Being Emily (Anniversary Edition)

by Rachel Gold

  When we got home, I went directly to the garage. I didn’t want to stay in the house with Mom.

  “How was it?” Dad asked, closing the hood of the Bronco.

  I shrugged, pretty sure that he’d walk away if I started crying.

  “You learning anything?” he asked.

  So many new ways to hate myself, I didn’t say. What could I tell Dad that wouldn’t make him hate me too? I couldn’t live in this house with two parents hating me.

  I pictured the guys on the swim team. Pretended I was one of them. Thought about what they’d say.

  “Masculinity’s pretty cool,” I said. That sounded stupid, but it worked.

  Dad gave me a nod. “I’m going to the shop. You coming?”

  “Sure.”

  I got in the passenger side of the Bronco and cranked my legs out at a ridiculous angle, in that way guys do. I couldn’t quite remember what to do with my arms. I’d had my hands in fists for most of the Dr. Webber show, so I let one stay that way, rolled the window down and spread the other hand on top of the door frame.

  The shop was a classic car showroom and garage about a mile from our house. Dad hung out there a lot. He didn’t need help on the cars, but he liked showing off what he was working on and the guys would all stand around and talk about the car he’d brought and the others on the showroom floor.

  He pulled into one of the spots by the garage and right away his favorite mechanic friend came out of a garage bay to walk around the Bronco. I wandered around the showroom, looking at the colors of the cars, the shining chrome, the decades of history enclosed in these bodies.

  When I returned to the back lot, two other guys had joined Dad and the mechanic. None of them were wearing Henleys. All had on jeans and T-shirts except for the one sales guy in a short-sleeved button-down and slacks.

  I pretended to study the cars in the garage bays while I listened to them talk. Dad said a lot more here than he ever did at home. Of course at home no one would discuss cars for more than five minutes, except me in a good mood, which was rare these days. The guys thoroughly interrogated Dad’s work on his car. Then they talked about one of the guys who’d gotten engaged, teasing him about settling down, then debated football before circling back to the car again.

  I didn’t hate this. The way they teased and challenged and roughly complimented each other. The way the conversation got so intense about the work each of them loved. Dad was having fun. I could see in a few years how Mikey would fit in here. Maybe not the cars, he wasn’t that into machines, but the football for sure. His feelings about NFL teams were already about as strong as his feelings about Marvel vs. DC heroes.

  I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t want it.

  Dad waved me over so I squared my shoulders and went to talk about how I’d gotten the car’s radio to work again and whether the swim team would place in regionals next year. They were impressed about the radio. And then they wanted to me to explain eBay, which I did. Twice.

  The mechanic said, “You’re going to be one of those computer geniuses, aren’t you? Make a billion bucks. Buy all these.” He waved in the direction of the showroom.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Have a car for each day of the week.”

  He laughed. Dad clapped me on the shoulder and they all fell to talking about which cars were the right ones for Mondays vs. Sundays vs. Thursdays.

  If Chris had existed, he’d be having a good time right now.

  I tried to feel enjoyment. I had some relief that Dad was back to treating me like his kid. That he’d patted me and was grinning at me. I got a shred of happiness about the compliments. It felt far away, on the other side of some murky plexiglass with little slits in it, so what should been happiness was just being okay for a minute.

  On the drive home, taking the long way to feel the purr of the Bronco’s engine, Dad said, “They like you there. They’ve got work for you. Nothing fancy but it pays all right.”

  “Great,” I told him, but it came out flat.

  We went a few more blocks. The air was perfect, mid-summer hot but dry, so as it blew through the open windows, we got a little cool.

  “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “Not really.”

  More silence. Either he didn’t know what to ask or he didn’t want to know. And I wasn’t going to say anyway.

  “You spend too much time in your room thinking,” he said. “We’ll get you started at the shop this week, maybe pick up another car. You got to keep busy.”

