Chapter 21
Monday morning I felt empty. Not in a bad way. It was like a huge wind had passed through my body and cleared everything away. I didn’t feel happy or sad, just relieved. There are any number of metaphors for it. A storm had passed. I had crossed a threshold. Suddenly I wasn’t in a rush to tell everyone I knew about Sasha Masha, because I woke up knowing that Sasha Masha was me. Simple as that.
At lunch Jake proposed that we hang out sometime outside of school. Of course, was my feeling, and “Of course,” was what I said. But then I had to explain about the party on Saturday and how I’d stayed out late and my parents had grounded me for the next month.
“Damn, Shapelsky. I didn’t know you were such a party animal,” he said.
“I’m not usually,” I muttered.
“Well,” he said, “we’ll hang out once you’re un-grounded. It’s all good.”
I could sense some hurt in his voice. I had said I’d invite him to meet other queers, after all. Why hadn’t I invited him to Miss Thing? Had I not wanted him there? That wasn’t it. I genuinely liked Jake, now that we’d been hanging out again. Because of my crush on Andre? Because I was nervous to be out as Sasha Masha? Those were all sorts of reasons, but they weren’t particularly good ones.
The best way of saying what happened might be that my heart flinched. Contracted. Withdrew itself just a little bit.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t invite you along on Saturday. I don’t know what I was thinking. But I should have.”
Jake looked at me, studied my face. “It’s all right, Shapelsky,” he said, though I could tell I was right to think he was hurt. “Next time.”
My heart felt clear and open now. I didn’t want to flinch anymore.
* * *
Last period, in chemistry, I daydreamed. I stared out the window at the tops of the trees and the buildings down the hill. When the sky was clear, you could almost see down to the harbor, where the little sailboats darted in and out around the edges and the big tankers came through from other parts of the world. I thought about our little school in the wide spread of Baltimore, and I thought about what Dr. Royce had said the first day of this year, about the school as a microcosm for the world. We should treat each other with respect, he said, and step up to the plate. Step up to the plate. Chemistry was on the second floor, so above us and below us were hundreds of stressed teenagers spinning in the circles of their own lives, trying to do okay and not feel too desperate or alone.
I looked over at Tracy. I wondered if she might ever agree to walk with me again by Lake Roland. Despite everything, there had been a lot of good between us, I thought. But I’d kept swallowing my feelings, and she got tired of my silence. Maybe one day I’d find a way to apologize.
She must have felt my gaze. Because just then she turned and our eyes met. Her lips pressed against each other slightly. Was it a smile? Not quite. It was something. I smiled just the littlest bit—not too much. We held our gaze for a few moments. She was the first to look away.
Mess, mess, I’d made many messes.
* * *
When the last bell rang, I decided to walk home instead of taking the bus. I wanted to be outside. I wanted to feel the chill air and watch the sky change. So I turned down Thirty-Third Street and into the sinking sun.
I also wanted to call Mabel.
She picked up right away. “I feel like I’m high,” she said.
“Are you high?”
“No, Sasha Masha. I’m in love.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s good. With Alice?”
“Of course with Alice! Who else?” And she launched into the story of her Saturday-night date with Alice at a bowling alley. “And so we’re bowling, we’ve got the shoes and everything, and it’s my turn, and I’ve been telling myself I want to ask her if we can kiss, just been telling myself this over and over, and I decide that if I get at least five pins this time I’m going to do it, I’m going to ask her. So I just like fling it, like totally out of control, just sort of the hell with this, and it goes straight down the lane and in one swift, clean blow … perfect strike.”
“So you kissed her??”
“Wait for it. And this was like, capital smoothness, just, like, movie-star-dyke class act, I turned on the heel of my bowling shoe and sort of strolled up to where Alice was watching, and I extended a hand, and I said, ‘I’d like to kiss you, if that’s all right, Alice,’ and she laughed and said yes. And so then yeah. I kissed her.”
“Oh, Mabel!” I said, shouting it a little in the middle of the sidewalk.
“And it was just … I don’t know. I have no words.” She let out a noisy sigh. And then I let out a noisy sigh. And then she did and I did and for a bit there we were growling and moaning like the creatures we were. Then we laughed.
