The Revolution of Birdie Randolph

by Brandy Colbert

  She does, but not before she kisses the tops of both our heads.

  “SIT STILL,” MIMI INSTRUCTS.

  We’re at Ariel’s the next day, getting ready for the parade, and Mimi insisted on doing my makeup. Like my mother, I don’t wear much. Mostly because I was only allowed to start wearing it when I turned sixteen a few months ago. I haven’t figured out what works or how to apply it, so I usually just wear lip gloss—and mascara when I remember. Today, Mimi curls my lashes and rims my lids with sparkly blue eyeliner and dabs my lips with dewy red gloss.

  I don’t know what the point is—I won’t be seeing anyone I want to impress. Laz and Greg are meeting us in Boystown, and I invited Booker, but he can’t go. He texted that he wants to see me more than anything but his uncle won’t let him off work.

  “What’s with the sad face?” Mimi asks, the mascara wand pinched between her fingers.

  “Nothing.”

  She looks at me. “It’s not nothing. What’s up?”

  I stare down at my hands. “I haven’t told you yet, but… there’s a guy.”

  She sets the mascara tube on the sink ledge. We’re squeezed into Ariel’s tiny bathroom, me on the toilet and Mimi pressed against the old pedestal sink. “Is he the reason you were grounded?”

  “Yeah, kind of. I went to the party so I could see him.”

  “Have Mom and Dad met him?”

  I look up at her. “They don’t know about him. And I don’t want to tell them because he’s been in trouble. In juvie.”

  Mimi exhales loudly. “Shit, Dovie.”

  “It wasn’t really his fault. He’s not that kind of guy—”

  “Well, what kind of guy ends up in the Audy Home?”

  I stare at her, my mouth hanging open. “Do you hear yourself? You were the one who told me about the school-to-prison pipeline.”

  “I know. I’m not saying he deserved to be there, but… Well, Mitchell wouldn’t end up in juvie.”

  “That’s so not fair,” I say, and I can’t believe this is Mimi. She’s the most open-minded person I know, and the least judgmental. She hasn’t even met Booker—how can she be so sure of who he is? “Just because Mitchell is boring doesn’t mean he’s a good person.”

  I feel a little pang, like maybe I shouldn’t be calling Mitchell boring. I shake it away. Just because we were civil to each other in class doesn’t mean I was totally wrong about him.

  “Listen, you’re my sister,” Mimi says. “Maybe it’s not fair, but I don’t want you getting in over your head because you fell for some stupid guy.”

  “He’s not stupid.” My voice is getting louder. “And I guess every girl you’ve ever dated is perfect?”

  A floorboard creaks in the hall, and I look past Mimi to see Ariel peeking around the doorway. She looks in at us, eyes big. “Everything okay in here, Randolphs?”

  My sister doesn’t answer as she stuffs the makeup back into its bag. Ariel looks at me questioningly, but I just shake my head until she pads away.

  Mimi zips her makeup bag and starts to leave the room. She pauses where Ariel was standing. “I dated someone my first semester who I knew was trouble. But I got involved anyway. She ended up in jail with a DUI, and I spent a good part of my savings bailing her out. She ghosted me the next week and I haven’t seen her since—or gotten my money back.”

  “That’s not going to happen with Booker and me,” I say. What I don’t say is that maybe I’m not as gullible as Mimi. If I got a bad vibe from Booker, I wouldn’t keep trying to see him. I’m not that desperate to be with someone. “He’s good friends with Laz. He has a job, and he’s been sweet to me, always. And he hasn’t been in trouble since then.”

  “I hope he’s a good guy,” Mimi says. “But I wouldn’t be a good sister if I didn’t tell you how I feel.”

  I stand and look in the mirror after she’s left. Mimi did a nice job. I look like a better version of me. Even if I don’t feel like it.

  The parade stretches from Uptown to Lakeview, where Boystown is located. We can hear the music and cheers before we see the people, and I’m anxious to get to the crowds. I want to meet up with Laz, but I’m also curious about Pride. I’ve seen videos and pictures, but I know that can’t compare to actually being here.