  Compared to Mom taking me shopping and hammering on me with compliments, compared to Dr. Webber creeping me out with his weird theories, it sounded like the best plan in the world.

  “Sure.” I managed to get some enthusiasm into the word. “Can we get a busted-up computer too? I want to try to fix one.”

  “Yeah, Son. Sure will,” he said.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  I didn’t cry until I got up to my room. Then I sat on the foot of my bed, next to the crisp new wood of my repaired doorframe, and let tears run down my face and drop onto my shirt, making wet black spots on the steel gray fabric.

  If I had to survive being Chris and play the good son for one more year in order for Dad to love me, I’d find a way.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Claire

  Late June to late July was one long slide into darkness. Claire kept feeling like they were in Lord of the Rings, taking the ring to Mordor. Except there was no ring to rule them all (she’d probably have used it if there was) and she worried that Emily was the one about to go over that dark edge into a pit of lava.

  At least Emily wasn’t grounded and could come over and try to describe the creepiness of Dr. Webber and cry when she needed to. But after the second visit, she didn’t want to talk about Dr. Webber anymore.

  Emily curled in on herself and stopped talking in full sentences when one-word answers would do. Claire dragged her out to movies, but Emily would slump down in the seat like a bag of sand. Claire couldn’t tell if she was watching the movie or brooding on what the doctor had said that week.

  She also stopped changing clothes, even if Claire’s mom was away for the day. When Claire asked about that, Emily said, “It’s too hard right now. It feels like something I can’t have. And like I’m going to screw up being Chris and I can’t. Not right now.”

  “You’re miserable,” Claire pointed out.

  “But there’s an end point. Dad said he’d take me to an endocrinologist if I do this.”

  “You don’t have to do it all the time.”

  “It’s worse if I don’t. Like I get to breathe one day a week. For now I want to forget what it feels like to be happy, okay?”

  It wasn’t the least bit okay, but Claire didn’t have a better answer.

  Mid August, two weeks before the start of school, Emily invited her to come with the family to a church dinner. Emily’s mom had been dragging them to the local Evangelical church most Sundays. Claire worried about what this Evangelical congregation would do to Emily’s relationship with God and wished she could bring Emily to her church.

  But she relished this chance to get inside the enemy’s camp. Not that she wanted to think of other Christians as the enemy, though sometimes with what she’d seen online, she was sure they could be called Christian.

  “Mom wants to know if you’re coming with us to that church dinner tomorrow,” Emily said late that Saturday afternoon, sitting on the couch in the crisp, dim, air-conditioned cool of the living room, wearing the gray-and-gray shirt that made her look undead. Or maybe that was just her misery.

  “Does your mom know I’m…” Claire trailed off because she didn’t want to say something oblique and cutesy like: I’m in the know.

  Emily watched her carefully.

  Claire asked, “Does she know I’m dating Emily?”

  A smile flashed across Emily’s face, like a burst of sun in the eye of a storm. But then clouds again, darkness. “No,” she said. “As far as she knows you’re still ma
d because you thought it was a phase.”

  “Maybe that’s good.”

  “You’re not going to change her mind. Don’t even bother. Come with me and be like we used to, okay? This church is weird. I’d rather do this with you.”

  “I wish you’d come to my church. It’s so much better. Or, I’ll bet there are some in the Cities—we should ask Natalie—ones that are accepting and friendly.”

  “I don’t want to go to church,” Emily said.

  “I’ll come to the dinner, don’t worry. Can I go full-on goth?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Emily told her, smirking.

  Claire didn’t want to go without feeling like she had armor on. She chose a black dress but also sandals because of the heat. She did her eyes heavier than usual and wore her ornate cross.

  Between the church building itself and the busy street beside it was a wide strip of lawn with trees. A perfect place to hold a picnic that advertised the fellowship and community of this church, like a bunch of show-offs, Claire thought angrily. Over a hundred people had gathered, sitting on the lawn with picnic blankets and around a few folding tables that had been brought out of the church building.

