Recycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  ALSO BY LAUREN MCLAUGHLIN

  Cycler

  for Andrew

  FROM THE WINTERHEAD CHRONICLE,

  LIFESTYLES SECTION, JUNE 27

  It was a night to remember for a handful of Winterhead High seniors attending the annual prom at Karn Beach Yacht Club last Saturday. According to witnesses, one of the students arrived at the prom as an eighteen-year-old boy and left as a girl.

  “I swear to God,” said senior Shelly Loman, “he was like slow dancing with Ramie Boulieaux, and then he collapsed on the floor.”

  Fellow senior Nicholas Tarzak claimed, “This dude was all panting and shaking and stuff, and then he was—oh, man, it was so weird.”

  Apparently the young man experienced an unspecified medical problem, then transformed into local eighteen-year-old Jill McTeague.

  Ms. McTeague declined to comment on the alleged incident, as did her parents, Helen and Richard McTeague. Also declining to comment were Ramie Boulieaux and newcomer Thomas Knutberg, who were seen escorting Ms. McTeague from the yacht club.

  “I know she wears a wig,” said senior Jason Grimby. “What’s that about, right? I mean is she like a transvestite or something?”

  Ms. McTeague had apparently experienced some teasing in school a few weeks earlier about wearing a wig. She is not known to have been a cross-dresser.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, sweetie.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” I say. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  Mom doesn’t believe me. And the fact that I can’t stop nervously tugging on the ends of my wig doesn’t help my case.

  Mom and I are wandering through the luggage section at JCPenney because I have broken her best suitcase. Turns out you can’t fit the entire contents of a bedroom into it. Live and learn, right?

  “And when do you plan on telling us where you’re going?” she asks. “Or are you going to leave us in the dark for good?”

  “I’ll tell you, Mom, just as soon as I figure it out.” At the end of the aisle is a huge red Samsonite. I finger the lock on it. “I have two good options.”

  Mom snorts. She hates both of my options and never tires of reminding me how “unworkable” they both are. She thinks I should stay in Winterhead forever.

  Trust me when I tell you, that is not an option.

  I point to an even bigger blue Samsonite. “How about this one?” I say. “I think you could fit a body in there.”

  Mom looks at the price tag, then keeps walking.

  “Mom,” I say. “Suitcase or no suitcase, I’m still leaving. You realize that, right?”

  When Mom stops walking, I prepare for another lecture about how deeply unready I am to exist without her constant supervision. But instead, she waves over a salesperson.

  “We’ll take this one,” she says. She gestures toward the blue suitcase.

  Later, while we’re dragging the suitcase through the parking lot, I notice a car driving behind us very slowly. Inside are two sophomore boys from Winterhead High. I think one of them worked at the school snack shop and used to blush when I’d buy granola bars. Now they’re both staring at me. I’m not an upperclassman to them anymore. I’m the girl who had that weird thing at the prom. You know, that thing?

  I always want to confront people who look at me like that. I want to ask how they’d feel if they were in my shoes. But I never do. Instead, I hide behind my mother.

  When she notices the car, she stops and bends over to get a good look at the boys with what I imagine is a lethal glare. The car speeds away.

  “So, Mom?” I say. “In case you were wondering, that’s why I have to leave.”

  Mom watches the car turn the corner at the Jiffy Lube. Then she pulls me close and kisses me on the head. “You know that I would do anything to protect you,” she says. “Anything at all.”

  Of course I know that. If there’s one thing that can be said of my mother, it’s that in her mind there is no law superseding a mother’s right to protect her daughter. She will take you down if you try to hurt me. I’ve come to respect that about her. Unfortunately, she can’t take down the whole town of Winterhead, Massachusetts.

  Okay, so here are my two options for escape. While I’m trying to squeeze my “essential” belongings into this new suitcase, you try to figure out which one is best.

  The Ramie Option is to go with my best friend to New York City, where she is about to begin classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

  The Tommy Option is to drive across the country with my boyfriend for a journey of self-discovery and much-delayed virginity termination.

  Now, before you rush in with your verdict, keep in mind the following complicating factors:

  1) Approximately four days every month, I turn into a boy named Jack.

  2) Jack is dating Ramie. And by dating, I mean screwing on a regular, even daily, basis.

  3) Jack is terrified of my boyfriend, Tommy, who is bisexual. Go ahead, take your time. Create a spreadsheet, make some charts if it helps.

  Not so easy, is it? Basically, I have to decide which one of us gets a sex life. You have to admit, it’s a bit more challenging than the decisions most eighteen-year-olds have to make. Most of the eighteen-year-olds I know are busy trying to decide which posters to put up in their dorm rooms.

  But I’m trying not to be a complainer. Complaining solves nothing. Plus it creates scowl lines between your eyebrows, which I am against.

  It’s D-day. Tommy will be here any minute. Mom’s been pacing outside my door all morning. And I still haven’t decided where or who I’m escaping to.

  “Jill?” Mom says. She comes to my doorway with her hands on her hips. “You need to tell us. Now. Your father’s going crazy.”

  “Going?” I say.

