by T Cooper
“Someday you’ll have to tell me what you did to make her so mad,” I said.
“I did her a favor. She’s just too dumb to see it,” Aud replied, dropping her gaze in a way I knew meant she was thinking about her brother—the glaring, devastating liability of Jason.
“I know you’d never hurt her on purpose,” I offered.
Audrey shrugged. “Is that a good thing?”
A few rounds of bowling, one cheeseburger, a plate of nachos, some chair disco dancing, and three claw arcade games later (no fuzzy bear prize, dang it), the time came to call it a night. I had my usual bus to catch. We said our goodbyes in the parking lot, which stunk faintly of sewage and carton cigarettes.
“I wonder if they do weddings here,” I joked, trying not to inhale.
“Or baby showers?” Audrey countered. It seemed like she didn’t want to leave.
“I, for one, had an incredible time,” I said.
“I did too!” Audrey said brightly, her surprise showing.
“Maybe we can do it again.”
“Oh, well, I have family coming from out of town this break. They want to see the Grand Ole Opry, and do all the touristy stuff downtown. So . . .”
“I wasn’t talking about this week.”
“Oh.” She was embarrassed.
“I have some obligations myself,” I explained, trying to take the sting out.
“Of course.”
“I’m glad we did this. We’ve done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.”
“Serenity!” Audrey squealed, recognizing the line. “Who was in charge of canceling that?”
“Life is full of inexplicable decisions.” Recognizing a good exit line when I see one, I gave a small bow and left.
But not before I hugged her goodbye. Just a quick, friendly squeeze, nothing desirous or needy. (Her hair smelled like mangoes.)
Change 3–Day 195
Mom won’t stop weeping.
“Here, Connie,” Dad says, passing his cloth hankie.
“It’s all good, Mom,” I add, carrying my duffel and books past her and down the hall to my bedroom, Snoopy watching the whole procession with a combination of excitement and annoyance.
“They’re happy tears,” Mom snuffles, blowing her nose with gale force. “I’m just so happy you’re home. And on Easter Sunday.”
“We don’t celebrate Easter, honey,” Dad quickly corrects, never one to let a chance to be a holiday Grinch slip by.
“I know, but it finally f-feels right,” Mom sputters, the crying ramping up yet again. “My baby has come home. We’re a family again.”
Yup. The band is officially back together. After my karaoke triumph and my reunion with Audrey, such as it was, I went back to HQ and told Benedict that I thought it was time for me to move along. I won’t lie, Tracy’s nudging helped, texting me daily quotes about the love between a mother and child, and e-mailing videos of baby animals and their mommies cuddling in the wild. You see enough newborn elephants curling their whiskery trunks around their mamas’ legs, and you feel like leaping back into the freaking womb.
So I leapt. I was in a better place now. With Audrey, obviously. With Nana’s passing. With Chase’s too. But also with myself. I was less depressed. The fog had lifted enough for me to see some horizon, and while Kim is probably never going to be America’s Sweetheart, I wanted to kill people a lot less, and this I counted as a good sign.
When I broke the news, at first Benedict was, per his irritating custom, judgmental in his nonjudgmentalness. “If you’re certain this is the path you need to walk, then you absolutely should go where you belong,” he said.
I just miss home, dude. I’m not joining Hitler Youth.
He added some other stuff about staying on track, and not allowing the comforts of domesticity to quash my nascent politicalization, and keeping my eyes on the RaCha prize, and I listened, but, I explained, the work I was most called to do right then was make things right with my folks.
“I’ll be at the demonstration,” I promised.
Which delighted and satisfied him enough to help me finish packing my bag while I texted Mom to come get me. She was there to pick me up before I’d even reached the curb out front. It was almost as if she’d been circling the block, waiting for the call.
As we drove home, I sensed she was laboring not to spook the exotic bird. She didn’t ask questions or gloat or make mention of my appearance or attire. She let me control the radio. When we pulled into the garage, I immediately spotted a vintage orange Vespa scooter with a matching orange bow on the handlebars. My Kim Cruz birthday present. Damn. They must’ve really missed me.
