“I have a very simple reason why I’m here,” I say slowly. “This person sitting across from me—Odessa Steps, as she used to call herself—was one of my best friends. One of my only friends. And in the midst of the most difficult time of my life, when I was trying to figure out how to be true to myself, when I got thrust into the public eye in a way I didn’t expect, she betrayed me. She went behind my back and decided to prey on this situation. And now she’s saying vicious things about me every day, and spreading incredible lies about herself. And it terrifies me to think that anyone believes her and supports her. But clearly some people do. So all I can say is that I’m very sad to have lost a friend, and hurt to learn that she doesn’t care about me like I thought she did.”
Rosemary turns her eyes on Odessa, eager to see her response.
“I don’t know why this man and his friends keep insisting that we know each other,” she says, faux-flustered. “I don’t know him and I don’t have anything against him. I just want to be a good ambassador for my city. I just want to be the woman we need right now.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes.
“So you love Edmonton, do you? That’s why you want to do this? You feel a responsibility as a citizen?”
Odessa nods proudly, opens her mouth to spew forth more manufactured saccharine propaganda.
“That’s a load of crap,” I cut her off before she can begin. I can imagine the wince on Sander’s face but I can’t stop myself. “You don’t love Edmonton at all, Odessa. You’re barely even an Edmontonian. You leave every winter! You’re not an Edmontonian if you don’t go through the worst half of the year.”
Odessa is smiling in the most irritating way imaginable, acting like she’s above it all, humouring my tantrum.
“Setting aside the fact that that is totally false,” she says in an infinitely reasonable adult-voice, “there are many thousands of great citizens who journey south every winter. To say that they are somehow less Edmontonian is utterly ridiculous.”
“So that’s false? You don’t leave every winter?”
“No, not at all. Apart from a few vacations to Mexico and Hawaii, I’ve always been here working all winter.”
She lies with such conviction that even I have a lurking doubt. I’m struck with an image of Odessa that’s totally different from the one I’ve known. What if she doesn’t fly away at the First Snow? What if she pretends to have a glamorous lifestyle but really she just takes a taxi to the airport, watches the planes take off, and goes to a different part of the city where she lives alone all winter? She doesn’t go out much in case she might run into someone. She sends her grandfather stock postcards and she almost convinces herself that she’s having adventures.
I meet her eyes across the table. This is all a possibility. Maybe her name really is Olechka Stepanchuk. Maybe she really does have a husband and parents. Maybe she dreams of a life that’s not her own, and gets to live it in the few moments when she convinces two gullible chumps that she’s an exceptional person who goes on extraordinary adventures.
She’s a talented liar. If she can make me have doubts, it’s no wonder that she’s suckered in everyone else.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Adam.”
Her voice is soft, with only a hard serrated edge on the final word to cut into me.
“My name is River now,” I say. “The name you choose is a promise you make to yourself. You told me that. Back when you were still my friend. Not an opportunistic bigot.”
Odessa sighs with frustration.
“Okay, I’m sorry, but I’m getting real tired of being called a bigot. I am not a bigot. I’m not a hateful person just because I refuse to indulge your little fantasy.”
“It’s not a fantasy. This is who I am.”
Odessa turns to Rosemary, trying to recruit her support.
“This is what happens when you live in a bubble where everyone is so paranoid of being called privileged that they accept every bizarre trend.”
“I don’t live in a bubble,” I say. “And I’m not following a trend. I’m just trying to be truthful about how I feel.”
I look into the camera, try to imagine a sympathetic viewer. I think of René. I feel the muscles in my face relaxing, and I picture him sitting down at the bottom of the whale, turning his stone over and over in his small hands. I look down at my own hands, man hands whose nails have been painted dark forest green by the drag queens.
