Page 16 of The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly

Layla: I made $300 in tips!

Kit: Bless you, Eddy Jackson?

Layla: The man is a saint, and also, I’ve never seen anyone eat so much turkey.

Eddy holds the current Castle record of most turkey legs ordered by one person.

Kit: He’s a legend.

Layla: I’ll bring your half of the tips tomorrow.

Kit: Those are yours, keep them.

Layla: We agreed to split them. And I don’t need them, so no worries.

Layla’s mom is a brain surgeon and her dad is CEO of an international corporation. Her house is like a museum, and she gets $800 a month in allowance. So, no, she doesn’t need the tips. But I don’t like to tell her how poor I really am.

Kit: Cool. Can I come over tomorrow afternoon and spend the night?

Spending the night at Layla’s is like what I imagine it feels like to sleep in a luxury hotel. With the addition of my kickass best friend.

Layla: YES! Good (k)night!

Kit: ’Night (and totally see what you did there).

I’m smiling by the time I pocket my phone. Mom’s door is closed and Chris still isn’t home. I grab a candle, throw out the remains of the takeout—just bones and some bread crusts—and take my letter from Marquette and my phone into my room.

Kicking aside a pile of dirty clothes, I set the candle on my bedside table. It flickers, casting looming shadows. One of my walls is taken up by a screen-printed reproduction of part of the famous medieval tapestry The Lady and the Unicorn. I found it in a thrift store, complete with troubling stains in the upper right corner and a set of cigarette burns where the unicorn’s eyes should be. On the other wall, framing my window, are two bookshelves overflowing with fantasy novels and history books. A photo of Layla, Jett, and me from the Castle sits on my dresser, and the rest of the room is a riot of knockoff medieval stuff. My bras hang from a concrete knight that’s supposed to be a lawn ornament. I got him at a yard sale for a dollar. I’ve put plastic films on my windows, so they look like stained glass. A stuffed dragon sits on top of one of the bookshelves, a present from my dad long ago. Two reproduction swords that I bought at a Renaissance faire lean against my desk.

Above my desk is a collage I’ve been adding to for years. “Fierce Ladies of the Middle Ages,” it says in bold letters. I got the idea from some list I saw online, and I’ve been doing research on these women ever since. Now, they hang in my room like some odd family tree or something.

There are the famous ones most people have heard of: Lagertha (thank you, Vikings the show for cosplay inspiration for days); Joan of Arc; Boudicca.

And then there are hosts of other woman who did remarkable things, but who most people don’t know about: Matilda of Canossa, an Italian countess who battled for 30 years against kings. Caterina Sforza, another Italian woman who said, “If I must lose because I am a woman, I want to lose like a man.” Sichelgaita of Salerno, a Norman woman who commanded sieges. Khawlah bint al-Azwar, sister to a Muslim commander during the Islamic conquest who led a troop of women against the Byzantine army (oh! to go back in time to that battle!). And so many others. Each of them brave. Fierce. And heroic.

“What should I do?” I ask the faces that stare back at me.

They’re silent, as always, so I turn away from my favorite ladies and toward what hangs on the other wall above my bed. It’s a giant sheet of poster board with “KIT’S BIG PLAN” written at the top in gigantic letters. Big plan, big letters. I can’t help it. I’m a planner, literalist, and sucker for a pun. Beneath the title are ten tidy bullet points and rules for living that will get me from where I’m at to where I want to be. It’s half bucket list and half dammit-universe-I-will-wrestle-my-destiny-from-your-cold-unfeeling-hands.

As I do every night before I get into bed, I recite the bullet points. To remind myself of the direction I’m heading and what I have to do to get there.

First point:

• Get a better job, preferably KNIGHT!, to save money for college.

Chris tells me that some Knights can make close to $50,000 a year, which is more than I need, but even just working a few shifts a week as a Knight would net me more than the tips I make as a Wench. You’d think wenching at a place like the Castle, with the sheer number of guests we have, would bring in a lot of tips, but most guests leave small tips because they’ve paid so much for admission and then blown the rest of their money on souvenirs and beer.

Next point:

• Get into a great college to study history. Options: Stanford, Yale, UPenn, Harvard, Marquette.

Marquette sits out there alone, like the last fragile leaf on a tree before the autumn wind comes along. I glance at the letter on my nightstand. I can’t open it and risk marking through that last hope. Not tonight.

After the college plan, the bullet points get more abstract:

• Study in Paris—so much history! Musée de Cluny! The Louvre! Notre Dame! (A whole bunch of hearts and exclamation points follow this one, and hopefully it will be repaired by the time I get there).

• Get into law school, join fancy law firm, take care of Mom… .