“We can get your permit now that you’re back,” Mom said.
“Cool. Thank you.”
And then the happy tears started. And they haven’t really stopped.
* * *
I’ve been back half a day, hiding in my room for much of it, and it feels like I never want to leave again. My room feels cleaner, brighter. All my stuff is where it always was. Even my alligator pencils are lined up exactly the way I’d arranged them. Nothing touched. A shrine to me.
That’s not weird or anything.
I check Skype to see whether Destiny is avail. No dice. That’s right, she and DJ were planning to take a road trip to Dollywood for the weekend. (I hope they send me a photo of them eating a giant turkey leg and a funnel cake.)
I text Kris to see if he’s around. He texts right back, and I miss his face, so I ask him to get on Skype. After much equivocation (he’s in his underwear), he finally agrees to put on a shirt and talk to me.
“Guess who’s back, back, back,” he sings the minute he clicks on my screen and sees me in the bedroom. “Back again.”
I flip him the bird.
“How goes reentry?” he asks, half-buttoning his silk polka-dot shirt and reclining on a chintz divan, like he’s living in a Tennessee Williams play. Which come to think of it, he is.
“Odd. Lotta tears.”
“Sister, there should be. That’s what family is for.”
“It feels bizarre. Like I’m the guest of honor. I want everyone to chill. Stop making so much out of it. Get a grip. Something.”
Kris leans forward and presses his nose right up to the camera. “Kimmycakes?”
“Yes?”
“You’re being a Regina George.”
“Screw you.”
“No. You need to hear me. This is your come-to-Jesus moment. Your parents love you. You rejected them. How do you think they should feel? What would be an appropriate response for you?”
I keep my mouth shut. His voice suddenly grows venomous, angry. But not at me.
“I was kicked to the curb like gay garbage. My parents don’t even want to look at me. And I still miss them every day. So maybe you could see clear to giving yours a break for whatever stupid thing they said or did months ago and realize for once in your privileged life how lucky you are.”
“Are you done?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, popping his collar up.
“I love you, Kris.”
“I love you too, dumb bunny.”
After Kris and I disconnect, I march straight to where Mom is sitting in the TV room, blotting her eyes, and throw my arms around her waist, just like the baby elephants.
I feel her body melt.
Then I feel the same happening inside my own.
* * *
Later, after dinner, I helped Dad clear the plates from the table.
“Thanks for the scooter,” I said.
“It was your mother’s idea,” he answered.
I handed him a dirty skillet. “I know you’re disappointed in me. And I’m sorry,” I said. “But I really am trying. Believe me when I tell you, you can’t hate me more than I hate myself.”
I noticed his lips start to tremble. Then his cheeks. He turned around to the sink.
“I didn’t die in that basement, Dad,” I pressed on. “I’m still here. I’m still alive. I’m still your kid.”
>
I wanted him to acknowledge me, to say something, to yell, anything. But he just clenched his jaw, slipped the skillet into the sudsy water, and left the room.
Change 3–Day 201
What does one wear to a coming-out protest/visibility march? I must’ve been standing in front of my closet for a good ten minutes before defaulting to a plain black crew neck and my black stretchy jeans with a hole in one knee. For shoes I dig out my old black Converse hi-tops, a conscious nod to Drew, who started this whole thing.
As I’m tying my laces on the foot of my bed, Snoopy pushed up against my lower back, I notice the memento box in the back of my closet. I finish one double-knot, then the next. I get up and pull the box out, flipping the top open and setting it on my comforter. Snoopy grunts.
I see a stack of Nana’s letters, the last one Mom gave me after Nana died perched on the top. The sight of it makes my eyes haze over with tears, but I blink them away, pick up the letter, and examine Nana’s shaky writing on the envelope.
I wonder what she would’ve thought of all this RaChas vs. Changers Dawn of Justice business. Whether she would’ve been in favor of a visibility march. Something tells me yes. Or at least, if that last letter is any indication, she’d approve of whatever I decided to do about it.
