Being Emily

by Gold, Rachel

  CLAIRE

  “Let me take you out to dinner tonight,” Chris said over the phone. Claire looked at the stack of books next to her computer. She wasn’t going to get through all of them tonight anyway and it was a Saturday. Plus she had Monday off for Memorial Day, so she had two more full days to finish that paper for AP English.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “How about the new seafood place?”

  “It’s going to be packed.”

  “We’ll go early and then see a movie or something.”

  Claire smiled into the phone. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “You are my girlfriend,” he said but there was a strained sound in his voice.

  They set a time for him to pick her up and Claire hung up wondering if he was upset that they hadn’t seen as much of each other the last three weeks. Claire knew her house was a refuge for Emily and that not getting to come over as often she once did probably sucked for her…him…her?

  She rolled her neck and stood up from the desk. How Chris kept her identity straight all those years was amazing. Now that she’d started to see the outline of Emily inside of Chris, Claire found names and pronouns colliding in her head all the time. She wanted to just think “Emily” and “she” all the time to get herself used to it and to honor the person Emily was—but they spent so much time together at school and in places where people could overhear them, that she had to keep saying “Chris” and “he.” But the more she said that, the more her brain reverted back to think of Emily as Chris.

  So try harder, she told herself. Emily deserved to be acknowledged as a full person in her own right and Claire resolved again to manage that without making a stupid slipup like Natalie had at the birthday dinner. Natalie of all people, Claire thought, should have known better. But, maybe getting to transition young had made her careless now.

  Emily and Natalie had been hanging out more while Claire was busy with the yearbook committee and all her classes. Of course Emily had plenty of schoolwork too, but she hadn’t taken as many AP courses as Claire because she wasn’t aiming for a top college. She would eventually end up spending more money on surgeries than most kids took out in student loans. While Claire toiled away at home, she covered for Emily’s trips into the Cities to hang out with Natalie and go to the support group. She and Emily still got together at least once a week and they exchanged notes in school every day. Claire really wished Emily would shell out for some kind of mobile device so that she could just text her.

  Claire hopped in the shower and afterward stood for a while in front of the bathroom mirror looking at her own face. In the last two months, she’d learned more about makeup than she ever imagined she would—including the fact that a little bit of indigo eye shadow really brought out the gold tints in her hazel eyes. When she watched women like her mother who put on makeup religiously to be more attractive to men, it scared her. She never wanted to feel like she needed a man so much that she’d add all that mirror time to her day.

  But when she watched Emily and Natalie, a whole new view opened up to her. For them being beautiful wasn’t a burden, it was a self-expression they were willing to fight for. Their feminine beauty was the battle standard for claiming their own identity. She had never realized that femininity could be a radical act because she’d never seen a feminine woman as strong in her identity as Emily or Natalie, or even Natalie’s mother.

  Now that she knew what powerful beauty looked like, she noticed it in other women all over the place. Her English teacher also had it and wore her makeup like warpaint that made her dark skin and eyes gently grab and hold the attention of anyone looking at her.

  Claire drew thin black lines around her eyes and then brushed on the shimmering tan eye shadow under her brows and the indigo color on her eyelids the way the girls had taught her. Foundation and blush were too much still, but she chose a pink lip gloss from the basket full of the cosmetics her mom kept bringing home and applied that. She picked small silver hoop earrings and then crossed the hall to riffle through her closet until she found a blue-gray shirt with a cute collar to wear with her black skirt.

  “Oh my God,” her mom said from the kitchen when she saw Claire. She stopped scrubbing the countertop and straightened up. “What have you done with my daughter?”

  “Chris is taking me out to dinner,” she said. “Are you going out later? Can we watch a movie here afterward?”

  “I’ll probably be home at ten, if that’s not too early for you,” her mom said with the slightly patronizing lilt that reminded Claire she didn’t have a choice. She added, “I think Chris is a good influence on you.”

  “I know he is,” Claire said with a grin.

