What Friends Are For, page 7
Arlene brightened. “We have picketers outside the Women’s Hospital most days. You can find out where they do the abortions.” She tapped her pen again.
Mom reddened. “If I can. This position would have me working at the Women’s as part of the rotation, so I may be able to see what’s going on,” she said, sitting back and blinking. “But it’s going to be my job, so . . . what else can I do?”
“We’ll see,” Arlene replied, tilting her head. “You might want to help make something go missing—a cable or an instrument perhaps.” She smiled. “Let’s see how it goes.”
Mom didn’t reply. Leesa froze, listening carefully to every syllable.
Anna interrupted. “What does Dad say?” Anna could be the bolder of the two daughters because she was younger, Leesa thought. Anna certainly got away with a lot more than Leesa ever had. But Anna didn’t understand the danger that question posed. She saw Auntie Sylvia raise her eyebrows as she worked. Leesa wondered if Mom and Auntie Syl had plotted this secret together.
Mom didn’t answer immediately. “We haven’t had time to talk. I’ll tell him later,” she said quickly. She handed Arlene the sheet of paper she’d been working on. “Here’s the schedule for next week. Sorry I can’t make the meeting, but that interview is important to me.” She took a ruler and began to draw lines down a page.
“We should pray for your success, for the unborn, and to save our morally bankrupt society,” Arlene announced. “Let’s hold hands and bow our heads.” She extended her hands to Mom and Auntie Sylvia.
Mom looked surprised. “Oh, that’s—”
But before her mother could say anything more, Leesa yelped, “Oh!” She jumped up from the carpet and sprinted into the bathroom, her stomach churning volubly. Slamming the door just in time, she hoped whatever was going to happen would end her distress.
11
Monday, April 18, 1983
The old caretaking room used for the yearbook office still had the odour of grease, even though it had been years since the equipment and mops had been moved out. Two long tables held the layout pages for this year’s edition of William Lyon Mackenzie High’s yearbook, In Limine. The pages of last year’s book sat in a corner in case a picture was needed to fill a gap.
“Does Ms. Harmon think she’s still a twentysomething babe?” Mirabel smirked as she peeled the glue off an old picture and reattached it on the layout of the current year. “This is the same picture she’s been using for ten years, I think. Her wrinkles have wrinkles now.”
The ad proofs lay on the table in front of Leesa. Kevin hadn’t shown up to a yearbook meeting since the night at Peter’s. That’s what she called it when she thought about it: “the night at Peter’s.” Not only had he not come back, but he had walked by her in the halls without even glancing her way. She looked directly at him whenever she saw him, but he never turned his head toward her—except once. When she thought he was walking by in the crowd of kids, he abruptly jumped in front of her, stomping and shouting “Hah!”—a look of fierce delight on his face, his eyes wide, his teeth showing. She’d reared back, stepping on the toes of the kid behind her. Then, almost as quickly, Kevin jumped back to where he’d been a moment before and hustled down the corridor. He terrified her.
“Leesa, have you finished?”
“Huh?”
“Have you finished?” Claire, this year’s editor, stood at the other end of the table. “You’ve been sitting there staring into space. I’ve asked you a few times. Are you all right?”
It had been happening a lot since—the night at Peter’s. She shook her head. “Sorry! Sorry! Uh.” She looked down at the heavy paper pages, covered with glued-on ads. “Yes, yes, all the ads are camera ready.” She’d gone through the motions to get the work done, half-tuned out as she did it. She wondered how many mistakes she’d made.
“Good. We have to get the proofs in this week so they’ll be in the lineup at the printer’s this summer. I want to make sure the books are delivered before we get back to school in September.” She reached for one of the sheets. “Sorry to say this, but that was pretty jerky for Kevin to leave you in the lurch to finish it all. I saw him in the gym just now, but he wouldn’t answer when I called his name.”
It had been so much fun soliciting ads with him. Working side by side, they made silly jokes about some of the business owners and secretaries they had spoken with—just stupid banter, imitating voices, but they had both sniggered and laughed. It seemed so long ago. Now the ads were just pieces of paper. She didn’t care about them at all.
