“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 oftraitors, though I’m not surethey 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.
