Andre leaned in close. “Wanna go outside and get some fresh air?”
I nodded and looked at Michelle, who nodded, too, and we all threaded our way through the crowd and toward the exit.
The cold air of the street hit my face like water, filled my lungs until they tingled. We sighed and stumbled out onto the sidewalk, then leaned together by the wall. I felt my goose-bump-speckled shoulder press against Michelle’s. Her skin was warm.
“Not so bad, eh, Sasha Masha?” Andre was saying, as he stretched his long arms straight up in the air. “Are you having fun?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to break the spell with the sound of my voice.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty magical night,” he said. “When you said you were starting to come out, especially, I was like, Yes! Perfect timing! Sasha Masha needs to come to Miss Thing.”
“It happens every year?”
Andre nodded. “This is my third year coming.”
A light must have changed, because cars came streaming down the street. Someone honked—it might have been at us. I watched the traffic but with a far-off squint in my eye. Just a river of red and white light. I looked back at Andre.
“Was that before or after your zhush?” I asked quietly, and pressed my lips together against the cold.
“My what?”
“Your—didn’t you say like two years ago, you had a…”
“Ohhh!! My zhush. Lol. Yes. I can’t believe you remember that.” He laughed. “I’m so stupid sometimes.” He shuffled his feet and looked at the pavement. “No, that was after. That was just after, I think. You were there with me, weren’t you, Michelle?”
“I was, I was. I had just started to transition. I don’t think I was … or I think I was still pretty early along.”
My breath caught in my throat just a second. I stared at my feet and kicked the pavement, but I wanted to look at Michelle again. Was Michelle trans? I didn’t think I’d met a trans person before. Her shoulder was still pressed against mine, and her skin was still warm.
“Two years then for you, too, no?”
“Two years, baby.”
“All right, I’m cold,” Andre said. “I’m going inside.”
Michelle and I followed. We flashed our wrists to the bored-looking person at the door. Andre led the way and I picked up the rear. I watched Michelle’s back, the back of her neck. She had wonderful posture.
In the main room, Andre and Michelle found someone named Timmy, and everyone hugged and kissed each other on the cheeks and I got introduced and cheeks brushed and bodies got jostled and we all threaded our way into the dancing crowd. The room was warmer, the bodies closer together. I kept trying to steal glances at Michelle. I wanted to read her history in her face. I couldn’t stop looking at her. If anything, knowing she was trans made me think she was even more beautiful.
Timmy was a better dancer than anyone else: he took up space and everyone wanted to watch him move. I watched Andre watch him; I watched his face glow with appreciation. I saw the way he could meet the eyes of a stranger, too, and the way his face would twitch with mischief and invitation and warmth. Andre was magic like that. His whole body seemed light and loose and open, and I felt lucky to have a crush on someone so well-liked, someone who called me by my stupid name, and who wanted to have me around. But then I felt a wave of melancholy, that blue shadow, fall from my head down to my feet. My body was tired. I dragged myself behind the beat and my legs felt heavy. I told Andre in his ear that I was gonna take a little break and made my way toward the door. Why did this sadness have to come back every time I started to get happy?
What time was it? My phone was in Andre’s bag. I guess I could have asked one of the people lingering out in the hall—a few people were slumped against the wall, leaning their heads back and closing their eyes—but I was a little bit dizzy and just wanted to go somewhere I could close a door and not be seen.
In the bathroom, someone was hunched over the sink with the water running, but all the stalls were open. I took the farthest one, latched the door behind me, hoisted my dress, and slouched onto the toilet. The water ran a little while longer but then it stopped, and after a moment or two more I heard the person leave.
My head drooped and dangled. I could see down the front of my dress to the soft curve of my belly and the elastic band of my boxers. I looked at my green nails and my chapped and clumsy fingers. I shivered.
Could I be trans? Could that be what the whole Sasha Masha thing was about?
The thought seemed ridiculous at first. That wasn’t a word I’d ever thought about applying to myself. I was a boy, a clumsy, pudgy, soft-spoken boy, a boy who smiled and everyone liked. But something was wrong. There was a high wall inside of me, and it made me angry, it made me stuck; there was a self on the other side—was this, now, the thing I’d failed to see? That in my heart of hearts I wasn’t a boy after all? I closed my eyes and tried to imagine my boy-body melting away and leaving the body of a girl. As I did, I felt my breath drop down deeper into my belly, I felt my heart slow and the muscles that clenched my ribs together go slack. I thought about that feeling of a creature who wanted to run around inside me, a creature who I mostly kept locked away in a room.
Was that it? Could that be it?
I wasn’t sure I wanted that to be it.
A part of me wanted to go back home to the house I’d never liked, strip off this dress, and crawl into my bed. Finally give in and let that house wrap me up inside it, stay forever in familiar blankets and a dark room. What was I doing here? Who was I, with this nail polish, this dress?
Someone else came into the bathroom. I stood up quickly, flushed the toilet, and lurched back out into the hall. The music was still going, a different beat now, a different key, but the same thick carpet of music. I went to look for Andre and Michelle, tell them I should probably go home. The dress felt stupid. I felt like a stupid freak. What time was it, anyway?