“How are you?” she asked.
As I walked, I told her all about the party on Saturday. And Andre and Timmy and Michelle. And the pizza parlor. And my stupid move at Andre’s house. And my angry parents. And my day at home. And my snotty tears that wouldn’t stop after dinner. And I told her that all that crying had done me good. I had woken up clearer, and emptier. I felt like something had shifted, somehow, for the better. I told her that my heart was lighter.
“Oh, Sasha Masha,” she said, “I’m so happy for you.”
“Can I tell you this weird theory I have?”
“Of course.”
“So at the beginning of the year,” I began, “Dr. Royce gave his big speech and said this thing about stepping up to the plate. And I’ve been thinking about what that means. Because there’s a part of me that thought this whole worry about who I am was selfish or narcissistic or whatever. So I’ve been thinking, what does that mean, really? To step up to the plate?”
I was passing the field where my dad used to take me to kick around a soccer ball. There were two kids running up and down the length of it now, and their mom was shouting one of their names.
“I think we’ve each got a mystery inside of us,” I said, “and as people, our job is to respect that mystery. To give it room to breathe. To feed it. To take it out for lunch sometimes. Whatever. We’re all part of a whole big picture. And if we’re not doing our best to unfold the strange somethings inside of us, we’re not doing right by everybody else. If we’re not unfolding our hearts, we’re holding them back. We’re flinching. And that’s how we hurt people. That’s how we make ourselves and the whole world smaller.”
“Is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s beautiful, Sasha Masha. I love it.”
By then I was basically home. Mabel told me I was a smart cookie and she was really proud of me and she loved me. I told her I loved her, too, and was really excited about things with Alice.
As I approached the house, I saw a small brown paper package on the front stoop. I said goodbye to Mabel and brought it inside. For SM, it said. You got this.
I unwrapped the package and inside was the dress.
Chapter 22
I unlocked the door, went right upstairs to my parents’ room, and in front of my mom’s floor-length mirror, I put it on. I stood there and twirled in it; tried to see how it looked from behind, over my own shoulder. I even dug around in my mom’s makeup drawer and found a shade of lipstick that matched it perfectly. It made my lips shiny and sticky and smelled like the inside of her purse.
For a minute or two I just looked at myself. My face in the mirror was still my face. But it seemed right now. And it wasn’t the lipstick, necessarily, or even the way the neckline of the dress framed my throat. There was a twinkle behind the eyes that made all the difference. There was a smile behind my lips and a glow behind my cheekbones. I saw a different face inside my face, even though of course it was the face I’d always had.
I went back downstairs to the living room that always made me itch and sat on the couch I’d spent so many years hating. I smoothed the dress over my thighs and watched Murphy doze in the last pat
ch of golden light on the carpet.
I felt calm and happy all of a sudden. What was happening to me?
I laughed a little, and Murphy looked up at me. Murphy didn’t care about Sasha Masha. Murphy ate and slept and enjoyed getting his head rubbed. Murphy had known about Sasha Masha all along.
Maybe, I thought, there was no such thing as a not-Real person. There was no such thing as a Real person, either. The world was Real. This couch was Real, Murphy was Real, the light and the bookshelves and the creatures and the sounds of the city moving around me—they were all Real. Like it or not, the world is Real, and whoever we are, we are part of the world.
I used to roll my eyes at stories about teenagers who ran away. I thought that was too much work. I thought that would never be me. I thought I could just wait where I was and hold tight until one day things changed. But all that waiting was actually running. Run, run, all I did was run.
Maybe now, at last, I could just be here. This was where I was supposed to be. This was who I was supposed to be.
It was getting close to the time my parents would get back. I pictured them coming in and seeing me in the dress. I felt an early wave of what I knew would be their discomfort—the anxiety and fear in their eyes, their fretful questions and their worried reassurances. What did it mean, what did it mean, it didn’t matter what it meant.
For now I just wanted to flop down on the couch and relax.
After all, this was home.
