by Gold, Rachel
“Not the pointed toe,” she said about one pair, and I leaned in to whisper to her, “Too witchy?” She cracked up and repeated it to Natalie and her mom.
The sales guy caught it and grinned. “Sorry about your voice,” he said as he dropped off another load of boxes.
I smiled and shrugged.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
I held up my thumb and forefinger with a small gap between them to signify “a little.”
He laughed. “Girls, nothing keeps you from shopping, does it?”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop grinning.
I felt like my heart had expanded to fill the whole store. It might sound silly, but I’d been crushed inside myself for so long that now that the binding was off, I wasn’t sure if I wouldn’t just keep on expanding until I encompassed everything.
“Earth to Emily,” Claire said. “Bring the Moon landing home.”
“Sorry,” I mouthed.
She patted my shoulder, “Don’t worry about it, you look like a kid at Christmas. I think you should get the brown pair. They’ll go with the pants you love.”
I did, along with a pair of black flats that Natalie recommended: my first girl shoes. I wore the brown pair out of the store, putting my guy boots in the bag.
We strolled down the mall, looking in windows and talking about who needed what. Natalie was interested in a new scarf, but she didn’t really need one, and her mother was giving her the “you’re over your limit” look. Claire suggested we hunt for a sweater sale. The end of winter was always a good time to pick up half-price finds.
After we looked in a few stores, Natalie’s mom proposed lunch and we all filed into P.F. Chang’s for tea and shared appetizers.
“Where are you girls from?” the waiter asked. He was a thick guy, probably a wrestler for his school, I thought.
“We’re from down the street,” Natalie said. “And these are our country mouse cousins from Liberty in to the see the big city.”
“Do you like it?” he asked Claire and me.
I nodded.
“She has laryngitis,” Claire said. “The cold, you know. We love it. We want to come to school here.”
“Let me bring you some hot tea,” he said to me. I smiled and nodded. He added, “Put a little honey in it, that’ll help.”
He went off for the tea and Claire poked me in the ribs. “I think he’s flirting.”
“Oh right,” I whispered.
But he behaved in a totally different way than if he thought I was a boy. He’d probably have left me to think of the tea myself, or expect that the women around me would take care of me. Strange.
After lunch we figured we’d see a movie, a “chick flick.” There was a new romantic comedy that Natalie and her mom both wanted to see, and they agreed that Natalie’s dad would never care about having missed it, so we ended up with popcorn and Junior Mints in the dark theater.
“Hey,” Claire said. “Scrunch down, I want to try something.”
I scooted down in my seat, propping my feet against the seat in front of me and bending my knees. She sat up tall in her seat and put her arm over my shoulders. I rested my head back on her arm.
“This is cool,” I whispered.
“I’m just checking it out,” she said.
“You’re great.”
She shrugged. “I’m just me.”
After the movie, we wandered, blinking, into the afternoon sunlight of the lobby. “Okay girls,” Natalie’s mom said, “time to go and put our secret agent back into deep cover so I can get you back to your parents before my credibility slips.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CLAIRE
She couldn’t help but steal a look at Chris from time to time on the drive back to Liberty. The transformation to Emily had been surprisingly effective. She was big for a girl, but as they walked through the mall and Claire looked around at other women, she realized that there was a heck of a lot of variety among women. She saw a few who were at least six feet tall, one who was well over two hundred pounds, another with eyebrows like caterpillars, women with huge butts, women with flat chests, women with chests bigger than Claire’s butt, women who looked like models, women who looked like adolescent boys on purpose. There were women with big hands and feet, women with tiny hands, one woman in a wheelchair whose legs didn’t work at all. Claire was glad that she got to date someone with all the right working limbs, and better yet, who actually looked good as either a boy or a girl. How many kids at her school could say that about their date?
She put her forehead against the cold window and let herself doze, feeling exhausted. In her dreams her own body shifted and changed, getting bigger and more spacious. When she woke with the car pulling into her own driveway, she felt bigger than usual, as if she extended outside her own skin.
She kissed Chris, who was still grinning, and scooped her bag out of the trunk. There was a lot more mystery in the world than she’d thought.
Her own bedroom looked different to her, as if she’d walked into a stranger’s house. She spent a few minutes looking around. She didn’t feel as solid as usual and instead of being alarmed, she thought that she could choose which pieces of this life she wanted back and which she wanted to let go. How many people got that opportunity?
She got out the T-shirt and sleeping shorts she wore to bed, but then paused in front of the full mirror by her closed door. She pulled off her shirt, bra, jeans and underpants and stood naked in front of the mirror. This was her. Maybe she wanted slightly larger breasts and worried that she’d put on weight on her butt when she was older, like her mom was starting to do, but there was no question in her mind that this body was right for her. She touched her arms, her belly and then her thighs.
What was the opposite of gender dysphoric? Gender euphoric?
