A Special Place for Women, Laura Hankin [brene brown rising strong .txt] 📗

“No more clubhouse, no more club,” Caroline continued. “Though we’re committed to paying the cleaning staff and security guards until they can find new work, of course.”

“Good,” I said. “But the members aren’t going to be too pleased about the club shutting down, are they?”

“We’ll just have to deal with their displeasure,” Caroline said. “And they’ll just have to get over it. If they need to call me a bad leader or drag my name through the mud, well, that’s probably what I deserve.”

“We’ll still try to hold some events, talks and workshops and such, maybe through Women Who Lead and In the Stars,” Margot said. “But they’ll be first come, first served. And, whenever possible, they’ll be free.”

“That sounds . . . nice, actually,” I said.

“And are you still going to write an article about Nevertheless?” Caroline asked. “Obviously I wish you wouldn’t, but if you have to, you have to, and we won’t sue.” She pursed her lips. “Unless, of course, you make any false claims about us. Then we will sue you for libel.”

“No, I’m not going to write the article. I . . . I think I have something else in mind.”

At that, Caroline let out a small breath of relief, but to her credit, she tried not to look too pleased.

“So,” Margot said.

“So,” I replied.

“That obviously leaves the other . . . matter,” Caroline said. The Coven, she mouthed, trying to be discreet, and I held back a laugh.

“We talked about how to move forward with that too,” Margot said.

“Together,” Caroline said. “With a new kind of focus, somewhere in between. Not selfish, or at least not as purely selfish.”

“Helping,” Margot said, “but not controlling. Only with people’s best interests in mind, instead of trying to be the queen-makers so we can have the ear of the queen.”

“And we wanted to ask . . .”

The two of them looked at each other, then back at me, and Margot said, “Will you start fresh with us?”

This time, I couldn’t hold back the laughter. “Right. Because I’m a legacy? I almost sold you out, I lied to you for months, I burned down your clubhouse, and you still want me? Wow, I feel like a boy applying to an Ivy where his grandpa donated a building.”

“Not just because you’re a legacy. Because of everything,” Margot said.

I pushed an old beer bottle out of the way and leaned forward onto the bar. “I didn’t draw the Three of Cups, you know. In the tarot reading. You all left me alone for a minute and I turned over my third card, and then I hid it in my pocket because it freaked me out. But it was supposed to be the Ten of Swords.”

“Huh,” Margot said, the corners of her mouth turning up ever so slightly. “Betrayal. That tracks.”

“I don’t think I belong with you. I’m not even sure if I believe in magic of any kind. You should’ve chosen Libby instead.”

“Maybe,” Margot said slowly. “Or maybe we should have chosen both of you. Or we shouldn’t have chosen anyone at all, and just let people choose us. It’s like what you said on the roof—we made people pass so many tests so that we could feel like we were superior. It’s so much nicer to give the tests than to take them, but perhaps everything we were using to decide doesn’t actually matter.”

“What matters is that, when we started locking the door behind us, we told ourselves it was for protection,” Caroline said. “But then it became about keeping other people out.”

“And now that building is gone,” Margot said. “But it was always better when it was just us in the woods anyways, with no locked doors at all.”

The two of them leaned toward me. And maybe I couldn’t say for sure that together, we would make magic. But I thought—I hoped—that we would make something.

“So we try again, but different this time?” I said, slowly. “With Vy back in, and anyone who thinks they have something to offer?” Caroline nodded. “Doing it for the right reasons, without all the fancy shit?”

“We try again,” Margot said.

FIFTY-SIX

When I knocked on Libby’s door, Rat Dog Bella began to bark wildly inside her apartment. “Okay, okay, honey,” Libby started saying in a soothing tone as she swung the door open wide. When she saw me, the expectant smile on her face dropped and she began to close the door, hard.

“Wait,” I said, and stuck my foot out—an idiotic reflex. The door slammed on my foot before bouncing back open, and I let out a cry of pain. “Motherfucker.”

“Oh my God, sorry!” Libby said.

“It’s okay,” I said, shaking my foot out. I was going to have a bruise tomorrow, but it didn’t seem to be broken.

“I mean, no! Not sorry. I’m not apologizing to you, you should apologize to me!”

“I know. That’s why I’m here.”

That flustered her. “Well,” she said. “Well, maybe I don’t want an apology!” She glared at me and went to close the door again.

“Now that you’ve maimed me, can you at least hear me out?” I took a deep breath. “I want to bring you to the back room.”

That stopped her short. “You can’t,” she said. “Haven’t you heard? The clubhouse burned down.”

“I’m taking you to the back room. I’ll explain everything on the way,” I said, and held out my hand.

FIFTY-SEVEN

So, there is no article. There is only this instead. It’s the truth, as much of it as I could tell, though I’ve had to change some names and identifying details. I’m hopeful that I’m telling it for good, like I promised my mother.

If you want to come find us, wait until dark on the night of the new moon. Then come to where the sounds of the city can’t be heard, down a dirt path that winds and bends, where it passes a grove of crooked, gnarled trees: we’ll be meeting there