Jessica and Darren’s friends were easy to hang out with. Maybe it was because they were from different grades, but they hardly mentioned any other people from our school except in passing. Mostly they talked about movies, and music. They talked about Jessica’s play, and where they were thinking of going to college.
Becky frowned when Darren mentioned Columbia. “Cornell’s an awesome school, too,” she reminded him. “And it’s so much closer.”
After the nachos had been reduced to a puddle of scraped-over cheese, we sat for over an hour, until our waitress pointedly brought our check. I trailed the others out of the restaurant, and saw Darren say something to Becky before dropping back to talk to me.
“Mind if I hitch a ride home with you?” he asked. “I rode with Quincy, but you’re a lot closer.”
“Sure, I guess.” I gave a fleeting thought to what Becky would think of him riding home with me. Though I wasn’t exactly competition.
The passenger seat was still pushed way back from the last time we’d carpooled to the health clinic, and Darren slid in.
“It was fun hanging out with you guys,” I said as we pulled out of the parking lot.
“Well, it was cool to have you there,” Darren said, his voice strangely stiff. I looked over at him. Where had the ease of our carpool and running conversations gone? It was like he was suddenly treating me like someone he’d just met.
I didn’t want to be someone he’d just met. “Was it really? I only ask because I know I haven’t been good company lately.”
I paused, weighing my next words, wondering if I really wanted to go there. I decided that I did. “Someone told me tonight that I needed to get over myself, that I’ve been so caught up in my . . . my diagnosis that I’ve basically been a shitty friend. And paranoid too,” I added. “I can’t forget the paranoid part.”
“Did you tell them to go screw themselves?”
I smiled. “No. Because I think they’re right.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Darren said after a bit. “It takes a lot of hard work to be truly, top-notch paranoid, and I’m afraid you don’t quite make the cut. Sorry.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I have to say you’re kind of an also-ran in the shitty friend department, actually.”
“I don’t know about that.” I sighed, and flexed my grip on the steering wheel. “I basically accused my best friend of telling the whole school that I was a hermaphrodite. I wasn’t wrong. But I was blaming the wrong best friend.”
“Oh. Crap.”
“So, shitty friend.”
“Okay, so maybe you’re in the ballpark. What did you do when you found out you were wrong?”
“I apologized.”
He made a game-show buzzer sound. “Sorry, you’re out of the running again.”
“But I was a jerk. Do you know how much it sucks to be the jerk?”
“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”
I groaned, even as part of me warmed at the banter. “It was a rhetorical question.”
Darren stretched in his seat, and ran his hand through his hair. “Rhetorical or no, the answer is yes. When my father first came out, I was a total asshole.”
“Weren’t you, like, ten?”
“That doesn’t excuse me. Nor does the fact that he ran off with a guy who’d been my student teacher in fourth grade, leaving my practically suicidal mother in sole custody of me and my hormonally challenged older sister.”
“God. That must’ve been awful.”
“Yeah, my life pretty much blew. Anyway, I blamed it all on my dad. Not on my mom, who, it turned out, actually knew that my father was gay. Or at least bi.
“The thing I hated the most was that he had played the straight guy for so many years. Couldn’t he have just kept his dick in his pants, or at least waited until I’d gotten through the hardest years of my life before taking off? Don’t answer that question. I know it wasn’t the most mature thing to think. But like you said, I was ten. So I threw tantrums whenever I had to go to his house. I deleted his emails without reading them. In other words, yes, I know what it’s like to be the jerk, and to have to deal with the suck when you realize that you’ve been in the wrong.”
“Oh, Darren.” I tried to imagine how a ten-year-old could’ve handled the betrayal and guilt. “What helped?”
“Several thousand dollars of therapy.”
“Well, I’m working on that, at least.”
“Time. Chocolate. And more therapy. But you know what? All those sessions with a shrink really only taught me one thing: To not be too hard on myself. Or my dad.”
When we pulled into Darren’s driveway, the light in his kitchen was still on. “Your mom’s up late.”
“Yeah, she’s got a big event tomorrow, and she said she’d be up late experimenting with different éclair fillings.”
“Oh my God, your mom’s éclairs,” I said wistfully. “Worth killing for.”
