Educating Simon

by Robin Reardon

  Persie sat on the floor, objects around her that had obviously been yanked from their proper places and thrown indiscriminately. She saw me and froze. I knew that not asking her permission to come in would not be good, but I couldn’t risk rejection. Knowing also that to a cat, a long look usually means confrontation, I glanced only briefly at her before placing the first sheet of paper on the floor. I set it far enough away from her that she couldn’t reach it easily and shred it, but she could see it and read the word STILL. Then I watched her face. She looked at the paper, her gaze moving from the art to the letters and back several times, and then her eyes flicked to mine and away.

  Beside STILL I placed BREATHE. She stared at this one a long time. Finally, in her usual unmodulated tone, she said, “It’s not right.” It was not criticism; it was fact. She got up, went to her own laptop, and pretty soon I heard, “Here it is. Here it is.” She brought the computer towards me and held it for me to see.

  She’d found it, the perfect BREATHE Still.

  “Yes,” I said. “Will you do that?”

  “I am breathing. I’m always breathing.”

  I closed my eyes, took a long, deep breath, and let it out slowly. Lazily I opened my eyes on her and saw her close her eyes before following my example. Before opening her eyes again she took four of these long, deep breaths. Then she set the laptop back where it had been.

  To Anna she said, “I don’t want you anymore. Go away.” To me she said, “I’m going to bed now.” And she turned away, presumably to do just that.

  I looked at Anna, wondering how she’d take this, but she was turned towards the door, where Mum now stood just outside the room. Her voice tense, anger barely controlled, Anna said, “This was not the way to handle things.”

  Mum, her voice nearly breaking, said, “I’m sorry. I’ve said that several times already.”

  Anna mumbled, “Excuse me,” and headed towards the top-floor stairs.

  Holding her composure somehow, Mum turned towards the rooms she shared with Brian, went in, and very quietly shut the door.

  Brian asked, “What do you think? Should we put things back where they were before she threw them?”

  “Do you know precisely where they all go?”

  He shook his head, and together we left Persie’s rooms. Shutting the door behind us, he said, “I suppose Anna will need to do that while Persie’s not in her rooms at some point tomorrow.”

  “Persie might put them back herself. She won’t like that they’re out of place.”

  Before I got as far as the top-floor staircase, still intent on doing at least some homework tonight, Brian asked, “How did you know, Simon? How did you know to do that?”

  “I didn’t know. I felt it.” If this came as a surprise to him, it was an even bigger one for me. I don’t just “feel” anything. My brain is always engaged. Yet somehow I had felt what I needed to do for Persie. The only thing I can figure is that cats get under my defences. Or maybe I’m really a cat, myself, as Ned had suggested. It would account for a lot.

  Boston, Friday, 21 September

  I didn’t see Michael all week. Didn’t expect to. Except, well . . . I did see him in my mind’s eye every night trying to fall asleep. Graeme helped some, but even after his attentions, Michael would show up just as I was about to drift off. I’d see him concentrating on an art object at the museum, or changing his shirt, or not looking at me as I left the Chinese restaurant. The images, and the feelings, bounced around from longing to lust to loneliness.

  I put Michael aside as best I could that week, focusing hard on my schoolwork and trying not to get involved as a steady stream of applicants for Anna’s job ebbed and flowed. I even avoided Ned, because talking with him tended to make me vulnerable to all things that are important, and I didn’t have time for anything other than the single-minded pursuit of excellent marks and making good impressions on my teachers. It was difficult, I found, to talk with Dr. Metcalf about Toby and not bring his transgender state into the mix. But I had to.

  One fun thing that happened is that I went for a haircut. Ordinarily, this is just a basic thing—a nice cut from a good stylist. I had asked Ned for a recommendation, and I ended up going to a salon on Newbury Street. I had a man named Daniel, obviously gay, wacky sense of humour. He suggested we let the front area grow a little so it could be formed into a section that wouldn’t quite curl over my forehead—my hair is straight as a board—but that could, with the aid of a tiny bit of product, be shaped into a fringe to cover just a small portion of one side of my forehead. He showed me what he meant with a lock of a hairpiece. At first it didn’t look like me. But then another customer walked by on his way to a chair, a gorgeous man with a head of golden curls not unlike Graeme’s. He stopped in his tracks, staring at me in the mirror. I looked at his reflection, and the look in his eyes convinced me.

  “Let’s do that,” I said to Daniel.

  So now I have a new style, or at least a new style in the making.

  When I arrived at the Lloyds’ flat yesterday, it was Colleen who let me in. She looked very sober, and my first thought was that something had happened to La La. But then I saw the cat in a sunny spot on the rug, legs curled under her. Even she looked tense, though.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked Colleen.

  “I think Toby should tell you, if he wants to. He’s in his room.”

  If he wants to? Well, there was no point standing here interrogating Colleen, so I followed the sounds of Gloria Gaynor that emanated from behind Toby’s door. “I will survive!” she was wailing to the world, to the man who had hurt her.

