Mathletes might be my past and present, I thought, but Lottie León is part of my future.
OCTOBER
ReadMe App
OCT. 22—3:01 PM
mathletesmartin: Hey!
PicknLittle: Dude, where have you been?
LadyOfTheStage: Hi, breaking in new T-straps is the worst and I long for death. What’s new?
mathletesmartin: Pickle is yelling at me.
LadyOfTheStage: . . .I asked what’s new.
PicknLittle: You have been a complete spaceman for the past couple weeks.
mathletesmartin: What does that even mean?
PicknLittle: Spacy
PicknLittle: Floaty
PicknLittle: Extremely difficult to reach without the help of rocket boosters and incredibly long-distance phone service!
mathletesmartin: Is it possible, dearest Pickle, that you are being a tad dramatic?
LadyOfTheStage: Ooh, intrigue. You usually reserve the D word for me.
PicknLittle: I’m not being dramatic, I’m telling it like it is!
LadyOfTheStage: You have been a little weird lately
mathletesmartin: Weird how?!
LadyOfTheStage: I don’t know. You don’t say much in class.
mathletesmartin: I’m learning!
LadyOfTheStage: Or at lunch
mathletesmartin: I’m eating!
LadyOfTheStage: Or on the bus
mathletesmartin: I’m. . .
LadyOfTheStage: Don’t say commuting, that’s just sad.
PicknLittle: Plus, you haven’t said a single thing about me and Violet.
mathletesmartin: What about you and Violet?
PicknLittle: ??!???
LadyOfTheStage: Oh, Martin. . .
PicknLittle: We’re totally a thing!
mathletesmartin: Since when?!
LadyOfTheStage: Since Pickle took her to Bloomington Days last week.
mathletesmartin: Bloomington Days was last week?
PicknLittle: See!
mathletesmartin: Pickle got a girlfriend and I didn’t even notice?
mathletesmartin: Jeez. I’m really sorry.
LadyOfTheStage: Well . . . not exactly. . .
PicknLittle: She’s not my girlfriend, per se.
mathletesmartin: Oooookay. . . ?
PicknLittle: We held hands.
LadyOfTheStage: And tell him about the bracelet!
PicknLittle: It’s a cuff, Carmen. Men wear cuffs.
LadyOfTheStage: Violet made him a bracelet. A looooove bracelet.
PicknLittle: It is a CUFF and it’s cool.
mathletesmartin: Is it purple?
LadyOfTheStage: It’s purple.
PicknLittle: It is nONE OF YOUR BUSINESS since apparently you don’t even care enough to notice that we’re totally pre-dating.
mathletesmartin: I didn’t know pre-dating was a thing
LadyOfTheStage: (Me neither)
mathletesmartin: (Why are we typing like this?)
LadyOfTheStage: (We’re whispering)
mathletesmartin: (Oh! Cool.)
PicknLittle: I CAN SEE YOU, INGRATES
mathletesmartin: Pickle, I really am sorry. I’ve just been super busy with captain stuff for Mathletes practices.
PicknLittle: You don’t have practice on weekends, though.
mathletesmartin: Unless there’s a tournament
PicknLittle: Your next one isn’t for another two weeks.
mathletesmartin: So?
LadyOfTheStage: So what Pickle’s trying to say is that we miss you. You’ve been spending a lot of time with your team lately
LadyOfTheStage: And I get that! Because you’re the captain now and that’s mega-awesome and important.
PicknLittle: Buuut then we never see you when you’re not with them either.
LadyOfTheStage: Right
mathletesmartin: You guys, you know my uncle is in town. I’ve never really gotten to hang out with him this much.
PicknLittle: He’s been in town for like, almost two months, dude.
mathletesmartin: I know.
LadyOfTheStage: We’re not trying to gang up on you! We’d just like for our prodigal friend to return. We miss you. Right, Pickle?
PicknLittle: Well . . .
LadyOfTheStage: Pickle.
PicknLittle: Yeah, yeah, okay
PicknLittle: Even though it totally ruins my street cred to say so, yeah, I guess we kind of miss you.
LadyOfTheStage: Heh. Street cred. As if.