  I hear a car horn outside. Rushing to the window, I spot Tommy’s silver Prius pulling into the driveway.

  Mom dries the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “I don’t know if you’re doing this for dramatic effect, Jill, but—”

  “Mom, please.”

  I want to tell her that everything will be okay, but the truth is, I am as lost in this sea of fear and doubt as she is. The only thing I know for sure is that I have to leave. When I open my mouth to say something reassuring, though, the only thing that comes out is a big sob.

  “Come here,” Mom says, her voice ragged with pain.

  I rush into her arms and let her hug me in a way she hasn’t since I was a little girl.

  “I hate this,” she says.

  “Me too.”

  I can hear Dad downstairs, asking Tommy to wait in the living room; then his footsteps rise up the stairs. Mom clings to me for as long as she can, then lets Dad have one final hug. Dad’s as nutty-looking as ever, with his long hair and guru beard. But I think he must have showered for the occasion, because he doesn’t smell nearly as bad as he usually does.

  “Bye, Dad,” I say.

  “No, sweetheart.” He kisses the top of my head. “It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later.”

  Tommy’s silver Prius is spotless and freshly carvac’ed. Plus it smells like a new car because of the new-car air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.

  I point to it. “That’s symbolic.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” he says.

  “You know, like new beginnings?” I say.

  He nods as he drives us to the end of Trask Road.

  Tommy is his same beautiful self, his longish brown hair just skirting his broad, bony shoulders. How I love those shoulders. How I’ll miss those shoulders if I don’t take the Tommy Option.

  I haven’t decided yet.

  As we leave Trask Road and my old life behind, Tommy taps the steering wheel nervously. I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking, Enough is enough, Jill.
Am I dropping you off in New York or taking you west with me? Make up your mind, for crying out loud.

  But he’s too decent to push. He knows how hard this is for me.

  We drive in silence for a while, Main Street already showing the early signs of autumn in the colorful decay of leaves. I crack the window and let the crisp air slice into the car.

  “How’d your mom take it?” I ask.

  “All right,” he says. “She was an army brat, remember? She’s never lived in the same place for more than a few years. She thinks wanderlust runs in the family.”

  “Right,” I say. “Hey, Tommy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “For what?” he says. “My car is your car.”

  “Not for that,” I say.

  As we near Cherry Street, he slows down, then stops to wait for the oncoming traffic to clear. “For what?”

  “For being, you know, so cool about everything. After the prom.”

  “The prom,” he says. “Did something happen at the prom?”

  I laugh, and he takes my hand.

  “You’re taking the Ramie Option,” he says. “Aren’t you?”

  It’s only when he says it that I realize I’ve made up my mind.

  “I think I have to,” I say. “It’s just …”

  “It’s Jack,” he says. “Right?”

  I nod. “Tommy, if Jack ever woke up in a Motel 6 next to you, I don’t know what he’d do.”

  Tommy laughs darkly. “I can guess.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I say.

  “It’s okay,” Tommy says. “I had a feeling that’s what you’d decide.”

  When the traffic clears, he turns left down Cherry Street.

  “Thanks for driving us,” I say.

  “New York’s on the way,” he says. “Besides, I want to get as much of you as I can.”

  When he steals a look at me with those penetrating brown eyes, it feels like the first time I saw him in calculus class, and all I want to do is stay in that car with him forever.

  When we pull into Ramie’s driveway, she’s sitting on the front porch twisting her wild black bramble hair into a knot. She’s wearing overalls and a big white ruffled shirt, neither of which can mask her absurdly bombshell-ish bod. As soon as she spots us, she jumps up, squeals in delight, then runs inside to get her stuff.

  I turn to Tommy. “You know, you could always stay with us in Brooklyn if you want. I’m sure Ramie won’t mind.”

  Tommy shuts off the car. “Jill,” he says. “I’ve been saving up for this road trip since middle school.”

  “I know,” I say.

  He interlaces his fingers with mine. “It’s only one year.”

  Only?

  “You’re sure you don’t want to come?” he says. “Are you positively and deeply sure?”

  No! I want to scream. The only thing I am sure of is that I want to drive westward with Tommy Knutson forever. I want to tell him I love him, then lose my virginity in the Arizona desert. On an Aztec blanket at sunset, with a coyote howling in the distance. All summer long I’ve been fantasizing that scene. That exact scene.

  But then Jack went and wrote me that letter.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind,” Tommy says. “You haven’t told Ramie yet, have you?”

  “No,” I say. “But listen to this.” I dig Jack’s letter out of my backpack. The handwriting is neater than usual. Plus I found six different drafts of it in the wastebasket when I woke up. He put a lot of thought into it.

  “Are you ready?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “‘Dear Jill,’” I read. “‘I know you have a hard decision to make and I really appreciate how seriously you’re considering my interests. We’ve had our differences in the past, and I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. Despite everything that’s happened, I have faith in your inherent decency. That’s why I know you’ll do the right thing. Love, Jack.’”

  I fold the letter neatly and return it to my backpack.

  “Wow,” Tommy says. “That’s either incredibly beautiful or really manipulative.”

  “I know,” I say.