  It felt like half of Liberty was there. That couldn’t be true, but Claire saw a few families from her neighborhood, a bunch of kids from high school, even two of their teachers. Could be the late summer heat or the rumors that one of the younger pastors cooked the best bratwurst in town.

  They got out of the car and Mikey ran to find the kids his age. Emily’s mom carried the dish she’d brought to the long tables of food, other women gravitating toward her as she walked. They were all in dresses, pastels and some bright colors, and Claire wished she’d worn pants.

  “Guess it’s up to us to stake out a spot,” Emily’s dad said. He popped the trunk of the car and tossed a rolled-up blanket to Emily, then lifted a box that rattled with plastic cutlery and closed the trunk with his elbow.

  “I can carry something,” Claire said, but Emily gave her the don’t-bother-because-guys-carry-things look.

  Emily set her shoulders in her most Chris-like stance and went off after her dad, Claire trailing both of them. They set up in one of the last shady spots under a tree, nearer the church building than the road.

  “We should socialize,” Emily told her when they had the blanket down. Her dad had already gone to check out the grille. “Mom will be less on me if I put on a good performance.”

  “Is the performance a comedy?” Claire asked. “Can I be your straight man?”

  That got a tiny snort from Emily. “Pretty sure I’m the straight man.”

  “Pretty sure you’re not,” Claire said in a whisper. She caught Emily’s hand and didn’t let go as they wandered into the mass of people.

  Emily was doing a great job as Chris. Everyone around them saw a tallish guy with short, curly hair and toned swimmer’s shoulders. Claire caught a few looks of envy from other girls. Months ago, she would’ve enjoyed a bit of envy. But now every time she got a glimpse into Emily’s eyes, she saw a person drowning.

  Through their joined hands, she felt the tension in Emily’s body, the subtle way she froze when people said things like, “Chris, look how tall you’re getting.” How she flinched, not more than a twitch of her fingers, when people dropped their voices to talk to her, switched to monotone. Like there were two languages and you could only be emotive to women.

  They made it through three groups of adults and then spotted a picnic table surrounded by teens.

  “Is that Ramon?” Emily asked, nodding toward a group of students from their school.

  “Can you see who he’s with? Rumor is, he met a girl at camp.”

  “Not from here, come on.”

  At the edge of the high schoolers they were intercepted by a young pastor on a mission. He was a stocky, barrel-shaped guy, not much taller than Claire, with black hair, light brown skin and a ready smile.

  “I’m Pastor Song but you can call me Alan. I lead our youth worship groups here.”

  “Chris and Claire,” Emily said.

  She took his offered hand and got a, “Nice grip.”

  Claire made a point to close her hand strongly around Pastor Alan’s when she got the chance, but he didn’t offer her the same compliment.

  “We have a vibrant youth group here,” the pastor said. “Come meet some of them. Kids, have you met Chris and Claire?”

  A blockish body rose from the bench, his back to them. Claire gripped Emily’s hand, knowing before he turned around that this was Jason from her history class, the one she’d hit with her textbook last spring. When he saw her, the grin dropped from his face and his eyes squinted.

  “You called me a blasphemous heathen,” he said.

  “I’m glad to see you’re doing something about that, going to church and all,” Claire replied.

  Pastor Alan raised his eyebrows at her. “I’m sure that was a misunderstanding.”

  “She thinks homosexuals and trans-whatever, sex change people are okay,” Jason said. “Don’t you?”

  “Of course I do and so does the Bible. Did you know that the first person baptized—and I mean the first ever—was gay or trans or both, depending on how you read the translation.”

  “How do you know that?” Jason asked. “You have some ‘Gays in the Bible’ guide? Because maybe you need one?”

  “I’m not—” Claire stopped. To say she wasn’t bisexual meant erasing Emily and herself, but to say she was meant endangering Chris’s reputation, which Emily needed to hide behind.

