Twenty minutes later, I’m in the kitchen sporting one of my two funeral dresses. A juice glass smashes against the porcelain tile. Shards and slivers land in the grout. Glass scatters all the way to the laundry room.
“Did you . . . lose a bet?” Mom asks, but not cruelly. “Or is it one of those specialty dress-up days?”
I might not get fancy very often, but I understand the requirements. Real bra. Grandy’s necklace. Mascara and lip gloss. By God, I am even wearing a thong. These are items I own because my mother has to buy me something for Christmas each year that is not LEGOs and odd art supplies.
I’m uncomfortable as hell, and as hot as I can manage.
“Yes, of course I did, because that’s the only way I am capable of dressing up.” This sarcasm is superior to explaining that my best friends mistook me for a dude and, double whammy, I had a sex dream where I was the guy.
When she refuses my help with the glass, I pour orange juice and await additional commentary. Mom’s staring over her bifocals, directly at my breasts; I wish she didn’t appear so stupefied. “You do look incredible, Billie.”
When someone dies, I safety pin the neckline. Without the pin, I have the illusion of cleavage. “I’m a frickin’ clown,” I say.
“Don’t say frickin’, baby. It means the same thing as that other word.”
Dad arrives in the kitchen waving the morning newspaper. “Clare, did you see this? Tawny Jacobs is on the front page.” Last night’s argument is gone. He hasn’t noticed Mom sweeping glass into a plastic bag. He keeps babbling about the festival without having her attention—he has a gift for this. “This article is basically rubbish. Ada May’s supposed to be impartial, but I swear she’s advocating for—”
He sees me. If he had a glass, it would also be broken. He tosses the newspaper on the table and presses a kiss against my cheek. I am pinned against his suit coat, against the front pocket where he always carries a tiny Moleskine notebook and fountain pen.
“Did someone die?” he asks.
“No one died. I did not lose a bet. I wanted to wear a dress.”
Dad kisses my cheek again. He does not know Littlewood’s Law by name, but his expression titles this a miracle. “This getup is perfect timing.”
Mom dumps the dustpan of glass in the trash. From the clanking and slamming, she doesn’t like the implications of “perfect timing.” We concern ourselves momentarily with breakfast. Toast, coffee, bacon. I’ve missed the Hexagon at the elementary school to do this, and have to text Woods for a pickup. I’m pressing Send and then removing crumbs from my bodice when Mom prompts Dad to explain why it’s perfect timing.
He taps the newspaper article with the photo of Tawny. “We’re all going to need to be on our best behavior with the Corn Dolly stuff.”
I shouldn’t ask. I do anyway. “What about me wearing a dress puts us on ‘our best behavior’?”
You know, his slack jaw says.
“I gotta go,” I tell them before I start another fight Mom has to finish. Yeah, Dad, me wearing a dress is like a receiving a Crown of Righteousness from God himself.
“Take a coat,” he yells. “Chilly out today.”
I clomp to the front deck and await Woods’s pickup. The day is every shade of blue and one or two shades of gray. Warm air comes from the west, cool from the east. It’ll storm before lunch. Woods’ll probably have his own commentary on my attire. He might even think I’m trying to impress him, which I hadn’t considered when I got dressed. No matter what he says, I will girl to the fullest girl today.
Eight hours later, I wish I’d worn a steel corset.
Here are stats on a day with Billie in a dress:
41: Classmates who reference the apocalypse upon sight of me.
1: who questions if I triggered the earthquake.
53: Double takes I witness. (A lowball estimate; I couldn’t possibly have seen them all.)
17: Catcalls.
9: Times Fifty says, “Damn, McCaffrey.”
2: Times Mash offers to get an umbrella so I won’t get rained on while going to the C wing. “You sure, B? It’s no big deal,” he promises, even though he has never offered me an umbrella before.
4: Comments from the girls who often hassle me. They say, “OMG, Dyke Bike, someone should have nominated you years ago.”