“I’m not asking for special treatment,” I say. “I’m only asking to be recognized for who I am and treated with respect. I know it’s hard for people to understand what genderfluid means or even believe that it exists. But I’m just asking you to trust me, and trust that I know myself. That I was male for a long time, until I couldn’t be anymore. That masculinity became a millstone around my neck, dragging me down, and I had to cut myself free. That this is me being honest with you about who I am. I’m not trying to hide the truth anymore, or disfigure myself to fit into an easy category. It’s messy, yes. Some days I feel ashamed, and I have to remind myself that I’m carrying a lifetime of rocks on my back—a lifetime of being trained to be male and to hide my emotions and to cut off whole parts of myself. The only thing I know is that I’ll only be at peace with myself if I always tell the truth.”
Odessa raises her eyebrows and stabs at some tourtière on her plate.
“That was a very moving speech,” she says. “But I can’t let you get away with framing this situation in those terms. Because all you’re trying to do is make me the villain and make yourself the victim. And it’s more complicated than that.”
“No, it’s really not. I’m asking to be treated with dignity and you’re refusing. You’re trying to stir up hate against me just because I’m not something that’s convenient and readily understood.”
“You’re not a hero, Mr. Truman. You’re not leading some brave crusade against the final frontier of discrimination. You’re not standing up all alone in the face of oppression. You’re just following a fad.”
She turns her appealing eye on Rosemary again, waving a hand in my direction.
“We live in a culture that’s so saturated with guilt, so overwhelmed by navel-gazing conversations about privilege and identity politics. It’s trendy to identify with some marginalized group, just so that you can claim victimhood too and don’t have to think of yourself as an oppressor.”
She brings her gaze back to bear on my face. She seems genuinely angry.
“You’re not genderfluid, Adam. You’re more like trenderfluid.”
I laugh out loud at the obviousness of her hashtag-baiting, and she barrels on.
“You’re just jumping on the bandwagon. You can paint your nails and grow your hair and wear a skirt like any punk-rock rebellious teen, but you’re not a woman. You don’t know what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world. You’re comfortable in your male body. Which means you can’t be the Melting Queen.”
“It’s strange that you know how it feels to be me better than I do,” I say, tripping over my dry tongue. “Sure, yes, binary gender exists here, now, in our culture. But it’s not eternal and unchanging, and it’s not the natural order of things. There have been hundreds of different genders in different cultures throughout history, and now our culture is just starting to recognize that. I’m not a man. I’m not a woman. I’m something else, sometimes more and sometimes less, and that’s okay. People are confused by that, I get it. But it’s really not that complicated. There are more than five senses. There are more than four elements. There are more than three states of matter. So why can’t there be more than two genders? People like me are like proprioception, or neptunium, or Fermionic condensate—maybe you didn’t learn about us in kindergarten, maybe you didn’t know about us until very recently, but we’ve existed for thousands of years. So you, Odessa, don’t get to tell me that I’m just some confused kid following a trend.”
Odessa puts her hands down on the table on either side of her
plate, as if she might launch herself across at me any moment and tear out my throat with her teeth.
“I know the theory,” she growls. “There’s a difference between sex and gender. And there’s a difference between how you identify inside and how you present your gender on the outside. And what it boils down to is that someone like you—a straight, white, able-bodied, upper-class man—can have a male body, and wear masculine clothes, and enjoy all the privileges of being classed as masculine, and then whine about how he’s being discriminated against because we’re not recognizing his ‘true self.’ Your ‘gender identity’ is located deep within your own mind, which is convenient because otherwise we would have no way of knowing about it. And as a feminist, as a woman who lives in this world—the world where women are hurt, brutalized, controlled by men—I am absolutely insulted by you claiming to experience one tiny fraction of what I experience. And by assuming you can come in and take this one little slice of women’s history in my city and say you get to control it too.”
“Why don’t we talk about something other than gender?” interrupts Rosemary, no doubt sensing that the audience’s patience for this topic has long ago been exhausted.
