Nico & Tucker

by Rachel Gold

  I should’ve been able to talk, but I couldn’t. My face burned. I turned away to sip from the water bottle by the podium. The words were huge in my mind: some women are rapists too. Billboard-sized. I couldn’t say them.

  I could stand in front of a class and talk insightfully about getting beat up for being perceived trans, but I could not say a single word about being raped by a woman. Not one word.

  “We have a whole section next week examining hormones and behavior in depth, as well as how we assign sex and what we expect because of it. Let’s address this question next week.” Prof. Callander pushed up from where she’d been leaning against her desk and asked, “What about experiences like Tucker’s? Have any of you been discriminated against because of perceived or mistaken identity?”

  “People always ask if I’m Mexican or Puerto Rican,” one student said. “And I’m Korean.”

  “I got beat up a lot in junior high school for looking like a girl,” said a very muscular guy with a buzz cut.

  “I started getting hit on when I was nine because I was tall and people thought I was older,” a lanky girl said.

  “That’s nothing,” a girl near her said. “In middle school two guys made me blow them because all the boys said I was a slut. That counts, doesn’t it?”

  The air in the room got super heavy. Or maybe it was the air in my chest.

  “Absolutely,” Prof. Callander said. “What helped you move forward from that?”

  “This counselor found me a support group for survivors of rape and sexual assault. Hearing the other women talk about what guys had done to them really helped me see that it wasn’t my fault and I wasn’t alone.”

  More talking happened after that, but I didn’t hear it. My ears roared from the inside. I sat against the desk like Prof. Callander had because my legs were going soft.

  This student had been assaulted and she talked to someone and they got her help, just like that. She had a whole supportive band of people with similar experiences to help her get through it. I had none of that.

  I had hard stares, confusion, fear, judgment.

  I had Bailey saying “I’ll fucking kill her” when I needed her to tell me she still loved me, that I was a good person, that she’d help me get okay again.

  But I also had Nico saying “maybe is always no” and stopping when I got scared. And I’d screwed that up.

  And I had Ella who at least understood what it felt like when your body wasn’t your own.

  Like now, my body cold and shaking inside. My world narrowing to the points of my breathing, staying upright, not letting the waves of dread and fear show.

  The class was leaving. Some stopped to tell me they’d liked the presentation and I went through the motions. As the last students headed for the door, Prof. Callander asked, “Do you have a few minutes to debrief?”

  I got my eyes to focus on her but the words were a mess inside me. I must’ve looked bad because she asked, “Tucker, are you okay?”

  I shook my head. “I have to go. I remembered…something. Tomorrow okay?”

  “One o’clock?”

  I nodded and went for the door. I had my phone out, walking and texting Ella: my room now?!!!

  On my way, she replied.

  I sprinted across the quad and ran up the stairs because I couldn’t handle being in the elevator with anyone. And I’d started crying somewhere on the way.

  I threw my bag on the bed, continued across the room. I wanted to pace but my legs were shaking. I pressed my hands on the dresser, holding myself up.

  I went hand over hand, like a very drunk, very dizzy person, finding my way more by touch than sight from the dresser to the wall. I moved across the closet and more wall to the door between my room and the bathroom I shared with Ella. I unlocked it.

  Then I crawled onto my bed, put my back to the wall and pulled my knees up. When Ella knocked, I didn’t lift my head from my knees, just said, “It’s open.”

  The door clicked open and shut. Soft steps and the creak of Ella sitting in my desk chair.

  “Tucker?”

  Head still down, I said, “I need help. I can’t do this. I’m cold and hot and shaking and I can’t breathe and I can’t stop crying. And there’s no one…this girl in the class had a support group and there isn’t anyone…No one’s going to help me. But you said…you keep saying I could get help.”

  “You can,” she said. “There are people who went through what you did. I found some articles online when you’re ready.”

  “How do I stop feeling like this?”

  “Can you breathe more slowly?” she asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Come over here?”

  I forced myself off the bed—made myself walk to the side of the desk. My legs that had been feeling like helium balloons were filling up with lead.

  “What’s this?” She touched the mass of wires affixed to a light and speaker at the edge of my desk.

  “Vortex manipulator,” I mumbled.

  “How does it work?”

  I cradled it in my palm. I’d put it back together after many failed attempts to get the light to connect to the buttons. I had it mostly working. I pushed a button and the blue light went on.

  I knew what she was doing. And it was good. Nothing hard, only talk about something I know. I traced the metal edges with my finger.

  “First button turns the light on, second turns it off,” I told her. “I’m working on this last button making a sound come out of the speaker.”

  “Was it hard?”

  “Just figuring out how to split the positive and negative wires to the two buttons, hadn’t done that before.”

  “Show me.”

  I tipped it toward her and pointed to the circuit from the buttons to the power supply and light.

  “I know what you’re doing,” I told her. “And it’s working. What next?”

  “You sit on the bed and fiddle with that while I call a place that does walk-in counseling and isn’t going to be surprised by same-sex partner rape.”

  I flinched at the words, but took the vortex manipulator to the bed with my tiny screwdriver. “You think that exists?”