“What happened? Did you two break up?” Wendy said from the other table. She was flipping through the previous year’s book, looking for the correct spelling of a name.
“We weren’t going out,” Leesa insisted. She could feel her face reddening—again. She ran the palm of her right hand extra firmly over the ad copy, brushing away any rubber cement that had oozed out the sides.
“He sure played you,” Wendy commented as she rifled through the pages. “Didn’t you figure it out when he called you a ‘good girl,’ or called out ‘score!’ when you got an ad?” She imitated Kevin’s voice—“score!”—and thrust her arm in the air. “The way he looked at you . . .” she said, not finishing her sentence.
How could she not have figured it out? He had played her—and won. She wanted to be rid of him, but he was everywhere. Every time the basketball team won a game, he got the most points, which meant the principal announced his scoring results the next day over the PA system: “Kevin Taylor led the Lyons to another win against Oak Park on Friday,” “Kevin Taylor set a WLM record,” and so on. She tried claiming she had to go to the bathroom before the national anthem and hid there during announcements, where there were no speakers blaring out his name, filling her head, making her panic. But after a few days the teacher told her to “get her business done before the bell and stay in class.” She thought avoiding the Friday night games might put an end to him, but his name intruded on her constantly. There was no escape.
She rubbed her palm over the copy again. Extraneous glue or dirt would show up on the finished pages when the book was printed, but that’s not why she was doing it. She was really trying to rub Kevin out of her life. Any mess that was left would remind her of the mess she had made of her life.
She pressed harder on the proofs.
“Hey,” Wendy said, her finger stopping at a picture in last year’s book. “What ever happened to Donna MacLeod? Remember her? She was here last year. She wrote for the newspaper. I forgot about her. And she was on the Reach for the Top team, too, wasn’t she?”
Stewart tossed a pair of scissors into a basket of sundries. “She should be graduating this year,” he said. “Someone told me she moved. Don’t know where, though.” He dropped a handful of erasers into the basket and shoved it away.
“Hmph. I saw her parents at the mall, but not her.” Wendy snorted. She turned to another page. “What is that spelling—‘R-e-i-tman,’ ‘R-i-e-tman’?—ah, there it is. ‘R-e-i.’” She closed the book and put it back on the shelf above her.
Claire lifted a pile of layout sheets into the box destined for the printing company. “These are all in order. Leesa, pass the ads over here.” She added them to the box and tucked the flaps shut.
There was a quick knock before the door of the room was flung open. Tara, elegantly made-up as usual—with violet-toned eyeshadow, bright red lipstick, and a mass of brown curls surrounding her pretty face—leaned in, one hand on the door frame and another on the handle. “Hey, yearbook peeps,” she said. “How’s it going? Hi, Leesa!” She waved. “What’s up?”
Leesa flashed a smile, then tugged an old yearbook off a shelf and pretended to study it.
“I just want to make sure you have all the Grade 12 pictures,” Tara said, advancing into the little room. “Any missing?”
“We got the strays,” Claire said. “The deadline is tomorrow and we’re all ready.”
“And I’m ready to blow this popsicle stand.” Tara laughed. “My last yearbook!”
“Must be exciting!” Wendy said, giving her the thumbs up. “You’re out of here! That’s me next year.”
“I’ll miss you guys—but not too much. Hey, Leesa!” she called.
Leesa lifted her head and forced another weak smile.
“That was a great debate last week, don’t you think? I smoked Arnie,” she bragged, blowing on her fingernails as if they’d been on fire. “Don’t mess with Tara!”
“How did you crush him?” Wendy asked.
“With facts,” Tara said, and recounted how she’d listed the ways women had to struggle for acceptance and success, citing Marie Curie, the physicist who co-discovered radium with her scientist-husband. “But they only wanted to give him the Nobel Prize,” she said, “until her husband objected.