Odessa blinks rapidly and forces a smile to bloom on her face. I’m sure she never intended to sound so alienatingly angry as that.
“Yes. Of course. I’m sorry that I let my passion run away with me.”
“River,” says Rosemary as she dabs at the corner of her mouth with a serviette, “tell us more about this fountain.”
I turn and stare into the mesmerizing black abyss of the camera lens. I see my reflection, all distorted and misshapen in its convex circle.
“I chose to work with the Fountain Lovers of Edmonton this year because I don’t think that things should stay the same forever. I know I was rude at the coronation. I apologize for that. But I stand by what I said. Edmonton is an ugly city. Which is why Clodagh Paskwamostos and I want to make it better.”
Odessa smiles a genuine smile of triumph, no doubt celebrating how I’m dooming myself with honesty.
“I completely disagree with you. I think Edmonton is a fantastic city. Yes, we have work to do. We need to make things better for the poorest and most vulnerable among us. But Edmontonians are generous. And spending time on a frivolous fountain is a complete waste of money when there are serious issues we need to resolve as a community.”
“Well, Olechka,” says Rosemary, patting her own food baby contentedly and pushing her plate away, “you’ve already taken on a lot of different initiatives for yourself. But what do you have planned as your own big signature project, should you succeed in your mission to replace River?”
In the one-second pause before she starts speaking, I feel a shadow of panic in the air and I realize that Odessa has nothing. Her handlers have spent all this time building up the image of The Perfect Edmontonian—Beautiful Mother, Devoted Wife, Responsible Citizen—that they’ve totally neglected to set any real goals.
Of course, Odessa is able to improvise some bullshit about how public consultation is the most important thing, and she’ll follow the general will of all Edmontonians and truly embody the spirit of the city. But Rosemary has a pinched, disappointed look on her face, and I can tell that Odessa senses the shift of power. I try to cut in and speak more about the fountain, but Odessa barrels on, choosing to follow a reliable course of debate.
“It’s going to be difficult to hold down a job and raise a family and be a Melting Queen at the same time. But thousands of Edmonton women do difficult things like this every day. And I’m lucky that Noah has been very supportive as well.”
“Who is Noah?” I say, frustrated by this transparent ploy. “Who is that!?”
“My husband,” she says, setting a hand to her heart, which also coincidentally shows off her modest wedding band. “My best friend,” she mewls, giving a tiny wave to the camera which makes me livid.
“Oh my god,” I groan. I’m rocked by a geyser of anger, which bursts out from some deep primal level of my being. I can’t take any more of this bullshit. “You don’t have a husband, Odessa! Your whole story is a sham!”
She gives me a humouring smirk.
“Really, Adam, these accusations are getting desperate. I’ve been married for two years. All my friends and family and coworkers can tell you that. And you’re going around accusing me of lying? Please. I’m not the one making up a fake name for myself and chasing down the spotlight like some attention-starved drag queen.”
“Yes you are!” I shout at her, practically tearing out my hair in frustration. “Everything you’re saying is a lie! Everything about you is fake! You’re just a heartless narcissist who flies away every winter and abandons your so-called friends here to freeze!”
I slam my hand down on the tabletop and our plates shake.
“I stay here, Odessa, in this frozen wasteland. I endure. I’m a survivor!”
Odessa laughs in my face.
“So what?” she says. “So does everybody else. That doesn’t make you special. It doesn’t make you ‘a survivor.’ It doesn’t make you strong. It just makes you a typical Edmontonian.”
Her words cut into me like a knife, slicing into the deepest part of me. I didn’t think it could get any worse. But now I see it, in her icy grey eyes. She never loved me. She never cared about me. Not even a little bit. It was all a lie, from the beginning, just like everything else.
The geyser of anger boils over, exploding into a supervolcano of rage. I leap from my chair and reach across the table. I rip off her wig, exposing her baldness for all the world to see.