  When he arrived to pick her up, Chris’s response was almost as surprised as her mom’s. He blinked a few times and then closed his eyes tight for a second and opened them.

  “Are you wearing blue? And eye shadow?”

  “Yep. Come on, drive. I don’t want to have to wait in line forever.”

  He pulled the car out of her driveway and headed for the seafood place.

  Claire rested her hand on his leg just above the knee. “When I see how hard you have to fight to get to wear makeup … it made me realize that it’s not just about being some stupid girlie girl.”

  “Well…” Chris said and laughed.

  “Oh you know what I mean.”

  They beat the dinner crowd and got a quiet table off to one side of the main dining room where they proceeded to eat an obscene amount of crab, clams, shrimp and butter.

  “Did you want to catch a movie?” Chris asked as Claire was leaning back in her chair and cradling her overstuffed belly in her hands.

  “Let’s go watch one at my house. Mom’s out for a while, and I like when we don’t have a bunch of other people around.” She didn’t add that she wanted to make sure she didn’t have to fight Chris about who was paying for the movie. He’d already dropped plenty of money on her with this dinner, and she knew how much he needed to save it all.

  “Thank you,” she added. “This was perfect. Apparently I needed to consume a pound of protein covered in butter.”

  He laughed. “It’s for how sweet you’ve been. And I wanted us to have a real date again.”

  “Real dates are nice,” Claire said.

  He smiled, but she saw a flash of tension around his eyes.

  “What are you worried about?” she asked.

  He shook his head and paid the bill. When they were outside in the car with the sweet spring air rolling in the open windows he asked, “Are we going to end up just really good friends?”

  “I’m not planning on it,” Claire said.

  “You don’t kiss me like you used to.”

  “We’ve had a lot going on!” she protested.

  That wasn’t a good enough reason, she realized. She looked around the parking lot. People were walking to and from the restaurant, but they weren’t paying attention to the cars. She climbed awkwardly as far into Chris’ lap as she could get and kissed him hard. His arms came up around her with a tight desperation as their lips met.

  When they broke apart, his eyes were still questioning her. She carefully got back into her seat.

  “My house,” she said.

  It was still early in the evening. The sun was low over the houses, but wouldn’t set for a while yet. Her mom’s car was out of the garage, and Claire figured they had at least two hours until they could expect her home. She took Emily’s hand and pulled her through the living room toward the bathroom. “I’m picking the movie,” she said. “You do the makeup.”

  “What?”

  “Put some on, I’m serious.”

  She flicked on the TV and started flipping though the On Demand movies, though she really didn’t care what they watched. Something shallow so they didn’t have to pay attention to it.

  Emily came out a few minutes later with a light touch of makeup around her eyes, solid foundation, a hint of blush and a lip shimmer. She’d
fluffed her hair as much as she could, but it was still too short. Her jeans and sweater were gender neutral enough to work either way.

  Claire beckoned her to the couch. If she’d thought this through, she realized, she could have cued up “I Kissed a Girl” on the iPod speakers. When Emily sat, she leaned forward and gently traced the side of her face. She didn’t know what to say, or to expect, so she just kissed her.

  It wasn’t radically different from every other kiss they’d shared. Emily’s lips were big, soft and familiar and the presence of lip shimmer just made the kiss a little sticky.

  Claire pulled back. “Okay, this is silly.”

  “What?”

  She hopped up and got tissues and makeup wipes. “The other girl I kissed wasn’t wearing anything on her lips and my lip gloss on your shimmer is just yucky.”

  Emily laughed and wiped off her lips. Then she took the makeup wipes and removed the rest of it.

  “You might be trying too hard,” she said.

  “All the time,” Claire said as she wiped off the makeup around her eyes.

  “Movie?” Emily asked.

  Claire kissed her. This time no yucky lip gloss got in the way. For the first few minutes of making out, part of Claire’s mind stood apart from the experience, waiting to see if anything felt new in a bad way. Emily smelled sweeter than the Chris that Claire was used to and her kisses felt more tentative, but that was easy to understand.

