think she was playfully biting her finger. On the bench beside her, Daylily giggled and covered her face with her hands.
“All right, Jen, thank you for your announcement,” said Trudy. “General reminder that this is the House of God, and all presentations in the Meetinghouse should be appropriate.”
“Hey, that’s homophobic,” Juniper yelled as she sat back down.
Meeting for Announcements concluded with five minutes of Silence. At 9:20, Skip shook Trudy’s hand, breaking Silence and ending Meeting. Instantly, hordes of kids exploded out of their benches to mob Daylily and Juniper. “272 East Tenth Street,” Juniper shouted.
“Are freshmen invited?” asked Rollerblading Maddy.
“Everyone’s invited,” said Daylily.
Juniper wrapped her arm around Daylily’s skinny waist and pulled her in close. “There’s plenty of JG and Lils to go around,” she yelled. “We wanna spread the love!”
The Friday rehearsal was a lost cause. It felt good to be angry about that, instead of guilty about Bottom or terrified of war.
A week later, I told Bottom, “We had to cancel rehearsal on Friday.” He and I were walking down the hall together from Latin to history. “Only like five people showed up.”
“I heard,” he said. “Mea culpa.”
“How was the party?”
“Oh, you know how Jen’s parties are.”
“No, I don’t.” I was surprised he did. I’d never thought of him as a party guy.
“No, I suppose not,” he said. “Well, this one got typically wild later in the evening once it moved to the roof. But we did write a lot of letters before that.”
“I hope it stops the war,” I said.
He glanced at me, unsure if I was being sarcastic. (I wasn’t sure either.) “I know it’s not much,” he said. “But it felt better than doing nothing.” He paused at the doorway to the history classroom and motioned for me to pass him. “Ladies first.”
I felt bad then. I made a mental note to write my own letter to Hillary Clinton.
Fay was cutting class, so I was paying more attention than usual when Glenn made a special announcement of his own. “This weekend,” he said, “there’s gonna be a worldwide demonstration against the invasion of Iraq. The New York rally is at the UN. If you write me a one-page essay about your experience there, I’ll give you fifty points of extra credit on the final exam.”
The whole class bolted to attention. It was unusual for Idlewild teachers to offer extra credit, since the school didn’t give grades and usually de-emphasized test scores. Looking back, I wouldn’t be surprised if Glenn actually got in trouble with Skip and Trudy over this—not just for offering extra credit in the first place, but for tying it to something that should have been done for its own sake. It was a rookie error. (He was only twenty-three! That’s so wild to think about now.)
From the back row, where she was sitting with Bottom, Daylily called out, “Some of us are going to the march in D.C. instead. Can we still get the extra credit?”
“Sure,” said Glenn.
In the front row, Oliver Dicks raised his hand. “Shouldn’t we get extra extra credit for traveling to D.C.?” he said. “It’s a much bigger commitment than just walking to the UN.”
Glenn sighed, clearly already regretting this, and tugged at the brim of his trucker hat. “Fine,” he said. “You get … uh … five extra points for going to D.C.”
“Just five?” said Oliver.
“Just for going to D.C.?” said Eddie Applebaum. “We don’t have to write an essay about it?”
Glenn hesitated—he clearly hadn’t thought it through—and the class, sensing his weakness, pounced. “That’s not fair!” “This is too short notice!” “I have softball practice!” “Can we write an essay without going to the protest?”
Bottom’s baritone projected warmly over the other voices. “If anyone wants to join us on the charter bus to D.C., let me know! The more, the merrier.”
I was surprised to find myself seriously considering it. Not just for the extra credit, either. Bottom was right: it would feel better than doing nothing.
“You can talk to either of us after class,” Daylily was saying. “Or Jen.”
Oliver Dicks twisted around in his front-row desk, smirking. “Are you and Jen gonna play in a room by yourselves in D.C.?”
“Maybe,” said Daylily mischievously. “You’ll have to come along and find out.”
A titillated “Ooooh!” swept the class. It was so spontaneous, in such perfect unison, that everyone except me cracked up laughing.
Egged on by the attention, Daylily added, “Maybe it won’t be in a room. Maybe it’ll be on the bus.”
“Let’s try to focus,” Glenn said weakly.
But no one was even pretending to pay attention to Glenn anymore. Boys were calling out jokey questions like “Can I reserve a seat next to you?” Some of them made exaggerated sounds of horny moaning. Girls were laughing like they’d just discovered a cheat code to the boy brain. And Daylily was blushing and beaming, ever so pleased with herself.
I felt a surge of pure loathing for her. Juniper too. I couldn’t believe how effective their little gimmick was, especially since it was so obviously fake. Maybe, I thought bitterly, the fakeness was what made it effective. After all, Idlewild boys didn’t act like this around me. Not that I wanted them to. I wasn’t jealous—not exactly—that Daylily and Juniper were doing a fake-lesbian act for attention. It just made me feel invisible.
No, worse than invisible—I felt ugly. I imagined how my classmates would react if I announced in the Meetinghouse that Fay and I were hooking up. They’d probably be weirded out, or altogether grossed out. Then I was mad at myself for caring. Besides, I was never going to hook up with Fay anyway.
By the time I trudged out of class, I’d made myself so miserable I couldn’t even look at Daylily. I already knew I wouldn’t be going to the protest. Not in D.C., not anywhere.
(I never wrote that letter to Hillary Clinton, either.)