Yours for the Taking, page 5
At every turn, there had been people who didn’t think she had what it took to be successful. But she did. She knew she did. She had to assume that therefore it was her queerness, her masculinity, or her Blackness—or, as was generally her experience, the combination of the three—that caused people to treat her as though she wasn’t good enough. Everything she had, she’d worked two, three times harder for than her straight white colleagues.
It was a lesson her parents had taught her: she’d have to be better than every white person in the room to get ahead.
Olympia had been very badly wanted by her parents. Six years—that’s how long they’d tried to get pregnant before adopting her. Olympia didn’t know much about her biological parents other than they’d likely been climate migrants passing through Texas and had left her in a basket with a note at the fire department. She’d been only a few weeks old, so she had no memory of it other than the stories she was told. The handwritten letter read simply, “We can’t give her what she needs. Please find someone who can.” Olympia’s new parents had told her those words meant that she’d been loved, and because these adoptive parents also loved her, so purely and so unconditionally, she believed that story to be true.
Instead of feeling that she had been abandoned, she felt she’d been found.
Her new parents taught Olympia how to advocate for herself, how to succeed in a world that often felt rigged against her—just as they had. Despite the decades in between her adulthood and theirs, it seemed to Olympia that the racism they faced operated in very much the same way. It was perhaps expressed more subtly in Olympia’s lifetime, but that didn’t make it any less potent.
Her parents had less advice for her when it came to navigating the world as a queer person, and this at times made those two identities feel separate to her, even though in her experiences outside of her family, they were completely intertwined.
Progress for queer people in general had stagnated over the course of her life. It was as though the general population was only capable of focusing on one major issue at a time, and the climate crisis took center stage. Rights were being stripped away and it hardly made the news.
She slept in her armchair that night, the book in her lap, and when she awoke the next morning, she beelined straight to her computer and pulled up the Yours! homepage. She decided she couldn’t wait for a complimentary membership and signed herself up, sweating with excitement.
Later that week she carved out time to visit the space, agonizing over what to wear. Finally, she landed on a modest outfit: black slacks, a white silk button-down, sensible leather loafers. The slacks were designed to be loose, but they were a little too loose-fitting on her; she’d always been thin. She grabbed a belt to secure them in place, the top of the pants becoming like a paper bag crinkled around her frame. She pulled her hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck.
Yours! was located in Lower Manhattan, where nearby, a university was being put on stilts. The entrance was hard to find, a nondescript metal door on the side of an enormous brick building. She took an old utility elevator up to the tenth floor, and when she emerged she found herself bathed in sunlight, with windows all around, and well-dressed women everywhere she looked. Women who were chatting, working, laughing to each other, touching up their makeup in the vanities that lined one of the walls. It was beautifully decorated, the air nearly vibrating with feminine energy. The art on the walls was vaguely vaginal.
The group of people before her were not as diverse as Olympia would have liked, which didn’t come as too much of a surprise: straight white women like Millender always neglected to factor in anything other than their own identity. But as she stood in the entryway, she found she was not discouraged but rather motivated by what she saw. She could help bring in other women of color. She could think of a dozen off the top of her head to recommend. Olympia always liked to believe that everything had a purpose that was larger than her. Helping improve the diversity of Yours! could be the purpose of her joining.
She also felt inspired. There was something about this place that made her feel hopeful for the future. When she got home, she curled up in her armchair with her laptop, Jacqueline Millender’s book tucked next to her, and an essay flew out of her fingertips and onto the screen about the mental health benefits of community during this uncertain time. She’d always liked writing, but academically speaking, it had taken a back seat to her other ambitions. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d written an essay. Certainly, she’d never written one for fun. But that’s exactly what this was: she felt a joyous sort of energy rushing through her as she laid out her argument, developed it, backed it up with facts.
Her roommate popped her head out of her bedroom. “I can hear you typing from all the way in here,” she said.
“Sorry!” Olympia called, and tried to type more quietly, but it was hard. She was fueled by something larger than herself.
When she was done, she submitted the essay to a feminist newsletter she subscribed to. It became the first of many that Olympia would pen, and soon she’d made a name for herself as the medical school student with strong opinions. She often stayed up all night in order to finish her coursework and meet her writing deadlines. That was fine; she thrived on the anxiety. She always had.
* * *
In the spring, Olympia wrote an essay she was particularly proud of.
It was published on a popular feminist website and was about how the hardest part of learning to be a doctor, for her, wasn’t the science—it was the implications of the science. Or, rather, the implications of the lack of science—there were certain things that no one had answers for. She argued that climate change was causing a health crisis: viral pandemics, a rise in asthma, mysterious new autoimmune diseases—the changing planet made everything worse. But more than that, she wrote, all these issues showed up first in women of color. If wealthy white men had suffered equally, in the beginning, they would have prioritized climate change relief programs back when it could still have made a difference. And maybe there would be a solution by now. Not just for the diseases, but for climate change itself.
