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dedicated to everyone
who has embraced their own
unique, magical mix
of feminine & masculine
(and olux and xulo)
and then
embraced everyone else’s
in return
—A, Z & b.t.
author’s note
(Actually this is the Author’s Note ABOUT the Author’s Note. For reasons I can’t explain at this exact place in your reading experience, I decided to put the Author’s Note at the end of the book. If curiosity demands you read it first, it’s here. I promise neither I, Zee, or Art will judge. We like you exactly the way you are.)
ZEE
Listen, let’s start with a list.
1. Everyone at school thinks I’m a lesbian. I’m not. Wish I was (sometimes, maybe) but I’m not.
2. Everyone feels sorry for me because my mom’s dying. Don’t.
3. My real name is Rebecca. But no one calls me that. Ever. Everyone calls me Zee. Don’t ask.
4. Honestly, I don’t even remember what four was going to be.
5. My mom taught me to love everyone. So I do. But I really don’t like anyone.
Okay, I like one person.
Cam.
Isn’t the word “like” lame? Yeah, it is.
But I can’t think of a better one, so fuck it.
art
Disaster!
I don’t even know why I thought that. Perhaps the universe is communicating in mysterious ways.
Or I’m bored.
I should probably do my physics homework, but instead I’m going to read your mind (just trust me on this). I can sense you’re probably wondering, “Art, how can someone so witty and interesting like you be so lonely?”
The answer is, I plan to change this very soon.
How do I know this?
Because I know magic!
I’m kidding. I don’t know magic.
I am magic. You’ll see. Ha.
ZEE
So, yeah, I like Cam.
He’s my best friend.
He’s been my best friend since we played travel baseball together back in grade school.
We text all the time. I’ll text him right now:
ME
Yo dude—usual time for our monday pizza?
So when I say I like him, what I probably mean is I might be in love with him.
Wish I wasn’t.
CAM
you got it dude
Cam has no idea about my feelings. (“Feelings” is as lame a word as “like.”) I should tell him. I don’t want to, but I should. Because, listen, he’s got a girlfriend. Abigail. She’s nice to me. I secretly hate her.
art
“ART!” my sister Abigail yells from downstairs because everyone in my family loves yelling. My dad yells, my mom yells, my brother, Alex, yells, and my two other sisters, Amy and Alice, do too. All our names begin with “A.” Oh, and our last name is Adams.
Isn’t that cute? Um, NO, IT’S NOT! It’s the most boring and annoying disaster in the history of boring and annoying disasters!
“WHAT?!” I yell back, because I’ve been brainwashed. I’m the youngest, the baby, the one nobody really notices. I’m feeling needy, which is boring, so I’m over it.
“DINNER!” Abigail yells again. She’s a junior and I’m only a year behind her, but she acts like she’s so mature. Everyone at Riverbend loves her but only because they don’t have to share a bathroom with her. I’m hilarious. But, seriously, go to college already, Abigail. Her boyfriend, Cam, told her that I’m gay because I don’t play any sports. Isn’t it more gay to get sweaty with a bunch of guys and then take showers together? I’m kidding. I like to make jokes that I only tell to myself.
ZEE
Maybe I shouldn’t tell Cam. Telling him would be even more stupid than not telling him. Instead, I should just say something like—
A voice behind me: “Cam, I love you soooooo much. Please dump Abigail because I’m soooooo much smarter and more interesting and more beautiful.”
I slap my phone to my chest, spin from back to butt on my bed, and face her. She loves to sneak into my room when I do my “stare at the ceiling” thing, as she calls it. “Hi, Mom,” I say, but I say it like I mean, You suck.
“Don’t be mad at me. Stand up and give me a hug. I could be dead by tomorrow.” My mom’s been saying crap like this since I was ten. It’s funny. Sometimes.
I do as she says. My mom is this tiny thing, like a fairy if she had wings, and I’m this tall thing, but our bodies fit just right when we hug. My chin on her head, her head against my neck. Connected so there’s no separation. And she’s super pale and my skin’s super dark, so we’re almost that yin-and-yang symbol. That’s weird to say. I guess I’m saying we’re more than just mom and daughter. We are two halves to a whole that occasionally spend time apart. After our hug, I say, “I’ve decided I’m not going to tell Cam.”
“That’s a good idea. Much better to spend your life regretting not telling him.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I plop back to the edge of the bed. “If I tell him … and he doesn’t like me back, then it will be awkward and I’ll lose my best friend.”
Mom sits next to me. “Darling … I’m sure after I’m dead, you’ll be like, ‘My mom died! Telling boys I love them is so easy compared to that!’”
“I’m sure.”
“See? I’ll be the best mom even in the afterlife.”
“You will be.” I almost—almost—get sad. But then I let it go. Because, listen, my mom’s had cancer on and off since I was three. Being sad she has cancer would be like being sad she’s got brown hair. It is what is. Yeah, it’s stage four now. But it’s been stage four for two years and she keeps looking healthier. She’ll probably outlive me.
“I’m going to lie down. Have fun not telling your feelings to Cam over pizza.” Yeah, yeah. We slap five and she leaves.