“Then there’s women barred from sports and medicine, getting lower wages, not having voting rights, blah, blah. Arnie conceded after I drowned him with the truth. Maybe it’s better now, but there’s still a loooong way to go.”
She and Wendy talked for a minute more, while Leesa tried to keep her head down. As Tara prepared to leave the room, she turned to her. “Lees—do you want to be secretary of the Debating Club next year? You’d be good at it. Should I tell Ms. Headon?”
Leesa’s abdominal muscles clenched. She wasn’t sure if they ached because she had an intestinal problem or if she’d wrenched the muscles from tightening them so often. For the umpteenth time, she stole a surreptitious glance downward. She was sure her stomach was bulging. Despite countless hot showers, letting the water pound on her stomach, nothing had happened. Her jeans were slightly tighter, she was positive, even though the bathroom scale didn’t show she’d gained even an ounce. Still, she was sure her face was puffy. She undid the top button of her jeans and felt less pressure on her abdomen. Every morning, she wondered when her parents’ eyes would be drawn to her stomach, when they would finally realize she was pregnant and begin to freak out.
She tried to stay awake at night to keep the awful dreams from overwhelming her. Whenever she closed her eyes, Kevin’s face loomed over her, leaving her in disbelief and terror in the dark. When she finally did fall asleep, she often woke up panting and crying.
“I don’t know,” she told Tara, turning back to the yearbook. “I don’t know.”
12
Wednesday, April 20, 1983
The tear-filled nights left her miserable. She was lethargic and struggling in class. Ms. Headon seemed to be looking at her all the time, she was certain, even when she was talking to another student.
“Get into your groups,” Ms. Headon instructed. The kids pushed their desks and chairs to form small circles. Leesa turned hers into the circle, too, but pulled it slightly back, hoping her gesture would telegraph to the other kids that she didn’t want to contribute to the conversation.
“Team leaders, you have the questions for your groups. I’ll be around.” She approached a group near her desk. “Ah, Darren, I’m so glad you volunteered to lead your group,” Leesa heard her say.
“You volunteered me,” Darren replied, slumping over his desk. “But that’s okay, it’s sort of fun.”
“Then let’s get at it,” Ms. Headon said, patting him on the shoulder and sitting down with his team.
In Leesa’s group, Willow read from a mimeographed sheet Ms. Headon had given out. “We’re supposed to talk about what it’s like to be the ‘Other,’” she said. “Abigail made up a story she knew the townspeople would believe: that the Devil had seized control of other people, who forced her to dance, knowing it was considered a sin. She claimed it wasn’t her fault; her possessed neighbours had made her sin. Should we accept that explanation, or is it Abigail’s fault people were put in jail and executed?”
“She was a stupid kid. She didn’t know what the consequences would be,” Meredith said. “Then it got away from her and she didn’t know how to stop it.”
“People she accused were being hanged,” Jenny put in. “She saw that, so isn’t she guilty of murder? Didn’t she break the commandment by lying about the Devil making her dance? Isn’t that why she ran away—to escape justice for her own crimes?”
“I’m supposed to be a devil’s advocate here,” Willow joked, looking down at her script. “Everyone cheated on the rules of society all the time, but there was nowhere to go to get away from them.” She folded the edge of the paper. “Is it a crime to expect everyone to fit into the same mould? Maybe she went crazy because of that?”
Leesa’s head throbbed. She didn’t want to hear about society’s expectations. She put her chin in her hand while the others went on.
“She was a schemer. If lying is a sin, then she sinned,” Jenny said firmly. She sat up straight in her chair.
There was a moment of silence as the other kids digested Jenny’s remarks. Willow and Meredith gave each other furtive glances. Leesa breathed in deeply. She hoped Jenny wouldn’t go on too much. It hurt her to see her friend isolated when other kids made fun of her, but she had no energy to help Jenny right now.
Meredith broke the silence. “What if she had been a boy? Would she have been so desperate?”
Sandra raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Tell me about it,” she muttered.
“Good questions,” a voice above them said. They all looked up. Ms. Headon had arrived. “Would Abigail have gone so far if society hadn’t been so controlling? Were women more vulnerable than men, so she had to create a fantastic lie to survive?”
