A nun walks into the Liberal Arts building.
No, that is not a joke. There is a nun in the Liberal Arts building.
It's me.
I'm the nun.
Here's the thing they don't tell you in Sunday school: Nun outfits are uncomfortable as hell. They're heavy, and hot, and surely were not meant to look flattering on anyone who is dressing up as one. Now, before anyone starts throwing stones (see what I did there?) I grew up Catholic, it's really rare not to be Catholic in a Mexican household, although diversity is a thing, thank you very much. I haven't stepped a foot inside a church since I was about twelve, though, and I'm fairly sure I will burst into flames if I do, so I keep my good distance from holy buildings, Catholic or not, ever since.
Why is it, then, that I am dressed as a nun walking around the Liberal Arts building, and thus willfully placing my neck on the guillotine that is social media?
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
She was a badass motherfucker, I'll tell you that. Born in the 1600's, she was always hungry for knowledge, and even joined a convent instead of marrying because, back in ye olde days, that would have gotten between her and her study. Sor Juana was so smart forty (male) scholars were invited to test her knowledge. She became a philosopher, a playwright, a poet, and much more. She wrote for the king of Spain and was renowned for her skill. And this is just the summarized, lacking biography.
I could have bought a fancy old dress and used it as the kind she wore before she became a nun, but most of her work became known after she joined the convent. Besides, that would have cost me more than the money I spent in making up this costume, which constitutes of white bedsheets and a butchered brown hoodie. Bless Diane's heart for her sewing skills.
I must be offending so many people right now. I think, turning into the hallway that'll lead me to the club room.
The "club room" is simply a classroom the History Club occupies each week for our meetings. There is no official room, but it always happens to be the same one that is available for reservation, so we have somewhat taken over it every Saturday. In fact, Scott was arguing about how he was going to write our names under the chairs of the room to mark it as ours, until Alan reminded him that was vandalism — not that that stopped him, what did stop him was Carlos offering the idea of instead writing "PROPERTY OF THE HISTORY CLUB" on a white sticky note and pasting it to the ceiling.
I push the door open, looking up right as I enter the room, and sure enough, there it is. Its placement and color making it easy to miss if you don't know it's there to begin with.
Risking the chance of breaking all your hopes and dreams of a sleepy college town with a small history club having meetings in an #aestheticallypleasing auditorium, here at Westray we have no such thing. I'm not kidding. There's not even windows in our classroom, and if that doesn't scream fire hazard then the amount of desks crammed in the small cube surely does. The walls, ceiling, and floor are so white it's nearly painful and also casts an ill glow over anyone and everyone that enters the room. At the moment that appears to be only half of the History Club.
"Oh shit, no you didn't— " Scott jumps off from the professor's desk on which he was sitting a second ago, apprising a slice of pizza he probably brought himself. He makes an exaggerated bow, "Sister, what brings you here?"
"To smite your ass," I move past him, making a beeline for the pizza.
"Oh, I would love for my ass to be smitten." His comment makes me choke on my own laugh.
"Goddamn it Scott," I snort, taking a drink from the ones laid on the table .The new members aren't supposed to bring food, since it's supposed to be a sort of party for them, and while we don't have that many members, I'm still surprised at the amount of food they were able to gather for a party..
"So, who are you really supposed to be?" Alan, who is clearly dressed like Lin Manuel Miranda (having semi long hair really helped him there) from Hamilton, leans from his place on one of the chairs closest to the board.
"Take a guess," I mean, this is a history club, if they don't know I'll be slightly offended. Carlos, who is sitting against the wall begins to open his mouth, but I hold my hand up to him, "You're not allowed to cheat you're half Mexican."
His mouth promptly shuts close again.
"Oh, that's not fair, do you have any idea how many nuns are famous around the world?" The door to the room opens and Anna struts in, followed by the other two missing club members, though this doesn't stop Scott's attempt at going around my question. "Mother Teresa...Mother Angelica...they're better known than priests after Spotlight."