“You aren’t kidding,” Darren said as he opened the door to get out. “Come on in. She’s always up for some taste testers.”
“I can’t,” I protested. “It’s too late. What would your mom think?” More importantly, what would Becky think?
“Bull. Shit. My mom loves you. Come on, I don’t want to be held responsible if you resort to justifiable homicide to get one of those éclairs tomorrow.”
Darren walked around to open my door, so how could I refuse?
CHAPTER 39
Darren’s house was pretty much like I remembered it, with the exception, of course, of the baby paraphernalia that had infiltrated every room. We took our shoes off next to the stroller by the door, and walked through the living room strewn with burp cloths and soft toys. Even the kitchen had been compromised by a huge bottle-drying rack. Ms. Kowalski sat at the center island with an icing bag, surrounded by pastry shells.
“Hey, Mom,” Darren said. “I brought you a set of taste buds.”
“Kristin!” Ms. Kowalski exclaimed when she saw me. She got up and gave me a handless hug, careful not to get any sugar on me. “It’s been ages. My, you’ve become such a gorgeous woman.”
I glanced at Darren, who nodded his head ever so slightly. His mom knew. I closed my eyes and leaned into her hug, breathing in the scent of flour and butter.
“You came at the perfect time,” she said. “My client is a horticulturist, and wanted a floral theme for the reception. I’m trying some new lavender and rosewater fillings, and I need to know if they’re too overwhelming.”
She held out an éclair for each of us. I closed my eyes as I bit down, savoring the delicate explosion of flavor. “Wow,” I said. “It’s like edible aromatherapy.”
“And that’s a good thing?” she asked anxiously.
My mouth was too full of éclair to answer so I nodded instead. “Mmm hmmm.”
Ms. Kowalski beamed. “Here, try one of the rosewater ones.”
“Can I help you fill them? It’s the least I can do.” I reached for the other icing bag and plopped myself down by a tray of shells.
“Kristin,” Ms. Kowalski protested, “I’m sure this isn’t how you want to spend your Saturday night.”
“Actually, I can’t think of a place I’d rather be.” Aware of how cheesy I sounded, I didn’t dare look over at Darren. But I heard a metallic screech as he pulled over a chair, picked up a pastry brush, and began putting a chocolate coat on my finished éclairs.
After a couple of minutes, the baby monitor went off. “Oh, dear,” Ms. Kowalski said. “Wendy’s in the shower. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Okay, now’s your time to jet,” Darren whispered as his mother’s footsteps faded. “You’ve paid your dues. Éclair points earned. I’ll tell my mom your dad called or something.”
“No need for excuses.” I smiled as I filled another shell. “It’s kind of soothing.” There was a rhythm to baking, a surety of repetition that was as satisfying as running. The brightly lit kitchen and fantastic smells were just wha
t I needed after a roller-coaster night.
Then it occurred to me. “Unless you want me to leave.” I put down the icing bag and slid off my chair.
“No, of course not!” Darren reached out to stop me, but only managed to paint my arm with chocolate. He swore, and ran to get a wet washcloth.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t even worry about it,” I said. I ran my finger across the offending chocolate and licked it off. “See? All better. Getting messy never tasted so good.”
Darren sighed, but he was smiling. “My mother is such a bad influence. Let me at least get the sugar off so you don’t get all sticky.” He took my hand in his and gently wiped down my arm. My skin tingled.
We were so close I could hear Darren’s tiny gasp as my fingers tightened around his. A strand of unruly hair fell out from behind his ear and I had to restrain myself from reaching out to tuck it back. Outside, a motorcycle zoomed by, setting off a chorus of dog barks.
We both stared down at our clasped hands.
“Kristin,” he said quietly.
Darren’s cell phone went off, shrill and jarring, breaking the spell. He pulled his hand from mine as he reached for the phone, and when he saw the caller ID he turned around so his back was to me.
“Hey, babe,” he answered.
I picked up the icing bag again, pretending not to eavesdrop. But of course I heard every word.
“Yup, I got home okay.” Was it me, or did Darren’s voice sound just a little too casual? He was silent for a while as Becky monologued, nodding his head once.
“Yeah, I remember him. . . . Okay. . . . I’ll check it out.”