Claire grinned at herself in the mirror. Yes, she was gender euphoric. She’d have to remember to tell Emily.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I dropped Claire off at her house and drove home. Mom was helping Mikey with homework in the dining room, or rather standing over him and making sure he was actually doing it, and Dad was watching TV, so I sat down with him.
“How was the city?” he asked.
“Great,” I said.
“Who’s this other girl?” he asked.
“Just someone I met online who turned out to be cool. She’s in my same grade.” I added that last bit so he wouldn’t think she was some kind of Internet pervert.
“You like her?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, then thought through the implications of that question. “Oh, you mean do I like her?”
He looked at me as if I’d lost a few brain cells.
“Dad, if I was cheating on Claire, I wouldn’t take her along, would I? Natalie’s just cool. She’s from Chicago.”
He made some grumbles of agreement and settled back into the couch. “How’s that other problem?”
I had to roll back the movie in my head to recall what he was talking about. Right, my alleged impotence. “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m doing good.”
“Good,” he said.
That was it with the questions. My dad was funny that way. He’d have these spurts of concern and the rest of the time it was like the family was made up of supporting characters in the drama of his job and the cars.
I watched TV with him for a while and then went upstairs to lie in bed and relive the day over and over again. For so long I’d thought I was trapped in this life and now I could see the way out and I knew I could take it. Now it was just a matter of moving through the obstacles. My next milestone was set for my appointment with Dr. Mendel on Thursday.
***
“You said I should come up with a plan,” I told her. “I want a plan.”
“Good,” she said. “I think you probably already have one, you just haven’t thought it through or formalized it.”
She was right, and I told her how I planned to work all summer and as much as I c
ould for the next few years, and to go to community college until I could get the money together for the physical transformations that I wanted.
“What about hormones?” she asked. “Are you still taking the ones you got illicitly?”
“Yes.”
“We need to get you to an endocrinologist and do this right. We need a plan for talking to your parents.”
I sighed. “It’s going to suck,” I said.
“Do you want to do it here?” she asked.
“You’re brave.”
She smiled. “It’s my job.”
“Yes,” I said with tremendous relief. “I do want to tell them here.” It was so good not to be in this all by myself anymore.
“Okay, let’s talk about when you feel you’ll be ready.”
I liked that she left it up to me to decide. It was late March now with spring break coming up next week and the potential for a few more trips to see Natalie. I didn’t want to risk losing that. Then I was in the crunch to the end of the school year.
“Can we do it in June?” I asked.
“Sounds like a good time to me. What are you going to do at home between now and then?”
“Be a good boy,” I offered, raising my eyebrows at her.
She laughed.
I was a good boy at home, actually, and it seemed so much easier now that I could get out of the boy role with Claire and Natalie and Dr. Mendel. Playing the good boy now felt like a really long dress rehearsal for a play I would never star in. Mom commented about how great it was that my visits with Dr. Mendel were helping and I agreed happily.
I made an offer to Dad to help him sell some of his used car parts on eBay if I got a cut, and I even managed to play with Mikey a couple times. He was always making up these games in which superheroes from his favorite cartoons had to fight each other, and he never minded that I took the women heroes for my characters.
***
My birthday isn’t my favorite time of year. It’s near the end of April, so the world outside is slushy. At least that smell of hope is in the air, gently warm and green, and every year I let myself hope it’s going to be different than the year I got a tool box, or the model car, or the neckties, the suit jackets, and so on. I used to hope I’d get gifts I wanted, but now I just hope I won’t get anything too awful. I asked for a couple of computer games and for a copy of some graphic design software to practice with in case I ever want my own website.
Mom asked if I wanted a party, but I said not really, so she suggested we all go out to dinner, the family and Claire and one of Mikey’s friends. That didn’t sound like a particularly fun evening to me, so I added, “Can I invite Natalie and her mom?”
They were more than happy to come out for my birthday, but by the time the evening rolled around, I was regretting my invitation. We had only one nice restaurant in town and I picked that because I didn’t want to have to drive too far with my family, and I thought it would be fun for Natalie to see downtown Liberty in all its glory. But when we pulled up in front of DaVinci’s, I wanted to turn around and head home. The restaurant looked very small and kitschy compared to those in the big malls in the cities. I worried that my family would be too strange and at the same time I worried they’d realize Natalie had been born a boy. This was shaping up to be the worst birthday ever.
Claire grabbed my elbow and dragged me into the red and gold waiting area where Natalie and her mother sat on a low, red velvet bench. Claire made the introductions because my mouth was too dry for me to talk effectively, and then we were all seated at a long, rectangular table. Mom quizzed Natalie’s mom about what kind of law she practiced, which left Dad to interrogate Natalie.
“So, you’re in the Cities?” was his first attempt.
“We moved from Chicago a couple of years ago. I’m a junior at Maple Grove,” she said, deftly tearing off a piece of garlic bread with her manicured nails. I envied Natalie’s hands. Her fingers tapered toward the tips, so even though she had wide hands, she still looked great with the long, thick manicured nails she wore. My hands were square the whole way, from the base of my palms to my blockish fingers. In long nails I would look like a drag queen.
