“But the really important part is the box it comes in, just a regular cardboard box for the baby to sleep in. Finnish babies sleep in boxes.” This is Angel’s favorite part. “It was started to cut down on babies dying of SIDS, which they were doing a lot of before the boxes, and now that they sleep in cardboard, the death rate is really low.”
Lizette’s eyes shine. “It’s all totally free. Health care, too. The poor people get the same care as the rich people, except no one’s totally poor, not like here. And the moms get paid to stay home with their babies because that’s an important job, too, and that makes the babies grow up healthier.”
“That’s communism,” says Jen. “Not cool.”
“You for real?” cries Ysenia. “Who cares if it’s communism if even poor babies get to be healthy?”
“It’s not communism,” says Angel firmly. “It’s called”—she consults her notes—“democratic socialism, and every rich country besides us does it and they’re all better off.”
“Not fair!” says Trinity, and they’re all alarmed to see that she has tears in her eyes. “Kristiana deserves that, too. All of our babies do. Instead we got to spend a buttload of money we don’t got and no one even cares if McDonald’s is the only crap job we can get where we get burned by the fryer and we have to leave our baby with our sister whose boyfriend gets high. That’s messed!”
A pall falls over the classroom. Everyone averts their eyes as Trinity stands and leaves, shutting the door quietly behind her. Christy follows.
“Well,” says Lizette. “It’s not like Finland is paradise one hundred percent. It’s cold as junk and they have to eat that crap.” She gestures to the table where their International Feast is arranged. The bowl of egg butter sits, sulfuric and glistening yellow, on the table with the other national cuisines—boiled potatoes, microwavable egg rolls, cold bowtie pasta drenched in Ragú.
Brianna steps forward and starts the applause. “Thank you, girls. That was incredibly informative, and you delved into serious policy questions. These are all issues that you can be active in championing, and when you turn eighteen, you can vote for representatives who keep the interests of your children in mind.” But the girls are already helping themselves to the feast.
As the others line up, Lizette leans into Angel, unsmiling, raising a wry eyebrow. “Hey,” she says, her breath on Angel’s ear so that Angel immediately gets wet, right in the middle of everything. “We kicked ass.”
The world is wider, more enormous, more filled with possibility than Angel ever suspected. She could visit Finland, move there even. She and Lizette could move together, dress the babies up in little down-filled suits and Nordic sweaters, enroll them in free preschool, feed them sweet braided breads and egg butter and reindeer puree.
“You guys,” Jen calls from across the classroom. She holds up her plate of egg butter in one hand, a laden spoon in the other. “This is awesome. Good job, you guys!”
Brianna strides over. “That was wonderful, girls.” She touches their poster board, with its carefully penned statistics on Finnish education and blue-and-white flag, and Lizette’s remarkably lovely drawing of a reindeer in a sauna.
Angel is surprised by Lizette’s grin.
Brianna turns her attention to Angel. “You worked really diligently. I’m delighted to see this.”
Angel wishes Brianna would include Lizette in that glow of approval. She grabs Lizette’s arm. “Yeah, we both worked really diligently.”
But it’s too late, and Lizette pulls away, her face steely.
Yolanda used to love going out with friends after work, but has done less of it since Cal. She retouches her makeup at her desk, dissatisfied with how papery her skin looks, how deeply set her eyes. She fluffs her hair, but it’s thinning and brittle and without any curl at all.