I lie on my bed and go back to obsessing over Cam. Screw that. Stupid girls obsess over boys. I contemplate. Yeah. Contemplate.
And contemplating boys sucks, so I’m going to watch TV.
art
“OH MY GOD, ART!” Abigail says as she throws open my bedroom door. “DINNER!”
I leap to my feet and tap-dance on the carpet because I’m a crazy person, then spin and slide on one knee in front of her with my arms out wide. Maybe I should be a choreographer on Broadway.
“YOU’RE SO WEIRD!”
“Thank you,” I say. “Do you want to see my latest Art Chart?”
“Not even a little bit. And don’t annoy Mom or Dad over dinner because if you do, they won’t let me go meet Cam and then I’ll have to hate you forever.”
ZEE
“Don’t you have homework?” asks Michael when he finds me watching the Bulls game in the living
room. Michael is my mom’s boyfriend. (Michael Trust is his full name. If that last name sounds made up, it’s because it is.) They grew up in Gladys Park together. He was the football captain, she was the head cheerleader … and she wanted nothing to do with him until stage four hit. She explained back then that “I always liked my men a little weird, and Michael, well, is very normal and maybe we need normal and boring right now.”
I tell him, “Did it.” Which is true. School has always been super easy for me. Everything has always been easy for me. Except getting Cam to think of me in a non-friend way. (“Non-friend” might be lamest of all.)
“Your mom’s resting?” he asks. I nod. “Are you hungry? I’ll make some pasta.”
“Going to dinner with Cam like I do every Monday.”
“You shouldn’t go out on a school night, Rebecca.” Michael tries to pretend he’s my dad but I spent my whole life without a dad, so why the hell does he think I need one now?
“I appreciate your advice, Michael, but I’m cool.”
“Rebecca…” And fuck him for always calling me Rebecca when he knows I hate it. I raise the volume on the TV. He marches over and snaps the controller out of my hands.
“It frustrates me that you don’t respect me.”
“I respect you, Michael.” Sort of. He let us move into his big house, and he pays the lease on my truck even though he said girls shouldn’t drive trucks.
“Can we please come to an understanding while your mother is still with us?”
And, yeah …
I get up, pat him on the shoulder with a “you’re an insensitive idiot” nod of my head, then leave the house. Michael likes to think he needs to prepare me for my mom being gone. Like I haven’t been to a thousand doctors’ appointments, or seen her go bald twice, or noticed both her boobs were chopped off. People’s sympathy is annoying enough, but having to deal with his or anyone’s condescending tone makes me want to punch them in the face.
art
Per Adams family law, the parental figures are already eating in front of the television. It wasn’t so bad when everyone was still at home, because you can’t keep five kids quiet no matter how much Dad screams, but now that only Abigail and I still live here, it is depressingly dull. Dad watches his sports, Mom plays Scrabble on her phone, Abigail texts her friends, and I wonder if the universe screwed up by having me born on planet Earth.
It’s Monday, so it’s Boston Market day. Chicken, bacon loaded mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese. I’m a vegetarian. “How can you not like meat and be a man?” Dad asked when I explained to them at twelve that I would no longer be eating the dead flesh of animals. I offered to be the family chef and cook out-of-this-world dishes like mushroom and asparagus risotto. “Oh, Art, why do you have to always make everything so difficult?” my mom said.
I heat up some leftover broccoli and mix it in with the mac and cheese, sit next to my dad, and ask him questions about the basketball game so that he can pretend we have anything in common. He is this large, large, super-large man, over six foot five with baseball mitts for hands and a gut full of carbs and fried meat and cheap beer, and I’m not even five nine and would have to eat milk shakes every hour for a month to add on two pounds. He’s some kind of manager at Allstate, and if you asked me, Hey, Art, do you believe in hell? I’d say, Yes, it’s middle management at an insurance company! But I hate being negative about my parents. They’re just parents and they seem sure of themselves and their life choices, so Go do your thing, Mom and Dad! Eat your fast food! Watch your sports! Count your money! You be you! Just let me be me!
ZEE
When I get to Penelope’s Pizzeria, I just walk in and sit in the back at our usual table. Cam and I have been coming here every week since he learned to drive. The hostess comes over and drops off menus even though she knows we never look at them. Her name is Pen. Her dad owns this place. Pen’s a chick in my class who I always thought was a bitch until she started dating the biggest dork in school over Christmas break, which is so fucking bizarre it actually makes me want to become friends with her. Now I sound like a bitch. Can’t think about this now. Cam. I need to concentrate on Cam.…
Maybe my mom was right? Maybe I’ll regret not telling Cam more than I’ll regret telling him. So why not just do it tonight, right? Yeah, what the hell. Junior year will be over in six weeks; high school will be over in a year. Be pretty stupid to wait any longer.
art
When Abigail is done eating, she says to my parents, “I need the car. I’m going to see Cam.”
“Absolutely not,” my dad says. But it’s a ten-beer night, not a five-beer night, so it’s more like a phlegmy, gurgley “absowooley not.”
