Isaac (11:50 a.m.): Uh, no, you’re right.
Mama (11:50 a.m.): Okay so frankly the anti-bass discrimination in our society has gotten out of control. And as usual, your part of the problem.
Nihal (11:50 a.m.): *you’re
And on, and on.
The freshmen and I didn’t say much. Marcus only popped in to volunteer his services, always punctuated with an exclamation mark: “I have an XLR cable you could borrow, Isaac!” or “I can print the arrangements, Trav!” His eagerness to help was a tiny bit excruciating, but it made sense. What else did he have to contribute yet? The same went for Erik and me, too new to joke around with the others.
Anyway, I didn’t intend to reach the point of joking around. No more easy conversations with Nihal; no more feeling like this could be some sort of family. I was glad that the Sharps were decent guys, and that they were funny, and surprisingly down-to-earth, and that making music with them got more exciting every time, and that I looked forward to eight o’clock all day. All that was fine. But it was not the point. I didn’t need friends—I needed the competition, and so I would stay under the radar. Arm’s-length acquaintanceship only.
I’d started studying random boys in a way that could be described as either subtle or incredibly creepy. Research! They moved in different ways, obviously, because they were not all part of some male hive mind controlled by a remote queen, but there were similarities. They led their stride with shoulders and chests, their spines straight, less of the curve you sometimes saw with girls, especially dancers. Hip movements were minimal. Also, sometimes, they sneakily adjusted their crotch areas.
The crotch area was a simple enough fix. I rolled up a sock and stuck it into my pants. The first day that I did this, the sock dislodged itself during rehearsal, slipping lower and lower down my pant leg until my fake penis had reached my knee. I excused myself to the bathroom. Trav was less than happy, but he didn’t notice the knee penis, so I counted it as a victory. The next day, I folded the sock into my underwear in an elaborate loop the loop. This was more effective.
The more I tried to lead my gait with my shoulders and chest, though, the more my chest felt like a stumbling block. Luckily, I was on the small side of a B-cup, but my boobs weren’t invisible. A sports bra only got me so far.
At the end of the week, I consulted Google. How to flatten chest, I typed into my laptop, sitting on my bed, and clicked on the result that looked the least like porn.
I scrolled down to a section that warned about the health risks of strapping your chest back with ACE bandages. There was a list of shirts called “compression shirts” that you could buy, but I kept reading, hoping for something free. One bullet point suggested using the control top of nylon pantyhose. I had a pair that I didn’t mind disemboweling. I fished them out of a drawer and settled back on my bed to follow the directions.
I’d already snipped off the legs of the nylons when I looked back at the computer screen, suddenly curious. What was this site?
I scrolled up.
Here, said the introductory paragraph, are some tips for passing that worked for me before I started hormones.
I stopped. I reread the sentence. Hormones.
I set my scissors down and peered at the sidebar. It read, Charlie. 24. He/him. My unofficial collection of emotional and physical resources for trans people. FTM resources, which I have the most of, are here. Click for MTF, genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, non-binary, and general resources.
For a moment I was taken aback. Then I felt a sudden, distinct twinge of guilt. My hand found its way to my mouth, and I started chewing my nails.
I didn’t know how big Kensington’s trans population was. I’d met two trans kids here who were out: One was Will Teagle, a genderqueer kid in my grade; he was co-president of the Sexuality and Gender Equity club. The other was Jo Cavaliere, a trans girl in the film school who’d asked me to act in her senior capstone film last year. She’d come out halfway through filming, and then started her transition, which was followed by a week or so packed with people’s mortified apologies every time they referred to her with male pronouns. Some days she waved it off. Others, she seemed too tired.
It stunned me how awkward a bunch of well-meaning people could be. There was something exceptionally clumsy about a bunch of cis kids trying to act nonchalant about her transition, rotating between aggressive supportiveness, curiosity, and intense silence around the topic for fear of saying the wrong thing. Trying to normalize—but not to ignore. Trying to be chill—but not distant. Things had grown steadily less weird as we came to the collective realization that this was not, shockingly, even sort of about us.