“A rule is a rule,” Jenny said.
“Come on, Jenny,” Willow said. “A girl couldn’t simply leave town and get a job to support herself, right? She lived in Reverend Parris’s home, and he made her follow all these crazy strict rules. I mean, women were stuck.”
“Abigail schemed to marry John Proctor because he had a farm, which meant security. It meant money, food, and escape from Reverend Parris,” Meredith added. “She didn’t have any other way to survive.”
Jenny shook her head. “No, no matter what she was going through, she had no right to be weak or blame anyone else for her actions.”
The other kids groaned. Ms. Headon intervened. “Jenny, do you have no sympathy for someone caught in a bind?”
“No,” she said. “A rule is a rule.”
Leesa groaned inwardly.
Ms. Headon stood behind Meredith’s chair. “Leesa,” she said. “You usually wave your hand all the time. What do you think?”
All eyes turned to Leesa. “Nothing,” she said. She felt hot. “I don’t think anything.”
She leaned forward and looked down at the desk, her eyes open to stop the nightmare from flashing behind her lids. It kept happening.
She’d tried using a tampon to see if her period was about to start, but there was no sign of blood, over two weeks after it should have appeared. She hoped the aching she felt in her stomach meant it had finally started. She’d been ravenous after the stomach disaster at Jenny’s.
Then, this morning, she wanted an extra piece of toast. She decided to chalk it up to nervousness, missing her period a result of the tension she felt. It was worry about nothing, nothing at all. She should stop worrying.
Ms. Headon gave her that strange look again and went over to another group.
13
Monday, May 2, 1983
The doorbell rang. Jenny waited outside, car keys in hand, while Leesa put on her jacket. “We’re going to the animal shelter. See you at 9:00!” Leesa shouted over the television to her silent parents, pulling the door shut behind her. She wondered if they heard, or if they were so wrapped up in their problems they wouldn’t even care that she was gone, or that she was pregnant.
Jenny preened in her new spring jacket, electric blue with blousy sleeves. “I love it,” she crowed behind the steering wheel, flouncing her hair before she turned on the ignition. “I found it at Eaton’s—on a really great sale rack.”
It was a perfect evening. Warm, sunny, a little breezy—a season full of promise. Jenny unrolled her window to let fresh air in. She pulled away from the curb and cruised down the streets.
Despair washed over Leesa. She’d been at the mall the day before and seen two pregnant women wearing huge, roomy tops and baggy pants, their stomachs sticking out in front of them. What kind of clothes would she have to wear soon? Would she have to go to a maternity clothing store? She was only fifteen years old.
Her voice came out low and flat. “Jenny, I have to tell you something.”
Jenny glanced at her, then turned her eyes back to the road. She turned right on McGregor Street, cruising until she stopped at the red light on Mountain Avenue. “What’s up? Still moping about Kevin?”
Leesa took in a breath, fixed her eyes on the road, and said, “Kevin raped me.”
The light turned green. Jenny stepped too hard on the gas. The car lurched, and she stomped on the brake. The driver behind honked. Quickly, Jenny checked her rear-view and side mirrors and pulled the car into a grocery store parking lot.
“He wha—”
But before Jenny could express her incredulity or ask for details, Leesa told her, “I’m pregnant.”
The next few minutes seemed to stretch on for hours as the impact of Leesa’s statement hit them both. Jenny’s eyes filled with tears. She reached out to hold her friend’s hand, a gesture Leesa appreciated even though it did little to take away the numbness inside her. In a dull voice, she told Jenny what happened. Around them, shoppers passed by, laden with bags or pushing grocery carts. Kids trailed their parents, nagging for treats from the bags. Families loaded their trunks with the groceries and drove away. Leesa watched it all, as if those people were extras in a movie.
“What did your parents say?” Jenny choked out. “I mean—did you tell them how it happened?”
“No! No!” Leesa said, almost in a whisper. She shook her head. “I haven’t told them anything—nothing at all.” She turned to her friend. “And you can’t tell them. I have to figure this out.”