Appendix
THE HALL OF ANCESTORS, CONTINUED
Some other ancestors, also hanging in the hall:
Flawless Sabrina. Alice Dunbar Nelson. Terry J. Long. Lorena Borjas. Chris Karabats. Cookie Mueller. Rebecca Rice. Lou Sullivan. James Dean. Crazy Owl. Montgomery Clift. Mark Morrisroe. Gloria Anzaldúa. Klaus Nomi. John Bernd. Maria Irene Fornes. Robert Duncan. John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Sappho. Tseng Kwong Chi. Barbara Gittings. Barbara Jordan. Socrates. Aimee Stephens. Alan Turing. Richard Bruce Nugent. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. Hafiz. Ethyl Eichelberger. Michel Foucault. Deborah Sampson. Susan Sontag. Michael Dillon. Robert Vazquez-Pacheco. Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish. Fae Richards, who stands for many, though she’s a fiction. Jeff Weiss and Richard C. Martinez. Lou Reed. Dr. Julia Yasuda. Pete Burns. Greer Lankton. Wilmer “Little Ax” Broadnax. Kevin Killian. Reed Erickson. Michael Callen. Philip Johnson. Nelson Sullivan. Allen Ginsberg. Nero (oof). Hilma af Klint. Ms. Colombia. Roland Barthes. Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco. Lord Byron. Vito Russo. Arthur Russell. Fran Lebowitz. Peter Hujar. Tom and Alan, who lived across the street when Green was growing up, and who everyone called “roommates.” Hylan. Mr. Irwin. Some of these people aren’t dead yet, they held out hands and marked a way; friends asked Coco and Green to put them up. Don Yorty. Nicky Paraiso. The poet Tom Savage. Carmelita Estrellita. Katherine Meints, a math teacher. Mark Vannote, who buried many friends. Patrick Haggerty, who makes music. Kaki Dimock. Ranger Keith. Molly Malone Cook. Mary Oliver. Oh, and also Martin Wong. Melvin Dixon. David Bowie. Justin Chin. James Schuyler. José Esteban Muñoz. Jim Brodey. Cher.
* * *
Each time I visit Coco and Green, I catch a few more names.
Acknowledgments
This is a story about how we can’t become ourselves living inside our own heads. We need other people who are willing to share their light with us and who are open to seeing ours, as we learn to find voice and expression for it.
What I’m trying to say is that some of these thank-yous are bigger than I have words for.
Thank you to my ancestors and my elders. And to my queer siblings.
Thank you, RJ Tolan, Joy Peskin, Elizabeth Lee, and Ross Harris.
Thank you, Clare Barron, Jordan Baum, Jeremy Bloom, Jonathan Chacón, Joshua Conkel, Patrick Costello, Kyle Dacuyan, Susan Dobinick, Jacob Eigen, Charles Ellenbogen, Ezra Furman, Charles Gariepy, Alice Gorelick, Paul Cameron Hardy, Nicholas Henderson, Eyad Houssami, Ricky Kelley, Binya Kóatz, Emma Lunbeck, Rae Mariah MacCarthy, Theo Motzenbacker, Eamon Murphy, Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, Chana Porter, Sakiko Sugawa, Ryan Szelong, and Korde Tuttle.
Among these are readers who responded to early drafts of the book, and friends who contributed personal ancestors to Coco and Green’s hall.
Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Laura, Dad, and Mom.
About the Author
Agnes Borinsky is a playwright and performer, originally from Baltimore and currently living in Los Angeles. Her plays have been produced and developed by a number of theaters and her writing has appeared in n+1, the Brooklyn Rail, Slate, and HowlRound. A 2014–2015 LMCC Workspace resident, Agnes was a member of Youngblood from 2010 to 2016. She has otherwise performed and developed work in basements, backyards, bars, circus tents, and theaters. Sasha Masha is her debut novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraphs
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Appendix
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 by Agnes Borinsky
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
A part of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
120 Broadway, New York, New York, 10271
fiercereads.com
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by email at [email protected].
First hardcover edition, 2020
eBook edition, November 2020
eISBN 9780374310813
* It wasn’t actually endless. But it was long. There are a bunch more at the end of this book.
Sasha Masha Page 12