“This is a wig! Your story is fake. Your family is fake. Everything you’ve ever said is a lie. You’re probably not even pregnant, you psychopath!”
I’m standing across the table from her, holding the wig dangling from my hand. Rosemary watches me, eyes wide. Odessa looks down into her lap. The studio is silent. I feel a cold sheet of water crashing over me, like I’m falling through the ice again.
Odessa looks up after a moment. Big fat glistening ornamental tears are sliding down her cheeks.
“I didn’t want to talk about this,” she croaks. “I didn’t want people to think I was weak, and couldn’t finish out the year if they chose to put their faith in me.”
Her voice wavers and she has to choke back tears. She hides her face in her hands as her breaths hitch, shaking her shoulders.
“I was diagnosed with cancer right after I learned I was pregnant. I hope I will survive by the time my daughter is born. But they can’t say.”
She glares up at me.
“So yes, I’m wearing a wig. I’m wearing makeup, so I don’t look as sick as I am.”
She wipes her hands across her tear-tracked face, smearing her mascara extravagantly. Rosemary, the camera operators, everyone at home wait with bated breath to hear what she will say next.
“I just want my little girl to look back and see a mum who looked happy and healthy. Who could leave her a legacy to be proud of.”
Rosemary passes Odessa a box of tissue which she dives into. The cameras go on rolling. The interview might go on and I might recover some face.
But I know it deep down in my gut. I just lost.
After, at Clodagh’s house, I lock myself away and try to understand what happened. She beat you, that’s all. She provoked you, and you rose to her bait. You fell into her trap. For once I actually wish for an Intrusion to come whisk me away, drop me into some other life where I can forget my troubles. But no trip back in time is forthcoming.
Even my most ardent defenders are hard pressed to support me now. Odessa launches ad after ad, showing my face contorted with rage as I rip the wig off her head—the face of male power committing violence against a defenceless woman. She stops wearing the wig, and pledges to stop wearing makeup so people can see that she’s not ashamed of her sickness. Her bruises and lesions are painted on.
I try going out the next day. People on the streets are just as hostile
as before, only now no one will step forward to defend me. No matter what mystical influence I might hold as the Melting Queen, it only goes so far. I see no Greens at all, just a sea of angry Pink.
So I squirrel myself away in Clodagh’s spare bedroom, just like Clodagh herself. Two defeated queens. I can’t make her dream come true anyway, so what’s the point of trying to win this contest? It’s easier just to sleep, and get up to go pee, and watch the water flow through the toilet and the sink and think about the waters in the river and the glorious fountain that’ll never be built and go back to sleep where at least I can dream that it’s real.
How long does life carry on like this? A day? A week? A month? Does it matter? Kaseema keeps pestering me, knocking on my door just like I used to knock on Clodagh’s door. René says mean things that are probably meant to provoke me into action. But I don’t care. Odessa won. A vote will only be a formality at this point. And besides, she’s doing good works for Edmonton. She’s helping the homeless and feeding the poor. She’s shining a light on injustice and fixing potholes. She deserves to be the Melting Queen.
“River.”
Kaseema is at my door again. Never gives up. It’s annoying.
“Go away.”
I roll over in bed, wrap myself more snuggly under the covers.
“There’s someone here to see you.”
“I don’t care. If it’s my mom again you’re fired.”
“It’s not your mother. It’s Alice Songhua.”
The 114th Melting Queen sits in Clodagh’s front room with Sander and René. It’s weird seeing her up close, with all the pageantry of Melting Day stripped away. She looks severely normal, if a bit tired. Though not as tired as me.
When she sees me standing in the doorway, she stands up and walks over to me.
“River. It’s good to finally meet you.”
She folds me into a one-sided hug that lasts for a few awkward seconds. She pulls back and looks up into my face.
“What are you doing here?” I ask numbly. I hardly care at this point, but it seems like the right thing to ask. She leads me to the couch.
The Melting Queen Page 19