I reread the website’s sidebar and tried to tease apart the bud of unease in my stomach. I hadn’t given it serious thought, how my act contrasted with the way some trans kids lived their lives. I was just playing a role, and trans people weren’t, so it hadn’t felt relevant, hadn’t felt like it was in the same ballpark. But it had weird echoes, didn’t it? I was on a website that trans people used for their day-to-day. I felt like I was poaching, fishing earnest resources out of this site and turning them into ruses to trick the Sharps.
I lay back on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Cross-dressing and drag had their own history. I wasn’t doing anything unprecedented. Still, I felt that I’d edged into a place that was not mine. Worse, I pictured some nightmare scenario in which the Sharps found out about me cross-dressing, got furious at me for lying, and somehow carried that anger over into a situation with someone trans who was just living their life.
If they would act that way, though, that had to be something deep-seated, some land mine of darker thoughts waiting for a foot to hit it. Kensington, probably because it was an arts school, was such an overwhelmingly liberal place when it came to social issues—I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have that sort of opinion around campus. Or anywhere, really. It was a strange thing to have an opinion on somebody else’s existence.
I thought of Nihal’s contemplative air and Isaac’s carelessness. I thought of Erik’s peacocking, showing off every talent he had, and Marcus’s desperation to please, and I tried to make sense of the possibility that any of these normal, decent-seeming people could secretly hate an entire subset of the Kensington population. It didn’t compute to me. And it struck me, all of a sudden, how incredibly lucky I was not to have to worry about those opinions when I walked out into the world every morning.
From what I’d seen, none of the guys seemed that way, but I hadn’t seen much yet. I didn’t want to believe it, but I couldn’t know. I imagined the sort of stone that’s smooth and gray on the outside, which splits open to reveal a jagged red mineral interior. I wished I could tell who was gentle all the way down, and who turned to sharp edges the deeper you got.
That evening, as usual, Nihal and Marcus were working in the Nest when I arrived. Tonight, gentle guitar music echoed through Marcus’s laptop speakers. He was always playing something that threatened to send me to sleep, classical piano or the occasional Gregorian chant, probably to calm him down. Marcus was so anxious, so excitable, ready to be startled into laughter or nerves by virtually anything. Talking to the kid stressed me out.
A serene counterpart to Marcus’s furiously bouncing leg, Nihal sat by the piano in meditative stillness, tracing line art on a series of cartoon panels.
I hovered over his shoulder, peeking at the cartoon. Bold line art gave the characters exaggerated features, heavy-lidded eyes and dramatic mouths. He’d done the background in dappled watercolors.
“That’s really beautiful,” I said.
“Hmm?” He looked up at me.
Shit—I hadn’t fixed my voice. I straightened up, shoving my hands in my pockets. “Uh,” I grunted, “looking good, bro.”
“. . . thanks,” Nihal said, sounding a little weirded out. I backed off and considered the merits of melting into the floor.
As I set down my things, a clicking noise rang through the window where Mar
cus sat. He flinched away, lost his balance, and toppled onto the sofa, his laptop folding shut beside him.
“Wh—that guy threw something at me,” he yelped, scrambling up on his knees.
Nihal’s hand stilled against the paper. He set down his pen, stood, and strode to the window. Grim recognition flashed across his face. He tugged at one side of his turban, distaste settling across his expression.
I approached the circle of dusky sky. Marcus twitched away on the sofa so I could see.
A boy was at the bottom of the library building, standing on the long strip of pavement that stretched toward Arlington. He wore a brown leather backpack and was unreasonably tall. His dark hair gleamed in the sunset. It was the kid from the amphitheater.
I sank down, hiding most of my face from view. He wound up like a pitcher, lashed out a hand, and another pebble clattered off the side of the building.
“Hey,” Nihal called sharply. “Cut it out.”
“Make me,” the boy called back, flashing an infuriating grin. “Those your rooks?”
“None of your business.”
“What’s a rook?” Marcus asked.
“It stands for rookies,” Nihal said. “Also a crow pun.”