Mom reddened. “If I can. This position would have me working at the Women’s as part of the rotation, so I may be able to see what’s going on,” she said, sitting back and blinking. “But it’s going to be my job, so . . . what else can I do?”
“We’ll see,” Arlene replied, tilting her head. “You might want to help make something go missing—a cable or an instrument perhaps.” She smiled. “Let’s see how it goes.”
Mom didn’t reply. Leesa froze, listening carefully to every syllable.
Anna interrupted. “What does Dad say?” Anna could be the bolder of the two daughters because she was younger, Leesa thought. Anna certainly got away with a lot more than Leesa ever had. But Anna didn’t understand the danger that question posed. She saw Auntie Sylvia raise her eyebrows as she worked. Leesa wondered if Mom and Auntie Syl had plotted this secret together.
Mom didn’t answer immediately. “We haven’t had time to talk. I’ll tell him later,” she said quickly. She handed Arlene the sheet of paper she’d been working on. “Here’s the schedule for next week. Sorry I can’t make the meeting, but that interview is important to me.” She took a ruler and began to draw lines down a page.
“We should pray for your success, for the unborn, and to save our morally bankrupt society,” Arlene announced. “Let’s hold hands and bow our heads.” She extended her hands to Mom and Auntie Sylvia.
Mom looked surprised. “Oh, that’s—”
But before her mother could say anything more, Leesa yelped, “Oh!” She jumped up from the carpet and sprinted into the bathroom, her stomach churning volubly. Slamming the door just in time, she hoped whatever was going to happen would end her distress.
11
Monday, April 18, 1983
The old caretaking room used for the yearbook office still had the odour of grease, even though it had been years since the equipment and mops had been moved out. Two long tables held the layout pages for this year’s edition of William Lyon Mackenzie High’s yearbook, In Limine. The pages of last year’s book sat in a corner in case a picture was needed to fill a gap.
“Does Ms. Harmon think she’s still a twentysomething babe?” Mirabel smirked as she peeled the glue off an old picture and reattached it on the layout of the current year. “This is the same picture she’s been using for ten years, I think. Her wrinkles have wrinkles now.”
The ad proofs lay on the table in front of Leesa. Kevin hadn’t shown up to a yearbook meeting since the night at Peter’s. That’s what she called it when she thought about it: “the night at Peter’s.” Not only had he not come back, but he had walked by her in the halls without even glancing her way. She looked directly at him whenever she saw him, but he never turned his head toward her—except once. When she thought he was walking by in the crowd of kids, he abruptly jumped in front of her, stomping and shouting “Hah!”—a look of fierce delight on his face, his eyes wide, his teeth showing. She’d reared back, stepping on the toes of the kid behind her. Then, almost as quickly, Kevin jumped back to where he’d been a moment before and hustled down the corridor. He terrified her.
“Leesa, have you finished?”
“Huh?”
“Have you finished?” Claire, this year’s editor, stood at the other end of the table. “You’ve been sitting there staring into space. I’ve asked you a few times. Are you all right?”
It had been happening a lot since—the night at Peter’s. She shook her head. “Sorry! Sorry! Uh.” She looked down at the heavy paper pages, covered with glued-on ads. “Yes, yes, all the ads are camera ready.” She’d gone through the motions to get the work done, half-tuned out as she did it. She wondered how many mistakes she’d made.
“Good. We have to get the proofs in this week so they’ll be in the lineup at the printer’s this summer. I want to make sure the books are delivered before we get back to school in September.” She reached for one of the sheets. “Sorry to say this, but that was pretty jerky for Kevin to leave you in the lurch to finish it all. I saw him in the gym just now, but he wouldn’t answer when I called his name.”
It had been so much fun soliciting ads with him. Working side by side, they made silly jokes about some of the business owners and secretaries they had spoken with—just stupid banter, imitating voices, but they had both sniggered and laughed. It seemed so long ago. Now the ads were just pieces of paper. She didn’t care about them at all.
