The Difference Between You and Me (12 page)

“So how was it, you guys?” Jesse’s mom asks now, overeager. “You get a lot of important things accomplished?”

“The point of a peace vigil isn’t to get things accomplished, it’s just to
be
there,” Jesse snaps. Even she’s aware of how obnoxious she sounds.

“Pardonnez-moi,”
Fran says mock-delicately. “Did you do a lot of good ‘being there’ then?”

“Oh yes,” Esther says sincerely. “It was excellent. It’s excellent every week.”

“You go to the vigil every week?” Fran inquires. Jesse can see her surveying Esther curiously out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, for the past two years I’ve been going pretty much every week. I really like the people. Some of them I know from other places, like I work with Phyllis at the soup kitchen, and Louis runs the after-school program for kids where I volunteer tutor. Arlo keeps trying to get me to help out with his anarchist freegan cooperative over in Cold River, but I’m not so interested in what they do. He’s really nice, though, usually.” Esther cranes her neck around to address Jesse in the backseat. “He was just trying to show off for you by being tough because you were new.”

“I didn’t mind him,” Jesse says truthfully.

“And is it still basically Margaret and Charlie’s show over there?” Fran asks.

Esther whips around to face Fran—as far around as she can turn beneath the two-by-fours—her face alive with anticipation and joy. “You know Margaret and Charlie?” Jesse has never seen Esther so openly filled with emotion.

Jesse thinks,
Mom, you knew about the vigil?

“Sure, from the old days. I must have been on a hundred marches with those two. What are they, pushing eighty by now? They’re indefatigable. Fatiguing to others, perhaps, but indefatigable themselves.”

“I know, aren’t they
incredible
?” Esther gushes. “I consider them my honorary grandparents. I wish I could move in with them.”

“Wow.” Fran nods.

“I’ve never met
anyone
more committed to social justice than Margaret and Charlie, have you?” Esther speaks fiercely.

Fran raises her eyebrows. “I…”

“I want to be just like them when I grow up. They never stop learning new things, they’re always figuring out what the next problem is they need to tackle. Like just today they were talking about trying to stop StarMart from moving into town. Do you know about that?”

“Absolutely,” Fran says. “I was just reading in the paper that they haven’t gone away since Frank and Jane refused to sell, they’ve just adjusted their strategy. They’re bad bad bad, those guys. Major-league baddies. They ruin local economies and abuse their workers. And Jess, they give money to antigay political candidates; you of all people should hit the barricades for this one.”

“We need to work on this,” Esther asserts, fully energized now. “Jesse and I are starting our own peace and social justice organization and we were looking for a project to collaborate on. This is perfect!”

“You two have formed an organization?”

“Not officially,” Jesse says hastily. “Informally.”

“Jesse has agreed to lend the marketing skills she’s developed as part of NOLAW to help my new organization, SPAN, improve its outreach to the student body.”

Fran smiles. “I feel a little like I’m at a UN subcommittee meeting and I don’t have my translator headphones
on,” she says. “SPAN? NOLAW? Fill me in here, please.”

“Well, you know NOLAW,” Esther says brightly, “Jesse’s organization that produces the funny manifestos?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. Tell me more.”

Jesse leans her head back and closes her eyes.

“You don’t know about Jesse’s hilarious manifestos that she puts up copies of all over school every few weeks?”

“I do not. But I’m starting to get a sense of why my toner bill has been so astronomical lately.”

“Jesse, I can’t believe you haven’t shown your mom your manifestos. They’re so wonderful. I’m sure she’d love them.”

“I’m sure I would.”

“And SPAN is my organization, Student Peace Action Network, and now Jesse and I are joining forces, and this is just perfect for us. Hey, Jesse, if they’re sponsoring the dance that’s coming up, why don’t we do some kind of action to disrupt that?”

“I don’t know if a Vander dance is the greatest place for an action,” Jesse says. “I’ve been to one. It was incredibly stupid.”

Fran raises her eyebrows in surprise. “When did you go to a school dance?”

“Last year, I went to one for like five minutes, I told you about it.”

“You never told me that.”

“I’m sure I told you. Maybe I forgot. Whatever. Dances are totally gender-oppressive and awful.”

“Well, maybe we don’t have to actually go to the dance to disrupt it, maybe we can just try to prevent StarMart from sponsoring it or something. Why don’t you come over to my house and we can do some research and plan out our strategy?”

“Great idea!” says Fran overheartily. Jesse gives the back of her head a quizzical look.

“Sure,” Jesse says.

“Like, Tuesday? After school?”

“I can’t Tuesday. What about Saturday?”

“Yeah, if I don’t have ASP. I probably won’t; I’m not planning any in-school actions this week.”

“I’ll drive you,” Fran interjects.

“That’s cool, Mom. I can take the bus or whatever.”

“Well, I’ll pick you up when you’re done, then.”

“Thanks, Mom. But chill.”

When Esther goes to get out of the car, Fran leans over and shakes her hand.

“I have to say, Esther, it’s been very educational meeting you. I’ve learned so many new things about my daughter in such a short time. Apparently, she goes to dances, runs political organizations—”

“Yeah, thanks for the vigil,” Jesse says, cutting her mother off. “I’ll see you next Saturday, Esther. Or before that, in school.”

After Esther has extracted herself and her equipment from the car, made it up the long, narrow concrete steps to her house, and disappeared through her front door, Jesse climbs into the front seat next to her mother. Fran sits there for a moment with the key in the ignition but the Camry turned off.

“You’re quite the sly one,” she says to Jesse, smirking.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about the toner, I just—”

“I’m talking about your clever move: ‘Oh I have to go to the peace vigil, I want to become more politically active.’ You like that girl, don’t you!” Fran grins. “You came to the vigil to get closer to her!”