I felt Andre’s hand on my arm before I saw him.
“We want to go get pizza,” Andre said into my ear. “Do you want to go get pizza?”
I looked up and saw Andre, Michelle, and Timmy. My eyes met Michelle’s. She smiled and looked back at me. My heart sped up.
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s get pizza.”
Chapter 19
The four of us staggered out onto the sidewalk in a bit of a daze. The air was cold and raw. Michelle was limping in her high heels, and Timmy kept sighing. I led the way to the car. We all piled in without a word. The clock lit up and said it was ten forty-five. So it was late, but not too late. Andre handed me my phone, and I looked to see if I had any messages.
My mom had texted: “Just checking on you. You having a good time?”
“Yah,” I texted back. “Just hanging out. I’ll be home soon.”
She replied right away. “Sounds good, sweetie.” And sent a heart.
“Onward!” Timmy crowed from the back seat.
Andre turned to me. “Do you know where we’re going?”
“Nope,” I said, “no idea.” I handed him my phone.
“Great,” he replied, laughing. “I’ll navigate.”
Michelle had slumped over onto Timmy’s shoulder. I could see her face, relaxed, resting, in the rearview mirror. Her eyes twitched under their gently closed lids. Timmy was closing his eyes, too, and had rested a hand on Michelle’s knee. I pulled out into traffic, and once Andre had given me my first set of directions, all four of us fell into silence. It didn’t feel bad. It felt exhausted. It felt comfortable. It felt happy. Andre’s phone dinged with a text message, and his attention disappeared into the screen. I watched the road. I’d driven these streets many times before, but almost always by myself, or with my parents. Maybe once or twice with Tracy. Now I was the one steering this ship, and I had these three passengers in my care. Two seemed to be sleeping and one was in another world, in his phone. I sat up in my seat a little bit, held my arms a little more lightly. If only for a moment, it felt equal p
arts lonely and lovely to be the captain of a ship. The lady captain, I thought, trying it on.
“Are we there yet?” Timmy blurted with his eyes closed.
“Hush, Timmy,” Michelle said, tapping his arm.
“Fuck, sorry, Sasha Masha,” Andre said. “I stopped paying attention. It’s just up here, on the right.”
Soon we’d parked and were making our way up the street.
Timmy and Michelle were discussing what kind of slices exactly they were going to get. Andre walked beside me.
“I just want you to know,” he said, and threaded his arm in mine, “that I think you look quite beautiful in that dress.”
“Well, thank you,” I managed to say. But after that it was like my words were gone, and not in a bad way. In a way where I didn’t need to say anything at all. All I needed to do was walk arm in arm with Andre. We passed a gas station and a fast-food place. We passed a nail salon with a metal grate pulled across the entrance. A car with a rattling engine roared nearby and startled us all. The streetlights buzzed and something smelled off. But still, somehow, just now, the world seemed absolutely perfect. The blue shadow was banished again. Maybe I’d left it back at the party.
* * *
Ordering our slices of pizza proved quite a complicated deliberation. Timmy kept changing his mind, though he knew he wanted something with pineapple, and Andre kept trying to order for him. Everything Michelle asked for they didn’t have. By the time we had settled at a table and they hollered that our pizza was ready, I was ravenous. We hunkered down, each of us daubing greasy cheese with square white napkins.
“Let this pizza be known throughout the ages as holy pizza,” Timmy said.
“Holy pizza,” Michelle echoed.
“Because lo it came unto us when we were tired.”
“Tired.”
“And hungry.”
“Hungry.”
“And thereupon we ate the pizza,” Timmy concluded, chewing. He swallowed. “And it was good.”
“Oh, my dear ones,” Andre said, leaning back in his chair, wiping his mouth. “I’m so glad to be surrounded by your beautiful faces.”
He sighed and for a while we just chewed, staring off into space, while late-night radio commercials dribbled out of ceiling speakers.
“I’d like to propose,” Michelle said, pushing away her greasy paper plate, “that we make a pact. An eternal pact. Forged here, tonight, over this pizza.”
“And what’s the pact?”
“That we will always remember, no matter how dark it gets, that we don’t have to face the darkness alone. We can always ask for help. Nobody actually does it alone. Everybody needs somebody.”
“Everybody needs somebody…,” Timmy started to sing.
“Are we agreed?”
“I’m in,” Andre said.
“I’m in,” Timmy echoed, through a mouthful of pizza.
“Sasha Masha?” Michelle said. “I may have just met you, but you’re here. You’re having pizza. Are you in?”
I swallowed. I wiped my mouth with the one clean corner of my crumpled napkin.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m in.”
Just then I started to hear some laughter coming from behind me. I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been for the weird silence that settled quickly around it. I looked over and saw that it was two men in their thirties, probably. They were wearing suit jackets and both were leaning heavily against the counter. They might have been drunk. They were looking at me.
I quickly turned back around.
“You see that?” I heard one of them say to the other.
“I do,” the other said, and chuckled.
“That is a grown-ass boy. In a dress.”
And they both started cackling again.
