“I’m a vegetarian.”
“They have vegetarians in Nebraska?”
“Well.” Mary Lou thought for a moment. “There’s me.”
“If you’re a vegetarian, why did you volunteer to come fishing with me?”
Mary Lou shrugged. “So you’d have a friend with you.”
“Oh.” Adina hadn’t had a close friend since Roxie Black in fourth grade, who let Adina borrow her headband. Adina and Roxie both got lice and Roxie’s mom didn’t let her come over much anymore. “Well, thanks.”
“No problem. Still hoping for Miss Congeniality when we get back. Oh, there’s another one!”
Adina made a stab, but the golden fish was too swift. “You’ll never evolve!” she shouted as it swished away. “Just like Ray Marshall.”
Mary Lou laughed. “Okay. No love for Ray Marshall. Ex-boyfriend or something?”
“What? God, no. He’s this idiot in my Adolescent Issues class who spends the whole time putting things in his nose. I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t need a man to be complete.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“Plus, there is the small problem of none of the guys in my high school being interested. My teachers say that when I get to college I’ll meet guys who aren’t intimidated by a smart, confident girl.” With a grunt, Adina stabbed again and again at the water, coming up empty. “What about you? Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No. I used to. Sort of,” Mary Lou said, playing with her purity ring. Her fingers were thinner, and it fit loosely now.
“A sort-of boyfriend? Is it like a time-share and you get him for a couple of weeks in May and November?”
Mary Lou fashioned a chain from grasses, carefully knotting them together, end to end. “We were dating. And then we weren’t.”
“Okaaaay,” Adina said. “That’s not cryptic. What happened?”
In her mind, Mary Lou saw Billy’s horrified face, heard him say, “What’s wrong with you?”
“He didn’t really like me,” Mary Lou said softly.
“What? What the hell was the matter with him?”
Mary Lou allowed a small smile. “I think we might have more luck over there.”
The girls waded through the shallows into deeper water. It was a beautiful blue, and they could see tiny neon-bright fish darting about. What they needed was a big one, and they waited.
“Have you ever been in love?” Mary Lou asked after a period of quiet.
“Me? No. Not really. The closest I got was when I dated Matt Jacobs for one summer. He was smart enough. And nice. Too nice. He stared at me all moony-eyed a lot.”
“Sounds romantic to me,” Mary Lou said.
“It was irritating. Too much devotion feels like an obligation. Anyway, I think Matt and I were doomed from the start because of our musical disconnect. I mean, he burned me a CD with Feast for the Fishermen23 on it. Feast for the Fishermen! Such a sex killer.”
Mary Lou thought back to that night in the back of Billy’s station wagon. How close they’d come. Her heart beating so quickly, every sense sharpened. She had wanted to throw away all the rules and eat up the world. Even her skin had been full of want. And that want had been her undoing. Billy’s eyes wide with alarm. What’s wrong with you? Mary Lou had run off into the night, hiding in the sheltering stalks of the cornfields until it was safe to face the world again. Her mother had taken one look at her when she came through the door at dawn and she had known. They had the ring made the next day.
“Are you okay?” Adina was looking at her strangely.
“Yeah!” Mary Lou said quickly.
“You don’t have to do this if it makes you queasy.”
“No. I’m okay. Oh, hey, bulrush.” Mary Lou pointed to the tall stalks bordering the pond.
“What’s a bulrush?” Adina asked.
“This funny little plant. They grow wild on my uncle’s farm. You can eat the roots and this white part of the stem. It’s pretty tasty. And the tougher stems are really strong — we used them to make sit-upons in Girl Scouts. These’ll be good for tonight.” Mary Lou yanked one up by the roots. “So do you think you’ll ever meet The One and get married and have kids?”
“‘The One?’” Adina snorted. “My mom has had five husbands, and every single time, it was ‘The One,’ and every single time, it was like I lost her. Like she shape-shifted into whatever form the guy wanted till I couldn’t recognize her anymore. I’m never letting some guy come in and change me.”
“But don’t you think …” Mary Lou stopped to regroup her thoughts. “Love has to change you some, right?”
Adina shrugged. “I guess. But all those romances they feed us are wrong. They make us think it’s just supposed to be hearts and wind machines and boys who slay dragons for you.”
“But … is it wrong to want a guy to slay a dragon for you? Not that I would want a guy to slay a dragon, because I’m a vegetarian. But maybe he just needs a little encouragement. He’d do right by you if you could just see past his faults, like in Beauty and the Beast.”
