The girl held up the book she’d brought, and Wilma Jean recognized it at once.The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. The cover showed three blond girls in dainty white dresses sipping afternoon tea. In the fifties, all the rich girls in town had owned a copy. Back then, Wilma Jean’s family had been too poor to give a damn about books, tea, or etiquette. She’d perused the handbook once or twice and couldn’t recall a section on Lilith. She wondered what on earthThe Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquettehad to say about a two-thousand-year-old feminist icon who’d been written out of the Bible.
“Your mother has time to check you for Satan’s mark, but she can’t bebothered to read a damn book.” Wilma Jean sighed. “Sounds about right. Welp, you’re in my house now. And here, we all get to be who we want to be. So how ’bout this? I’ll call you Lilith today if you swear you won’t call me Meemaw.”
Bella seemed thrilled by the victory. “Easy-peasy. What do you want to be called?”
No one had ever asked her that before. Not once in her entire life had Wilma Jean Cummings been given the option to choose her own name. She took a second to think it over. “How ’bout Wilma?” She’d never much cared for the Jean.
Bella reached across to shake her great-grandmother’s hand. “Deal,” she said.
“I was just fixing to make some coffee. Would you care to join me?” Wilma hadn’t asked anyone to have coffee in twenty years.
“Sure!” Bella said, so Wilma led her back to the kitchen, where the girl slid into the breakfast nook. The second Wilma was occupied with the coffee, Bella immediately tucked back intoThe Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquettelike it was the greatest book ever written.
“In case you were wondering, there is an upside to spending time with old ladies.” Wilma tried to catch a glimpse of the text as she set a plate down in front of her great-granddaughter, but Bella closed the book. “We buy people’s love with pie.”
“Then you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me.” The girl took a bite and closed her eyes as she savored the strawberry rhubarb. “This is great. I’m so glad Mama’s not baking the cake for your birthday. I look forward to yours every year.”
Wilma brought their coffee over and took a seat. “I was thinking I might do something different this time,” she confessed. “People seem to think I’ve gone daffy. I need to prove that my brain is still functioning.”
Bella’s smile slipped away. She set down her fork and touched her napkin to the corner of her mouth like a perfectly trained Southern belle. “That’s a good idea. I was going to tell you before I left today. Mom says they’replanning to put you in a home. Your children are going to convince a judge that you can’t care for yourself anymore.”
“You don’t say?” It didn’t surprise Wilma one bit. She could have seen that news coming a mile away. And now that it was finally here, she wanted to beat it to death with a lead pipe. “Then I guess I’ll just have to show those traitors what I can do.”
Bella clearly approved of the plan. “I know you won’t need my help, but I’m happy to give it.”
“Thank you, Lilith. I’ll keep that in mind.” Wilma sipped her coffee and studied the creature across the table. Just when you thought you’d seen it all, life could still surprise you. She’d known there were a few good genes in the Cummings DNA, but until that moment, she wasn’t sure where they’d gone. “Now, Lilith. I don’t mean to pry but—”
“You want to know why I was suspended.”
“I’ll admit, I’m awful curious.”
Bella leaned in as if sharing a scandalous secret. “I wore a tank top to school on Monday.”
Wilma blinked. “That’s it? That’s why you’re under house arrest? Were your lady bits exposed or something?”
“Nope. All my lady bits were perfectly covered. But the dress code says girls can’t show their shoulders, so they sent me home. I went back Tuesday wearing a top with spaghetti straps, and they sent me home again. Then I showed up yesterday in leggings, which arestrictlyforbidden. The high school has a three-strikes policy, so I finally got suspended.”
“And that’s what you wanted?”
“I figured it was the least I could do to show my support. A girl in tenth grade got sent home last week for wearing a tank top. There was a boy in her class wearing the very same shirt, but he got to stay. The girls were confused, so I looked up the dress code and found out it only applies to us.”
It had been the same when Wilma attended the local high school seven decades earlier. She felt a hot blast of shame remembering the day she was sent home after a shirt she’d worn without comment at twelve was deemedpornographic by a male teacher shortly after she turned thirteen. Wilma recalled her mother frantically scrounging to come up with money to buy clothes that disguised Wilma’s growing breasts. Seventy goddamned years later, and absolutely nothing had changed.
“So you decided to protest the dress code?”
“Not right away,” Bella told her. “First I went to see the principal to tell him the code was old-fashioned and unfair. He said dress codes are necessary because if girls are allowed to wear what we want, the boys won’t be able to focus. I said why not let the girls dress comfortably and send the boys home until they can show self-control?”
“That’s an excellent argument.” The girl should go to law school, Wilma thought. “What was the principal’s response?”
“He said it’s easier for girls to dress modestly than for boys to behave. And so I told him I wasn’t interested in following rules that make life harder for girls so it can be easier for boys. Until the rules change, they’ll just have to make do without their head cheerleader.”
“What’s in it for you?” Wilma asked.
“Justice,” Bella said as if it was the only reason that mattered.
Damn. Wilma knew that feeling. That burning desire to balance the scales had sent her to law school all those years back. The need to fight injustice, right wrongs, kick ass, and prevent the strong from screwing the weak.
“Most girls in our family have gone to that school. You’re the first to stand up and challenge those stupid rules. I’m impressed.”