  “I know it does,” she said. “I called a few hotlines and an anti-violence project until I found someone who could recommend a place. But I thought if I said it too soon you’d brush me off.”

  “It’s like you know me. You’ve been trying to tell me, I get it.”

  She smiled and turned the chair half away from me. I focused on the wires going from the speaker to the power and the third button. I’d been thinking I had them wired backwards. Been meaning to switch them, but I got caught up in my presentation prep.

  Ella called one number, asked a bunch of questions with phrases ranging from “same-sex partner rape” to “under-insured.” When she hung up, she asked, “I want to make you an appointment, can I?”

  “No car,” I said.

  “And you don’t want to ask Bailey?”

  I shook my head.

  She sighed and touched a number on her phone. “Cal, hi, can Tucker borrow your car for a really important errand in another town?…More important than that…Yeah. I wouldn’t be asking otherwise. Okay, thanks. I’ll text you in a bit and let you know when. You’re a hero.”

  She set the phone down on her leg and regarded me. “There, you have a car, now I’m going to call and get you an appointment. Do you want me to come with you?”

  I stared at the tangle of wires in my lap. “Maybe,” I admitted.

  “Done.”

  I didn’t want to listen to the next call and I hung on every word.

  Ella said, “I have a friend, lesbian, who was raped by her ex-girlfriend and she’s having trauma reactions she doesn’t know how to deal with. Do you have someone who could help her?” After that it was a lot of “oh great” and “yes, when?”

  She ended the call and said, “Thursday, four p.m. We’ll have to leave here around three. Okay?”

  “Than
ks,” I mumbled.

  The bed shifted as she sat next to me. “Thanks for letting me help. It’s tough to watch you walking around like you’re all shattered glass. This can be a lot better.”

  I grunted a combination of agreement and doubt.

  She leaned against my shoulder and I leaned back into her. We sat like that, talking about things we’d already said so many times before, until my stomach growled. Then she laughed and went to get us food like everything was normal.

  * * *

  Ella drove because I was feeling shaky. Counseling wasn’t a thing anyone in my family did. Shit happened and you got over it, went on. Check another family first off the list: being queer, college, therapy.

  The waiting room was beigely bland, but the woman behind the front desk had hot pink pigtails. I relaxed a fraction. Ella introduced us and took a clipboard with paperwork. I let her draw me over to a waiting area with an overstuffed blue-gray couch and two skinny wooden chairs. A sleek black coffee table clashed with the blond wood of the chairs and the cherry wood that curled up the couch arms.

  Ella held the clipboard out to me. I couldn’t make myself sit down, but I stood against the wall and wrote on the sheet.

  The door opened and a woman said, “Jess? Come on back.”

  She was broad-hipped in dark slacks and a button-down. Tan skin, short spikey brown hair. I glanced from the door in to the door out. I wanted to leave. Maybe I should have gotten a guy therapist. Would he give me the “um…what?” look? At least with a guy I wouldn’t be worried that he thought I was a bad lesbian. I mean astoundingly bad. Bad enough to mess up the whole system.

  I could make some shit up. I didn’t have to tell her.

  I followed her into a room with five random chairs. I couldn’t tell which one was hers, so I went over to the window.

  “I’m Bridget,” she said and sat in the official rolling chair. Of course that was hers. I should’ve known that.

  “Tucker,” I told her. “I mean, Jess is my first name, but everyone calls me Tucker.”

  “Have you been in therapy before? Do you have any questions for me?”

  “Haven’t,” I said. “What do I do?”

  “You can talk if you want. Or we can sit, do some deep breathing, or not. Do you want to tell me what brought you in here?”

  I didn’t, but that seemed stupid, having driven all this way. And I was half mad about her asking. Ella had said when she called in what the deal was, but this woman was asking like she didn’t know. Maybe they hadn’t passed the information on to her so she wouldn’t be biased. It wasn’t like I knew how therapy was supposed to work.

  I couldn’t right out say to a stranger what had happened to me, so I went for what I could say, “I’m trying to have this relationship but I keep messing it up.”

  Outside the window there was a lake with people walking around it and one person running.

  “Trying?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Tucker, do you want to sit down?”

  “Am I supposed to?”

  “Do you feel better when you’re moving?” she asked. “We could go outside and walk.”

  “You can do that in therapy?”

  “Sometimes they let me get away with it,” she said.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  We passed through the waiting room where Ella was reading and Bridget announced we were taking a walk. We went around the building and down the path to the lake. There were two joggers now and one walker.

  “I can’t guarantee confidentiality as well out here,” she said. “But you say as much as you’re comfortable with.”

  We got about a quarter of the way around the lake and some words came to me. “It’s not about coming out,” I said. “Nothing like that. I like being a dyke. I’ve been out for a few years. And I’ve had relationships before. Can I tell you about coming out and stuff anyway?”

  “Please do,” she said.

  We walked and I told her about coming out a few years ago and a little about meeting Lindy.