"Oh I know— "
"Sor Juana," Anna answers before Alan can. Her chin-length blue hair is covered with a dark brown wig that falls in waves over her shoulders, a yellow and white striped dress that opens up to show dark jeans underneath it. Not what I personally would consider fashionable, but she manages to pull it off — although, considering it's Anna we're talking about, this shouldn't surprise me.
"That's me," I say, "but who are you?"
"Silvia Rivera, honey" Anna pushes her hair with a flip, "just a great figure for the Trans movement and my queen, aside from Beyonce of course."
"Y'all are so deep about your figures, I just dressed up as Tesla because I think he was chill and I had enough clothes to pull it off." Carlos shrugs, standing up.
"You're such a party pooper."
"I'm practical, unlike Sol."
I raise my eyebrows. "Are you? Remember what happened in sixth grade?"
"Hey, ni abras la boca o les digo que paso en eleventh grade —"
"Ni se te ocurra!"
"Don't you just love when people start talking in a language you don't understand?" I hear Alan ask as Carlos and I continue to bicker about embarrassing things that we've done in the past.
"Yeah I live for it." Ophelia, one of the club members that entered the room with Anna, responds.
"Quick, Scott, tell me something in German."
"I don't know German dude."
"Anything works."
"Ich spreche kein Deutsch."
Carlos and I stop in mid threat to look at Scott, dumbfounded. Alan seems mildly impressed and oddly interested.
"What the hell did you just say?"
"I told you, I don't speak German, I just know how to say that." Scott shrugs, the buttons of his collar glinting as he leans back against the desk. "I know how to say that in most languages, just in case I'm ever lost in an unknown place."
"Oh really?" Ophelia, dressed in some fancy looking Victorian dress, moves forward, " what about in Japanese?"
"私は日本語がわからない"
"I somehow feel like he's just insulting us in different languages." Carlos leans in close to me, and I can't help but snort. Hey, it is quite a helpful thing to know.
"What about Spanish?"
"Yo no hablo Espanol."
"Well, then," Anna says, "before Scott starts speaking in Vulcan, we should get the meeting started."
"The master has spoken." Scott gets up, dusting off his shirt.
"The mistress," Ophelia corrects.
"The empress," Alan intensifies.
"The fairest of them all." Carlos takes a swing of his coke.
"I hate you all." Anna says, but she's laughing as she does, sitting on the desk as the rest of the club members take a seat in front of her. I sit next to Carlos sticking out my tongue like an immature seven year old for all the stupid threats we made at each other. He sticks his out back at me.
As odd and ridiculous as our club is, there are still some things they do the old way. We need community credit hours so we help out at school events and advertise ourselves as much as possible. At least that's as much as I've learned so far. There's volunteering options at the local museum and the History department at the school, we have fundraisers and club parties every now and then. Really, the only weird thing about our club is our induction process.
"So, our dear Soledad finally completed her challenge last week," rummaging through her bag, Anna takes out a printed picture of the selfie I sent her last Saturday. My side still hurts from the fall from the tree outside Ethan's house.
I know that it's all in my head, but my phone feels a bit heavier inside my jeans' pocket (which, I'm wearing under my nun costume in the case I either needed to change quickly or had to run from an angry mob). Ethan Winston has sent me a total of three messages in the past four days asking whether or not I had retrieved his house key, none of which I have answered, mind you. I know that's kind of a bad thing to do, I mean I was the one that broke and entered into his grandparents' house, but I'm not about to give him concrete evidence via text messages so he can show it in court.
"And now she is an official History Club member," Anna begins a small round of applause.
After this we discuss hours and Carlos — who is the vice president of the club— and I sign up to help at the history department, we begin taking food and drinks.
"Remember to ask your professors whether or not you can make an announcement about the club," Anna mentions, taking out a piece of onion from her pizza slice, "we need three more members to meet the standards."
"What standards?" I ask, to what Ophelia nods to.
"We need a certain amount of members to meet the school's standards and to be considered a school organization. If we don't have that we don't get funding and we might not be able to participate in certain school events." Carlos shrugs, "Or something like that."