The truth is, all of her encouragement and faith in me is almost too much to carry sometimes. (Now being one of those times.) I don’t want to let her down. To be a person she wouldn’t respect. To be someone she never thought I was.
I sniff the envelope. Nothing besides that dry-paper smell. I sort through the photos in the box, a smattering of the Ethan years: Mom and Dad putting up a tent at a campsite in Vermont, with me and Snoopy, just a puppy then, poking our heads out of the flap; a naked shot in the sink as a baby; another of Ethan’s elementary school holiday concert, sporting a crooked navy clip-on tie.
As I root around the box, my fingers slide over the friendship bracelet from Audrey. I pluck it out, cradle its weight in my palm, then pinch it between my fingers, the little drum-kit charm dangling back and forth. The memory of the day she gave it to me pops into my head like the photographs I was just looking at. Clear, unalterable, frozen in time. It all seems so long ago.
I decide to put the bracelet on. Just for the day. If I’m going to be marching, may as well take along the beat of my own drum. I also tuck the first photo Nana gave me of when she was a Chase V inside my back pocket. It feels right to carry them both with me.
* * *
While I admit my first instinct was to lie to my parents, in the end I decided to tell them the truth about where I was going, if not what I was doing. (I couldn’t risk Dad finding out and possibly tipping off the Council. Then I’d be the rat.) When Destiny showed up out front in her car, a little early, I told my parents we were meeting a couple of RaChas for lunch, and then going to listen to some music downtown for the afternoon. (Technically, we would be hearing music blasting out of the dozens of honky-tonk bars along Broadway, so that wasn’t totally a lie.)
Mom seemed down with the prospect of my hanging with RaChas. I think she credited Benedict and the rest of them with my eventually coming home, plus the shrink in her realizes the more you forbid something, the more enticing it becomes. Dad, however, was his new normal, not particularly cool about anything, including this, but he deferred to Mom before heading into his office to get some work done. Mom slipped a twenty-dollar bill in my pocket while holding me extra tight (her new, stage-five-clinger normal), and whispering in my ear, “Have a nice time, be safe.” She waved at Destiny as I headed out to the car.
* * *
Twenty bones richer, we stop by the vegan craft donut shop in East Nashville, pick up a baker’s dozen to share, and make it to RaChas HQ in record time.
“Maybe no one will even see us out there,” Destiny comments about the lack of traffic.
“It’s Easter weekend and spring break,” I say. “By lunchtime, downtown is going to be jammed with tourists and families. Believe that.”
“Awesome,” Destiny answers in a way that suggests she is well into her second, if not third, thoughts about the whole coming-out-on-the-street plan.
It takes us a couple spins around the block to find a place to park. Benedict wanted as many shiny Changer faces as possible parading down Lower Broadway this afternoon, so he and his team spread the word that all RaChas-related (and even RaChas-leaning) Changers needed to get their butts down here for the action. Judging by the lack of asphalt, it seemed like his pied pipering might’ve worked.
We knock on the metal door and Wylie lets us in, leading us back where final touches are being made. I set the donuts on a table, and the box is immediately swarmed.
I read the posters filled with various slogans and the amended many-limbed RaChas symbol. We Are Changers. Changers Happens. I Changed: So Will You. I’m Not a Changer, But My Girlfriend (or Boyfriend) Is. Gender Is a Social Construct: Deal With It. Changer Pride. Who Do YOU Want to Be When You Grow Up? Identity ain’t nothing but a number.
And so on. Stacks of pamphlets are rubber-banded together on the table, for each of us to take and hand out to curious passersby.
“Kim Cruz!” I hear from across the room. It’s Benedict, motoring toward me, trailed by a scruffy squatter-looking guy juggling a stack of schedules in his arms. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Of course,” I say, “wouldn’t miss it for anything. Plus, it was an excuse to buy donuts. Did you get one?”
“Nobody told me there’d be donuts,” Benedict says theatrically, embracing Destiny and then me. At which point, the guy next to him hands us each a schedule for the day.