PicknLittle: Hey! I have cred! I have tons of cred!
PicknLittle: I have cred coming out the wazoo! Out the ying-yang!
LadyOfTheStage: Says the man wearing the purple bracelet.
PicknLittle: IT’S A CUFF
mathletesmartin: Hey, guys, I gotta go. Can we meet at B-Town tonight? Milkshakes on me.
PicknLittle: Milkshakes, you say?
LadyOfTheStage: Ooh, I’m in
mathletesmartin: 7ish?
PicknLittle: I’ll bring my bracelet.
LadyOfTheStage: Hah!
6
You wouldn’t believe how badly my feet hurt.
Tío Billy and I were spending every afternoon (except for the ones I had Mathletes) working on a routine for Lottie León. Sometimes we’d go to Hoosier Mama and practice in the basement, with Dorie dropping in periodically to feed us her latest cookie creations, but most of the time I was in the living room at home, learning how to be Lottie.
And it was hard. There’s so much energy involved, learning to stand up straight and remembering to keep your shoulders back. And girls walk so differently from boys! There was more of a sway to the way Lottie walked. I wasn’t used to carrying myself like her—like someone with confidence. At first, Tío Billy was teaching me to walk como una princesa in my bare feet because it’s easier. But soon it was time to start practicing in my beautiful sparkly heels.
“Okay, upsy-daisy,” Tío Billy said, standing and holding out his hands to me. The silver pumps made my feet look delicate even though I felt anything but. He pulled me to my feet and I immediately started teetering, my arms pinwheeling at my sides. Tío Billy leapt forward, steadying me. When I was upright, I realized my legs were suddenly much longer—or at least, they felt that way. I would have to extend my leg much farther if I was going to would make a step happen. “All right, león, let’s see baby’s first steps! Aw, I feel like I should be videotaping,” Tío Billy teased.
“Very funny,” I muttered, too focused on my task to muster up a better response. I stared down at my feet and tried to inch one foot forward just one step. The heels made a satisfying CLACK on the hardwood floors. I took another step, then another. “Hey, this isn’t so hard!” I exclaimed, enjoying the purposeful feeling behind each noisy step. I turned in a small circle and caught a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror. I looked completely ridiculous in my Iron Man T-shirt and track pants pulled up to my knees, but I had to admit, the shoes didn’t look half bad. I put a hand on my hip, watching myself in the mirror just to see how it would feel. I looked completely silly, like a lamp pole with an attitude.
“You gotta loosen up, león,” Tío Billy said, coming up behind me. He took my shoulders in his hands and gently shook my arms back and forth until they were hanging limp at my sides. “Relax your arms and legs.”
“I’ll fall over!”
“No, you won’t,” Tío Billy laughed. “I promise. It’s all about confidence, right? And the trick to confidence is to fake it till you make it.”
“Just pretend?” I asked. It was hard for me to imagine Tío Billy ever having to pretend to be confident.
“Sure,” he replied, “everyone does it.” He indicated with his hand that I should lift my chin. “There you go. And straighten out your back.” I did, trying to draw myself up to the tallest I could be. “Good! Now pop your hip a little.”
“Pop?”
“Yeah, like this.” He demonstrated by jutting out his hip to one side. “Put all your wei
ght on one leg, and let the other side sort of relax. The hip bearing your weight should be higher than the other. Does that make sense?”
I tried it, suddenly shifting all my weight into my right leg. Immediately I lost my balance, the heel slipping out from under me and sending me to the floor in a skittering heap. I landed funny on my tailbone, and the blunt pain radiated up my throat into a lump of embarrassment.
“Ouch,” I mumbled, keeping my head down to disguise the tears that were forming. I hated being such a llorón, a crybaby, but the frustration was overwhelming me. Maybe I could walk up and down a stage, but when it came to doing the hard stuff—like heels and dancing and confidence—I was a complete failure.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Tío Billy said, helping me back up. He saw the wince of pain on my face and hugged me. “It’s hard for everybody the first time.”