She sent the link to a few friends. The response was positive; she’d struck a nerve.
The next day, Olympia received an email so surprising, she wondered if she was dreaming.
I’d like to take you to dinner, it read. I feel that we have much in common. It was signed, Yours in solidarity, Jacqueline Millender.
Was it really Jacqueline Millender? Olympia conducted several searches to try to verify the email address, but of course Jacqueline’s personal contact info was not listed anywhere. The brevity of the note made Olympia think it was legitimate; only someone with nothing to prove would say so little.
But if it really was Jacqueline, what did she want from her? Olympia read it over and over again until the words blurred together. The tone was impossible to glean. Was it friendly, or an accusation of sorts?
She showed the invitation to her roommate, who said, “I feel like this could go either way.”
Olympia agreed to the meeting, and spent the rest of the night lying awake, staring at the ceiling. What in the world was Jacqueline Millender after?
They met at a candlelit, secluded restaurant at the top of Manhattan, where people spoke in elegant murmurs and even the quiet clinking of the silverware against the plates sounded luxurious. Olympia arrived early but even still Jacqueline was there before her. There was already a bottle of wine on the table.
“Ms. Millender,” Olympia said as she slid into the leather chair.
“Please, call me Jacqueline,” came the reply. And then, she got right to it: “I am very interested in your work. Particularly the way you synthesize ideas, drawing connections that your older peers are too afraid to make in public.” Jacqueline took a sip of a full-bodied red wine. Olympia gulped some water, and then shivered. Nice places were always so cold.
When Jacqueline mentioned Olympia’s work, Olympia knew she wasn’t talking about her achievements as a med student. Yesterday’s essay, which as of this morning was going viral, made reference to Jacqueline’s writings.
The waiter appeared, refilling Jacqueline’s wineglass. Jacqueline waited for him to leave before she began speaking again. “I’m wondering what you think about our future,” she said.
“When you say our, who do you mean?” Olympia asked.
Jacqueline chuckled. “Great question. I can already tell we will get along.”
The waiter returned with a basket of small warm rolls. “Can I get you anything to start?” he said.
“Whatever the chef thinks,” Jacqueline said. “Just nothing with butter.” She waved him away.
“I meant women,” she said to Olympia, when the waiter was out of earshot. “What do you think the future holds for women?”
“At this point? Nothing good,” Olympia said. She and Jacqueline held eye contact for a moment longer than was comfortable, and Olympia looked away first. This was a very strange meeting, indeed.
Jacqueline finished her glass of wine and began pouring another. “As I assume you know,” she said, “I’ve invested in North America’s Inside, and as such am the acting director. We are only in the very beginning phases of research. But the main issue I’ve been stumped about is how to restart civilization so that it won’t simply repeat itself, dooming humanity to play out the same old story.”
“Ah,” Olympia said. She had been wondering about that very problem.
Jacqueline continued, “Most models for Inside that the government has explored are recreations of the world as it already exists. They’ve been trying to figure out how to keep the current balance of power, of gender, of class, without disruption. As though some idea of normalcy is the best way to keep people happy.”
“Normal only sounds good if you benefit from it,” Olympia said.
“Correct,” Jacqueline said. “So what would you say to a proposal for a completely new societal structure?”
“I’d say I am still listening.”
“Good.” Jacqueline lowered her voice. Olympia had to lean all the way forward to hear her. “And what would you say if that structure didn’t include any men?”
Olympia paused, unsure if she had heard correctly. “I would have a lot of questions,” she said.
“I promise to answer all of your questions to the best of my ability,” Jacqueline said. “But first, I’ll need you to sign an NDA, and then I’d love for you to come visit the lab in person. I have a feeling you’ll be as moved as I am by the work the team is doing.”
The waiter returned with two steaming bowls, but Olympia found she couldn’t eat. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach that was part curiosity and part dread. She needed to know more; and also, she was aware on some level that the more she knew, the more wrapped up she’d become in whatever this was. Still, she couldn’t help herself. The questions left her mouth before she could hold them in.
“But how will society continue on? Assuming you mean cis men, this is a plan that will only last as long as the generation is alive, right?” she said.
Jacqueline took a bite, chewing slowly. She seemed to be considering how much to reveal. “Man is not a natural species,” she said. “He is a historical idea.”
“Simone de Beauvoir.” Olympia nodded. “Though I believe she was paraphrasing someone else.”
Jacqueline dismissed this. “Don’t let your imagination hold you back from what is possible in this life.”
“All-female societies don’t work,” Olympia said. “For a number of reasons.”
“Maybe.” Jacqueline nodded. “Or maybe the idea has just never been properly funded.”
* * *
The essay was going more viral than Olympia’s writing usually did. Over the next few days, people she hadn’t talked to in a long time reached out to say how proud they were. There was some backlash, of course; she’d expected dissent. It was a controversial stance to take. She’d known that going in. But it wasn’t exactly a new take; she’d just been adding her voice to the chorus, from her specific perspective. So she wasn’t worried. The argument was a well-worn path.