I’ve been Dyke Bike to them since seventh grade. In fairness, I called them things too. But I’ve managed to go years without mentioning that their cumulative IQ is a number I can count on one hand.
I tolerate everything for the sake of two compliments. When I scooted into Woods’s truck this morning, he said, “That’s a 9.2 on the Richter, Elizabeth McCaffrey,” and Janie Lee followed his comment with, “No, it’s a 10.” Neither of them asked me why. Maybe they still felt guilty about Einstein.
The person who asks why is Davey.
The last bells rings. I’m careening toward the parking lot with the rest of OHHS, eyes on the books in my arms. A body, tall and compact, falls into purposeful step with my boots. “You’re coming with me,” Davey says. The Camaro transports us to my house first. I am told to return to the car in comfortable clothes because we’re going on an adventure. Under this circumstance, I do not mind being told what to do.
I shed the dress and thong, leaving clothing strewn across my bedroom. When I settle into Davey’s front seat wearing black athletic pants and a T-shirt, the pent-up parts of me finally free, I flap my knees about widely as if I have been wearing a straitjacket.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Somewhere I love.”
“Why?” I say instead of asking where.
“Why the runway event?” he answers. This is a brand-new question, not just a repeat of mine. He wants an explanation for the dress.
Ignore him, be sarcastic, tell the truth? I weigh the options equally and say, “I’m still working that out. I needed to know if I could.”
“Because of the Hexagon of Love? Or the Corn Dolly?”
“Well, that happened,” I say.
“Not many things unnerve you, Billie McCaffrey, but that board did,” he says sympathetically. “Well . . . not many things unnerve you in a way you can’t hide.”
I draw my legs under me, cross my arms over my chest. “Give me your theory.”
“O-kay,” he starts. “Thinking of yourself as boyish is one thing, but your friends assigned you a gender—without asking—and that flayed you. If I had to speculate, you’re actually upset because you believe they should know you well enough to avoid such an error. Which isn’t totally fair to you or them. Gender, sexuality, fluidity: those areas require stumbling around in the dark, feeling, and bumping into things. But even if you can admit that, you still feel out of control. And probably lonely.” No stutter. No question. He delivers this analysis as if he has thought about it all day long.
I find my fist unwittingly clenched around the door handle. Except I am not angry with him. This experiment: why did I do it? Janie Lee’s Instagram account? Proving Woods and Einstein wrong? I hate dresses.
“Please don’t be mad. You asked for the theory,” he says quietly, eyes never leaving the road.
I retaliate with a single sentence. “Why did you put Elizabeth Rawlings on the board when we both know she’s not your first choice?”
“Woods put Elizabeth Rawlings on the board,” he answers.
Davey is inside himself thinking inside thoughts. I’m inside myself hating how exposed I feel. He interrupts with another conclusion. “You give him too much power.”
Woods has always been serenely controlling. I’ve always gone along, easy breezy, because in elementary school I didn’t have the skill to make deep connections on my own. Woods made them all for me. Tied up friends with neat little bows and presented them to me like birthday presents. “For you, Billie McCaffrey,” he seemed to say of Fifty and Mash and himself. He saw I was oddly confident and confidently odd, which meant I was wildly unpopular. And lonely.
Part
of me gets lonely landing on these pre-Woods memories.
I am the one who acquired Janie Lee and welcomed her to the group, but Woods is the one who cemented her feet in place.
I took for granted that they knew me. I took for granted that Woods would always be right.
There’s another truth here. One I’d rather not look at dead on. Maybe, when it comes to sexuality, my foregone conclusions are not all that foregone. Sometimes tomboys are gay. Sometimes they’re not. I wonder which kind of tomboy I am or if there is room to not know until later.
“Tell me,” he says softly.
“I . . .” When I left my room this morning, I thought I’d never admit the sex dream to anyone. Not ten hours later, I want to ladle these thoughts from my head into Davey’s soup bowl. “Have you ever had a dream about someone?” I ask.