“Thanks,” I say without looking at him, my eyes anxiously scanning the agenda.
“You are very welcome,” he says, obviously more to Destiny.
Wait, I sort of recognize that voice. I glance up from my schedule. The face is familiar too. Pale skin, dark green eyes, intense eyebrows. There’s more beard scruff than seems familiar, but I swear I—
This can’t be happening.
He looks at me, lips parted as if about to say something.
I can’t speak.
I obviously look like I’ve seen a ghost (which at this point I’m sure I have), because Destiny asks, “Are you okay?”
“I—I . . .”
“Oh, Kim, this is Andy,” Benedict says casually. “He’s been crashing with us for a couple nights.”
Andy.
My Andy! As in Andy, Ethan’s old best friend for life. (For Ethan’s life anyhow.)
Andy extends his hand to shake mine. “Nice to meet you, Kim,” he says.
“And this is Destiny,” Benedict adds.
“Great name,” Andy gushes.
I can’t do anything but stare at him. I mean, so intensely that I’m sure I’m beginning to give off a creeper vibe. My stomach feels like it’s grounded out beside my heels.
I’M ETHAN, I’M ETHAN, I’M ETHAN, I’M ETHAN, I’M ETHAN! is running through my head. All I have left of you are photographs in a box. Well, until now, that is.
I can scarcely follow as Benedict rattles off: “Andy’s been bumping along from squatter city to squatter city, and he stumbled upon us because he had a messy relationship with a Changer at his school, and it really effed him up, what with all the Council rules about Statics, yadda, yadda, yadda. And he heard rumors about Changers who weren’t all about rules and regulations—uh, that’s US! Anyway, Andy’s got some childhood best friend who moved to Nashville a few years ago, so he’s hoping to find the guy—he thinks dude’s parents will let him bunk there, since he got kicked out of his house in New York for some, whatever, personal reasons.”
“Benedict!” someone hollers from across the room.
“Well, you tell them your story, Andy. Be back in a sec,” Benedict says, leaving me to gawk at the kid sans running narrative.
“Well, that sucks,” Destiny says to Andy, to fill the space.
“Yeah,” Andy replies, a little retic
ent to pick up Benedict’s narrative.
“So what happened?” Destiny pushes.
“Well. This girl,” Andy starts. (I’m no doctor, but he still seems majorly confused and perturbed by the whole ordeal.) “She was literally everything to me, and then poof.”
“Where is she now?” Destiny asks.
“I think she turned into a guy?” Andy says.
ANDY SAYS!
“On the first day of school,” he continues, sounding a little rattled, “this new kid comes up to me and seems to know all this stuff about me. So in retrospect, I think that might’ve been her, but then I guess the parents or Council whatever swooped in, and I could never get any additional information, and it all really screwed with my head.”
“It’s kind of the rules,” Destiny says. “I’m sure she wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“The rules are kinda dumb if you ask me,” Andy blows back.
But nobody asked you, ANDY.
“So what? You hate Changers now or something?” Destiny says.
“No, no, no way. Now that I’m learning a little about it, I’m totally down with the RaChas mission for sure. Benedict says that you guys could use some Static allies, and that’s all I want to be. He asked me to do some recon here at HQ while you’re at the march.” Andy taps a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.
I still can’t form a word.
I feel completely seen, found out, embarrassed, scared, bewildered, sad. Guilty for bailing on the guy. Being another person who disappeared on him because there was no other choice. But he doesn’t even know it. My mind can’t get itself around the fact that he’s standing right in front of me, knows way more than I ever thought he would—and yet he has no freaking real idea.
For now.
“You usually can’t shut this one up,” Destiny says, poking me with a bony elbow. “Don’t know what’s gotten into her. Stage fright maybe.”
“I’m fine,” I stammer. “Just thinking about this schedule.”
“Well, I’m going to set up the waters,” Andy says, overly helpful. “Can I get you ladies some?”
“No thanks, we’re good,” Destiny says, and when he’s gone, she turns to me: “Are you into that guy or something?”