Mia
“Those who want peace should prepare for war and be strong.”
—Avigdor Lieberman
Three Years Ago
SOMETIMES, IT WAS no picnic, being raised by your sister.
Mia had often wondered how her childhood would have been different had her parents been the ones to teach her the things they thought she needed to know.
Would they have been as overprotective as Emory? Would they have insisted on this stupid self-defense class that was currently taking up the Saturday morning she would have preferred spending with Grace at her lake house?
She didn’t think so.
For one thing, Mia remembered how much her father had enjoyed letting her have her way. As the youngest child in the family, she knew her parents had a tendency to spoil her. But who the heck didn’t like being spoiled?
If there was one thing Emory was never going to emulate in their parents, it was their tendency to overindulge their youngest daughter. No, if anything, Emory was determined to make Mia grow up as fast as possible by stuffing her full of all the protective wisdom she could manage to glean from books and the internet. She took her job as guardian as the role of her life.
Mia stands with her arms folded across her chest now in mute rebellion. The class instructor studies each participant, his confident gaze assessing, concluding.
“I know each of you has your own personal reasons for being here this morning, some of you obviously willing, others of you not so much. But however you arrived here, let’s make the most of our three hours together. What you get from this today could save your life down the road. Or not.”
Mia feels Emory’s glance and its unconcealed frustration for her attitude. “Mia, please,” she says.
“Can anyone tell me what a predator looks for in a victim?” the instructor asks, his piercing eyes landing on Mia as if he’s identified her as the participant most likely to know the answer. She doesn’t. And indicates so with a shrug.
He dismisses her response, and asks another girl around her age. She doesn’t know either.
“Any of you moms have a guess?”
“Body language?” Emory throws out on a question.
“You’re not a mother,” Mia says under her breath.
“Good,” he says with a nod at Emory who stiffens at Mia’s jab.
“Did you know,” he continues, “that for every victim who actually gets attacked, many, many are dismissed as not worth the risk by the predator?”
The group gives a collective no.
“So what differentiates a good victim,” he says, putting the two words in air quotes, “from a not-worth-it victim?”
Again, in air quotes.
No one answers.
He trains his gaze directly on Mia. She glances away, even as he goes on, “In seconds, a predator figures out who is a worthy target and who isn’t. A predator wants his conquest to be easy. He’s looking for a woman or girl who won’t fight back. Who has an air of submissiveness. He doesn’t want someone who’s going to put up resistance. That increases the risk of someone noticing or of him actually getting hurt. He wants someone he can control. Can any of you give me some ideas on what might make you look like someone he could control?”
“Walking with your shoulders hunched.” The answer comes from the thirteen-year old girl who still thinks her mom hung the moon. Mia noticed it earlier, the way she rested her chin on her mother’s shoulder, smiled whenever she looked at her and said something. She recognized her own jealousy. Knew it made her a not very nice person.
“Excellent, Addison,” the instructor said.
“Someone give me another example.”
“Looking like you don’t know where you’re going,” Mia said.
“Good, Mia,” he said, giving her a look of approval. “Confidence in your walk. How about awareness of your surroundings?”
Several murmurs of agreement went up.
“All right then, are we starting to see that there’s an entire picture here that we need to affect? I’m going to teach you some lifesaving moves here today. But I’m hoping the most important thing I teach you is how to take yourself out of the potential victim category altogether. Are you with me?”
It would prove to be the one lesson in her entire education of life that Mia would eventually wish she had paid better attention to.