Evie was nodding. But Lottie was determinedly shaking her head.
“Amber, you can’t live your life like that,” she said, all serious for a moment.
“I’m just being practical.”
“When did being practical get anyone anywhere?” Lottie loomed at the webcam, her eyes all wide.
“So, what? I should just fall head first into situations that I know are destined to fail?”
“Yes!” Lottie said, just as Evie shook her head and said, “No!” Evie put her hand up.
“Eves, you don’t need to put your hand up to talk, you know?”
She gave Lottie a look. “Don’t I?”
Lottie waved her hands. “Okay okay okay, I’ll be less forceful in my delivery.”
“Thank you,” Evie said.
She pushed Lottie out the way to make more room for her face. “As someone who has been clinically diagnosed with a condition that makes you not want to put yourself at risk, I can kind of see where Amber’s coming from. Why do something you know will end up hurting you?”
Lottie looked like she was going to explode. “Because it’s the right thing to do! Because it’s living. Because it’s the only way you grow and change!”
Evie and I exchanged looks over Lottie’s shoulder.
“I sense a lecture,” I said.
“Too right,” Lottie replied.
She began pacing in front of the camera, and if it wasn’t for the distortion of the sound, or the occasional break-up in the picture, I could’ve been there with them, in Evie’s super-clean bedroom, eating Cheerios and having another Spinster Meeting.
“What is this obsession with happiness?” Lottie threw her head back like she was surrendering to the gods.
“Umm, isn’t happiness kind of the reason to be alive?”
“Is it? Look, I was reading this book…”
“Here we go again,” Evie muttered, smiling.
“And in this book, they were analysing happiness levels in women – comparing them from now, back to when they sampled it in the seventies.”
“And?” I prompted, wishing, sometimes, just sometimes, I could have a problem and it not have to lead into a Lottie TED talk.
“And, guess what? According to the sample, women were HAPPIER way back in the seventies. Back when their main purpose was usually to be a wife and squeeze out children. When the only career aspiration fed to them was to be a secretary and they’d get their arses grabbed by their drunken boss. It had only been legal to vote for fifty years, and the Equal Pay Act had only JUST been passed. So, of course, when this research came out, all the anti-feminist buttheads got massive men’s rights boners. Loads of them came out saying, ‘Well this just proves us right. Feminism makes women unhappy. Look at what you’ve achieved, you silly little things, and look how unhappy it’s made you’.”
“That is really weird,” Evie said. “It also has nothing to do with Amber…”
“Can you just, for once, let me build to a crescendo? This is good advice, I promise!”
I stuck my tongue out.
“So, we could go down the road of why this research is totally flawed in the first place. Which I will, a bit, but quickly. Firstly, why do girls and women need to be happy anyway? Why does society deem it utterly unacceptable for girls to be pissed off, or sad? No, we have to be meek little contented things with a bonny air of grace about us, otherwise we’re labelled unhinged, or a bitch, or ‘She’s obviously not getting enough, is she?’ or ‘Is it that time of the month again, darling?’ Whereas boys can behave like utter miserable arsewipes and it’s all fine and cool like, I dunno, cool miserable people like Morrissey or whatever. ANYWAY…also, maybe just maybe, women in that first survey just…I dunno…LIED. Because women’s lib was still pretty…new, and it takes a while for ideas to sink in… Ideas like, You don’t have to put up with this crap, and, did you know you can use your brain AND love your children, it could be better, you know? And—”
“Shh,” I whispered hard.
There was a cough from Kevin and Mum’s room. I held my breath, and on the computer screen Lottie and Evie did the same thing…waiting… Another cough…then a long, long silence.
“I think they’re still asleep,” I said. “Sorry to interrupt your flow, Lottie.”
She beamed at me. “We’re getting to the point soon, I promise.”
“Well, I look forward to it.”
“Anyways, here’s what I think… When you get your eyes opened up to what’s wrong with the world, it does make you angrier. More bitter. More discontent. More, well, sad! Sometimes I think it would be so much easier if I wasn’t a feminist. I could just concentrate on looking pretty, and turn on the TV and not feel sick with rage that there’s hardly any female MPs on the news channel, and all the other women on TV don’t have any clothes on. I could pick a boyfriend who’s just such a macho douche, and think he’s the bee’s knees, and shower him with blowjobs and bake him cookies and think how lucky I am that he chose me… It could be nice. But it’s not the right thing to do!” Lottie’s face was red, and she punched the air. “It won’t make the world change for the better! It won’t make me change for the better. I won’t grow, if I just accept what’s what. The world won’t grow. The same unfair shit will just keep happening, and yes it’s easier to roll over and say, ‘That’s too hard and annoying, I just want to eat some pie’ but it’s not the right thing…”
Evie smiled slowly. “So you gotta fight for your right to be ruddy miserable?”
Lottie patted her shoulder. “Yes! Exactly. Because because because IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.”
It always took me a few more minutes to digest Lottie’s lectures. I ate another cookie and watched them discuss it on the webcam, mulling it all over.
“So…?” I said quietly. “I’m still not sure how this relates to me and what to do about Kyle?”
Lottie turned her attention to me again.
“Do you like him?”
“Yes.” I did. I really, really, did.
“I’ve seen him. So you obviously fancy him, because why wouldn’t anyone?”
I nodded. “I confirm I fancy him.”
“And he likes you?”
For some reason, just that thought made me want to cry.
“That’s what he says.”
“But you don’t want to do anything about this serendipitous good fortune because you think geographically-wise, it’s destined to fail, and you’ll get hurt?”
“Umm…yeah, I guess.”
“And yet you choose to be a feminist, even though it makes you angrier and sadder and feeling more helpless? God, do you remember last term at college, Amber? When the rugby lads fought against our jukebox rape song ban and everyone at college hated us?”
I could see where this was leading. My heart warmed up a bit. More than a bit.
“Yep, that’s what I choose.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing… But how is snogging Kyle the same as getting a rape song banned from college?”
And it was Evie who answered, cottoning on to Lottie’s point just about the same time as me.
“Because, Amber,” she said. “Life doesn’t always have to be about changing the world. Sometimes it’s about living your life for you… Trying to find some happiness, completely selfishly, but just for you… And you should adopt the same lack of fear you have in your feminism to your search for happiness.”