  I knocked but heard no answer. Louder knocking; still no response. I opened the door, and was nearly assaulted by the music. Toby was facedown on his bed, and over Gloria I could just hear his sobs. I closed the door and waited for several seconds to see if he knew I was there, taking in the conspicuous absence of anything pink or girlie. The little rug, the throw, even the yellow-haired troll was missing. I located the volume control on the stereo set and turned it down. Toby sat up suddenly, eyes wild with an odd combination of fear and fury.

  He made an attempt to speak which I translated as, “It’s you.”

  “What’s happened?” I was afraid I already knew.

  This question, or perhaps the difficulty of answering it, brought on a new fit of weeping. I sat on the side of the bed and waited until Toby could sit quietly beside me, a box of tissues at his elbow. “He found out.”

  “He?”

  “My father.”

  Ah. It was as I had feared. “How?”

  Between hiccoughs Toby explained that yesterday he’d been dressed as Kay, singing along to something by Taylor Swift, when his father had arrived home unexpectedly. He had opened the door to tell Toby to turn the volume down and had caught full sight of his “daughter.” When Toby had gotten home from school today, his room had been purged of femininity.

  Something like this had been bound to happen, one of life’s inevitabilities. Still, I couldn’t help thinking that cracking the metaphorical door to show me who she really was had made Kay more vulnerable and had exposed her sooner than would have happened otherwise.

  “How do things stand now?”

  His voice practically squeaking, Toby gestured to take in the room with a sweep of his arm. “Look at it! It’s decimated! I’m destroyed ! Even my music. He’s killed all the girls!”

  Gloria began her song for maybe the third time since I’d arrived ; evidently Toby had it on repeat. “Where’d you get Gloria, then?”

  He blew his nose. “It’s an old iPod I’d thrown into a drawer.”

  “What’s the etymology of draconian?”

  “Simon, I don’t care! My life is ruined. Can’t you see that?”

  “I was merely trying to sympathise in a way that might calm you down. Bad idea; sorry.” We sat there for a few minutes whilst Toby played with damp tissues, his breath catching from time to time. Then I asked, “How do you know you’re Kay?
”

  “What?”

  “Without the pink, or the skirts, or the music even. Are you still Kay, or was she all trappings and no substance?”

  He was on his feet, facing me, glaring at me. “How dare you? I’m Kay! I’m Kay Lloyd!”

  “So your father didn’t take that away from you.”

  “Of course not!” He breathed in and out a few times through his nose, somewhat juicily.

  “And do you still want to get on that stage and present yourself as you really are?”

  “How can you even ask that?!”

  “Then I would advise that you keep your head down, let him think he’s won. Otherwise you could lose his support for this competition.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “No. It isn’t. Nor was it fair when my mother took me away from everything and everyone I’d known, made me give up my cat, and forced me to move to a place I have no intention of staying. My sole focus right now is on what will get me back home.”

  “And getting there will take you out of your mother’s control. You’ll be on your own. I won’t.”

  “True, not right away.” This was a crucial difference; he was correct. “So are you having second thoughts?”

  “No. I just have to find a way to make him understand.”

  “Probably not the best way to keep your head down.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Did he tell your mother?”

  He sat on the bed again. “No. And he made me promise not to.”

  “Why?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “How did he get rid of all this stuff without her knowing?”

  “He made Colleen do it today.”

  “So, does Colleen know?”

  “Well, she had to deal with the girls’ clothing, so probably.”

  “Aren’t you afraid he’ll come home early again and find the iPod?”

  Toby jumped up and switched off the music. “I just had to hear that.”

  “Does he come home early very often?”

  “No. Well, sometimes.”

  “Because he did one day when I was here, and I haven’t been here very many times.”

  “Well . . . he never used to.”

  Thinking back to the day I’d met him, I remembered how hastily he’d drawn away from Colleen. It was a distinct possibility that he’d started coming home early when he began to—well, spend time with her. A slow burn of anger started inside me at the injustice of an adulterous man ripping his child’s identity away in the name of—of what? “When he saw you, what did he say?”

  Toby’s voice was sulky. “He called it nonsense. He said it was twisted. ‘This is the last straw,’ he said. ‘No more of this girl stuff.’ He called it a phase and said it was time I got over it.” Toby’s voice rose. “It’s not a phase! It’s not!”

  “I believe you. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I believe you.” Suddenly, it occurred to me to ask, “You know you’re not alone, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are lots of people who are not the same sex inside as they are on the outside. Lots of boys who are really girls, and vice versa.”

  “Are you sure? Where are they?”

  My heart twisted. This poor kid, thinking he was unique in this trap, and yet being brave enough to go as far as he had before he’d hit this brick wall . . . “Look up the term transgender. I’ll bet transgender kids communicate over the Internet, and I’ll also bet quite a few of them are in Boston. Do you want to do that now?” Some things, I felt, were more important than spelling practice.