  Claire’s favorite parts of the experience hadn’t changed. She still loved the feel of strong hands on her back, and it didn’t matter if those were male or female. She appreciated being kissed carefully and thoughtfully. And she loved the feeling of melting into another human being whom she cared about. She let her whole mind dissolve into that experience.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  After a couple of quiet months, the big day was coming. I’d gone back and forth about it, but I solidified my resolve when I ran out of hormones in May. Taken at half the prescribed dose, the bottle Natalie gave me lasted two months. Even at that low dose, I felt a difference in myself. First I wasn’t so angry all the time and on the darkest days, the fierce edge of the blackness seemed to dull. More exciting was the fact that my skin softened all over my body. As I let the hair grow back in on my arms, it seemed lighter than it had been. I could begin to understand how much my body would change in this process, how I really could stop being a man altogether and become the woman I knew myself to be.

  I told Mom and Dad that I had something I wanted to talk to them about and asked them to come see Dr. Mendel with me that Thursday. They looked alarmed, but agreed to come with me when I refused to say more. Dr. Mendel said she’d set aside a couple hours in case it took longer than our regular session to talk to them. I had stashed a few books at her office the week before that I thought would help them understand.

  I was so nervous on the way over that I couldn’t sit still.

  “I don’t know why we have to do this in her office,” Mom complained. “Why can’t you just tell us?”

  “It’s okay,” I said for the hundredth time. “It’s just easier this way.”

  “Did you get Claire pregnant?” she asked, apparently her worst fear.

  “No, Mom, we’re not having sex, honest.”

  I willed the car to move faster, though my dad was a speedy driver to begin with. At the same time, I wondered how long it would take mom to get to the right question. I worked out the math in my head. She was asking a question about every ninety seconds, which was about 960 questions a day, except that we’d need time to eat and sleep, so let’s assume 480 questions a day, or 2,880 questions a week with Sunday off, would that be enough for her to get around to asking if I was really a girl in a single week? Probably not.

  “Are you sick?” she asked.

  “No, Mom.”

  “But you needed an appointment to tell us about this?”

  “Yes.”

  We finally pulled into the parking lot, and I ushered them through the doors and into the lobby. I almost knocked on Dr. Mendel’s door I was so eager to get this over with, but she opened it less than a minute after we rounded the corner.

  “Come in,” she said. “Mr. and Mrs. Hesse, it’s good of you to come today. Please have a seat.”

  Mom and Dad sat on the couch, so I took the comfy chair on the end and Dr. Mendel sat in her usual spot facing the couch. Everyone in the room had dressed up for this appointment. I’d put on my darker jeans and a light blue button-down shirt. Mom was in one of her work outfits with slacks and a V-neck sweater that made her look younger and pretty. She even had on earrings and makeup, though she’d been home from work long enough to take them off if she wanted to. Cleaned up from his construction outfit, Dad wore khakis and a long-sleeved pullover shirt with a collar. And Dr. Mendel was actually in a long, gray knit dress with pearls looping down over her ample bosom and hanging in delicate silver drips from her ears. I was betting she dressed more stereotypically female so that she’d have more authority with my parents about gender-related topics.

  I tried to take a deep breath, but my chest wouldn’t really expand, so the attempt ended up long and shallow. Okay, what was the worst that could happen? They could throw me out. I had turned seventeen in April, so I was almost old enough to make all my own decisions legally. I could probably stay at Claire’s for a while and finish school, or at least that was a nice fantasy. I’d hold on to that one.

  “Chris,” Dr. Mendel said as if introducing me. We agreed that I had to tell them, rather than her. She was there for support, but I had to do this.

  “Um,” I said, rather inelegantly. “Thanks for coming. So, ah. Well, I don’t really know how to say this so if it comes out funny I hope you’ll just hear me out. It might not make a lot of sense right away, but I think with time it will make a whole lot of sense.”

  “You’re gay,” Mom blurted out.