  And it’s good that Mimi and I will be occupied with something else. It’s been a while since there was tension like that between us, and I hate the way it unsettles me. I only get to see her for a few days and then she’ll be gone again for months—I don’t want to spend our time fighting.

  The cheering and hooting gets louder and louder the closer we get, and then we’re pressed up against the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, the noise almost unbearable. In the best way. I stare around in awe at the explosion of color, sound, and light.

  There are rainbows everywhere, including the flag Mimi is carrying that says BORN THIS WAY in black letters. Ariel is wearing a temporary rainbow tattoo on her cheek, and I have one stamped on my arm. Colorful hats and costumes and balloons and banners surround us. There are kids running around everywhere, and I even see a couple of dogs—a golden retriever with a rainbow collar and a black Pomeranian with a rainbow-striped bow tie. Everyone looks happy as they cheer on the marchers and candy-colored floats, and the energy is contagious as it pulses through the air. I feel myself smiling for no reason other than that I’m here, in the middle of all this—immersed in a new type of joy in the city where I’ve always lived.

  I look down at my phone to see if Laz has texted. He says they’re trying to make their way over to us.

  Ariel is standing between Mimi and me. She nudges my side. “How great is this?”

  I nudge her back. “It’s pretty great.”

  About ten minutes later, just as a long line of women on motorcycles roars by, I hear someone yelling my name. I recognize Laz’s arm waving and the wild curls framing the top of his head. Greg is behind him, waving, too. But it’s what’s behind them that catches my eye—or who is behind them, rather.

  Booker.

  I stare at him as they push their way around people. He meets my eye and we don’t look away. And it takes forever for them to get to us. They are moving slow as syrup, and I am on the brink of shouting at everyone to get the hell out of their way. Booker is here.

  Ariel and Mimi greet Laz with exuberant hugs, squealing over how grown-up he looks now. I can tell he is trying very hard not to look at Greg, who’s grinning at all the attention. Booker walks straight to me and squeezes my hand. I get the feeling he would have kissed me if Mimi weren’t here.

  “I thought you had to work,” I say, squeezing back with both hands.

  “My uncle was tired of me moping around the shop, so he let me go early.” He laughs. “He’ll never let me forget he did something nice, but it’s worth hearing his big mouth so I could see you.”

  “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “I can’t believe you’re not grounded.”

  A hole is burning through Booker’s back and into my chest. I pull him aside to find Mimi staring at us. She looks pointedly at our linked hands.

  “Booker, this is my big sister, Mimi. Meems…” I pause; not on purpose, but I like the dramatic effect. “This is Booker.”

  She nods and says, “Nice to meet you,” in her politest voice.

  If Booker notices the missing warmth, he doesn’t show it. He grins and says he likes her hair. This earns him a tiny smile.

  Laz finishes chatting with Ariel, then turns to me. He bumps my hip. “Nice tattoo.”

  “You want one?”

  “I’m good. How does it feel to be out of house jail?”

  My eyes shift quickly to Booker at the word jail, but he’s talking to Greg now.

  “She’s still going to be watching me like a hawk, but at least I can walk to the corner by myself.”

  Laz nods and looks out at the parade. For a while. With such brooding eyes that I ask him if something is wrong.

  He shakes his head, but a few moments
later, his mouth opens. “You think my dad ever came here?”

  A drag queen wearing sky-high turquoise heels and a gold-sequined dress strides by, her thick makeup and cherry-red wig flawless. She waves and blows a kiss to the crowd.

  “Maybe,” I reply. “What do you think?”

  “It’d be a good place to get lost. He obviously didn’t want anyone knowing.”

  “You should call him.” I say it just softly enough that he might not hear me over all the music and whooping. But Laz hears everything.

  “And say what?” He scoffs. “‘Hi, it’s your kid. Who hated your guts when you came out and divorced my mom and moved away. But I’m gay, too, and hey! Did you ever go to Pride?’”