  He practically flew to his computer and was opening link after link faster than I could follow him. Watching over his shoulder, I was astounded at the number of hits. There was the Boston Area Transgender Support group, whose Web site said they supported people teenage and older. There was the Boston Alliance of GLBT Youth. There was TransAction, sponsored by Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services. There was Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates, a group of lawyers dedicated to protecting the rights of transgender people. The list went on.

  And suddenly the screen stopped changing. Toby stood and threw his arms around me. He sobbed and sobbed, and held me tighter and tighter. How long, I wondered, had he been in pain like this, not understanding how this could have happened to him, how this could be true in a world where—for all he knew—no one else was like him, terrified of being himself, terrified of what would happen to him if he allowed—if she allowed herself to be open, to relax for even one second? And now—now to see that this is a real thing, a phenomenon that’s as true and as real for other people as it is for her?

  I have a damned good imagination. And I could barely imagine what this must be like. When I realised I was gay, it’s true that I had felt alone at first, and I had believed I needed to hide the truth. But I was sure in the knowledge that there were lots of others like me, that someday I would be able to come out, and that when I did there would be a community of people like me, and other people who accepted me even if they weren’t gay. Mind you, I know gay people have to put up with a lot of shit, but so far I’ve encountered precious little of it. And it was never like this, like it is for Kay, for me. Never.

  I led Kay over to the bed and reached for the box of tissues. When she was able to speak, she said, “Thank you. I didn’t know. I thought—” and she went into a fresh bout of weeping. “I thought it was just me. I thought I was just weird.”

  I laughed. “You might be weird, Kay Lloyd, but if so, it’s not because of this.”

  Taking a ragged breath, she said, “Now I just need to figure out how to get to them.”

  “Them?”

  “My people.” She got off the bed and stood in front of me again. “I have to meet them. I have to, do you understand?” Her voice was intense, strained, desperate.

  “I do. So figure out which organisations are working with people your age, and contact them.”

  She nodded, but despite the conviction of a moment ago, she looked anxious. “What if he finds out about this, too?”

  I didn’t suppose it would help much that her father hadn’t forbidden her to contact anyone about it. Then I remembered that she had said her mother suspected something. “Listen, what do you think your mother would do if she found out?”

  “I told you. I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

  “Hypothetically. What do you think she would say?”

  “I—I don’t know. But it might make them fight.”

  “So you think she’d be more accepting than your father?”

  “I think so. But I don’t want them to fight any more than they already are.”

  More than they already are . . . I shook myself mentally. This is not my problem! “Well, maybe it’s enough for now that you know there are others like you out there.”

  “But I told you, I have to meet them!”

  “Life’s full of compromises, Toby. Kay. Full of choices that conflict. Either you keep your head down between now and the semifinals, or you risk not getting there at all. Of course, you know, if you don’t make it past the March bee—”

  “That’s not an option!”

  “Fine. I was just going to say you’d have less left to lose in that case. But, as I said, if you want to be yourself on that stage, you need to get there, first. So, do you feel up to some practice? I have some really tough words for you today.”

  We worked for a little while, though Kay wasn’t up to her best performance. No biscuit break today. At one point there was a thump against the door, and Kay said, “That’s La La. Can you let her in?”

  I opened the door, and La La trotted across the room and scooted under the bed. Kay and I went back to practising, and soon La La came out and rubbed against my leg. I picked her up, and she settled onto my lap like she was born for it. I could go on reading words to Kay like this, but with La La on my lap, that dictionary was unmanageable. I was about to put La La down, but Kay stopped me.
<
br />   “It’s okay. I’ll spell the words and then look them up myself to make sure I have the etymology right. That’s almost as good. You hold her. I know you miss Tinker Bell.” Then she added, “I just noticed your hair’s different. I like it.”

  This week Dr. Metcalf asked me about my college admissions progress. He was rather irritated to learn I hadn’t seriously considered any place other than Oxford.

  “Simon, since you don’t seem to have anywhere in particular in mind, I’m going to suggest a few schools, and I want you to apply to them. No one—and I mean, no one with any sense—applies only to one school.” He started digging through some files as he asked, “Are you enjoying working with Toby?”

  “Reasonably,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t ask me to explain that; with yesterday’s development still on my mind, I wasn’t sure what I might reveal.

  “What are his chances, do you think?”

  “Not knowing very much about the competition, I couldn’t say.”

  “I’m going to send you a link to videos of the competition this past May, the semifinals and finals. I think you’re on the right track with the training approach, but I want to make sure you’re working hard enough to help him. Watch your e-mail.”

  And he did send it, and I watched it, and he was right. I did have to work harder. And this was fine, because I was trying to keep my mind from focusing on Michael.

  Plus now I guess I’ll have to complete some more applications. Dr. Metcalf handed me information about several, and I think I’ll do just a few. Maybe Princeton, and Yale, and Stanford. I’m deliberately avoiding Harvard, of course. I think Princeton would be my first choice of these. They have an early-admission process, which I really want to do so I know something as soon as possible. This means I can’t apply early admission to the other two; so be it.