“If I can’t walk in these shoes, everyone’s going to think I’m a loser,” I said softly. The bruise from the fall was forming beneath my skin like a dull roar. “Just one more thing for them to laugh at.”
“First of all, don’t worry about the shoes. They take time to get used to. And second of all, who cares what other people think?” He gently tilted my chin so that I had to look at him. “I mean it: who cares?”
“I care!” I said, exploding into tears. “I care what they think! Because it’s bad enough everyone thinks I’m quiet and weird, now when people find out I’m a drag queen, I won’t even be a good one!”
I kicked off the shoes and threw myself onto the couch, staring up at the ceiling Mom had painted in robin’s egg blue. I was acting like a toddler, but I didn’t care. My feelings were a big boiling pot inside my chest, and soon they were going to spill out all over everyone. Tío Billy came over and moved my legs so he could sit next to me.
“León,” he said, “let me ask you something.”
“Okay,” I sniffled into my sleeve.
“What’s so wrong with being a drag queen?”
His question took me by surprise. I sat up to face him.
“N-nothing,” I stammered, “I didn’t mean—I just—I didn’t mean to offend you or anything.”
“Oh, I’m not offended.” Tío Billy waved the notion away with his hand. “I’m asking you. You seem to think if your classmates find out that you want to be a drag queen, they’ll make fun of you. Why would they do that?”
“Because . . .” I thought for a moment. “Because that’s just not something boys do.”
“I’m a boy,” Tío Billy said, “and I do drag. Drag was started specifically for boys.”
“Well, right,” I said, “but it’s not something normal boys do.”
“Normal, huh? What is normal, anyway?” he asked with a smile. “Who decides what’s normal?”
I knew what wasn’t normal at my school, and I knew why everyone would make fun of me, but I didn’t want to say it to Tío Billy. He nudged me gently with his elbow and caught my eye. “What is it, león?”
“It’s just that . . . people will think I’m gay,” I said very quietly. Tío Billy made a small noise and looked at me intently.
“And what’s the problem with being gay?” he asked. It wasn’t mean or accusing—just a question. “When you love someone, that’s a wonderful thing, right? So who cares who you love? What matters is that you do love.”
I took a deep breath. I was sure I had fallen in love with drag, but when I thought of what it would mean to love someone else . . . well, I didn’t feel sure of anything. Tío Billy was always so confident in who he was, but what if he expected that of me, right away?
“I don’t know what I am,” I admitted, staring at my aching toes. “Is that okay?”
“Of course it is! León, you’re so young. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but I swear to you: you don’t have to have everything figured out,” he said. “At twelve years old, I didn’t know anything about anything. I just knew I liked how I looked with lipstick on, and that sometimes it was fun to put on silly outfits and dance around.” I giggled, mostly out of sheer relief. It was hard for me to imagine there ever being a time when Tío Billy didn’t know exactly who he was, but it made me feel better to know that there had been. After all, he turned out okay. There could be hope for me too.
Tío Billy put his arm around me. “There’s a lot of pressure in this world to be a certain way, to meet certain standards,” he said. “But you don’t have to give in to that pressure, even if it’s coming from within you.”
“Within me?”
“Sure. Sometimes, you can know who you are and what you want in your heart, but try and smother it because you know it’s different from what the world wants you to be,” he said. “But nobody knows you better than you do. Yours is the only voice you need to listen to.”
“My voice is kind of quiet,” I said.
“That’s okay too. You don’t have to be the loudest león on the plains to be the king. You just have to be the one willing to fight for what you want. Get those claws out, you know?” he winked.
“I want to try to be Lottie,” I said, “I have to.”
“Good,” Tío Billy said. He stood up and stuck out his hand to me. “Then let’s keep trying.”
I locked up my bike outside B-Town Diner with my feet swelling inside my Adidas. By the time we had finished practicing, I could walk in a straight line almost perfectly, and I could turn in a circle. Walking backward had been a challenge (I almost pulled down Mom’s drapes a few times), but Tío Billy assured me it wasn’t a skill I’d have to use too often if I didn’t want to. I was excited to be making progress, until I pried off the heels and saw my blisters. Yuck.