“Sure.”
“Like a dream-dream? A dream.”
“Billie, everyone has dream-dreams.”
“Not like this,” I say.
He asks for the details. I hit the high points quick and fast—guy, sex, Janie Lee. He shifts in his seat, considers a response. “I’m glad you’re not carrying this around by yourself,” he says first. “I don’t think it necessarily means you’re gay or transgender. And no one is asking you to choose because of a whiteboard or a sex dream.”
“I know.”
“But you still feel pressured to choose?”
“I feel pressured to assess,” I say. “It all has to mean something. But I can’t tell if my being attracted to Janie Lee means I’m attracted to girls.”
“So, do you think there’s any chance that’s how she feels about you?”
“Maybe.”
“And do you think you’re not overly excited about the Corn Dolly because you’re wrestling with what it means to be a girl?”
“Maybe.”
He says, “I think that’s normal.”
“I feel stupid that I didn’t see this coming. I’ve always been so fixated on a future with Woods, and she was right there too. I should have realized.”
“Why?”
“Because I should have.”
“We all have blind spots, Billie.”
I release my grip on the door handle. “I don’t want things to change, and I want the freedom to explore. Am I even making sense?”
“You are making sense.” He reaches for the tie hanging from the rearview mirror, stops, grips the wheel instead. “What does your gut say?”
“My gut . . . well, my gut put on a dress this morning thinking it was a solution, so let’s not go with my gut right now.”
“Let’s take this stuff one decision at a time. Are you sure you’re over Woods? I have a hard time believing you’ve been in love with him forever and now, poof, all gone, game over. On to Janie Lee.”
“It’s not poof, all gone. More like a switch flipped. More like I wasn’t actually in love to begin with. We kissed . . .”
“And . . .”
The passing cornfields are devoid of color, the gray sky swallowing their radiance. I tell him everything. It comes out of me fast—liquid being sucked from a two-liter bottle. Gulping. Fizzy. Gone. “So there’s nothing sexual between us. Like literally nothing,” I conclude.
“Oh.”
“Is it wrong that I want more than that?” I’m asking as if he is an expert, when really I have no idea.
“You should be with someone who makes you the best version of yourself,” he says.
“Like you are with Thom?” I ask, gently probing.
He averts his eyes from the road. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, when you’re with him, your face relaxes.”
“Hmmm.”
Hmmm, I love him? Hmmm, he makes me feel safe? Hmmm, I don’t know about Thom any more than you know about Janie Lee?
At this cue, he commandeers the radio and forces me to listen to Lyle Lovett and David Bowie. I am tired from my confessions. As I’m nodding off, he strokes the tie hanging from his rearview mirror with longing and I wonder if he misses his father.
When he nudges me awake, we’re parked in a driveway.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Not somewhere my face relaxes. Not yet,” he replies.
18
Large white columns stretch two stories to meet an impressive rectangular roof. The house belongs on the coast. With its large porches, stacked one on top of the other, an American flag hanging from the topmost railing. With its off-white siding, black shutters, and heavily manicured landscaping that perfectly frames every corner and edge with a splash of color. It is not that the house itself couldn’t exist in Otters Holt—we do have some hundred-year-old architecture. But there would be toys in the yard, or perhaps a large ornamental chicken, or maybe algae on the siding, or even a Beware of Dog sign tacked to the tree in the front. It would be lived-in. This house was built like a display—not to play with or abide in, but simply to exist.
“This is where I grew up,” he says. It doesn’t take a genius to see he is embarrassed. “We’re going to meet Gerry and Thom later for dinner, but I need to pick something up first.”
When he opens the car door to get out, I do the same.
It is nearly five o’clock. I ask, “Will your dad be home?”
“I hope not. I’ll text him later and say I stopped by to get a few things from downstairs.”
