What's a Girl Gotta Do? (2 page)

two

Steadily, my day got worse.

I got to class just in time and whimpered my way through politics and economics – hardly able to concentrate. My hand shook as I held my biro, scratching down notes that made no sense. I kept replaying the scene in my head. The way they'd looked at me. The way it had felt when they'd blocked my path.

I felt so many emotions at once, as my teacher droned on at the front about the failures of our first-past-the-post voting system.

Shame – like I was to blame. For wearing my stupid lipstick, just because it matched my bag and, until that morning, had always made me feel happy.

Embarrassment – at letting them get to me so much. Though it felt like the builders had ripped off my clothes and exposed me to the whole neighbourhood.

Fear – that they'd be there on my walk home…

And pure, white-hot rage. At them – why did they think they could treat me like that? Why didn't that man help me…? But also at myself… Lottie, why the hell didn't you yell back? What sort of weakling are you?

When my lesson finished, I went straight to the college canteen for my philosophy study group. A few of us queued up for chips, as was our custom. By then, I'd stopped shaking, but I still had
all
the emotions.

“Hey, Lottie.” Jane joined me in the queue, with a milkshake on her tray. “You okay? You look kind of wiggy.”

I smiled back at her. Jane was old friends with Evie, one of my two best friends. We'd been put in the same philosophy class again for our A-level year and I was finally warming up to her after a couple of false friendship starts.

“I'm okay…” I found myself lying. “You ready for all the fun of deontology?”

Jane sighed and ran her hand over the new pink section of her hair.

“I'm ready for you to help me understand it.”

I nodded to Mike, and a few others who'd joined the queue behind us as we inched our way towards the hot food section. I stood on my tiptoes to see the state of the chips.

“Ergh,” I said loudly, “they're nearing the end of the batch. I hate end-of-the-batch chips – they're always soggy and cold.”

“Maybe someone before you in the queue will order them first?” Jane said.

“Let us hope, Jane. Let us hope.”

But nobody ordered chips before I got there. I looked down at the measly leftover ones – some crispy, some bent and soggy – and frowned. I turned to the other study group guys in the queue behind me. “So, it's going to be very ‘utilitarian' of me if I order these,” I joked. “I'm going to take the hit by finishing off this batch of old chips, but then you guys get the good ones.”

But no one was really listening and it pissed me off, because now I had a plate full of poo chips and no one laughing at my amazing philosophy joke.

While Mike and the others ordered chips from the lovely new tray that was brought out, I walked towards the table in the corner we always used. It was stuffy and smelled of egg sandwiches. The sunshine flooded through the giant glass windows, making my face hot and the egg-sandwich smell worse. When we'd all assembled, there were seven of us in total – me, Jane, Jane's boyfriend Joel, and four other guys. Mike was running the group today. I'd kissed him when drunk and overexcitable about my five As on AS results day and he hadn't quite forgiven me yet for not letting it turn into anything more than that.

Mike gave me his obligatory evil over the table and began. “So, guys, I talked to Mr Henry and he said that deontology and utilitarianism will definitely be on the exam…”

His words faded to background babble as I picked up a cold chip unenthusiastically and the morning whirred through my head again. It had been SUCH a bad argument with Mum and Dad. Dad still hadn't got over me dropping my fifth A level at the start of term. Even though I only need four to get into Cambridge. And he'd tried, yet again, to change my mind this morning – even though we were a month into the academic year now. Mum had flittered nervously between us, as always. Trying and failing to keep the peace.

“You need to think about your priorities,” Dad had said. It was always Dad who started these things. “You only get this one shot, Charlotte.”

Mum chipped in. “I know this Spinster Club is very important to you, darling. And we're so proud of you…but don't you think the time is better spent doing that extra A level, just in case?”

Me, Evie and my other best friend, Amber, had formed a feminist discussion group last year called The Spinster Club and it had really taken off. College had even turned it into a proper club – FemSoc – that we ran together. The whole thing made me supremely happy, but Dad wasn't so chuffed.