“And how did you meet?” Dad continued, though I’d already told him.
“We met online,” Natalie said. She knew he already knew, because Claire and I had prepped her thoroughly on what we’d told my parents. “Gaming. We’ve been playing together for, what, four months? And I just thought that Em—uh, Chris was really cool.” She kept going, but Dad had heard it. And I’d heard it so now all the blood in my body was rushing to my head, making it feel like it would burst open. That wouldn’t have been a bad way to go just then.
“What were you going to call Chris?” Dad asked.
“Amalia,” Claire said. “It’s one of Chris’s characters. Sometimes we get so caught up in the game, we call each other by those names even when we’re hanging out together. My character name is Vaorlea.”
“The Mighty,” I added reflexively, though my voice came out as a squeak.
“You play a girl?” Dad asked me.
I nodded.
“Most mages are girls,” Claire lied. “Natalie plays a guy because she’s a barbarian. I mean, warrior.”
That jab wasn’t lost on Natalie, who flinched when Claire said it, but she went with the flow. “Yeah,” she said with a pointed look at Claire. “It’s kind of weird sometimes, having to be a guy. But it’s also kind of cool to see how differently people respond to you. It’s an expanding experience.”
“But you’re a girl,” Dad said to Claire, meaning in the world of the game, though he didn’t say that.
“The whole time,” she said, trying not to smirk. “But my character is a paladin so she also uses magic. I’m not a barbarian like Natalie.” She paused and shot another glare at Natalie.
Natalie coughed quietly into her napkin, and I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or trying not to laugh. Probably both.
Claire continued, “You get bonuses and stuff. Chris’s character is very powerful. He can wipe out a whole tribe of orcs with his flamestrike. Well, it’s not just that, he’s also got these dots…that’s damage over time spells. One of them makes the monster explode…”
She trailed off as Dad’s eyes glazed over. Claire often said that the quickest way to get parents off a topic was to start going on about gaming.
Mom changed the topic by asking Natalie’s mom about their house, and Natalie glared at Claire, “A barbarian, huh?”
“You’re just lucky his magic user is named Amalia,” she shot back in a deadly whisper. They were sitting next to each other, both facing me, while Dad was on my left, so I barely heard what they said to each other.
Natalie looked at me wide-eyed. “I’m so sorry,” she mouthed.
I shook my head because I didn’t trust my voice entirely yet. The inside of my skin felt like Jell-O still quivering. I tried to eat some spaghetti, but my throat was so tight it hurt to swallow. I wanted my mom and dad to know and understand so badly, but how could I survive telling them if I got this nervous about one slip?
The rest of dinner passed uneventfully, except for Mikey and his friend, John, trying to throw meatballs at each other. We dropped off Claire, and Mom gushed the rest of the way home about how smart Natalie’s mom was. But when we got home, Mom took me aside in the kitchen.
“They’re very nice,” she said. “But I’m not sure you should go into the Cities to see Natalie alone.”
“Why not?”
“I think Claire’s jealous of her,” Mom said. She called to my dad, who was still taking his boots off in the entryway, “Jerry, don’t you think Claire’s a little jealous of Natalie?”
“Yep,” he shouted back. A minute later he stood in the kitchen entrance. “There was something going on between those two. That Natalie’s an attractive girl.”
Mom nodded. “And she has a great way with her makeup. Most girls her age either don’t wear any or they put on way too m
uch or, well, all that dark eyeliner isn’t doing anything for Claire’s complexion. Natalie is tasteful. But if you like Claire better, you need to let her know that. She’s probably feeling threatened.”
“And maybe you should try being a barbarian for a while,” Dad added on his way to the garage.
Mom looked at me quizzically because she’d missed that part of the conversation, but I just shook my head.
“You and Claire have been dating for awhile,” she said. “Is it serious?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I remember when I was dating your father in high school,” she said with a smile that made her face look young and wistful. “Some of the other girls thought I shouldn’t just stick with one guy. Do you get that?”
“Some. Other guys on the swim team date around more, but I don’t really want to.”
She put her hand gently on my upper arm. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, honey. I just want you to have someone that you love. Someday I’ll get to come visit you in a nice house with your children and your wife, and whoever that is, I hope she makes you very happy.”
I wondered if she had too much wine at dinner. I think she was trying to let me know that it was okay to dump Claire for Natalie, or not, whichever I wanted. As long as I got married and had kids. At least that’s how it sounded to me because all I could see was this picture in her mind of me growing up like her, or rather like Dad.
“Sure,” I said.
“You’re going to make some woman very happy some day,” she added.
I managed a smile. “I hope so.”
I went upstairs to send Natalie an email about my parents’ compliments to her. I also wondered about what they’d said about Claire. I wasn’t attracted to Natalie at all, but I don’t think I’d ever said that out loud. Maybe I should do something nice for Claire. She took such good care of me, and she’d saved my butt at dinner.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
