I couldn’t believe that I let my mother talk me into participating in the crazy, juvenile, honor court nonsense. I was a seventeen year old feminist on her way to Vassar next fall; not one of the twitty, over hair sprayed and preened, double X chromosome people I was forced to attend school with.

All pretense. No substance was the phase I often scribbled in my notebook after I was blackmailed into interacting with them, usually by mom, who offered gift certificates,writing class tuition, or. The case of “No way in Hell” situations ike this, access to her credit card for an entire weekend. I smiled, thinking of the new laptop, recycled army boots, and stack of classic literature I was going to buy when I could stop playing the p teen beauty queen and return to being myself.

“Five minutes to magic time,” Ms. Cooper, our ultra feminine choir director who organized this annual female subjugation year after year and seemed, oddly enough, to enjoy it. I gripped Jimmi’s arm, glad that my best guy friend had agreed to escort me through this crazy experience. I assumed the stereotypical Miss America pose I’d seen on TV, linking my arm through his.

What , exactly, am I doing here? I wanted to bolt from auditorium and hide. If my arm hadn’t been interlinked with Jimmi’s I would’ve. “Just breath,” he whispered.