“Oh my God, no I didn’t!” Jesse howls.

“I love it! It’s the oldest trick in the book! You’re a chip off the old block, if I may say.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Mother.”

“Or do I have it all
right
?” Jesse’s mother looks immensely pleased with herself. “Listen, I’m just delighted that, first of all, I figured this out by myself, and second of all, you picked such a fantastic girl to have a crush on. That Esther is enthusiastic, smart, up on current events—she’s a keeper, I can tell.”

“Mom—”

“And you guys obviously make a great team.”

“Mom, start the car.”

Fran turns the engine on but keeps the Camry in park.

“I just want to say for the record,” she says seriously, “that the only thing I want is for you to be happy.”

“I
know
—”

“No, listen, will you listen to me for once in your life? I know you make jokes about me and Daddy being the oppressor, but you do know that we love and accept you exactly the way you are, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Jesse sighs impatiently.

“We never want you to have to hide anything from us or be secretive about any part of your life. That’s not what we want for you, all right?”

A slow misery works its way through Jesse’s bloodstream. She nods, and looks out the window at Esther’s small blue house, at its darkened windows. It looks like no one is home. She can’t turn back to look at her mother, or she’s afraid she’ll start to cry.

“Anytime you want to bring the girl you like home to meet us, we would absolutely love to have her.”

If I brought home the girl I actually like,
Jesse thinks, her heart shrinking at the center of her body,
you would be so, so disappointed in me.

“Thanks, Mom,” Jesse says. “I know.”

It was no picnic figuring out how to fit the NorthStar internship into my schedule this late in the semester. I have work at the library on Tuesdays and student council on Wednesdays, and having me home to help prepare family dinner is really important to my mom on Fridays, so those are all non-negotiables, and Mr. Willette wanted me at least two afternoons a week, so I had no choice but to move my Monday Mandarin lessons (thank God Li Feng was flexible) and regretfully resign from Stonington General Hospital’s prestigious and hard-to-get-into Apprentice Nursing Assistant program, which includes a non-negotiable commitment every Thursday.

I
so
dreaded calling Ms. Cheesewright, who runs the program. I was putting it off and putting it off all weekend, but finally my mom was like, “The longer you wait, the worse it’ll be,” and I was like, You’re so right, and then she was like, “Like pulling off a Band-Aid: quick and firm.” So I
gathered all my courage and called Ms. Cheesewright and told her quickly and firmly that very unfortunately something non-negotiable had come up and I had to drop out of Apprentice Nursing Assistants. She was not thrilled to hear it. First she was like, “Emily, are you aware of how positively this program is looked upon by college admissions offices? You’ll be doing yourself a tremendous disservice by not participating,” and I was like, I know but I’m sorry, I very unfortunately have to resign, and then she was like, “Emily, are you aware of how many highly qualified young people applied to this program and were turned down? People who would never dream of giving up a spot midway through the semester?” and I was like, Yes I know and I’m really, really sorry but something non-negotiable has come up and I very unfortunately have to seriously resign.

Afterward I was, like, shaking. For a second, right after I put the phone down, I thought I might throw up. I
hate
letting people down. It’s my least favorite thing in the
world
. My mom was so sweet to me about it, though—she made me tea and sat with me on the couch and reminded me that this experience was actually really good practice for me. She said it’s a really important life skill to be able to gracefully tell someone that you can’t do something for them. If you don’t learn how to do it early on, you can get bogged down your whole life doing things for other people that don’t benefit you, just because you feel bad
telling them no. She said it’s a thing that women in particular have to struggle with. Later on that night, I found an article on my pillow that she had torn out of
O,
Oprah’s magazine, that’s all about this problem, how women get trapped in what the article calls “Prisons of Good Intentions” and just endlessly do things for other people instead of doing what’s best for them, and how it ruins their lives and makes them angry, resentful people. That’s certainly not the kind of person I want to be.

And as awful as that phone call and that whole weekend was, after my first day at NorthStar, I can confidently say that it was totally, completely worth it.

I had an incredible afternoon. First of all, right when I got there, Mr. Willette showed me the desk where I’ll be working, which is in a corner of the reception area outside his and Ms. Rinaldi’s offices, and which is dark mahogany wood grain with a padded, light blue office chair, a desktop computer, and a combination scanner/printer/fax machine I’ll use to assist with NorthStar Enterprises’ corporate communications. There’s a locked drawer in the desk for me to keep my personal belongings in when I’m not in the office, and Mr. Willette gave me the tiny key to it to take with me on my key ring.

Then he took me on a tour of the entire space. It’s a pretty quiet, serious workplace, not loud and friendly like my dad’s office at Independent Fiduciary Research and Management, where all of the offices are arranged around
one big open area, and some of the investment managers have TVs on in their offices to keep track of the markets, and the secretaries all listen to different light FM stations on radios under their desks and yell to each other across the room whenever they see something funny on the Internet.

The NorthStar office is way smaller, first of all—only about twenty-five people work there total—and it feels more like an underground den, with long, dim, carpeted corridors leading to more long, dim, carpeted corridors and offices and restrooms and supply closets coming off them, and a break room and a conference room with frosted-glass walls. I didn’t get to see inside the conference room because they were having a meeting when we passed it, but Mr. Willette showed me all around the break room. I can put any personal perishables I bring with me in a designated area of the fridge, and they have unlimited coffee, tea, and snacks for the employees, which I’m more than welcome to help myself to anytime I’d like. I didn’t really get time to see what kinds of snacks there were in the little basket on the counter, but I’ll go back on Thursday and check it out—
if
I can find my way back there! All the corridors at NorthStar look almost exactly the same, and I would have been so lost getting back to my desk from the break room if Mr. Willette hadn’t personally led me there himself.