  “It was a really bad breakup. And I like this other person but I feel like…I don’t know. I screwed it up. This person has intersex traits and I said some stupid things, not to yo, but in front of yo.”

  Then I had to explain all about Nico and about Summer and by the time I was done we’d made it back to the clinic.

  And I hadn’t told her. But I felt better anyway.

  “I guess I have to come back,” I said. “How long does this take?”

  “Some people come a few times for help with a specific issue and others come regularly for months or years because it helps them be more effective in their daily lives. Do you want to make an appointment?”

  Did I want to? No. But Ella was out there in the waiting room and I knew I needed the help.

  “Next week this time?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  Ella didn’t ask, but in the middle of the drive back I said, “Thanks for this.”

  A tiny smile danced across her mouth. “I want my Tucker back.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  I wanted so much back the way it had been, but I wasn’t sure I’d get it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Nico

  Sunday morning I went fishing with Dad. We were out of the house at dawn, which made me feel backwards. Usually if I saw the sunrise, I was on my way in.

  We picked up coffee and rolls on the way to a lake with a short beach. Dad got his fishing pole set up and handed it to me. “You remember what to do?”

  “Toss it in the water and wait?”

  “Over there,” he said. “Far out as you can.”

  I drew the rod back and cast side arm, spooling it out over the water, watching the bait plunk under the surface. The bobber floated happily.

  “Leave it or tug it a bit?” I asked. Fishing excursions from a decade ago were starting to come back to me.

  “Wait a bit and then small tugs so they think it’s alive.”

  I sat cross-legged on the ground, gripping the pole with one hand, my coffee with the other. Dad sat on a folding chair sewing a split seam on his favorite jacket. I watched his strong fingers maneuver the thin needle through the fabric with grace. He could construct buildings and down a monstrous steak in no time, but he could also cook and sew. As male role models went, he was pretty good.

  We spent the first hour in silence. Me holding the pole over the water and gulping coffee. Him sewing and sorting his lures.

  “What if I don’t like one better, man or woman?” I asked.

  “Then I failed,” he said with a long sigh.

  “Um, how?”

  “I was supposed to teach you how to be a man.”

  “You’ve got Kenan for that.”

  “Two sons,” he said. “I have two sons.”

  “You really don’t.”

  “If I’d fought harder, if I’d been able to take you back from your mother, you wouldn’t be like this.”

  I stared at the red and white bobber on the gray surface of the water. Grow up in California as a guy? I’d probably still be having surgeries on my junk to “fix” it. Wouldn’t have met Tucker or Ella and gotten my heart broken. Wouldn’t have the family I did now—that I loved.

  “I’m sorry that I let you go,” he said. “I am sorry for all the time I’ve missed with you.”

  I’d needed to hear that so much ten years ago, even five. Now my twinge of hope was overshadowed by so much grief and anger. I wanted to pretend I had a regular dad and everything was okay. If I didn’t have Tucker, I needed something else to hold onto.

  But I couldn’t say nothing. “Then why are you driving me away with this lawsuit?”

  “Nico, soon you’ll go in for a surgery you should have had many years ago—to remove this potential cancer. What if it had been worse? Your mother, your doctor, let you ignore the risks—”

  “No they didn’t,” I cut in. “We managed the risk. I went for ultrasounds, that’s why we
caught it. They talk to me, we decide things together. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

  “I should have done better by you,” he said. “I should have fought harder when you were young. I have always wanted you to grow up to be a better man than I’ve been. Or woman, if that’s what you choose. My father taught me to be a man. And I failed you. Your confusion—it is my fault.”

  He held his hands palm up in his lap, staring at them, like he was supposed to shape me with them.

  I swallowed hard and stared at the ripples in the water. Just a normal guy, hanging out with his dad, trying not to cry.

  “I like how I am,” I said.

  “What about when you go into the world to be an adult, to have a career and a family, and then you discover how hard this life really is? When you want your life to be different, will it be too late to change?”

  He had no idea how hard it had already been, how much harder it was with a parent fighting me every step of the way. He’d never seen places that welcomed me and people like me. He’d never been to the Noodle.

  No way would he come to the cabaret. He wouldn’t fit in at all. Not like Yai, who could be different from everyone there and still be comfortable.

  “Do you want to see me dance?” I asked.

  “Yes, very much.”

  I texted Sharani: Is there a studio open? I want Dad to see me dance.

  She suggested a time that afternoon and added: I’ll be there the whole time.

  Thanks, I told her, more relieved than I could say.

  We picked up Kenan from the apartment, went to brunch and then over to the Noodle. Sharani was waiting in the café. She looked very much like a woman with whom you did not fuck. She was in jeans and a loose shirt with a leather vest over it. She was taller than Dad and towered over Kenan.

  I made introductions, ignoring Kenan’s staring at her. We went up to studio two, which was big enough to set a few chairs in it. I jangled with nerves when I went to change. After I came back and started up the music, I moved and forgot everything else.

  I danced through the piece I’d perform at the cabaret, wishing I also had the images to go with it.

  They applauded and Kenan said, “Shit, dude, you’re awesome.” That was stupendous praise from him.