The Difference Between You and Me(13)

“Hard-core,” Huckle says to Jesse, jerking his thumb in Esther’s direction. Jesse nods. Esther thumps her tote bag down on the wet ground and bends to rummage in it.

“Yeah, so, as far as instructions go for today, you got your rakes, you got your gravel, you got your ditches, you get the picture. I’ll hold on to your bags and your phones for, you know, safekeeping, and you come get me in the phys. ed. office at noon for lunch. If I’m not there, you know, check my car. Sometimes I’m in my car during certain periods of the day. Just chilling.”

Huckle smiles a big gray-toothed Cheshire-Cat smile.

From the tote bag, Esther produces her paperback, which she slips into the neck of her coat so that it vanishes, absorbed into the bulky mass of her clothes, and a crumpled-up floppy pink sunhat, which she shakes out to its full, twenty-inch diameter and sets on her head, tying the strings in a big bow beneath her chin. Without looking at Jesse she says, “Even on a cloudy day, UV rays can cause damage. We’ll be out there awhile.” Then she takes one of the rakes from Huckle, deposits her tote bag at his feet, and starts off purposefully toward a distant corner of the lacrosse field.

“Implement?” Huckle says to Jesse, a note of apology in his voice, extending the second rake toward her. She trades him her phone and her backpack for the tool and heads off across the field after Esther, breaking into a jog to try to close the distance between them.


***

The raking isn’t hard at the start. It’s just boring, and loud—the harsh skritch of the metal rakes on the jagged pebbles bores a hole into Jesse’s skull right at the back of her head. The gravel is freshly pulverized and it smells sharp and chalky, sending up clouds of stony dust whenever Jesse digs into it with the tines of her rake.

Jesse rakes halfheartedly, distracted by watching Esther out of the corner of her eye. Esther at work is awkward and fierce, flinging the rake out and hauling it back in, flinging and hauling, over and over again. Sometimes her lips move a little as she works, as if she’s reciting something to herself, or she shakes her head suddenly, briefly, as if saying no to an invisible interlocutor. Esther is so focused on her job and whatever it is that’s going on inside her head that Jesse imagines she wouldn’t look up once until lunchtime if Jesse didn’t get her attention on purpose.

“So you hate pep rallies, too,” she opens, a little louder than normal to make sure Esther hears her.

Esther pauses and looks around, confused, as if trying to identify the source of the sound she just heard.

“You hate pep rallies, too?” Jesse repeats.

Esther makes eye contact with her: Oh, it’s you talking.

“I oppose them,” she corrects, and turns back to her raking.

“Me too. I find them hideous.”

“Where were you registering your objection, if not the main office?”

“I was actually…” Jesse begins, then pauses to consider whether she should tell Esther the truth. Esther looks up briefly and nods, a bit impatiently.

“Yes?”

“I was actually trying to skip the assembly and Sne-diker busted me climbing out the window of the girls’ room.”

For a second Esther doesn’t respond, and Jesse thinks it was a mistake to admit this. But then, to Jesse’s relief, Esther laughs, sudden and seal-like, a kind of bark-yelp. When Esther opens her mouth, Jesse notices that her teeth are neat, small, and separate—baby teeth in a grown-up mouth.

“Oh well,” Esther says. “I guess that was a mistake.”

“Yeah, big mistake,” Jesse agrees, encouraged, “especially since I was planning to use first period to put up my new manifesto around school.” Somehow it’s very important to Jesse that this girl know that she’s serious about things.

“Oh, that’s you?” Esther raises her eyebrows, curious. “Those manifesto posters, those are you?”

“My organization.” Jesse nods casually, a quiet pride spreading inside her.

“I like those.”

“Thanks.”

“I look forward to them.” That this girl knows her manifestos, likes them, looks forward to them, sends Jesse’s heart sailing. “They’re hilarious. They’re sort of like episodes of some sitcom about a goofy activist or something.”

Jesse’s heart hits the ground with a thunk.

“Sitcom?”

“Yeah, they’re a parody, right? Like a joke on political manifestos?”

It seems too late, or too complicated, or just too embarrassing for Jesse to correct Esther. How could she possibly explain at this moment that the manifestos are her earnest work, her best idea about how to change the culture of the school?