Alan, our unofficial graphic designer (because he's the only one of us that can draw anything aside from stick figures and owns a copy of Photoshop), hands us all a couple of posters before he leaves. They are designed to look like Victorian era ads and would grab my attention if I were to walk by it.
THE HISTORY CLUB
Afraid of never being satisfied?
Thirsty for spending time with dead people at the local museum?
Trying to find a way to kill time because you're a lonely history nerd?
Fear no more! We've got the right answer for you!
Meet us every Saturday at 10 AM at LA 135
The password is cornbread (don't question it).
Seems legit. I think, placing the papers inside my folder and then fumbling in my seat to get my backpack. As I do so, I catch sight of Anna finishing up her conversation with Ophelia, and stand up to go ask her about Ethan's little problem.
"Is there a possibility," I say as a means to catch her attention, "to get the Winston's house key back — to keep it, I mean."
Anna straightens up, reaching to the back of her head to undo a clip in her wig. "Forgot something in there? Interested in Elderly voyeurism?"
I nearly choke."What? No!"
"I'm kidding, not everyone shares Carlos tastes."
"I heard that!" Carlos shouts.
"Anyways, why?" She pulls her wig off, a cap covering the bright blue hair I'm used to seeing her in.
"Well their grandson — you remember I told you about him."
"I happen to have a terribly short term memory."
"Well, he threatened me with telling the police."
"Ah, right, him."
"The thing is that, if I'm interested in ever sleeping peacefully at night again, he's asked me to get the key to his house back — which makes sense, who would want to have their key in a different person's hand?"
"Have you told him to change the locks?" Her hair comes undone, blue strands falling just above her shoulders.
I pause, "I-I hadn't thought about that."
She taps the side of her head, gathering some documents from the desk.
"Look, it is possible to give him the key back, but it'd be breaking club policy —" she stops mid-sentence, a smile creeping up her lips, "although..."
"Why do I have a bad feeling about where this is going?" I try to shake off the chill that is running down my spine, but Anna is already saying what I thought she'd say before I can pretend to be a real nun and start praying.
"If you recruit him into the club, all this would be fixed."
Soledad Gutierrez stay calm, count to ten, don't say the first thing that —
"That's a terrible idea." There I go again. Oh well, I tried. "Inviting him to join the club could not only put me in an awkward position, but he could also represent a threat to the whole club, trivialize it."
"If he had wanted to he would have already done so, don't you think?" Anna smiles. "Who knows? Maybe he's more interested in us than we are on him, besides we need all the members we can gather."
She pulls out an envelope that looks as if it has been worn out throughout the years and is sealed closed with a shiny golden wax seal engraved with the club's logo. Unlike the posters Alan designed, these invitations are rare, a message saying that the club truly wants you. I received one via Carlos at least three weeks ago, though I had known of the club's existence since he joined last semester.
Anna holds the letter up to me.
"Doesn't hurt to try," she says as I reluctantly take the envelope from her. "If he refuses to join I'm sure that we'll find the right arrangement."
I can feel my eyebrows pinching at the middle as I study her.
"How can you be so sure?"
She shrugs, shouldering her backpack.
"You aren't the first member to get caught and you won't be the last, Sol. So don't worry, we'll find a way to put your worries at ease."
"That sounds kind of ominous."
"We have our methods." Anna winks. " Watch out. The meeting is over, guys, remember about your hours and that we'll meet a week from now. If you have any questions just message me or Carlos."
Then she is out, looking as grand as she did when she made her entrance.
Once I'm out in the hall I take out my phone to text Ethan, though I first feel Carlos' arm fall over my shoulders.
"A donde vamos, Sor Soledad?" he asks the corner of his Tesla mustache slowly peeling away from his upper lift.
I smirk.
"Wanna go to Starbucks and weird people out?"
"Hell yeah, I do." He holds up the crook of his elbow for me to grab onto. I take it with evil happiness. "It's on me."
"What did I do to deserve you?" I ask, resting my head against his shoulder.
"Possibly sacrificed a person or two in your past life."
"Nuns don't believe in past lives."
"That's what makes you special, a heathen nun."
"Pray during the day and do brujeria at night?"
"Exactly."
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