“Look, Charlotte,” Dad added, “aren't you worried how this feminism group will look on your UCAS application? I mean, it's not the most…traditional of extra-curricular activities. Doesn't your college have a debate team or something? It's a bit more Cambridge…”

He was such a hypocrite! All
let's save the world
and
we're all equal
until it came to his ambition for his one and only daughter. Then his obsession with The Prestige And Importance Of Education rendered him all double-standardy. And Mum, well…she was mostly chanting half the time or just saying what she thought she should say to make us stop fighting.

I shook my head, bringing myself back to Mike's drony voice droning on and on…

“Okay, so the way I see it, utilitarianism is all about the greater good…”

He was so stupid… We'd gone through all this on, like, day one of this module. I hated it when I wasn't allowed to run study group but we all took it in turns. Why had I kissed him again?

“So, if we apply this theory of utilitarianism to…” Drony drone drone… My brain faded out again and I watched Jane play with her pink hair.

Those builders…the way they'd looked at me…

I'd spent the morning arguing with Mum and Dad about feminism – only to walk out my front door and straight into a glaringly obvious reason why we
needed
feminism.

Why didn't I yell back at them?

The way they looked at me…

I shuddered. So noticeably that Jane gave me a small
I'm bored too
smile.

I gave her a half-smile back, and turned my attention to a group of students over at the ancient college jukebox – shoving a pound in and giggling.

There was a pause, and the first song echoed around the cafeteria's speakers. A murmur of laughter rippled through the tables.

They'd chosen Marvin Gaye's “Let's Get It On”. It was beginning to become a college-wide joke to constantly play this song on the jukebox.

“And, well, if we look at last year's exam questions…” Mike tried to continue over the shrills of Marvin's voice, but he wasn't getting through. Joel had already turned to Jane and begun his own over-the-top serenade. His ponytail flapped behind him as he dramatically mouthed along with the lyrics. Jane wiggled her shoulders…even my own pen tapped in time. I relaxed into the cheesy music until Mike said loudly…

“
So a really easy way of understanding utilitarianism is to think about chips in the canteen.
”

My pen dropped to the floor, and when I re-emerged from picking it up, Mike was pointing at my plate.

“So, Lottie here sacrificed a nice plate of chips for herself by taking the last of the stale batch, knowing more of us would get better chips after her. A perfect example of utilitarianism, right?” He grinned around at everyone, inviting them to laugh at his point – and they did.

Everyone was smiling, nodding. I shook my head. Too confuzzled to speak.

“That's a good point, Mike.”

“Yeah, I never thought it could be as simple as that. But you're right.”

“Sorry about your chips, Lottie.” Joel saluted, like I was a soldier. Then they all laughed again.

I caught Jane's eye, to see if she'd noticed. She shrugged and rolled her eyes at Mike, confirming my outrage.

I didn't laugh. I didn't nod. I didn't agree with the others.

I couldn't believe it.

That was
my
point. And
my
joke!

And Mike was shamelessly passing it off as his own.

What was worse was that everyone was listening to him.

Because Mike had said it.

Not me…

Mike.

And the only reason I could see it being better now than when I'd said it was…because Mike was a boy…

three

By the time the bell rang at the end of the day, I was completely het up. I'd worked through lunch, trying to get through all the extra reading I needed to do to get an A* in English lit. In my own company, I let the festering muck of my morning seep into my entire being.

I felt a mixture of numb, furious and helpless.

I don't think that is even psychologically possible.

Why did they take more notice of MY point when Mike said it?

Why hadn't I stood up to those disgusting builders?

Why did stuff like this keep happening?

All I wanted was to go home and reset, but we had a FemSoc meeting. Evie was chairing this one and I knew how nervous she was about talking in front of people. I had to go for moral support. I picked up my books and made my way to the meeting room in the art and photography block. My phone buzzed with another
we're sorry
message from Mum. She couldn't handle it when we fought. It wasn't in her “ethos” to have “negative energy” with anyone.

Her words…not mine.
So
not mine.

I didn't even know what today's meeting was about. I hadn't had time to look through the agenda Evie had emailed last night. We hadn't expected FemSoc to take off the way it had. Last summer term we'd campaigned to get this offensive song removed from the college jukebox. We won – which was great. Half of college hated us for it – which wasn't so great. But lots of girls expressed an interest in joining and we now had over twenty members. We'd only had two meetings so far this term, but more girls had turned up to each one. And Evie, Amber and I still ran our own private Spinster Club meetings out of college – so we could spend time together, just us.