Marcus gave his usual halting guffaw. I peered down at the boy. “He’s a Minuet, right?”
“Yeah, their music director. Connor Caskey,” Nihal muttered, a deep scowl settling on his face. “He’s the only other Visual Arts person in an a cappella group, so he’s the closest thing I have to an arch-nemesis, basically. He lives a floor up from me and spends all his time being the absolute worst.”
“Caskey?” Marcus repeated. “Like Dr. Caskey?”
“Yep,” Nihal said, and glanced at me. “His dad’s the Dean of Music.”
“He teaches my Baroque and Bach class!” Marcus exclaimed. “He’s kind of a tool.”
“Yes,” Nihal said. “It runs in the family.”
Connor Caskey’s voice rang up. “I saw your desperate e-mail the other day, Singh. What happened? Someone finally crack under the weight of Trav being a total nutcase?”
For a long moment, I watched Nihal trying to decide whether to take the high road, his mouth thinning in frustration. Finally, he muttered something indistinguishable and stuck his head back out the window. “For your information,” he called, “someone transferred to Andover.”
Caskey let out a slow whistle. “Wow! The lengths people will go to escape you guys.”
“. . . rrrghshnff ” was the noise that ground out of Nihal’s mouth.
Caskey grinned toothily up at us, running a hand through his hair. Behind him, someone opened the Arlington side door, calling something that the breeze snatched away. Connor said something in reply, backed up from the Prince building, and gave us a salute that turned into a middle finger. “Later, Muppets,” he called, and jogged toward Arlington.
We leaned back from the window. “Muppets?” Marcus said blankly. “Why?”
Nihal shuffled his comic into a black portfolio case and tucked his ink pen into a pouch. “We do not deign to absorb insults from lesser groups. Got it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What’s his problem?”
Nihal shrugged. “He acts like it’s all a joke, but I think he might still be bitter about the Sharps not letting him in. Which is actually sort of sad, since it’s been three years.” He rolled his eyes. “Or he may just enjoy the whole rivalry thing, because, again, he is the worst.”
The worst? Maybe. Still, it was a little exhilarating, having an actual sworn enemy. Rivals—the word was exciting, a dare. A hurdle to jump. More than that, the term made everything so cut and dry. It wasn’t often the world offered you on a silver platter an enemy whom you could dislike instantly and irrationally, no guilt involved. Connor’s cocky grin fixed itself into my mind’s eye, and it made me want to grin right back.
On Saturday, I arrived at the Dollar Sale the moment they opened the roped-off enclosure, trying to avoid the inevitable crowd. I’d added a ratty baseball cap to my glasses, casting a deep shadow over my face.
I darted through collections of swiveling chairs and clumsily constructed side tables. In one row, beside a forest of wobbly lamps, a fleet of fans turned in the breeze, abandoned. Those were probably donated by kids who’d been lucky enough to get air-conditioned housing this year. The AC life was a life the theater students would never know. Not even Pepper House, the dorm for theater seniors, had AC. It had been a constant sore point for Michael, who heated up like a radiator in his sleep, always ending up with his sheets banished to the foot of his bed, a mess of soft, crimped cotton.
Stop thinking, sang a voice in my head. Stop it, stop it, stop.
I doubled my speed.
A sprawling map of clothes lay farther down the lawn, spread across picnic blankets in the deep shadow of Marden Cathedral. Near the stone path that led to the cathedral doors, I scooped up a six-pack of men’s T-shirts, all varying shades on the grayscale, zipped inside a plastic case. I tucked it into the huge red bag they handed out to shoppers and next added multi-packs of undershirts and boys’ socks. Buying guys’ clothes was like buying bulk cereal.
Instinctively, I checked the tags, keeping the names I recognized. The more I dressed like the Sharps, the more I was one of them. Invisible. And, honestly, it would be nice to blend in for once. I snatched up twenty-three dollars’ worth of Vineyard Vines, Barbour, and Joe’s Jeans so quickly, the crowd was just starting to seep in when I brought my red bag to the counting table.