  “He’ll be happy to hear from you. Even if you don’t know what to say.”

  I don’t remember a lot about Laz’s dad. He divorced Ayanna and moved to Florida when we were in the fourth grade. I do remember how kind he was, and that he always told Laz how much he loved him. Laz stopped talking to him after the divorce; they haven’t seen or spoken to each other in seven years.

  “You don’t know that,” Laz counters.

  “Maybe you’re scared.”

  “I’m not scared of him. I just didn’t have anything to say for so many years, and now that I do… it’s been too long to just call him up.”

  “No, I mean maybe you’re scared of what he’ll say. Like that you should just come out to your mom already because she’ll love you no matter what.”

  He scowls. “You keep saying I should just do it, but you don’t get it. You’re not queer. And I’m her only kid.”

  “She’s not going to disown you because you like guys.”

  “You think I want to watch her find out someone is a totally different person than she thought they were? Again? I can’t do that to her.”

  “Or maybe she already has some idea and she’d be happy that you could finally be yourself around her. She’d love Greg.”

  “Forget I said anything.” He turns away from me to watch the parade, his scowl not budging an inch.

  When we get tired of where we’re standing, we start to walk down Halsted. It’s jammed all the way across with bodies worse than the blanket of cars on Lake Shore Drive during rush hour. I’ve been to some big festivals in Chicago, but this might be the most crowded one yet.

  We pass a stage where an eighties cover band is playing songs we’ve never heard, though that doesn’t stop Ariel from bopping along as we walk by. The energy of the parade still crackles through the air, but I’m starting to slow down. We need food. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, before I even got to Ariel’s. And now I’m wishing I’d listened to my mother, whose granola bars and trail mix I refused to pack in my bag this morning.

  Every place near the parade is overflowing or has wait times longer than an hour for a group our size. Mimi is starting to get grumpy; she loses a bit more patience at every place that turns us away. And she keeps looking at Booker and me like she wants to say something about us holding hands.

  Ariel falls back into step with Mimi. She types something into her phone. “Hey, Fred and Kelsey are over at Sheffield’s. They said there’s room for us.”

  “All of us?”

  Ariel looks up. “Oh. I guess not.”

  “Sheffield’s is a bar,” Greg says. “We won’t be able to get in anyway if we don’t have fakes.”

  Mimi and Ariel shrug. They both have them; it sounds like they pass out fake IDs like candy at college.

  “I don’t have one,” I say, stating the obvious.

  “Me either,” Laz mumbles.

  Booker shakes his head.

  “Oh. Well, I do,” Greg says. He blushes. “But I’m not gonna leave you guys. Let’s just find somewhere else.”

  “Is that okay?” Ariel does look like she cares, but I know she’d rather go to the bar with her friends than hang out with a bunch of high school kids.

  “Yeah, go,” I say. “We can meet up later.”

  “I’ll see you back at Ariel’s at eleven,” Mimi says, staring at me. “At the latest.”

  “Okay, Mom.” But I stop myself from rolling my eyes.

  Because somehow Mimi weaseled her way right into our mother’s soft spot and persuaded her to let me spend the night at Ariel’s. Mom told us to stay together the whole time, but we’ll just be apart for a few hours, at the most. And I don’t think Mimi is interested in babysitting me any more than I’m interested in being babysat.

  Ariel digs into her pocket. “Here’s my key, just in case you beat us back there. Mimi has my spare.”

  “Don’t do anything dumb,” Mimi says as Ariel drops the key into my palm.

  But she gives me a quick hug. And even if she doesn’t like me being with Booker, I know she isn’t mad at me.

  AFTER WE FIND SOMETHING TO EAT AND PART WAYS WITH GREG AND LAZ a couple of hours later, Booker and I walk.

  The news stories about crime in Chicago aren’t false, but the city is so much more than that. It is beautiful summer nights, warm but not sticky as the sun retreats for the day. It is the rhythmic chugging of the “L” as it coasts above us, the ever-present soundtrack to Chicago. It is people sitting on stoops of gorgeous greystones, stealing bites from their children’s ice-cream cones. And tonight, everywhere around us are rainbows—displayed on flags, painted on cheeks—the festivities of the day still going strong.

