I shrugged. “I’m not one of those girls who does what everybody wants,” I tried to explain, and for some reason my voice came out all hoarse and weird.
Richards nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Exactly. I see what’s going on. There’s the problem right there. Thinking that there are kinds of girls who do kinds of things. Let me ask you something: You might not be doing what other people want, but are you actually doing what you want?”
I shrugged again.
She said, “You know, Tate. There are no kinds of girls. That’s something people make up to get women to behave in certain ways. Something people make up so they can control what you do.”
“The slut or the virgin,” I said. I knew about that stuff. I knew there were double standards. Big deal. I didn’t think I really had any part in those things.
“Right,” she said. “There’s lots of stupid ideas about girls, but we don’t have to pay attention to them, because they don’t make sense. And the more we ignore them, the more we tell people they’re wrong when they try to tell us there are two ways of being, the freer we all get. Got it? This attitude of yours doesn’t make a lot of sense either. You’re not going to become some obedient, weak person if you just follow some of the school rules so you can get into a good college. You’ll still be yourself. You use what the school gives you to get somewhere else. Hell, Tate, I don’t think you could get a bad grade if you tried. But you can sure make yourself get stuck here by other means, and you seem to be working hard at it. You don’t have to wrestle with being a certain way, with being good or bad. You’re just who you are.”
“Okay. But who I am is someone who skips classes and skateboards in the hall.”
“Look,” Richards said. “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I understand that you have different feelings at different times. I’m just saying, don’t let some weird idea about how girls are supposed to act dictate the way you live. You don’t have to be a tough guy all the time. You get what I’m saying?”
“I guess.”
She sighed and offered me a Twizzler. When I declined, she said, “Take it! For God’s sake, it’s an acquired taste. You have to at least try it!”
“You know everyone hates black licorice, right?”
“Because they’re philistines,” she said, winking. I loved that she always used that word. I never knew what it meant until I met her.
I took the licorice from her, took a tiny bite, and smiled politely even though it tasted terrible.
“Now, seriously. Listen. And listen good,” Richards said. She leaned in close. “There used to be a time when girls weren’t allowed to get an education at all. Women weren’t allowed to go to college; and when they were, they had to go to segregated schools and study things like home economics. We only got the vote about one hundred years ago.”
“Your point?”
“My point?” She looked really annoyed.
“Okay. Okay,” I said. “I get your point.”
“If you want to be the tough girl, you go out there and you rule. You understand me? You go get the best grades and work hard and cruise your way to making a real change in the world. Not this stupid part you’re playing, being the bad girl—okay? There are not two sides to this equation. It’s one problem we all gotta solve together.”
It kind of shocked me to hear her say it so plainly. Or I guess even say it. No one had ever talked to me like that before. I felt goose bumps up and down my arms.
She looked at me for a long time. “Oh, Jesus, just give me that thing back.” She took the licorice out of my hand and chucked it in the garbage. I had taken a kind of nanobite out of it. “You kids have no taste.” She laughed. “Are we good, Tate?”
I smiled at her. “Yeah,” I said. “I think we are. I’ll . . . I’ll think about it.”
I walked out of there and for some reason all I wanted to do was go talk to Ally. I mean I suddenly wanted to grab her hand and run with her out into the woods and tell her she didn’t have to be the way she was. Neither of us did. I thought of going home and rearranging our room—finding some stuff we both cared about to put up on the walls instead of having it be this demilitarized zone down the middle and warring posters and objects in every corner of the room.
I remembered how it was when we started school. She just became obsessed with the way people thought about her. How she dressed. What boys said to her. How they looked at her. She was always very pretty and dudes said some fucked-up stuff to her even when she was in grade school. She started getting really self-conscious about being good. She was already like this, of course—always being good trying to get Mom and Dad’s attention or cleaning up their messes.
But I realized now that school really was the key. She somehow shrunk when we got there. Became afraid to talk in class. Almost like she was afraid to be smart. All she wanted to do was look like some perfect, clean, wholesome, rich, untouchable girl like out of an L.L.Bean catalog. And I think that’s what made me want to just tear everything apart. I think that’s what made me want to say no to everyone and be above all their bullshit by never listening. It was like I was trying to save Ally by being the anti-Ally, but I was wrong too. Just before I went in to see Richards, I’d been thinking that rules are for people stupid enough to follow them. And she had basically told me the same thing! That there aren’t any rules for how girls have to be.
I remember thinking, This will bring us together. This will bring me and Ally together.
I decided not to stay at school that afternoon and just go to the skate park by myself. I had that great Death Cab song in my head. “I want to live where soul meets body. And let the sun wrap its arms around me.” I waited until I got outside to put the board down and my headphones on. Then I cruised along the curb. The wind in my hair. I had on my black T-shirt and hoodie and my skinny jeans with the hole in the knee. My slip-on Vans were solid on the board and I felt great. I felt for a moment like I didn’t need to worry about anything. About Ally or about myself. Maybe we had a lot to teach each other. Maybe if each of us changed a little neither of us would have to be so extreme. There was no reason for us to be separate. Now that we were older and could take care of ourselves.
I wish I could go back to that feeling. I wish that feeling had been true.
When I got to the skate park, Graham was sitting in his car smoking. Apparently he hadn’t officially started school or was given some time off—still checking things out. That was weird, but sometimes kids just checked out a school for a few days before their parents made a decision about whether they would go. Especially kids like Graham whose parents could probably send him to any prep school they wanted.
He had the top down and had his feet propped up on the dash and he had headphones on too. I skated up and he acted startled, even though he was watching me the whole time.
“Is it Saturday?” I asked him.
“It must be,” he said. “We’re not in school.”
“Becky said you made another movie of her.”
“I did. And I’m making one of you right now,” he said.
I looked closely at his headphones and realized there was some kind of tiny camera attached to the one over his right ear. He wasn’t listening to music at all. He’d been filming people driving and walking by.
“I don’t want to be in your movie,” I said.
“Okay, cool.” He took the headphones off and set them down on the seat. He clicked off a tiny button with his thumbnail.
When he looked up again without the camera he seemed just for a second afraid. Very afraid, like a little kid who was all alone. Then it passed over his face and was gone.