“Only if you take Art,” my mom follows, then gives a look to my dad that says, We can have sex if both kids are out of the house. My parents are boring and don’t talk about much with each other besides food and money, but if my mom’s having a four-glasses-of-wine night, they are pretty much guaranteed to go at it. That’s probably how they got stuck with five kids even though they’re both incompetent parents.
“Yeah, okay,” my dad says, “take Art and you can go.”
“I’m not taking Art on my date with my boyfriend!”
“THEN YOU’RE NOT GOING, ABBY!” My dad is the king of the yelling Adamses. He always gets his way by screaming, so I don’t know why he’d ever stop.
“Ugh, fine! We are leaving in two minutes, Art!” My sister stomps off. I wait for my parents to ask me if I actually want to go on my sister’s date, but only because I like to wait for things that are never going to happen. “AAAAAART!” Abigail yells after noticing I hadn’t moved.
“Were you talking to meee, sister?” I say, because I’m hilarious.
“You’re so annoying! Mom!”
“Don’t be annoying, Art.” Mom always takes her side.
Robot voice? Yessssss: “I. Am. Sorry. Did. Not. Mean. To. Disobey. Orders. Standing. Walking. To. Car. Will. Wait. For. Further. Instructions.”
“MOOOOOOM!”
Like I said, hilarious. Too bad I’m the only one who thinks so.
ZEE
“You already ordered?” Cam asks as he walks toward our table.
“Of course,” I say as he sits across from me and does our usual fist-bump greeting. Cam’s got great hands. Big, strong hands. And shoulders. And legs. And everything. I sound like a chick. I am a chick. But I hate sounding like one. Listen, okay, Cam’s hot. Not pretty-boy hot. But hot like a man should be hot. Like he could wrestle grizzly bears. Push cars up mountains. That sort of shit. I also dig that he doesn’t care how he dresses. Who wants a guy who cares how they dress? And Cam really doesn’t care. Wears the same zip-up jacket for a week, same jeans for a month, and the same Cubs hat since I gave it to him two Christmases ago.
In the three seconds it takes him to settle into the booth and look up at me, I think about just blurting out, Dude, I’m kind of in love with you.
I wouldn’t have said that.
Never could say that.
But that would be the coolest way to do it, right? Like it’s a casual thing, like I’m totally comfortable about being in love with him and don’t need anything from him but for him to know. But, yeah, listen, that’s never going to happen. He’s been my best fucking friend since I was ten. You can’t just say something like that without preparing the guy. Preparing myself. I don’t know. But, see, even before I could say anything else, Cam says, “Abigail’s going to join us. Hope that’s cool.”
Not cool at all. At. All. But it wouldn’t be cool to not say it was cool, so I have to say, “Yeah, it’s cool.”
He says, “She gets jealous of our pizza dinners.”
* * *
She does? That’s good, right? If Abigail …
with her curves,
with her high heels to high school,
with her big lips and big eyes,
with her flirty 24-7 voice,
… could be jealous of my tall, flat-
chested, tomboy ass, that’s something, right? Maybe Cam talks about me a lot when they’re alone. Yeah. Maybe he talks about all the things I am that Abigail could never be.
* * *
“BABY!” a shrieky, hyperfeminine voice launches across the restaurant. Abigail. Beautiful Abigail. Beautiful fucking Abigail.
“What’s up, babe?” Cam says as he stands. She jumps into his arms, kissing him all over the neck like he has just returned from some war. Like they haven’t seen each other in years instead of hours. I wouldn’t even know how to do that. Jump in a man’s arms. Let him twirl me and hold me like that. Maybe I have to learn.
“Art?” says Cam to the kid I am just now noticing standing behind Abigail. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Abigail, trying to pretend the kid doesn’t exist, says, “My parents made me bring him. Sorry.”
“It’s cool. Art’s cool,” says Cam.
“He’s in a mood. I apologize in advance.”
“Zee, you ever meet Abigail’s younger brother?”
art
Have you ever seen a mythical creature that everyone says doesn’t exist but then you see it and you’re like They’re real! They’re real! Of course you haven’t. No one has because otherwise they wouldn’t be mythical.
BUT!
I saw one. I’m seeing one right now. I mean, I have seen her in the halls a few times and in the stands at a couple of Cam’s baseball games, but I have never seen her up close. I have never touched her. I have never felt her energy so purely. And now that I have, you just have to believe me, this girl named Zee is a mythical creature and she is even more beautiful and magical than that.
I’m sure everyone at school thinks she’s boring or ugly or a lesbian, but she transcends beauty, with her big cheekbones and thin face and long neck and eyelashes that would be a mile long if she even acknowledged she had them. She is—what’s the word?—oh, yes, she’s androgynous but not in an unsexy way. In a way that every boy AND girl should find mesmerizing. I’m going to become a photographer so I can say I discovered her and get her out of that hoodie and those cargo pants and put her in loose dresses over her toned body, add a dash of makeup just to highlight what is already perfect, and then have the world scream, She’s magnificent! And I will scream back, I know! I know!
The Handsome Girl & Her Beautiful Boy Page 1