  “What’s the best day you’ve ever had?” Booker asks as we stroll side by side.

  “The best day I’ve ever had?” I pause. “I need a minute. What about you?”

  “Don’t laugh,” he says, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “But it was when I was in fifth grade. My mom kept me home from school and said we were gonna have a tourist day.”

  “Did you go somewhere?”

  “No, tourists in Chicago. I didn’t get it, since we’ve lived here my whole life. But she said sometimes that means you miss out on the best parts of your own city.”

  I can’t imagine my mother purposely keeping me out of school for anything. It’s hard enough to convince her I need to stay home when I’m legitimately sick.

  “We had breakfast at this old-school diner that’s been around forever in Hyde Park.” His arm brushes against mine and I tingle.

  “Valois?”

  He grins. “You know it?”

  “Yeah, my dad grew up around there and used to take us sometimes. Best cafeteria food I’ve ever had.”

  “That’s what I told my mom.”

  “Where else did you go?”

  “The Chicago Cultural Center. The Point, so we could go see the water and the skyline, then lunch at Ricobene’s.”

  “Oh! Please tell me you had the breaded steak sandwich?”

  “You know I did!” His smile turns sheepish. “Okay, real talk, I had two.”

  “Two?” Even the smallest size is so huge I’m full before I even finish half.

  “She used to call me the bottomless pit,” he admits, still smiling. “She was always complaining how I was going to eat them out of the house, but I never went hungry. Not even when money was tight.”

  I know I shouldn’t be jealous of Booker’s mom since she’s not here, but she sounds like the perfect mother. Not only would my mom never take me out of school, but she isn’t the type to plan an impromptu day to hang out or approve of me filling up on messy fried sandwiches.

  “At the end of the day, we went to the planetarium so we could watch the sunset. Every place we went meant something to her and—I don’t know. It was dope to hear the way she talked about them. About her life.”

  I barely know anything about my mom’s life that doesn’t have to do with Mimi or me.

  Our arms bump again, and this time I find Booker’s hand and fold it into mine. “I’m sorry she’s gone.”

  “Yeah, me too. I miss having her around.” He exhales a long breath. “Now it’s your turn.”

  I start talking before I overthink it. “I guess it was th
e day before we moved into our place.”

  “How old were you?”

  We pass a house party that’s spilling off the porch and onto the lawn. A few people are setting up a game of bags up front, and two little kids shriek with glee as they chase an energetic German shepherd around the yard.

  “Eight,” I say. “I’d never lived anywhere else but our little house in Albany Park, and I didn’t want to leave. My parents kept saying how much better the new place would be because I’d have my own room, but I wasn’t excited about it.”

  “You wanted to share a room?”

  I shrug. “I was eight. What did I have to hide? And Mimi was my favorite person in the world. Anyway, our parents knew I was upset, so our last night in the house, we had a family sleepover. We unpacked our board games and ordered pizza and told ghost stories while we passed around a flashlight. Then we all slept in the living room—all four of us.”

  I haven’t thought about that night in so long, but I like the way it makes me feel. The memory of being cozy and together and happy. Before my father started working so much and when my mother was a little softer and when I was allowed to play soccer and not worry about college applications. And Mimi was still here.

  “I don’t think your sister likes me much,” Booker says slowly.

  I don’t make eye contact. “Why do you think that?”

  Booker laughs. “I saw how she looked at me.”

  “It’s not you. It’s—”

  “My past?”

  We stop on a quiet corner. I have to look at him now.

  “I didn’t tell her much about it, but… yeah.” I sigh. “She’s just worried about me.”

  “Are you worried?”

  “No,” I say clearly, staring into his eyes. “But I don’t know how to make my family not be worried. And… well, I’m not grounded anymore, but I don’t know if sneaking around to see you is going to work much longer. You’re going to have to meet my parents if we want to keep doing this.”