Everyone around our table had gotten quiet. I caught Andre’s eye, and he shook his head ever so slightly, like, don’t engage with them.
“You don’t see that every day, do you? That’s some funny shit.”
They kept chuckling. I could hear their bodies shift against the counter. All of a sudden Timmy stood up and turned toward them.
“Timmy!” Andre hissed.
“Can I ask,” he said, in a controlled voice, “that you not talk that way about my friend?”
They didn’t say anything. They just started chuckling louder. I wanted to disappear. I felt ashamed. I felt stupid. I felt like a child. I wished I’d stayed home. I wished I’d never thought of the name Sasha Masha. I wished I could be a Real boy, a careless boy, the kind of boy who sprawled on couches and guffawed nastily and made other people anxious.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Timmy take a step closer. “It’s not respectful.”
That made them laugh even louder.
“Miss! Miss!” one of them said, in a mocking, nasal voice. The other one hooted with laughter.
I couldn’t move. Suddenly I was scared. I could picture one of them picking me up and throwing me to the floor. I could picture either of them doing the same to Andre and Timmy and Michelle.
“Hey!” Timmy said, his voice edging toward a shout. “I’m talking to you!”
“Timmy, we’re going,” Andre said, standing, grabbing Timmy by the arm and pulling him toward the door. Michelle put her arm around me and we followed, leaving our table littered with napkins and unfinished pieces of pizza. As Michelle and I hustled down the block after Andre and Timmy, I caught a glimpse of the two men inside, cracking up.
“How am I gonna let them talk like that?” I heard Timmy saying.
“Timmy, they were drunk and they were assholes,” Andre replied. “I have no interest in starting a fight. We’re going home.”
“It fucking sucks!”
“I know.”
Michelle was holding me close as we walked. “You all right?” she asked.
I shrugged, but my heart was racing. I felt flustered and weak. “I guess so.”
“It does fucking suck,” she said. “I still get that sometimes, too. You know not to take it seriously, but it sucks.”
“Yeah,” I said. But some part of me believed that what they said was true: that I was just a boy in a dress, and that a boy in a dress was a pathetic, worthless thing.
We gathered once we’d made it a couple of blocks away and stood there in a cozy huddle. Andre asked if I was okay, and Timmy said he wanted to punch those motherfuckers in the face.
“All right, honey,” Andre said to that. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you manage to kill a fly, so I’m not too convinced…”
“Psshhhh…”
“No kung fu fantasias, okay? Is that a deal? Part of the pizza club deal or whatever?”
It felt good to laugh a little. It felt good to stand together in a circle, holding each other.
* * *
After we’d dropped Timmy and Michelle back off at their cars, we headed to Andre’s house. The heat was on, and the streets were empty. It was sleepy and quiet.
“Thanks for having me along,” I said. “This was really … special.”
“Of course, Sasha Masha. I’m so glad you came. I’m just sorry it ended that way.”
“It’s okay. It happens.”
“It does happen. And it is never fun. But it’s also not everything.”
We drove quietly a minute and listened to the hum of the engine and the stillness of the city.
“I don’t know.” I took a deep breath. “I’d never worn a dress out in public before.”
“How does it feel?”
“It feels good. It feels right, somehow.”
Andre didn’t say anything for a minute.
“Is it weird if I say…,” he began. “Just, when I met you, I felt that there was something about you … And it took me a while to even articulate what it was consciously. But I think what I sensed was something like, Oh, here’s a person who has a really beautiful feminine part of their soul. And maybe hasn’t brought it into the world yet.”
“Yeah,” I said. I thought a mome
nt. “Maybe. Maybe that’s true.”
“Did you ever think about trying different pronouns, or…?”
“Not really,” I said quickly. “But maybe. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“What pronouns feel good? What pronouns would you like me to use?”
“Um, I don’t know. I think I’m all right with just the regular.”
“What’s the regular? Is there a regular?”
“I mean, he, him. Yeah.”
“Okay. Sure.” Andre looked over at me. “Well, if you ever change your mind, just let me know.”
“I will,” I said. “Thanks.”
Eventually we pulled up in front of his house. We sat for a moment in the car as the engine settled down, let off heat, clicked a few times.
“Well, thanks, Sasha Masha,” Andre said. “This was a really nice night.”
“Um. I guess I have to get my stuff from your bag. Could I come in with you to change?”
“Oh! Duh! Sorry, Sasha Masha.”
I followed him up the walkway. It was cold, my legs were cold. He unlocked the door and I followed as quietly as I could into the dim inside.
“My mom’s probably sleeping, so … shhh…”
“Of course,” I whispered.
We moved without talking. He turned on the bathroom light for me and indicated that he’d be in his room. My pants and shirt had been moved to the edge of the tub. Gingerly, I lifted the dress up and over my shoulders, then folded it delicately and placed it beside my boy clothes. I looked at my pale, lumpy body in the mirror. Was there actually a feminine part of my soul? And if there was, how did I get to it? I shook my jeans out and pulled them up and over my legs. I tugged my shirt over my head and slipped my arms through the sleeves. In the mirror I saw the Alex I recognized. I wondered if I could start to see that Alex differently.
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