“What happened? Did you two break up?” Wendy said from the other table. She was flipping through the previous year’s book, looking for the correct spelling of a name.
“We weren’t going out,” Leesa insisted. She could feel her face reddening—again. She ran the palm of her right hand extra firmly over the ad copy, brushing away any rubber cement that had oozed out the sides.
“He sure played you,” Wendy commented as she rifled through the pages. “Didn’t you figure it out when he called you a ‘good girl,’ or called out ‘score!’ when you got an ad?” She imitated Kevin’s voice—“score!”—and thrust her arm in the air. “The way he looked at you . . .” she said, not finishing her sentence.
How could she not have figured it out? He had played her—and won. She wanted to be rid of him, but he was everywhere. Every time the basketball team won a game, he got the most points, which meant the principal announced his scoring results the next day over the PA system: “Kevin Taylor led the Lyons to another win against Oak Park on Friday,” “Kevin Taylor set a WLM record,” and so on. She tried claiming she had to go to the bathroom before the national anthem and hid there during announcements, where there were no speakers blaring out his name, filling her head, making her panic. But after a few days the teacher told her to “get her business done before the bell and stay in class.” She thought avoiding the Friday night games might put an end to him, but his name intruded on her constantly. There was no escape.
She rubbed her palm over the copy again. Extraneous glue or dirt would show up on the finished pages when the book was printed, but that’s not why she was doing it. She was really trying to rub Kevin out of her life. Any mess that was left would remind her of the mess she had made of her life.
She pressed harder on the proofs.
“Hey,” Wendy said, her finger stopping at a picture in last year’s book. “What ever happened to Donna MacLeod? Remember her? She was here last year. She wrote for the newspaper. I forgot about her. And she was on the Reach for the Top team, too, wasn’t she?”
Stewart tossed a pair of scissors into a basket of sundries. “She should be graduating this year,” he said. “Someone told me she moved. Don’t know where, though.” He dropped a handful of erasers into the basket and shoved it away.
“Hmph. I saw her parents at the mall, but not her.” Wendy snorted. She turned to another page. “What is that spelling—‘R-e-i-tman,’ ‘R-i-e-tman’?—ah, there it is. ‘R-e-i.’” She closed the book and put it back on the shelf above her.
Claire lifted a pile of layout sheets into the box destined for the printing company. “These are all in order. Leesa, pass the ads over here.” She added them to the box and tucked the flaps shut.
There was a quick knock before the door of the room was flung open. Tara, elegantly made-up as usual—with violet-toned eyeshadow, bright red lipstick, and a mass of brown curls surrounding her pretty face—leaned in, one hand on the door frame and another on the handle. “Hey, yearbook peeps,” she said. “How’s it going? Hi, Leesa!” She waved. “What’s up?”
Leesa flashed a smile, then tugged an old yearbook off a shelf and pretended to study it.
“I just want to make sure you have all the Grade 12 pictures,” Tara said, advancing into the little room. “Any missing?”
“We got the strays,” Claire said. “The deadline is tomorrow and we’re all ready.”
“And I’m ready to blow this popsicle stand.” Tara laughed. “My last yearbook!”
“Must be exciting!” Wendy said, giving her the thumbs up. “You’re out of here! That’s me next year.”
“I’ll miss you guys—but not too much. Hey, Leesa!” she called.
Leesa lifted her head and forced another weak smile.
“That was a great debate last week, don’t you think? I smoked Arnie,” she bragged, blowing on her fingernails as if they’d been on fire. “Don’t mess with Tara!”
“How did you crush him?” Wendy asked.
“With facts,” Tara said, and recounted how she’d listed the ways women had to struggle for acceptance and success, citing Marie Curie, the physicist who co-discovered radium with her scientist-husband. “But they only wanted to give him the Nobel Prize,” she said, “until her husband objected.
“Then there’s women barred from sports and medicine, getting lower wages, not having voting rights, blah, blah. Arnie conceded after I drowned him with the truth. Maybe it’s better now, but there’s still a loooong way to go.”