  “Let’s all take a deep breath and moment to reflect,” Pastor Alan said, to no effect.

  “Your girlfriend’s a queer, man,” Jason told Emily.

  “Don’t try to get him to fight my fights,” Claire growled. She dropped Emily’s hand and took a step toward Jason but Emily put a hand on her shoulder.

  Stupid gender roles. If Claire got into a fight, as Chris, Emily was supposed to be the one protecting her. She remembered Emily telling her, after she’d blackened Jason’s eye with her textbook, that she’d told Jason he could beat up Chris if he had to take his anger out on someone.

  “I’m not worried about my girlfriend,” Emily said in her deepest, slowest, most threatening guy voice.

  “Stop it! You,” Claire turned to Emily, “I can speak for myself and you know it.” She whirled back to Jason. “And you, blasphemous heathen, God’s not a bigot, only you are.”

  “Now everyone, let’s remember to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts,” Pastor Alan said. “Claire, you have a great passion. I’d love to talk with you more. Can we go into the sanctuary?”

  “Yes. Chris, I’ll meet you back at the blanket.”

  “You don’t want me to come with you?”

  “It’s going to be a bunch of religion stuff. You’ll get bored.”

  Not to mention that this was the best way to protect Chris, and therefore Emily, from Jason.

  Claire followed Pastor Alan into the building. The front entryway opened into a large sanctuary, plain except for Bible quotes in artsy stencil on the walls. At the front of the sanctuary was the pulpit and a semicircle of chairs facing the empty chairs of the audience. On the left stood a large wooden cross. Claire watched it as they went up to the front of the seats, trying to draw strength from it.

  Pastor Alan sat in a front chair and patted the seat next to him. Claire wanted to believe he could be an ally.

  But then he said, “You seem to have some confusion about how God made people. He made a man and a woman.”

  “Uh actually the Bible says ‘male and female He created them.’ It doesn’t specify in that verse that it was only one man and one woman. And you should know I don’t hold to a literalist interpretation. I think that’s woefully reductionistic.”

  He stared at her for what felt like a whole minute and then grinned. “You have a very keen mind. But you must know that God’s plan for humanity is for men and women to have families together. Reme
mber, Genesis 2:24 tells us ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’”

  “And Galatians 3:28 says, ‘There is no longer male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus,’” Claire replied. “Don’t you believe Christ came to update the laws? At least for Christians?”

  “He could have been speaking about equality, not doing away with men’s and women’s distinct roles. We know that this is a broken world and there are many ways for people to fall away from God’s love,” Pastor Alan said. “Homosexuality is one of those ways.”

  Claire wanted to yell at him that he was describing control, not love. But not here, in front of the cross and the sense of peace it brought. She asked her next question more to the cross itself than to Pastor Alan. “What do you do when the world’s so full of hate and ignorance?”

  “That’s why we need God more than ever. And we need to show others how to be his faithful followers in the world and enact the plan He created for us…” he went on, but she wasn’t listening.

  A kid entered through the door to the left of the sanctuary from the back of the building, maybe fourteen, tallish and scrawny, face dotted with acne, hair short and lank. Hard to tell if the kid was a boy or a girl. Probably girl, Claire thought, because she was carrying a basket with a cloth over it and wearing an apron, some flour across her sweatshirt. Then she smirked at her own assumptions.

  The flour-spattered person came over to Claire and the Pastor.

  “Hey, sorry, these are fresh, thought you’d want one.” Slender fingers pulled back the cloth to show perfect rows of golden rolls.

  Claire took one and cupped it in her palms. “Thank you.”

  Even though it was a hot day and warm inside the building, the heat and the weight of the fresh baked roll seeped into her hands, making them feel more alive.

  The Pastor’s words flowed around her. He’d made it from the brokenness of homosexuality to saying something about “transgenderism.” Probably because Claire had said the first person baptized was gay or trans or both, so he figured he’d better cover all the bases.