Being Emily

by Gold, Rachel

  There had been so many years of pretense that I guess I didn’t realize how different it made me to always be pretending. The trappings of boyhood were wrapped around me in layers, like wearing all my winter clothes, one sweater on top of another and then the jacket and scarf, in the middle of summer. Everyone was so used to seeing me as a mummy, they didn’t know I could be any other way.

  I’d learned to disconnect my ears and mouth from the rest of me so that I could hear all those words “son,” “boy,” “he/him” without them taking a chunk out of my soul every time. But what did that make me?

  I wanted to live a real life. If magic didn’t turn me into a real girl, the way I’d wanted as a kid, there were other ways. Natalie had done it, and now she went to school every day like I did, but she got to be herself, fully herself. I fell asleep wondering what that might be like.

  In the morning, still in the T-shirt and boxers I slept in, I silently locked my door and then sat down at the computer to start my next phase of research. I’d seen a lot of these sites in the last couple years as I was still figuring things out, but now I looked in earnest, read deeply and made cryptic notes in my science notebook. There was one site that had a list called “Things you can do before your parents know.” A few of those I was already doing, like performing well in school, saving money and researching my options. I already had my name picked out, but I hadn’t started working on my voice. I resolved to start that next.

  This summer would be the perfect time to practice my voice. I could download a few tracks to my iPod and rename them as exercises from a drama class I took last year. The iPod was another device my parents had no idea how to use, but even if they did snoop, they’d see the names and never give it a second thought. Then I could take it with me and practice in my car when I was alone.

  The list also said I should take care of my skin, though there was no way with Dad and Mikey in the house that that was going to happen. They’d spot an exfoliant in the “men’s bathroom” in a hot second. Mom had long ago taken over the master bathroom as her sanctuary and I could sometimes sneak in there, but not often enough. Maybe Claire would let me keep some skin products at her house.

  Next I had to figure out how to get hormones. My mom was too young to start menopause, so I wasn’t going to be able to sneak any estrogen replacement therapy from her assuming she even used it. I laughed. How many teenage kids sat around thinking about their mom’s menopause? It was possible to illegally order hormones from an overseas pharmacy. But first there was that whole illegal issue, and I’d have to be sure of the quality and safety of them, plus where could I have them sent? I’d have to work on that. Plus there was electrolysis…I was going to need to make a lot more money.

  Okay, that was the plan. This summer I would work on my voice and skin, while making as much money as humanly possible. The tip sheet also said it would be good to talk to a therapist, but I still thought Dr. Webber was not my guy. I’d try some hints in the next session because you never know. Speaking of hints, I wondered what my parents were doing today. Maybe I could start to see if Mom was at all receptive to the idea of having a daughter.

  I unlocked my door, showered and threw on a weekend outfit: jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt. Mom was in the living room reading the Sunday paper, and I could hear clattering sounds from the garage.

  “You’re finally up,” Mom said, talking across the hall to me while I poured a bowl of cereal.

  I glanced at the clock. It was almost eleven. “Yeah, I guess I’m catching up on my sleep.”

  “Do you really have that much homework?” she asked.

  I took my bowl of cereal into the living room and sat on the other end of the couch from her, stretching my huge feet out on the coffee table. In Claire’s house, no one ever rested their feet on the coffee table, but here it was impossible to keep Dad from doing it, and generally if Dad did it, Mikey and I could get away with it.

  I shrugged while I swallowed a few bites. “It’s not that much,” I said. “I do some extra stuff, you know, for college and that. And sometimes I just get interested in something and stay up.”

  She smiled. “I used to stay up half the night reading when I was your age.” That only enforced my belief that Mom was a lot smarter than she let on. She never went to college because she got pregnant in the last year of high school and married my dad. Sometimes I joked that she and I could go to college together, but she ignored that. I think she’d given up. At best she said she’d take some classes after she retired.

  It was easy to forget how young my mom was. In another year, I’d be the same age she was when she had me. She actually looked youngest when she dressed up for work and blew her hair dry so that it feathered back in waves from her face. When she wasn’t bustling around the house with her hair rough and her face scrunched in a look of disapproval, she was actually prettier than Claire’s mom.

  “Mom, do you ever wish you had a daughter?”

  She put down her book. “Sometimes,” she said. “I thought about getting pregnant again after Mikey. I love both of you, you know that right?”

  “Sure, yeah.”

  “What are you worried about?” she asked. “I know you’re not as masculine as your father, but you’ve become a wonderful young man.”

  “It’s not that. I’m not worried about not being masculine,” I said.

  Her face hardened and she sat up. “Chris, I know your father and I don’t take you to church every weekend, but we are good Christians and we don’t support alternative lifestyles. You do understand that, don’t you? If you have questions, you should talk to the doctor about that and get help.”

  My heart shriveled into a small, dark mass and then crumbled. If she was going to freak like that at the idea that I could be gay, there was no way I was getting anywhere with the “I’m really a girl” conversation.

  “It’s fine, Mom, it’s not that. I like girls, really.”