She and Wendy talked for a minute more, while Leesa tried to keep her head down. As Tara prepared to leave the room, she turned to her. “Lees—do you want to be secretary of the Debating Club next year? You’d be good at it. Should I tell Ms. Headon?”
Leesa’s abdominal muscles clenched. She wasn’t sure if they ached because she had an intestinal problem or if she’d wrenched the muscles from tightening them so often. For the umpteenth time, she stole a surreptitious glance downward. She was sure her stomach was bulging. Despite countless hot showers, letting the water pound on her stomach, nothing had happened. Her jeans were slightly tighter, she was positive, even though the bathroom scale didn’t show she’d gained even an ounce. Still, she was sure her face was puffy. She undid the top button of her jeans and felt less pressure on her abdomen. Every morning, she wondered when her parents’ eyes would be drawn to her stomach, when they would finally realize she was pregnant and begin to freak out.
She tried to stay awake at night to keep the awful dreams from overwhelming her. Whenever she closed her eyes, Kevin’s face loomed over her, leaving her in disbelief and terror in the dark. When she finally did fall asleep, she often woke up panting and crying.
“I don’t know,” she told Tara, turning back to the yearbook. “I don’t know.”
12
Wednesday, April 20, 1983
The tear-filled nights left her miserable. She was lethargic and struggling in class. Ms. Headon seemed to be looking at her all the time, she was certain, even when she was talking to another student.
“Get into your groups,” Ms. Headon instructed. The kids pushed their desks and chairs to form small circles. Leesa turned hers into the circle, too, but pulled it slightly back, hoping her gesture would telegraph to the other kids that she didn’t want to contribute to the conversation.
“Team leaders, you have the questions for your groups. I’ll be around.” She approached a group near her desk. “Ah, Darren, I’m so glad you volunteered to lead your group,” Leesa heard her say.
“You volunteered me,” Darren replied, slumping over his desk. “But that’s okay, it’s sort of fun.”
“Then let’s get at it,” Ms. Headon said, patting him on the shoulder and sitting down with his team.
In Leesa’s group, Willow read from a mimeographed sheet Ms. Headon had given out. “We’re supposed to talk about what it’s like to be the ‘Other,’” she said. “Abigail made up a story she knew the townspeople would believe: that the Devil had seized control of other people, who forced her to dance, knowing it was considered a sin. She claimed it wasn’t her fault; her possessed neighbours had made her sin. Should we accept that explanation, or is it Abigail’s fault people were put in jail and executed?”
“She was a stupid kid. She didn’t know what the consequences would be,” Meredith said. “Then it got away from her and she didn’t know how to stop it.”
“People she accused were being hanged,” Jenny put in. “She saw that, so isn’t she guilty of murder? Didn’t she break the commandment by lying about the Devil making her dance? Isn’t that why she ran away—to escape justice for her own crimes?”
“I’m supposed to be a devil’s advocate here,” Willow joked, looking down at her script. “Everyone cheated on the rules of society all the time, but there was nowhere to go to get away from them.” She folded the edge of the paper. “Is it a crime to expect everyone to fit into the same mould? Maybe she went crazy because of that?”
Leesa’s head throbbed. She didn’t want to hear about society’s expectations. She put her chin in her hand while the others went on.
“She was a schemer. If lying is a sin, then she sinned,” Jenny said firmly. She sat up straight in her chair.
There was a moment of silence as the other kids digested Jenny’s remarks. Willow and Meredith gave each other furtive glances. Leesa breathed in deeply. She hoped Jenny wouldn’t go on too much. It hurt her to see her friend isolated when other kids made fun of her, but she had no energy to help Jenny right now.
Meredith broke the silence. “What if she had been a boy? Would she have been so desperate?”
Sandra raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Tell me about it,” she muttered.
“Good questions,” a voice above them said. They all looked up. Ms. Headon had arrived. “Would Abigail have gone so far if society hadn’t been so controlling? Were women more vulnerable than men, so she had to create a fantastic lie to survive?”
