Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“We’re having this meeting,” Mrs. Brown finally continued, “to tell you about the rules and requirements of the New Modesty courtship program the state has assigned you to, here in Grasskiln. I have some good news, too. You all have dates tonight.”
CHAPTER 15
Grace
I looked up. I could see out of the corners of my eyes that all the other girls had also raised their eyes to focus on Mrs. Brown. She smiled back at us beatifically, her eyes traveling around both circles, with a special twinkle for the foster mothers that seemed to say, Isn’t it wonderful? These girls will learn how to date the old-fashioned way, just like we did when we were their age.
“Your suitors have each chosen to court you with the help of the New Modesty’s matching algorithm, which lets them have access to some of your information—our own version of a dating app.”
Mrs. Brown looked around again, this time just at the girls in the inner circle, as if to make sure we had followed everything she said. I couldn’t figure out what I thought, or felt, about the news she had just delivered. The hypothetical, pretend figure of my suitor—the one Jake kept talking about, who would apparently have embarrassing rights over me and my body—had just materialized into an actual man. He had swiped, or tapped, or… something… on my picture in the New Modesty’s app. My stomach churned, but I also felt a distressing sort of warmth in my chest.
“Now you girls have probably never been on a proper date in your lives,” Mrs. Brown continued. “Here in Grasskiln, though, we do things the traditional way. The men who will be your first suitors are all a few years older than you, and they know how to behave themselves and how to treat a young woman in whom they mean to show an interest, romantically speaking.”
I looked around at the other girls in the circle. I could see the same uneasiness in their faces, especially Frannie’s and Cora’s, that I felt at this part of the older woman’s little speech. I definitely didn’t mind older men. I hadn’t ever dated one, of course, or even—because Mrs. Brown was right that date didn’t really describe what I and other girls my age did with guys—really hung out with one in anything like a serious way. Once, though, a guy in his late twenties had shown an interest in me, at one of the parties we had in the dorm on Saturdays.
It had made me feel a little special, and a little naughty. He had a job at an office, and he talked about real stuff, like his plans for the future and how the fucked-up state of the world economy would make it difficult to ever own a home. If he had tried to kiss me, I would have let him—and I probably would have let him do a lot more. A friend had pulled me away to drink a shot, though, and when I had looked for the older guy again he had left the party. I had guessed, with a mixture of regret and relief, that he kept a regular schedule, the way a more mature man would.
“That means,” Mrs. Brown said, pulling my focus back to her, “that you girls don’t have to worry too much about your own conduct, as long as you make up your minds to pay attention to your suitors. Courtship for young women in Grasskiln is all about learning to follow the lead of the man who will quite possibly be your husband—that is, from the point of view of our traditional community, your leader ‘til death do you part.”
I stared at her, my jaw slack. I had gathered all that, I supposed, from everything I’d experienced with the Carpenters. I realized though that I hadn’t actually put it together with my situation until the administrator of the New Modesty Authority in Grasskiln had made the connection completely solid.
My leader. ‘Til death do us part. My husband—but not, like, lovey-dovey husband, the kind who takes you to the Bahamas and lies with you on the beach until you tell him to get up and get you a piña colada.
“So,” Mrs. Brown went on, leaning forward a little and focusing on each of us in turn, very intently. “Let’s get one uncomfortable—in more than one way—detail over with. The men you’ll meet tonight have all achieved approved status. That means the New Modesty Authority has done extensive background checks on them as well as verifying that they’re each compatible with the one of you they’ve chosen to court. It also means that they have the right—and the duty—to punish you on your bare bottoms should you misbehave, just as your foster fathers do.”
I felt like my eyebrows had shot all the way to my scalp.