  She smiled, though the gesture looked forced.

  “Are Dad and Mikey in the garage?” I asked, standing up. She nodded. I put my bowl in the sink, washing the uneaten cereal down the drain. “I’m going to go bang on the car with them. Yell if Claire calls.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  I thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. You know what they say about adding insult to injury? Well, that came later in the evening. I worked on the Bronco with Dad and Mikey most of the afternoon. Showered again. Did some homework.

  Dad knocked on my door after dinner, which was weird enough. I glanced toward the foot of the bed to make sure that “Claire’s” duffel was in my car, which it was.

  “Come in,” I said.

  He was already halfway through the door, but he shut it behind him, which was unusual. He sat down on my bed.

  “Son,” he said. “Your mother told me you were asking some questions this morning.”

  “Yeah,” I said carefully neutral while the ice of panic dripped down the inside of my ribs.

  “Were you afraid to talk to me?” he asked.

  I thought, About having a daughter? Yeah. “Um, I guess,” I managed. Could he possibly have figured it out? Or did they still think I was gay? “I’m not gay,” I said.

  He smiled thinly. “Of course you aren’t. These kinds of things can happen to anyone.”

  Okay, he definitely had something in mind, but was he thinking what I was thinking? “So you know someone else with my…situation?” I asked. I felt like I was on some perverse game show where the loser is just taken out back and shot.

  “Oh yeah, some of the guys I work with. You know, it’s natural to go through this.”

  Now I knew we were not on the same page. But what page was he on? “What did they do?” I asked.

  “Well, you should make sure you’re taking your vitamins and eating well. And your mother thinks you’re not sleeping enough. Try not to be so uptight all the time, and don’t…ah…take too many solo flights, if you get my drift.”

  Sudd
enly I was in that Star Trek episode where Picard cannot, for the life of him, figure out what the alien captain is saying because that race speaks entirely in metaphor, and yet they’re supposed to fight a monster together. Vitamins? Solo flights?

  He went on. “You tell Claire it’s normal, and I’m sure she’ll understand.”

  “She’s fine about it, Dad.”

  “That’s good. If it doesn’t clear up in a few weeks, you come talk to me and we’ll take you to a real doctor.” He paused. “It still works some, right?”

  I looked at him blankly.

  “You can get it up some of the time, right? And you’re not having trouble peeing or anything like that?”

  My face turned redder than Mars. I wanted to burst out laughing and crying. He thought I was having trouble with impotence. Good Lord!

  “No, Dad,” I managed, barely remembering the question he just asked. “It’s probably just the late nights and stress.”

  He stood up and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “That’s my boy. Don’t be afraid to talk to me.”

  “Sure,” I said, holding my breath until he was safely out of the door.

  The room felt too small and closing in even further, but where could I go? It was February, I couldn’t just take a walk. No stores were open on Sunday night. I swore soundlessly for a few minutes and then put my face in my hands. I try to talk to my parents about transsexualism and they think I’m impotent.

  Well, I thought, it’s in the ballpark. I still wanted to put my fist through the wall.

  I carefully went downstairs saying to Mom, “Books are in my car” and then continued on blessedly outside into the frigid night. The icy air helped. I’d left my scarf inside and kept my jacket unzipped, standing out by my car, staring up at the sky until the tips of my fingers started to go numb.

  ***

  After school on Monday, Claire had one of her bazillion clubs and Tuesday I had a short off-season swim training, so it was Wednesday before I could tell her about the totally bizarre conversation with Dad. She literally fell off the bed laughing.

  “Impotent,” she gasped from the floor. “Oh, that’s rich.”

  “Sometimes I wish I was,” I admitted.

  She pushed up on her elbows. “Well I don’t. I like your…boy parts.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  “Oh don’t mope,” she said, picking herself up and sitting back on the bed. “I got you something.”

  “What?” I asked, thinking it was a new computer game or a book.

  She opened her closet and pulled out a small black satchel, handing it to me. I unzipped it. There was liquid foundation, a compact with four shades of eye shadow, a bunch of brushes to put it on with, bronzer, an eyebrow pencil, two lipsticks and mascara. I must have looked at her blankly, because she sat down looking concerned.

  “Is it okay? I told Mom I wanted makeup, so some of it might be the wrong colors, but I can show you how to do the eyes, I think. I’m sorry, I’ve avoided my mom’s crazy ideas of womanhood so long that I missed a few lessons in all this stuff.”

  I grabbed her and hugged her until she grumbled, “You’re crushing me.”

  “It’s the best,” I told her.

  She shut the door and locked it. “Here are the makeup removing wipes. Mom isn’t supposed to get home for a couple hours, but if she does, I’ll go distract her while you get it off, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “All right, hold still.” She took the foundation out of the bag and a triangular sponge. “Man, this is weird.”

  “If you don’t want to—” I started.

  “Shut up,” she said. “Just let me be weirded out, okay?”

  I looked at her closely, but she was smiling a little, so I let it go.

