Chapter 11
After we’re done unwrapping the presents on Christmas, I make a little comment to my sister about how she got twice as many
gifts as I did. My sister stiffens at that, goes into full attack mode, though she talks in a coddling whisper because she’s
holding the baby, or maybe she just likes to talk like that because of how passive-aggressive it sounds.
“You can’t complain. Mom and Dad gave you so much more attention than me growing up,” she says. “It wasn’t even close.”
“If by attention you mean judgment and pressure, sure,” I tell her. “Lucky me.”
“You loved it,” my sister says. “You always tried to keep me from ever one-upping you.”
She looks bedraggled by the lack of sleep so I should just give her some grace, but she’s the one who started it. “What the
fuck are you even talking about?” I slash back.
“Don’t swear in front of the baby,” she says, covering the little one’s ears as if that’s what’s going to wreck her, not the
entirety of the patriarchy and traditional gender roles suffocating her 24-7.
“It’s like when I begged Mom and Dad to pay for piano lessons for me like they did for you,” my sister carries on. “And then
you threw a fit and told them piano was the worst thing ever and that you’d run away if you had to keep going, which ruined
it for me too.”
“I never said that.” I’m not just disagreeing with her to be a contrarian. I truly have no recollection of what she’s talking about.
“You literally did,” she insists. “You threw the biggest fit until they pulled you out of lessons and made us both do sports
instead. I might’ve been a musical prodigy, but now we’ll never know.”
“What a shame,” I deadpan, wishing I were back at the Inn with the Redstockings, not here in this suburban house where all
my expired identities collect like dust, making me sneeze.
But there’s that lingering dread of returning too. Because I know that when I go back, the Redstockings won’t be the same
friend group I left.
“Time for family photos,” my mom says, appearing in her ugly Christmas sweater that she earnestly thinks is fashionable. “Emily
Jane, please don’t make that face.”
“What face?” I say, hardly feeling the contorted expression. “This is just how I look. Natural beauty, it’s called.”
My sister’s baby opens her eyes at that and lets out a little gurgle that I swear is a giggle. She’s the only one who seems
to get me around here.
After all the quality family bonding over the holiday, I head back to New York and have the Inn to myself for a few days.
The apartment feels too big and creaky without the others, but it’s better than being with my family at least.
Our ex-friend Lilly is getting married in Oregon over New Year’s. Naturally I’ve declined, but Tara, Hal, and Jenni go and
all post photos together like they’re having the time of their lives.
Why are you fraternizing with the traitors? I text Tara and Hal, hoping they pick up on the plurality of traitors, though I’m not sure they do because I’ve already removed Jenni from the Redstocking group chat twice though Tara added her back both times.
Hal puts the little laugh emoji on the text like she thinks I’m being funny and Tara texts me individually.
We’ll talk it out when we’re all back home! she says, like that’s going to magically fix everything.
I have to admit, though, it does help having us all together. Or at least the three of us since Jenni and Peter popped down
to Saint Croix for a honeymoon because of course they did.
Bundled up in the garden together one night, in the glow of the twinkly string lights, Hal, Tara, and I pass a joint around
and strategize where to go from here.
“It’s not like we’re going to burn Jenni at the stake,” Tara says, looking distraught at the slew of not-too-dissimilar ideas
Hal and I have been spewing in a highly prolific brainstorm. “We’re not a cult.”
Hal and I aren’t such pushovers. “Of course we’re not a cult,” Hal says. “We’re a commune, a revolutionary blueprint for how
women of the future will live. But with that, we have to systemize a process for defectors. Jenni broke the pact and there
have to be consequences. It’s the only way this model will be scalable.”
I don’t care about the scalability of it, but I do agree with Hal about the consequences. “We need to eject her from the group
immediately,” I say. “Let her feel the weight of her decision.”
“Jenni can’t have her cake and eat it too,” Hal says, summing it up nicely. “But we’ll have to have some parameters. A one-month
taper period that we give her to move out before officially exiling her.”
“What was that thing we said about this not being a cult?” Tara prods.
“Jenni isn’t going to want to live here anymore even if we let her,” I say. “We’re doing her a favor making her path clearer.
You know how she hates making decisions.”
“I guess you’re right,” Tara says glumly. She leans her head on my shoulder and I drop a big kiss on her forehead, leaving behind a stain from the purple lipstick I’m wearing. I decide I don’t like the color, but I do like the texture, how it sticks and stays in place.
When Jenni returns from her honeymoon, all bronzed and bedazzled, she announces that she’s moving in with Peter straightaway.
This shouldn’t be surprising, I guess, given the whole they’re-technically-married thing, but I still thought maybe they would
opt for a less conventional arrangement, be one of those modern couples that lives apart. Or at least they could’ve phased
in this new era, had some kind of transition period rather than just blowing everything up. I’m typically all for a good dynamite
explosion—who doesn’t love a pyro?—but not now, not when the Redstockings are what’s being destroyed.
“He got us a new two-bedroom on the Upper West Side,” she says, totally blind and tone-deaf to the mutinous glares from Hal
and me. “Seventy-Second and Central Park West, so close to the park.”
“Told you so,” I tell Tara, who volunteers to help Jenni pack up.
“That’s okay. Peter is sending movers,” Jenni says, staring down at her ring like it’s her savior, not her jailor. “They get
here in an hour. But I guess you could help direct them?”
“Yeah,” Tara says, and I wonder how Jenni can’t hear the hurt in Tara’s voice, or if she’s just willfully ignoring it. “No
problem.”
Hal and I go out for a drink so we don’t have to watch the heinous act happen. When we come back, we find that Jenni has taken
just about everything she ever touched, including the light strands from the garden.
“How petty is that?” I say, looking around at the courtyard, stripped of its usual twinkle.
“I’m surprised she didn’t snitch the utensils while she was at it,” Hal says, sharing in my revulsion. “Just to make a clean swipe of it all.”
“At least she left the Red Rocket,” Tara points out. “Said she wanted us to have it as her parting gift.” Tara gulps, close
to tears.
“You’re not buying that, are you?” I say. “It’s just because Peter already has a Mercedes and they don’t want to pay for two
parking spots.”
“And Jenni’s too embarrassed about what her fancy new Manhattan neighbors would think of a rusty old Ford,” Hal adds.
“So much for all her vigilante shit,” I say.
Walking outside, I give the Red Rocket a good kick in the bumper like it’s the car’s fault. But the Rocket is tougher than
it looks, escaping unscathed as my toes burn and bubble with pain.
A couple weeks later, I take the Red Rocket for a late-night spin over to Jenni and Peter’s apartment on the Upper West Side.
I’ve got this feeling that I can spite Jenni by doing loops around the block, channeling some witchy energy and drawing an
ominous square around her new life.
In my head, Jenni would look out the high-rise window and see me down here. She’d come running out and hop in shotgun, confessing
she made a huge mistake, begging me to take her back to the Inn as she tossed her criminally large ring through the sidewalk
grate and felt the weight of the release.
That doesn’t happen, though. I guess I have to get over my savior complex. Jenni’s an adult and she chose to trade in her
sovereignty for suitability. There’s really nothing I can do about it except make sure that Hal and Tara never do the same.
I know they won’t. They’ve actually got these things called spines made of bone, not rubber. What a concept.
I rev the engine of the Red Rocket and hightail it out of there, hoping the exhaust pollutes the air.
As far as farewell gifts go, it’s a pretty generous one.
I could’ve burned her whole block down. A prison sentence for arson isn’t the most appealing, though at least incarceration comes with free rent, and a play written from a cell would probably sell. It’s got the hook.