  “I’m a girl,” I said.

  Dead silence.

  “No, you’re not,” Mom said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Christopher,” she said in her low pitched warning tone.

  “Ever since I can remember, I’ve known I was a girl,” I said, looking back and forth between them and my hands. Dad’s eyebrows were both tilting out at angles, and Mom’s mouth disappeared into a thin line. “When I was little I tried to hang out with the other girls, but everyone said I was a boy and so eventually I just played along, but I’ve always known I was a girl.”

  “No you’re not,” Mom said. “You are very clearly not a girl.” She turned toward Dr. Mendel and demanded, “What on earth have you been telling him?”

  Dr. Mendel remained silent while I took another long, shallow breath. “Mom,” I said as firmly as I could manage. “There’s a condition called transsexualism where a kid gets born with the brain of the opposite sex. That means that although I have a boy’s body, inside I really am a girl.”

  “So you like to wear dresses?” Dad asked. He looked confused and incredulous. His normally tanned face was as pale as parchment.

  “Well sort of,” I said. “But that’s not the point. The point is that I feel like a woman inside, and I want the hormones and surgery so I can live my life as a woman.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh God.”

  The room fell silent.

  From where it rested on his thigh, Dad’s right hand twitched open and closed. Dr. Mendel sat like a rock and watched them while I shifted in my chair and failed to find a position where I felt like I wasn’t about to get hit by lightning.

  “If this is a joke…” Mom started.

  “Mrs. Hesse, it’s not a joke,” Dr. Mendel spoke up. “Your child has a rare but treatable condition. I think you’ve noticed that as Chris is more self-expressed, there’s a corresponding rise in happiness.”

  I noticed that she was very diplomatically avoiding any pronouns in her statements, which I appreciated. At this point I think female pronouns would have sent my mom through the roof, and ma
le pronouns would have made me feel like crap. Yeah, I had a good doctor.

  “Chris is a boy,” Mom said. She sat back against the couch and folded her arms tightly against her chest. Her eyes narrowed to hostile slits. “He just needs to learn to live that way, not have his head filled with this nonsense.”

  Silence stretched out again until Mom stood up abruptly.

  “We’re leaving,” she declared.

  “No,” I said. “We’re not.”

  She looked at Dad to back her up. “Let’s hear all of it,” he said grimly as if he were talking about a list of war casualties.

  Mom sat back down and crossed her arms again with her hands in fists. “All right, but I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s scientifically proven,” I said. “And besides, what really matters is that when I get to be a girl, I feel like myself. All these years I’ve had to pretend to be someone I’m not.” My voice rose. “Don’t you want me to be happy?”

  “Chris,” Dr. Mendel warned before anyone else could answer. I tried to calm down. She was right, this was a bad time to ask leading questions of my parents before we brought them up to speed on the whole thing. She’d warned me last week that I’d had years to research this and they were probably hearing about it for the first time in their lives.

  “Sorry,” I offered.

  Dr. Mendel picked up the conversation. “Sometimes a child is born whose internal sense of their gender does not match their external sexual characteristics, and in some cases, that difference is so pronounced that the child knows that he is the opposite sex from the body he was born with,” she said in her grandmotherly tone. “It’s called Gender Identity Disorder, or gender dysphoria. This is what happened for Chris. While everyone around assumed Chris was a boy, which is quite natural, inside Chris has always felt like a girl. There are thousands of people like Chris living in America, and most of them make a successful transition to the gender they feel inside and live the rest of their lives that way as productive, well-adjusted members of society.

  “You brought Chris to therapy because you noticed, quite rightly, that your child was struggling with mood problems. The good news is that your child is actually very bright and socially well developed. Considering what Chris has had to live with, she is an outstanding individual. This is not about anything you did or didn’t do. It’s a biological condition determined before birth. You have a child you can be proud of. Chris has been very strong in the face of considerable adversity and some of that is due to the values you’ve instilled. Now Chris needs your support, more than most kids do, to take the last few steps to adulthood.”