You can't adequately share cheesy snacks with twenty plus people.

I pushed my way through the heavy double doors and the hubbub of everyone's conversations hit me as I stepped into the meeting room. Some of them waved hi as I walked to the front, and I waved back weakly – hardly able to muster the energy. My emotions still swirled around my body, like a vortex had opened up in my guts. The worst thing was that today had felt so ergh…but really…what had happened that was so extraordinary?

Evie was a jangly mess, her normally sleek blonde hair all straggly from running her hands through it. Amber had her arm around her, muttering reassuring things.

I made myself smile. Not wanting to worry them. Not at Evie's big moment. I plopped my bag on the chair next to them. “How's the blood pressure?” I asked.

Evie took an exaggerated breath. “Remind me why we decided to make this a public club again?”

Amber wrapped her arm around tighter. “Because it will look good on our uni applications?” she joked.

I shook my head. “Not according to my dad.”

They both made
aww shucks
sympathy faces – they'd counselled me through many an argument about this with my father.

“And, anyway, it's public because we want to save the world. And we cannot do that holed up in Evie's unnaturally tidy bedroom, eating cheese on toast and preaching to just each other.”

“Stop being so reasonable.” Evie's eyes darted out over the crowd. “You know it doesn't work on me.”

I smiled sadly. I knew… Evie has OCD – though she's got it pretty under control at the moment. She got really ill last year, before Amber or I knew about it. I felt guilty for asking her to run the meeting. It was tough being Evie's friend sometimes. You had to maintain a delicate balance of not pushing her too hard to do things that scared her as it made her feel crap about herself, versus knowing that sometimes the odd nudge helped her grow.

I put my arm around her, so we were all hugging. “You're going to be fine. You know that, right?”

She smiled. “I just still can't believe you're letting someone else talk.”

“Hey,” I said, while she and Amber burst out laughing. “I'm not that bad…hang on…yes, I'm definitely that bad.” I had a reputation for being quite…umm…chatty. Though today all I wanted to do was sit in the corner quietly and mull. My mood had got steadily worse.

The last few trickles of girls came in and the room quietened, sensing the meeting was about to start. I pulled out my notebook and pen and started sucking on the end.

Evie rustled some papers and stood up, readying herself. Amber pulled her chair up next to me. “You think she's going to be okay?” she whispered. “I saw her wash her hands beforehand…”

The blodge of guilt blodged blodgier.

“I think she'll be fine,” I said, though not entirely convinced. “She does still do that sometimes. Just as long as it's not all the time, I guess.”

“You read her agenda?”

I shook my head. “Not had time.”

Amber inched forward – a stray bit of her frizzy red hair tickled my cheek.

“Speaking of being okay, are you okay?” she asked. “We missed you at lunch. And, well, you look upset about something.”

I sighed again and opened my mouth to tell her – but just as I did, Evie coughed to signal the start of the meeting.

“Hey, everyone.” Her voice squeaked with nerves. She coughed and started again. “Hi, everyone.”

The girls, all sitting in rows facing us, quietened respectfully.

“Thanks for coming.” Evie's hands shook but her voice got stronger with every word. “So, in the last meeting, we decided we wanted to campaign for something. You've all put forward some ideas, and I thought today we could run through them and see if we could get a shortlist to vote on? There's a lot here we could really get our teeth into… Can someone at the back dim the lights, please?”

Someone scuttled to the light switch and plunged us into gloom. Evie clicked a laptop and the big white screen behind her lit up.

“Trust Evie to make it all super-organized,” Amber whispered to me. “I bet you ten pounds she gets out a special pointy stick.”

I smiled in the darkness. “When I hosted the last meeting, the only prep I did was sing ‘Eye of the Tiger' to myself into the mirror,” I whispered back.

“Think what would happen if we combined the pointy stick with ‘Eye of the Tiger'. I reckon you've just come up with an excellent strategy for taking over the world.”

Just as we started laughing, Evie gestured to the screen behind her.

