Page 23 of Kiwi Sin
“No,” I’d said, knowing I was flushing, but trying to be cool and outspoken, like the people Frankie liked. “I know I’m … that you don’t want me, not when you’re with your clever friends. That I’m embarrassing. Sorry I didn’t see.” It was all I could manage, because my throat was closing again.
“You’re not the thing that’s embarrassing.” She wasn’t quite looking at me. She was looking straight ahead instead, her hands gripping her school backpack in her lap. “It wasn’t really your fault. I don’t want to seem like a … like a Mount Zion person, though. I don’t want to be odd anymore.”
“But you’re not odd,” I said. “You fit so much better than I do.”
“Iamodd,” she said fiercely, in that “passionate discussion” way that made me flinch. “I’m married. Nobody else is married, and I’ve been married for almost two years! They all know I was beaten, too, and that Gilead had relations—” She broke off, then went on, her body tense, “That he raped me. They all heard. They allsaw.I just want to forget all that, and I can’t even change my name yet! The first day of school, when every teacher said, ‘Fruitful Warrior,’ and all the other girls stared and laughed, and then I saw somebody whisper about it, about who I was—”
“Me too,” I said. “But you almostcanchange your name. It’s only a little time until you’re eighteen, and after that, nobody will ever know what your name used to be.”
“But I’ll still be married,” she said. “It’s so long until I won’t be, and Ihateit. I hate that he … that he did all of that, and I have to carry it around with me. I want to be another person, somebody that didn’t happen to.”
“And if I’m there, you can’t.” The knowledge was a cold lump in my stomach, and she looked away and didn’t say anything. “I won’t sit with you anymore,” I said, and it felt like something tearing off me. Like a piece of my skin, and I was trembling, my own fingers cold on my backpack. I’d slept in a room with my entire family all my life. I’d worked beside my sisters and my cousins every single day. Now, I kept getting more alone.
“You don’t have to do that.” She mumbled the words, though, and I could tell she didn’t mean them. “I don’t want to be cruel. I can’t stand to think I’m like that, like Gilead, but I’m like that all the time with you and Daisy anyway. I see myself, Ihearmyself, but it’s like I can’t help it.”
“Because we’re there,” I said. “Because we’reallthere, even if we’re not all living at Gray’s. Being odd. Being different.”
Now, she looked at me. “Yes,” she said, and that was all.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Her fingers were pleating the strap of her backpack now. “What can I do? Nothing. Get through it, I guess. I’ve got through things before. I’ve got througheverythingbefore.”
“You could live someplace else, maybe,” I said. “And go to a different school.” I’d be alone at school then, but I’d felt alone today. I’d be alone in the yurt, too, not just alone in a bedroom, and that would be awful, but if I made her feel it was OK to go, that was something Icoulddo.
I could pretend. For Frankie, I could.
She shook her head impatiently, and I felt the way I always did. Stupid, like I didn’t understand. “I can’t transfer,” she said, “not in the middle of the year. And the teachers are helping me here, because theydoknow. I just want to bedonewith this, catch up on all my horrible gaps, go to university, and be like everybody else. Not with a weird name. Not married. Not …”
“Not with a family that keeps reminding everybody all over again.” Because, yes, that happened. Whenever there was a story about Mount Zion, and it seemed like there were so many stories, they’d repeat it, with photos of Frankie’s bruised face and details from the court case. “But it doesn’t seem like it bothers Daisy,” I said, “so maybe it gets better later on.”
“In fourteen years, you mean,” Frankie said. “I can’t wait fourteen years.”
“Maybe you can pretend it’s already true,” I said. “I thought it was. You seem so … so clever and cool and knowing what to say.”
“I do?” For once, she didn’t look decisive. She looked more the way I always felt.
“Yeh,” I said. “You do. And if I don’t sit with you, it’ll be easier to pretend.” Some more of that ripping skin, but the pain was less, like the skin was going numb.
“Then you won’t have a friend, though,” she said. “You left with me. You came back for me. You’re mysister.”
My throat had closed some more, and the tears were welling up again, even though Frankie hated it when I cried. “I think I may have made a friend, though,” I said. “Maybe she’ll let me eat lunch with her.” I knew it sounded pathetic, too hopeful, but Aisha had waved at me when she’d seen me after school, so maybe. Sometime.
Girl’s got guts.She’d said that. Aboutme.
“I know you don’t have a friend,” Frankie said. “I know you’ll be alone.”
I said, “I can eat alone. I’ve got guts.”
“You don’t have guts,” she said. “Daisy has guts. I’ve got guts. You’ve never had guts. I’m not being cruel,” she hurried on. “But you don’t.”
She pushed the button for our stop—we were almost the only ones left on here, out amidst the lifestyle blocks, out by the sea—and I stood up and moved into the aisle, grabbing for the bar to steady myself.
“I do, though,” I said. I didn’t know if I did or not, but I was tired of being scared, and tired of being lonely. If Frankie could pretend? So could I. “I have guts.”
* * *
Now,I kept slicing into potatoes and told myself,I may not be good at Biology, but Iamgood at cooking. Maybe I could be a nanny. That’s a job.Frankie looked up from where she was—of course—doing maths problems in an exercise book, and asked Daisy and Gray, “Where did you run?”