I stay close, just behind, choosing not to walk in step with him. He unlocks the front door and walks so swiftly through the entry hall that I don’t have time to think anything except: the inside aesthetic matches the outside. Davey opens one of several doors in a side hallway. Steps lead down. We take them two at a time, arriving in a large open space that is outfitted the way Youth Suite 201 should be: pool table, five arcade games, a working foosball table.
I do not tell him this room is nice. He knows.
He’s acting cagey, and I have to guess what he’s thinking. I halfway regret getting out of the car and intruding in this space while simultaneously feeling better that he does not have to be here alone.
He rummages in a closet, and I stay behind, bouncing a pool ball along the rails with my hand, hoping this will end soon.
“You need anything?” I call.
“No, but come see this if you want.”
We’ve created many memories since he moved to Otters Holt, but my picture of him is still full of holes. I like being invited to fill in the spaces.
He’s squatting on the floor, searching for something. We are inside an oversize closet that is more organized than my garage has ever dreamed of being, and equally interesting. Large wire racks line the left and right walls. Bins are labeled: eye makeup, clown, horror, Marvel, jewelry black, jewelry gold, jewelry colorful. There must be a hundred plastic storage boxes—some very large, containing toy guns and swords, and some very small, promising colored hair and skin. One long closet bar hangs across the back of the closet. Costumes are wedged between the walls.
“This is all yours?” I ask.
“Mine and Dad’s.”
My assumptions about John Winters did not include someone who played dress-up. It turns out Davey is not rummaging around after all. He’s working from a specific list, searching from bin to bin, taking required items and filling a duffel at his feet. I do not interrupt again, imagining all the people he has been in this room: Captain America, d’Artagnan, a banana—that’s the only thing the costume in the far corner could be.
He sees my expression of wonder and misreads it as judgment. “I’m a dork,” he says.
“This, my friend, is something far beyond dork.” Before I can add, It’s amazing, he flashes a hurt expression. “I mean, I knew you were into this from the costume party, but I didn’t know you had an actual Bat Cave.”
“Dad calls it my Bunker of Personalities.”
“I see why.”
“Did he do this with you?”
He scowls and grabs an item. “The only costume Dad wears is skin. He preten
ds to be human. The only reason he tolerates this obsession is because I’m good at it.”
“When you say good at it, what do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve won the LaserCon contest the last five years.”
I spend a long minute examining Bat Cave Davey, realizing he has not only given up Thom to be in Otters Holt with his mom, he has given up other precious things. This is his garage. And it explains why he’s decent at eyeliner when I still cannot manage a straight line.
“Gerry said LaserCon is coming up.”
“Yeah. I don’t have any chance of winning this year, but I can’t show up naked.”
He’s painting a picture of himself. A champion who doesn’t have to win to enjoy something. I admire this. And simultaneously know that John Winters would not admire anything about this sentiment. I’ve only met him once, but his thorns were showing.
Davey shoulders the bag, flips the light off, and says, “I was thinking about you in that dress today. It felt like my closet. Like a costume rather than an outfit. It might showcase a piece of you, but not all of you.”
My tongue presses against the back of my teeth in thought. Yes, he is right.
We are up the steps and in the kitchen sneaking bottled water when we hear the back door open, the security system dinging that John Winters is home. He strides into the kitchen, trapping us. Davey has his long face and high cheekbones and forehead. His dad has worn khakis, button-downs, and sweater vests for so long that if he died, the clothes would go to work the next day without him. His keys rattle in a catch-all ceramic bowl. His voice does not rattle. “I told you,” he begins.
“I know,” Davey says.
What he has told him is unclear. Not to come here? Not to bring anyone over? I want to slip out the front door, but I don’t leave. John Winters is the kind of man who makes you straighten your back. I straighten my back and pretend I am welcome.
“You’re the pallbearer,” he says at me rather than to me.
I’ll admit, the smear is so judgmental; my shoulders fall a centimeter or two.
Dress Codes for Small Towns Page 13