“Okay, girls, here's the first entry. Sonia put this forward.” Sonia, a short girl with incredibly long, blonde hair, nodded and smiled. “It's a new aftershave advert that Sonia thinks we should campaign against. Hang on…” Evie fiddled with the mouse to click play. “Right, here it is.” She pointed to it with the handle of her umbrella, which was almost a pointy stick. I would've giggled if the video Evie was pointing at wasn't so completely distressing.

Loud edgy music blasted out as a girl and boy – both insanely good-looking – rolled around on a bed with exposed brickwork in the background. Then the boy flipped himself on top and started pinning the girl's arms down as he kissed her more aggressively. She laughed, but tried to fight him off. My heartbeat had already quickened and I felt my insides turn in on themselves. This wasn't good…this so wasn't good. Then the boy reached into his jeans pocket and got out some of the aftershave, sprayed it on, and the girl stopped resisting. She started gasping and groaning as the guy kissed her neck and then it faded to black.

There was a stunned silence. A cough the only thing punctuating it as the room digested what we'd just seen.

“Umm, Sonia?” Evie asked. “Do you want to stand up and explain why you think we should use this as a starting point for a campaign?”

She nodded, and stood, tucking some hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, so…I saw this on TV last night and, well, I think we can all agree it's worrying. I mean it's essentially normalizing force in regards to sex, even romanticizing abuse and rape in relationships…”

And that's all I heard before I saw Megan, a new member, stand up quietly and practically run out of the room. Her face was all red and pinched, like she was trying hard not to cry.

I stood up too. Not many people seemed to have noticed, most were listening to Sonia.

“I mean, I'm sure you all know that statistically, girls are more likely to get raped by someone they know – like a boyfriend or an ex. This advert is practically encouraging that. It's basically saying ‘Buy our aftershave and it will help you abuse your girlfriend – she won't even mind! She'll like you pinning her down!'”

Evie had noticed though, and silently nodded at me, encouraging me to follow Megan. So I stood up and pushed my way out to the corridor, looking both ways to see where she'd gone.

I found her in the nearby ladies' toilets, washing her hands under the tap. Crying.

“Oh, hi, Lottie,” she said, like nothing had happened. Even though her hands were shaking and tears rolled down her face. She stood upright, hastily wiping the evidence of distress from her cheeks.

“Hey. I just wanted to see if you were all right?”

I didn't know Megan hugely well. It sounds awful, but I knew her more as “Max's girlfriend”. She'd gone out all through Year Twelve with this guy, Max, from a band we knew called The Imposters. She was in mine and Amber's art class but never spoke much. She and Max had seemed so in love – I hardly ever saw her without him. So we were all surprised when he'd broken up with her over the summer. Even more so when she'd joined FemSoc, as she'd never expressed an interest when they were together.

Megan still had her hands under the water, even though all the soap was off them. Her dark hair hung over her face.

I stepped closer, seeing that all of her was shaking – not just her hands.

“I'm fine.”

“Megan?” I stepped closer again. “Did something in the meeting upset you? The advert?”

She stood up straight then, looked me right in the eye. Her cheeks were all blotchy and her eyelashes were clumped together with wet mascara. She turned the tap off, shaking her head slightly.

“I'm fine…I'm fine… It's just…well…that advert… Max…it kind of brought something back.” Her voice broke on the word “Max”, stuttering over his name. “He…he…” She trailed off, shaking harder.

What?!

“Megan, did Max, do someth—”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to cause a fuss,” she interrupted suddenly – her voice strong again. “I must be getting my period or something.”

She yanked a towel out of the towel dispenser, dabbed at her face, dried her hands and chucked it roughly into the bin. It bounced back out again. What was she saying? What had happened to her?

“Megan? I'm sorry if the meeting triggered something…something that happened between you and Max?”

Megan shook her head. “No, you didn't. It didn't, I mean. I'm fine. Fine.” She must've seen the doubt on my face. “Honestly!”

“Megan?” I found all I could do was just repeat her name. “You can tell me…”

“Nobody will ever believe me anyway,” she said, almost to herself. Then she looked up at me and smiled. She actually smiled. “I might not come to the rest of the meeting, if that's okay?” she asked, like she needed my permission. “See you in art tomorrow?”

And before I could stop her, or say something, or hug her, or do anything other than stand there feeling confused and sick, she'd breezed out of the toilets – leaving only the sweet smell of the college apple soap behind her.