  We played around for about an hour, and I turned out to be better with the eye makeup than Claire. “You are so doing my makeup for prom,” she quipped. At the end of it, I looked okay. Slightly drag queenish because we overdid the eye color and Claire put the blush too low, but on the whole, very good for a first try. I was going to have to figure out some reason to pluck my eyebrows. Maybe I could audition for the school play; that would give me a good cover story.

  I looked at myself in the mirror for a while, trying to figure out where I could get a wig. Natalie would know. Then I wiped it all off, using three wet wipes to make sure I got every last trace.

  “Thanks,” I told Claire.

  I flopped down on the bed on my back and held my arms open to her. She cuddled up to me and propped herself up on her elbow so she was looking down into my face.

  “Don’t mention it,” she said. “Is it okay if I still think you’re cuter without makeup?”

  “I guess, I kind of still have a guy face.”

  “You should try guyliner sometime.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know, when guys in the movies wear dark eyeliner and it makes their eyes look really sexy.”

  “But—” I started.

  “I know,” she said. “You’re not a guy. But if you ever get busted, tell them you were going for the guyliner look.”

  I grinned up at her and wondered if she would think it was too weird for us to kiss after I’d been wearing makeup. I didn’t get to find out because we heard her mom coming in the front door and she sat up quickly on the bed. “That’s your cue,” she said, giving me a quick kiss. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Ms. Davis,” I said to Claire’s mom as I was heading for the door.

  She turned from the counter where she’d set her purse. “Hi Chris, you don’t want to stay and catch NCIS? There’s a gothic woman in it, like Claire.”

  From the doorway to her room, Claire rolled her eyes at me, though we did both agree that the character of Abby on NCIS was awesome. The issue was her mother’s attempts to be friendly. Claire thought it was bad enough that her mom was more like a sister to her. She didn’t want the three of us to pal around together, even on the couch in the privacy of her own home.

  “Thank you, but I’ve got to get working on my homework,” I said and slipped into the cold air.

  I drove home and checked myself in the rearview mirror one more time to make sure I had no lingering eyeliner. I felt a little stupid to be so jazzed about makeup. The guys at school would totally kick my ass if they knew. But on the other hand, I looked better than some of the girls who went crazy with makeup and huge hair. I had to figure out how to look less like a drag queen, though. If only I had a sister whose fashion magazines I could steal. I’d have to find good makeup tips from the Internet.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CLAIRE

  She cleaned up the compacts, bottles and jars scattered across her bed. She’d put on light eyeshadow too so she could tell her mother she was just showing her boyfriend her new makeup. Mom was delighted, but Claire was feeling more than a little freaked out as she wiped the makeup off after two hours of NCIS.

  The first problem was that he actually looked good with makeup—and not just George Clooney with eyeliner good. In part it was the way Chris’s whole self brightened around girl stuff, and the fact that his deep set brown eyes really came out with a good application of color. And he was better at putting it on than she was, which embarrassed her, though she’d spent a few years deliberately screwing up any non-black makeup so Mom wouldn’t make her wear it. When she had to wear it, it just felt oppressive. She didn’t think girls should have to paint themselves to look pretty.

  Too bad she and Chris couldn’t just swap bodies. Not that she wanted to be a boy. She liked the whole girl thing, just not the übergirl activities that her mom went in for, manicures and that stuff. But she liked being able to cry at movies and the feeling of being held by someone bigger than her. She really liked that part, and she and Chris hadn’t done as much of it since he started talking about being Emily. Come to think of it, she’d spent more time holding him lately. Tonight was the first time in weeks she’d curled up under his arm.

  “Wha
t were you thinking?” she asked in the general direction of up. “You couldn’t just keep the girls in the girls’ bodies? Aren’t giraffes weird enough?”

  She didn’t get a direct reply, but she did feel a vast patience settling down on her as she often did when she asked something ridiculous.

  “I guess I’m still scared,” she said more calmly. “Like what if that happened to me? And what’s Chris going to do? And what…what are people going to think about me because I love a freak?”

  She paused. “I don’t really mean it like that. He’s not a freak. Not much anyway. I mean not any more than half the kids at school, the Future Farmers of America and all that. I don’t know what you were thinking with those kids either.”

  She felt smiled upon. At least God had a sense of humor. Claire reached for her Bible and let it fall open. She probably shouldn’t dog the FFA kids when she consulted her Bible on a regular basis.

  It opened to the Song of Solomon, chapter three: “On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not. I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves.”

  Her Bible study group had a guest speaker last summer who talked about how the Song of Solomon was a metaphor for the love affair between the soul and God. “Him whom my soul loves” could refer to God, Himself.

  “It’s just another way to find You,” she said, mostly to herself since God already knew. “You want us to keep discovering You, and this whole thing with Chris, it’s another way to have faith in You, to see You in the world no matter how crazy it looks at first.”

  There was something St. John of the Cross said in a poem he wrote. She pulled the book off her bookshelf and thumbed through to the poem entitled “A Vital Truth.” There was the line: “An altar is every pore and every hair on every body—confess that, dear God, confess.”