Then one morning she awoke to an anonymous text message: This is bullshit. Don’t you think we have bigger things to worry about? Like the end of the fucking world. It was early and she was still struggling through her first cup of coffee. She flipped her phone over and didn’t look at it again until sunlight filled her room.
But by that point, it was too late. She had thousands of texts and missed calls. Her phone battery was almost completely drained. With a growing sense of dread, she opened her laptop and did a search for her own name. All of the results that popped up were from a men’s rights organization. She held her breath while she clicked on the first hit. They had linked to her article. And published her phone number alongside it.
If they had her phone number, she wondered, what else did they have? Was she in physical danger? Her heart was pounding. She didn’t know what the protocol was in a situation like this. She didn’t know who to alert, who to go to for help. The authorities would obviously not care. She was terrified, but more than that, she felt completely alone.
Olympia also didn’t understand why her, why this essay. What about the countless other women who had said the same thing elsewhere? Why not any of her other essays?
Still, none of this would have really been that big of a deal to her—Olympia knew women were harassed online all the time—except that she hadn’t yet chosen from one of the many job offers that had come the semester before. Now, if someone searched for her name online, the first few pages of results would be from men’s rights forums, talking about what an alleged fraud she was.
She was right to worry. One by one, over the next week, every clinic she’d been talking to about a residency retracted their interest. They didn’t have to explain why. She knew they didn’t want to bring controversy into their already underfunded walls. The curse of being a woman with an opinion in public. It was devastating.
“These fucking men,” Olympia cried to her mom on the phone. The calls and texts from the men’s rights groups hadn’t stopped. “They’ve ruined my career.”
“No, they haven’t,” her mom said. “You will get through this. You always do.”
“Mom,” she said, “it’s out of my control. Everything is.”
She hung up, not feeling any better. If anything, she felt worse. No one seemed to understand the gravity of her situation.
A few days later, Olympia skipped her graduation ceremony.
She didn’t plan on missing it. Even though her family, who lived in Texas, wasn’t able to come, she had ordered her cap and gown and made plans with some friends to celebrate at a bar afterward. But that morning, she found she couldn’t overcome the feeling of disillusionment. What was there to celebrate? She’d be graduating into an industry where there didn’t seem to be a place for her.
She shoved the cap and gown into the garbage and went for a run along the river. She turned her music all the way up and tried to soothe herself by concentrating on her feet hitting the pavement in time to the beat.
But even that wasn’t satisfying. The heat made it impossible to move as quickly as she wanted to, and eventually she had to slow to a walk, drenched in sweat and feeling light-headed. The air quality had gotten so much worse recently. She’d read somewhere that an hour spent outside was like smoking multiple packs of cigarettes.
As she slowly made her way back to her apartment, she passed the library, a grand building where she’d spent countless hours. So much squandered potential, she thought.
She took off her tank top and tied it around her waist. Her skin underneath her spandex bra was starting to itch from the heat. She stopped on the corner to catch her breath, stretching her calves against a lamppost, and a man running by whistled.
“Fuck off,” she shouted, but he was already out of earshot.
When she got home, she opened her laptop, and read everything she could find about the global project known as Inside.
EXCERPT FROM INSIDE LIED: A BRIEF HISTORY BY SHELBY SILVER, 2085
Aside from the physical aspect of aging, Jacqueline didn’t mind being older; the wisdom that came with it made her feel calm and in control.
Her marriage, for example, taught her how resilient she was. She’d been in her late twenties. She’d had a very large wedding on the glass-covered roof of a hotel owned by one of her relatives. She wore a vibrant magenta pantsuit. Her hair was in the platinum-bobbed style that she’d later have to commission a wig to be designed after, once she’d bleached it so severely that it all fell out. Nearly extinct blooms were flown in from all over the world. Pedestrians could smell the party from a block away. Intensely floral, decadent, romantic.
In the immediate years that followed, they were happy, or so she thought, taking trips to far-flung islands, before those islands disappeared into the ocean. There were parties and business dinners and long, languid days stretched out on velvet furniture doing absolutely nothing at all, watching the sunlight cast dramatic shadows on the city below.
It was around this time that she had the idea for Refillables, and their wealth skyrocketed. They spent nearly a decade like that, and then Jacqueline got sick.
She’d never really believed that people like her could get the same diseases that regular folks got. But she lived in what was commonly referred to as the “cancer belt,” an area that stretched along the East Coast of the United States that had disproportionate rates of breast cancer—thanks, probably, to the toxic waste in the water. Not that Jacqueline drank the tap water. But she did shower in it.
Jacqueline’s husband was supposed to meet her at her first doctor’s appointment, but he didn’t show up. And despite how many times she told him she wanted him there, he didn’t come to any appointments that followed. In fact, after that, he was around less and less, with excuses about business trips and friends in crisis. Jacqueline was stunned to find herself alone, battling her own body.
