“Hey,” I say back.
And then I see them. Stars and hearts. Big ones, too. Fat, bubbly Sharpie hearts and stars all the way up her wrists. Her drawings are detailed. I can see she’s even created tiny planets in between the stars. Kiera was always a good artist.
Kiera’s hearts and stars say Look at me. Mine just whisper I’m here. But still, she spots them.
“You read that newsletter?” she asks.
Zine, not newsletter. But whatever.
“Yeah, I did,” I answer. And I find myself turning the water off and reaching for a paper towel to dry my hands.
“Who did it?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. She’s washing her hands carefully, trying not to smudge her hand graffiti.
“No clue,” I answer, bending over to scratch an imaginary itch on my knee, hoping it provides me enough cover to shield my face while I’m lying. I can feel my cheeks starting to warm.
“I liked it,” Kiera says. “It said a lot of smart stuff. Things here are fucked up. I mean, my boyfriend is a football player, but still. They are fucked up.” Kiera drops her voice a few notches. “Did you know they get to eat at Giordano’s for free every Saturday? All you can eat?”
Giordano’s is the tastiest Italian restaurant in all of East Rockport, and it’s my go-to favorite place to order pizza from if Mom says there’s any extra money in our food budget at the end of the week.
“The football players?” I ask, my voice matching Kiera’s in quietness. “Someone has to pay for that food. The bill must come to hundreds of dollars every week.”
“Who knows who pays for it,” Kiera answers. “But I’d be willing to bet it’s Mitchell’s daddy somehow. I do know the girls’ soccer team hasn’t had new uniforms since my mom went to school here. And I’m not exaggerating.”
“Damn.”
“Exactly,” Kiera tells me. She finishes drying her hands carefully and then the two of us stand there. It’s a little awkward. This is probably the most Kiera and I have said to each other since the fifth grade.
“I wonder what the Moxie people will do next,” I say. I don’t know if I’m asking for ideas or just trying to throw Kiera off my trail. Not that Kiera would have any reason to suspect me.
“So you think it’s more than one girl?” Kiera asks. “Whoever made Moxie, I mean.”
“I have no idea, but probably,” I say. There’s another bread crumb leading her in the wrong direction. Just in case. “I mean, it sounded like more than one girl when I read it.”
“Well, whatever they do next, it needs to be something bigger than this,” Kiera continues, holding up one hand. “I mean, this is cool and all, but they need a big F U in the face of Wilson. Something that gets more girls involved, too.”
Kiera’s voice grows louder, more sure of itself, as she talks to me. For one dumb minute I start to think she made Moxie, not me. She’s probably better suited to lead it, anyway, whatever it is. I would rather hide in the back of the classroom than answer a question, and I just tried to wash off my hearts and stars the first chance I got. I bet if I told Kiera the truth she could take Moxie over and do a much better job than me.
But the Riot Grrrls tried hard not to have a leader. They wanted the movement to be one where everyone had an equal voice. That’s just one more reason for me to keep my identity a secret.
“Anyway,” Kiera keeps going, “it was an interesting idea at least.” She makes her way to the door and pushes it open. “Cool talking with you, Viv.”
“Yeah, cool talking with you, too,” I answer. And it was cool talking with her. It was cool seeing at least one other girl who followed Moxie’s instructions. I wish I’d asked Kiera if she knew anyone else who had marked her hands. But just knowing Kiera’s out there makes me feel a tiny bit better. Slightly less alone and weird. I take a deep breath and stare at myself in the mirror.
“Just go back to class,” I say. I repeat it again and again until finally I do, my hands still covered in hearts and stars.
*
Maybe running into Kiera was a sign because after American history, I spy a few senior girls who are into all the drama productions and who also sit on the outskirts of pep rallies and football games walking down the hall with their hands marked. And there are two freshman girls whose lockers are near my second period class. And a few more hearts and stars sprinkled here and there on girls I spot in stairwells and corners and in the back courtyard where kids hang out during our ten-minute break during third and fourth. Some of the girls I know by name and some just by sight, but we catch each other’s eyes and nod and smile shyly like we’re in on some secret. Like we’re each other’s golden egg on some strange Easter egg hunt.
The same thing happens when I walk into English class and spot Lucy Hernandez seated in the front row with stars and hearts drawn with blue marker in delicate curls and swirls across the backs of her hands and down her fingers and around her wrists.
“Hey,” I tell her as I make my way down the aisle, other students filing in, “I like your hands.”
Lucy looks up from under her black bangs and a smile spreads over her face. I wonder if I’m the first person to talk to her all day. I kind of think I might be.
“Thanks,” Lucy answers. “I like yours, too.”
“Yours are really pretty,” I say.
Lucy smiles even bigger. “Thanks.”
I smile back, and then there’s that same awkwardness I sensed in the bathroom with Kiera, and I’m not sure what to say next. Even though I think there’s something else I want to say.
Just then Mitchell Wilson and his crew walk in, loud and taking up space and probably warming up their next make-me-a-sandwich joke, and that feeling I got that afternoon in the cafeteria on the day I made the first Moxie comes over me again. The feeling that made me want to clench my fists and dig my fingernails into my skin and scream.
I don’t, of course. Instead, I take a breath and tuck my hair behind my ears, then pull out my English notebook and a ballpoint pen.
“All right, class,” Mr. Davies begins as the bell rings, “let’s go back to the notes on the Enlightenment I provided you with yesterday.” Just as my brain begins to seize up with boredom, the classroom door opens and Seth Acosta walks in.
He heads to his desk, his binder and books clutched in one hand at the side of his lean boy body.
He is dressed in black jeans.
He has on a black T-shirt.
He is wearing black Vans.
And on his hands, drawn with careful precision in black ink, are small hearts and tiny stars.
As he slides into his desk, fireworks explode in my gut and my heart pounds so hard I know I won’t be able to hear a thing Mr. Davies is saying, even if I were bothering to listen.
CHAPTER SEVEN