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“Are you shitting me?” Kappy demands. “Why? I mean...I’d get it if you were Kendall H and skanking around nonstop, but you’re...you.”

“I think it’s how they’re making sure I remain me.”

“Haven’t they ever heard of privacy? That’s just so intrusive.”

She isn’t looking for me to answer, but I don’t think I could anyway. There is no privacy in a Bright Covenant household. Not for children. Not for wives.

Only the men get to sit in their ergonomic chairs behind closed office doors. It would sound like total nonsense, and how would I explain that to her? I can’t quite explain it to myself.

Inside, my mother looks up from the kitchen table, resting the sock she was darning in her lap. “How was your party?” she asks.

I brace myself as I fight a wave of guilt. “It was very nice. Kappy and I are going to the mall together next weekend, if that’s okay.”

She hesitates. “You can’t buy anything without our approval, but I suppose it would be okay if you went for an hour or two, once all your chores are done, as long as it doesn’t conflict with taking Hope to the high school football game on Friday.”

Kappy’s massive bathroom and the clothes all over her floor pop into my head. I bet she’s never spent her entire weekend tending to young children and scrubbing floors. I bet she’s never been told to earn an hour or two at the mall.

I’m supposed to be grateful that my mother’s agreed to let me go at all and a few months ago, I would have been. It doesn’t seem like a step in the right direction, this inability to feel gratitude where I should.

She frowns as I approach. “Did you pluck your eyebrows? You should have checked with me first.”

Kappy’s words echo in my ears. You’re legally an adult and can do whatever you want. At some point in my life, I’ll make decisions independently...shouldn’t a fraction of that independence have already been granted? Shouldn’t I be at the point where I can make a few decisions about my own appearance if I want?

I think I’m starting to get why Bright Covenant frowns upon us asking questions.

Because the simple act of asking them is enough to change you.

13

As I wait for the bus Monday morning, my stomach is a jumble of nerves and worry and excitement. In spite of how it ended, I actually spoke to people at the party this weekend and they were friendly, and maybe they’ll be friendly today. Strangely, though, the person I most want to see is the one who wasn’t friendly on Saturday night.

I get to school, and the change is palpable. The Kendalls still make their comments and roll their eyes, but a few people nod at me in the hall, and Alex stops by my locker to tell me what I missed after I left.

“I need to borrow her,” Zoe says, wrapping her hand around my elbow. I wave goodbye to Alex while Zoe pulls me into the bathroom.

“Can I do something?” she asks, and when I nod, she takes my skirt and rolls it at the waist. “Lots of us have parents who won’t let us get our skirts hemmed above the knee. That’s why half the girls in this school do this instead. And unbutton your top button. Nowhere in the dress code does it say you have to be completely buttoned up.”

My hand hesitates at the top button as I eye myself in the mirror. “If I walk out like this, the Kendalls are going to make fun of me for trying.”

“They’ll make fun if you don’t, too. But at least this way, they won’t have an excuse to bring it up again.” She grins. “I mean, how many times can they say, ‘Hey look, Prairie Girl rolled up her skirt!’? It would just get awkward after a while.”

She may be underestimating the Kendalls love of a dumb comment. They’re still going strong with the skirt jokes two months into the school year.

“What if my dad sees me?” I ask.

“A, your father is never in the halls. And B, if he sees you...what’s your dad’s name? Robert, right? Then you say, ‘Robert, if you want me to follow the rules, you need to make everyone else fucking follow them too.’”

There’s no way I’d ever say that to my father, but I laugh. Also, she’s absolutely right—he made the rule, so he should be enforcing it.

When I walk through the halls afterward, the Kendalls are predictably obnoxious. “You think rolling up your skirt is enough to get you laid, Prairie Girl?” Kendall W shouts. “No boy wants that stink box, no matter how much leg you show.”

“If they’re willing to stick it in your used up vadge,” Kappy calls back, coming up alongside me, “I don’t think the bar is set all that high.”

I laugh again, even though I’m pretty sure she just insulted me too.

At lunch, we have a full table: Kappy, Zoe, and Lauren, but also Alex and Theodore and a few of their friends. I can’t seem to stop smiling, even when one of the Kendalls hits me in the back as she passes. It helps that Theo sticks out his leg to trip her in revenge.

“We need a solution for your privacy problem, by the way,” Kappy says.