Approaching the table, I halted in my tracks. The school got the prefects to work this event, and the prefect manning the table . . . just my luck. It was Anabel, beautiful in a summery sundress, the fine point of her nose lifted in the air.
I swallowed, looking around. With people arriving in earnest like this, theater and music kids alike, it was too risky to wait for the workers to change shifts. I could get through one thirty-second interaction with Anabel, right? The hat, the glasses, the hair . . . I looked nothing like myself. Besides that pair of Hall Standards meetings right after move-in, we’d barely seen each other this year. All I had to do was keep my head down and act normal.
I strode up to the table, sliding the bag across to Anabel. “Yo,” I grunted, staring at the table. The white plastic had the stubbly texture of plaster.
“Hi there,” she chirped, spilling the bag out. With crisply manicured nails, she picked through the bag’s contents item by item. I felt spoiled, with all the pricey denim and classy button-ups she was sorting through. A silky tie and—I was officially a sellout—a pair of boat shoes. I’d also stumbled on a pair of khakis perfect for performance and black dress shoes a size and a half too big. It wasn’t like I’d be running a marathon in the things. They just had to fit enough.
Anabel’s hands slowed as she moved to the next clump of items: three dresses and a pair of sparkling heels. I shifted in place.
“My, uh, my girlfriend couldn’t come,” I blurted.
“Oh.” Anabel let out a silvery laugh. “I was going to say, performing in Hedwig or something?”
“Yeah, no, she’s got me doing her dirty work.” I pulled on the lopsided smile I’d been practicing in the mirror, more of a smirk than a real smile. “Ha ha, typical B . . . Bertha.”
Mentally, I gave myself a hard smack. What the hell? Who was actually named Bertha, besides that seventy-two-year-old administrative assistant at my middle school?
“That’s considerate,” Anabel said. “Nice to know chivalry isn’t dead.”
I coughed. “No, yeah. Chivalry is just, uh, super alive.”
Then, like a moron, I looked directly at her. Mild confusion flickered across her expression, and she tilted her head, one curled blonde strand bouncing forward across her eye. “Wait, sorry, have we met?”
“Nope. No. I don’t think so.”
“You look really familiar.”
I shrugged, angling my face firmly down at the table. Ohshitohgodohshit, I thought. “Probably
just the Kensington effect,” I mumbled. “I think I would, um, remember you.”
She laughed again. “That’s sweet. Again with the chivalry.”
There was a teasing edge to her voice that made my cheeks heat up. Was that—was she flirting with me? Why was I getting flustered? She couldn’t be pursuing me—I’d told her I was dating Bertha. I would never cheat on Bertha. We had a beautiful relationship.
Unsure what to do, I very loudly said, “Ha ha ha,” and then wanted to die.
Anabel shuffled the clothes back into the red canvas. “All right,” she said, sounding amused. “That’s twenty-three dollars.”
I handed her the crumpled bills, and she sorted them into the beige metal box that served as a register, humming a song from the musical. Anabel had gotten one of the three leads this year, her first lead part. She was going to be good—she’d always impressed me in smaller parts. It was always tough to begrudge other kids their victories. Most people at Kensington were nice enough, even with the bloodthirsty levels of competition. It would’ve been so much easier if they were divas and assholes and I could hate them comfortably from the sidelines.
“Aaand here you go,” she said, handing me my bag.
“Thanks.” I grabbed it, turned, and froze in place. Jon Cox and Mama stood behind me in line, a lamp arching its neck between the two of them. A smile spread across Jon Cox’s face, his tortoiseshell glasses glinting in the painful sun.
“What’s good, man?” he crowed, dragging the lamp forward.
“Hey,” I said, trying not to sound too flustered. “Um. Nice lamp. I’m gonna—” I took a few halting steps back, trying not to look like I was engineering an escape. They approached the table. The two halves of my life faced each other down.
Mama folded his arms, leaning back to talk to me. “I don’t see why we’re getting another lamp,” he huffed. “We have one in our room already.”
“You’re roommates?” I said, wondering if they ever left each other’s side for more than five minutes at a go. Mama nodded, his dark curls flapping in the wind.
Noteworthy Page 8