Pickle and Carmen were already at our favorite booth, the one all the way in the back. Pickle likes it because he says it makes him feel mysterious, like a mob boss waiting for someone to walk in and kiss his ring. Carmen likes it because it’s nearest to the kitchen (she loves her loaded fries piping hot) and because it’s perfectly situated for eavesdropping on everyone else in the place. I just like it because it’s farthest from everyone else and there’s never a draft.
Pickle was hanging out of the booth, waving his arm. I shuffled past a group of college kids pouring out of their table and made my way to the booth, resplendent in its gray vinyl upholstery. Pickle was wearing his favorite pea coat and a stocking cap; Carmen had donned a denim jacket over a mustard yellow blouse and bedazzled jeans.
“Took the liberty of ordering you your usual,” she said, sliding a strawberry milkshake toward me as I settled in on Pickle’s side of the booth. She was fiddling with the straw on her cake batter milkshake and looking to Pickle.
“You’re late,” he said, He was already nearly halfway through his chocolate shake.
“I know, I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’m really glad to see you guys.”
“Us too!” Carmen chirped. “I’ve spent so much time in the performing arts center, it was starting to feel like the whole universe was a set of concrete walls and a stage.”
“How’s the musical coming along?” I asked.
“Oh, fine,” she said. “At least, it will be. Turns out Didi is allergic to the chocolate Lip Smackers that Turner put on before their big kiss scene. She’ll be all right, once the swelling goes down.” Carmen smiled wickedly and took a big swig of her milkshake. Didi Esposito got the lead role over Carmen and has since become her archnemesis.
“Too bad,” Pickle said, taking a gravy-covered fry from the plate in the middle of the slightly sticky table. A flash of purple peeked out from under his sleeve. “Maybe if it had been worse, you could have stepped in.”
“Now, now, let’s not wish bad things unto others,” Carmen said grandly, feigning a haughty air. “Besides, there’s no one else who could play Madame de la Grande Bouche as well as me.”
“Doesn’t that mean ‘Mrs. Big Mouth’?” I asked. Pickle choked on his milkshake. Carmen frowned.
“It does, thank you very much!”
“What a coinci
dence,” Pickle said, his voice high and tight with laughter.
“You guys are the worst!” Carmen pouted.
“You loooove us,” Pickle crooned.
“We’ve not even been here fifteen minutes and you’re already picking on me,” Carmen said. “Unbelievable.”
“Oh, you totally believe it,” I said, dragging a cheesy fry through some gravy before popping it in my mouth. I had forgotten just how good it felt to hang with Pickle and Carmen, listening to them bicker, basking in the happy glow of friends.
“Okay, enough! Our first order of business: Halloween.” Carmen clapped her hands together excitedly.
“What about it?” I said around a mouthful of fry.
“It’s next week, duh,” Carmen said. “What are we going to be?”
“Aw, Carmen, not this again,” Pickle moaned, putting his head in his hands. Every year, Carmen tried to convince us all to do a group costume, and every year, Pickle and I put up a big fight. But we always ended up giving in to Carmen’s whims. Last year we went as the Three Musketeers, with twirly fake mustaches and everything. Our best was in fourth grade, when we went as a BLT—me as bacon, Carmen as tomato, and Pickle as lettuce. It took three weeks for the green dye to completely wash out of his hair.
“Come on, we have to keep the streak alive!” Carmen begged. “Any ideas?”
“Yes, you two go as whatever you want, and I’ll go as a corpse, because over my dead body will I let Violet see me in some silly getup,” Pickle said.
“Ooh, I didn’t even think about Violet,” Carmen mused. “Do you think she’d want to join us? Having a fourth would open up a whole new world of possibilities.”
“Right, because asking my sort-of-not-really-girlfriend to do some wacky group costume with us is definitely not going to scare her off or anything,” Pickle said.
“Pickle!” Carmen pleaded, putting on her puppy dog eyes.
“No.”
“Pickle.”
“No!”
“Pickle!”
“Fine!” Pickle threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. “I’ll ask her! But when she says no, calls us all freaks, and leaves me, it’ll be your fault!”
Martin McLean, Middle School Queen Page 7