  I don’t tell Tommy about the earlier drafts of this letter, which articulated in not-so-beautiful language just how much Jack despises Tommy (variously referred to as Knutcase, Knutjob, and Knutsack). Jack has near-perfect recall of my life, including my everything-but-actual-sex life with Tommy, to which he objects vehemently. In contrast, my memory of Jack’s life is spotty at best. Ramie fills me in, though, and one thing is crystal clear: Jack and Tommy will never be friends.

  “What could I do?” I tell Tommy. “Jack has lived his whole life trapped in a bedroom.”

  “True.”

  “He kind of deserves a break, don’t you think?”

  “I guess,” he says. Then he lays those penetrating eyes on me. “So, what about us?”

  Us.

  Us is a subject we’ve both been avoiding, though it’s hung like a cloud over us all summer long.

  “Do you want to …,” he says. “I mean, should we …”

  “We can still talk,” I say. “It’s not like you’re driving to the moon.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “But should we, like, you know …”

  “Break up?” I say.

  “Do you want to?”

  “No!” I say. “I mean, do you?”

  He shrugs. “Not really,” he says. “But what should we …”

  “Um,” I say. “I don’t know. Do you want to maybe …”

  “Should we just play it by ear?” he says.

  Play it by ear?

  “What do you think?” he says.

  What I think is, What the hell does play it by ear mean?

  He squeezes my hand.

  “Yes,” I hear myself say. “Play it by ear. Sure. Yeah. That sounds good, I guess.”

  He looks down. “Okay.”

  Just then Ramie crashes through her screen door with a giant suitcase on wheels.

  Tommy leans over and kisses me on the forehead. “We’ll play it by ear, then.” He presses his lips together in a business like smile.

  “Sure,” I say.

  He pops the trunk, then gets out of the car to help Ramie.

  I get out too and call my mom to tell her I’ve chosen the Ramie Option. She’s not happy about it. She and Ramie have, at best, a nonaggression pact. But she does admit that it’s the “lesser evil,” since, at the very least, it means I’ll be sleeping in an apartment and not with a bisexual boy.

  For a second I’m tempted to ask her if she knows what Play It by Ear means, but I doubt they had Play It by Ear in the Dark Ages when she was dating, and anyway, I am not in the habit of asking my mother for relationship advice. For one thing, she and my dad don’t even sleep on the same story in my house. For another, the last time I took Mom’s advice, I wound up dangling by a pair of skis from a sadistic J-bar. Don’t ask. It was ugly.

  When I close my cell phone, I look at Ramie and Tommy struggling to make everything fit into the trunk. Then I look over both of their heads at the giant maple tree in Ramie’s front yard. That tree has played a surprisingly large role in my life.

  Two and a half hours later, midway to New York City, Ramie makes us pull over at a rest stop so she can pee out the half gallon of iced green tea she’s drunk. It must be the excitement of becoming “the next Alexander McQueen” that’s made her so thirsty.

  While Tommy and Ramie use the facilities, I get out to stretch my legs and collect my thoughts. Now that I’ve made up my mind about where I’m going, everything’s moving so fast. I’ve gained a New York address and, depending on the precise definition of Play It by Ear, possibly lost a boyfriend.

  In the grass strip between two rows of parked cars, three little kids are play fighting with plastic light sabers while their parents rearrange their bags in the trunk. Those kids don’t know how lucky they are. All they have to do is whack each other with plastic until Mom and
Dad put them back in the car. Mom and Dad will decide where they’re going and how to get there. Mom and Dad will replace the batteries as needed, tuck them in at night, and make all their Big Scary Decisions for them. I bet they’ve never even heard the words “play it by ear.”

  After a few minutes Ramie runs out of the food court and plants herself next to me with a bag of French fries.

  “Okay,” she says. “Before he gets back, tell me everything.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I say. “We’re playing it by ear.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I was hoping you’d know.”

  “How would I know?” she says. “Are you breaking up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know? Are you going to have sex with him tonight?”

  I shrug.

  “Jill,” she says. “What are you waiting for? A sign from the heavens? Oh, that reminds me. Are your cycles still going wonky?”

  “They’re just a little bit irregular,” I say. “That’s all.”

  “Damn,” she says. “I was hoping we could keep a calendar so I’d know exactly how long I have to wait between conjugal visits.”

  I grab two of her French fries and shove them into my mouth. I’m working on feigning nonchalance over the fact that my body spends four days every month screwing Ramie’s brains out.

  “You know,” she says, inching close to me. “Tonight’s the perfect night. It’ll be all tragic and beautiful. I’ll wear earplugs, I swear. I won’t listen.”

  “Liar.”

  “Ooh.” She whacks me on the shoulder. “So you are doing it tonight!” She takes out her cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Texting Daria,” she says.

  I grab her phone. “What is wrong with you!”

  “Jill,” she says. “Don’t be a tease. Are you or aren’t you? Daria’s concerned.”

  “Daria’s concerned?”

  “She thinks you’re building it up too much, like the Tower of Babylon.”

  “I’m not building it up. And isn’t it the Tower of Babel?”