“A rule is a rule,” Jenny said.
“Come on, Jenny,” Willow said. “A girl couldn’t simply leave town and get a job to support herself, right? She lived in Reverend Parris’s home, and he made her follow all these crazy strict rules. I mean, women were stuck.”
“Abigail schemed to marry John Proctor because he had a farm, which meant security. It meant money, food, and escape from Reverend Parris,” Meredith added. “She didn’t have any other way to survive.”
Jenny shook her head. “No, no matter what she was going through, she had no right to be weak or blame anyone else for her actions.”
The other kids groaned. Ms. Headon intervened. “Jenny, do you have no sympathy for someone caught in a bind?”
“No,” she said. “A rule is a rule.”
Leesa groaned inwardly.
Ms. Headon stood behind Meredith’s chair. “Leesa,” she said. “You usually wave your hand all the time. What do you think?”
All eyes turned to Leesa. “Nothing,” she said. She felt hot. “I don’t think anything.”
She leaned forward and looked down at the desk, her eyes open to stop the nightmare from flashing behind her lids. It kept happening.
She’d tried using a tampon to see if her period was about to start, but there was no sign of blood, over two weeks after it should have appeared. She hoped the aching she felt in her stomach meant it had finally started. She’d been ravenous after the stomach disaster at Jenny’s.
Then, this morning, she wanted an extra piece of toast. She decided to chalk it up to nervousness, missing her period a result of the tension she felt. It was worry about nothing, nothing at all. She should stop worrying.
Ms. Headon gave her that strange look again and went over to another group.
13
Monday, May 2, 1983
The doorbell rang. Jenny waited outside, car keys in hand, while Leesa put on her jacket. “We’re going to the animal shelter. See you at 9:00!” Leesa shouted over the television to her silent parents, pulling the door shut behind her. She wondered if they heard, or if they were so wrapped up in their problems they wouldn’t even care that she was gone, or that she was pregnant.
Jenny preened in her new spring jacket, electric blue with blousy sleeves. “I love it,” she crowed behind the steering wheel, flouncing her hair before she turned on the ignition. “I found it at Eaton’s—on a really great sale rack.”
It was a perfect evening. Warm, sunny, a little breezy—a season full of promise. Jenny unrolled her window to let fresh air in. She pulled away from the curb and cruised down the streets.
Despair washed over Leesa. She’d been at the mall the day before and seen two pregnant women wearing huge, roomy tops and baggy pants, their stomachs sticking out in front of them. What kind of clothes would she have to wear soon? Would she have to go to a maternity clothing store? She was only fifteen years old.
Her voice came out low and flat. “Jenny, I have to tell you something.”
Jenny glanced at her, then turned her eyes back to the road. She turned right on McGregor Street, cruising until she stopped at the red light on Mountain Avenue. “What’s up? Still moping about Kevin?”
Leesa took in a breath, fixed her eyes on the road, and said, “Kevin raped me.”
The light turned green. Jenny stepped too hard on the gas. The car lurched, and she stomped on the brake. The driver behind honked. Quickly, Jenny checked her rear-view and side mirrors and pulled the car into a grocery store parking lot.
“He wha—”
But before Jenny could express her incredulity or ask for details, Leesa told her, “I’m pregnant.”
The next few minutes seemed to stretch on for hours as the impact of Leesa’s statement hit them both. Jenny’s eyes filled with tears. She reached out to hold her friend’s hand, a gesture Leesa appreciated even though it did little to take away the numbness inside her. In a dull voice, she told Jenny what happened. Around them, shoppers passed by, laden with bags or pushing grocery carts. Kids trailed their parents, nagging for treats from the bags. Families loaded their trunks with the groceries and drove away. Leesa watched it all, as if those people were extras in a movie.
“What did your parents say?” Jenny choked out. “I mean—did you tell them how it happened?”
“No! No!” Leesa said, almost in a whisper. She shook her head. “I haven’t told them anything—nothing at all.” She turned to her friend. “And you can’t tell them. I have to figure this out.”