“Riiiiight.” Adina swept a hand dramatically to her brow. “And only your love can heal him.”
“Well … yeah.”
“That’s how they get you, my friend.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Unless it’s about spearing fish, because apparently I suck at that.”
“Do you think people can be cursed?”
“I believe Taylor is cursed to be a pain in the ass.” Adina craned her neck. “I should be careful. I’m sure she has supersonic hearing, too.”
“I mean really cursed.” Mary Lou turned her ring.
“What do you mean?” Adina gave Mary Lou a quizzical look.
“Forget it. It’s silly. I still believe in true love, though. You’re wrong about that.”
“You know what you are, Mary Lou? You are a hopeless romantic.”
“I’m not the one who’s hopeless, Adina.”
Adina gave a little shriek. “That fish just swam past my leg! Creepy! Where did it go?”
“To your right! Two o’clock! Get it!”
“You are officially the most bloodthirsty vegetarian ever.” Adina stabbed hard and yelled in triumph. A fat fish wriggled on the end of her spear. “OMG. That was harder than the SATs.”
Mary Lou liked Adina. She liked her directness. In school, they would tell you that life wouldn’t come to you; you had to go out and make it your own. But when it came to love, the message for girls seemed to be this: Don’t. Don’t go after what you want. Wait. Wait to be chosen, as if only in the eye of another could one truly find value. The message was confusing and infuriating. It was a shell game with no actual pea under the rapidly moving cups. Mary Lou knew this firsthand, and she wished she could ask Adina more questions. But that would mean telling her everything, and she just couldn’t risk that. Like the bulrush shoots, shame and fear could be woven into a plaiting of surprising strength.
Taylor led the girls deeper into the jungle to a basin surrounded by hills. An enormous cave cut into one of the hills.
“Sparkle Ponies and Lost Girls, we already know that Miss Illinois and Miss Michigan had to take down a giant snake. We don’t know what other hostiles we might run into while we’re waiting for the rescue ship. As you know, I am a card-carrying member of Femmes and Firearms, just like my spiritual leader, Ladybird Hope. And if we’re gonna protect ourselves, we need to build us some weapons. The Glitz Attack. Everything we need is here. We just have to be resourceful. And there are bonuses,” Taylor said. She held out a makeup bag. Unconsciously, the girls took a step forward. “Before we left home, I took the liberty of having a makeover at every counter in every mall in town. I racked up quite a few free gifts with purchase.” She jiggled the bag. “There is some very nice conditioner in this bag. Teen Dreamers, it’s time to represent. Your platform is Personal Arsenal. Miss Montana, Miss Ohio, Miss California. Are you ready?”
The three girls moved to a mound of palm fronds, carefully removing them to reveal a rickety wooden trebuchet made of bamboo and counterweighted with coconuts. “This is our new Teen Dream missile launcher. As you can see, it’s a catapult. You can thank Miss Montana, Miss Ohio, and Miss California for that.”
“We rock physics.” Miss Montana beamed. “Made one of these for ninth grade science. And Shanti makes them for fun in her spare time.”
Tiara raised her hand. “I thought Catapult was a spring break city in Mexico.”
“That’s Acapulco,” Mary Lou said.
“Next up: geography skills,” Adina muttered.
“Eyes up here, ladies,” Miss Montana continued. “You’ll note back here is a net thingy. Well, technically it’s a pair of DiscomfortWear™.”24
“Shapes you and makes an awesome launch pad,” Miss Ohio joked as she thumped the taut fabric attached to the long arm like an exotic underwear lacrosse stick. “If you put something in here — Miss California, will you do the honors, please?”
Shanti brandished a pastel pump for everyone to see before placing it in the nude-fabric basket.
“And cut the vine — oh, y’all might want to step back.”
The girls moved to the side. With one swift move, Shanti cut the vine. The coconut hit the ground and the trebuchet arm swung up, launching the pump through the air with a ferocious zip. It stuck, heel-first, into the bark of a small tree with such force, it split the tree in two.
“Holy stiletto, Batman,” Jennifer said.
“We used a shoe, but you can use anything, really.”
Taylor balanced herself on the bottom beams of the catapult like MacArthur in the South Pacific. “Beauty is pain. And in this case, it’s somebody else’s pain. Miss Ohio, Miss Montana, Miss California, you have each earned yourself something from the goody bag. Reach in.”