After what seemed like forever, he finally wrapped things up. “Well, thanks for calling, babe. I gotta go. My mom needs my help with some last-minute catering stuff. See you on Monday?
“That was Becky,” he said unnecessarily after he hung up. He didn’t look me in the eye.
“Yeah, kind of figured,” I said. I could still feel the echo of his hand on mine.
“She was telling me about her uncle who went to Cornell and loved it,” he said with an eyeroll.
“Oh,” I said. I filled the last éclair, and set it carefully on Ms. Kowalski’s lacquered tray. I stood and picked up my keys. “Well, that’s the last of the lavender batch. Tell your mom thank you again?”
Darren gave me a halfhearted grin. “You already know what she’ll say: anytime.”
“You guys are too awesome,” I said.
And I meant it so intensely that it hurt.
CHAPTER 40
The next morning, it was clear that Faith was ready for the Three Musketeers to be back together again.
Faith: So. U want V and me to pick U up 2morow?
Me: No not quite ready
Faith: Srsly?
Me: Im almost there
Faith: Okay fine. But gonna keep bugging you.
She wasn’t the only one breathing down my neck. That afternoon, Ms. Diaz called to “check in,” reminding me that I only had a week’s leave of absence left.
“It’s really close to the end of the semester. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a fresh start at the beginning of the year?” I asked. That’d give me until after winter break to pull things together.
“Well, the district has strict criteria for extended leaves. We’ll have to get some paperwork from your physicians, and you’ll need to be evaluated every two weeks.”
I hated the idea of another visit to Dr. Cheng’s office. After I got off the phone with Ms. Diaz, I paced around my room, then lay down on my bed. I pretended I was in the middle of a track field, and imagined Coach Auerbach’s voice leading me through her visualization exercise:
Focus on the area under your belly button, and breathe in using your abdomen, as if you’re pulling the breath out with a string. Relax your shoulders. Reach out. Now draw a picture in your mind.
I visualized myself getting out of Faith’s car and entering the doors of Ralph Perry High with Vee by my side. As we walked through the hallways, people stopped and stared, and I imagined myself standing tall and ignoring them. Good people were there, too: Jessica and Darren, and maybe even Jorge and Quincy.
Then I remembered the heaviness in Darren’s voice while we were filling éclairs. The moment Becky called, he had started to say something. I had a hunch that he had been about to let me down easy. Thank God he hadn’t had the chance.
I deleted Darren’s face from my visualization and put in Rashonda Glenn and Peggy Shah. Once classes started it was easier to see how I could fall back into the routine, the machinery of school.
Maybe I was ready, after all.
But as I pictured myself walking into the cafeteria, Bruce appeared. And he did more than stare. He taunted, and got some of his buddies to follow me into the hall as I fled. He cornered me in a stairway, pushed me up against the wall, and unzipped my jeans as I flailed. . . .
I opened my eyes, my heart pounding.
Leaning up against my bookshelf, half hidden from view, there was a picture board that Faith and Vee had put together for me on my sixteenth birthday; I had taken it down one day after things fell apart, and hadn’t rehung it yet. My gaze settled on one picture of the three of us hugging in front of a church. We were all wearing black.
My mom had been sick for almost a year before the cancer finally took her. She died in the summertime, and on the morning of the funeral I went out with Aunt Carla and some of my mom’s friends to collect wildflowers—her favorite.
I remember Aunt Carla bawling behind me as I bent over to pick a daylily. “What is Bob going to do with a motherless child?”
“Shhh,” Mrs. Wu whispered. “It’ll be okay, Carla. Kids are resilient. Look at how poised and strong Kristin’s been today.”
Poised, I thought, when they poured dirt over my mom’s casket. Strong, I told myself that night when I hugged my father as he sobbed.
Six years later, I realized I was neither. How poised could I be if I was sitting in my room, trembling at the thought of Bruce Torino bullying me? How strong was I if I couldn’t even envision a place or a time when I could stand up and confront my diagnosis, rather than fleeing from who I was?
Except, according to Gretchen, such a place existed. People with AIS found ways to live and thrive, ways to be loved. And some of them had shared their stories. I turned my computer on and found the link she’d sent me to the support-group website. I expected maybe a couple of testimonials or links to magazine articles, maybe even a video or two.
I didn’t expect 146 personal stories, ranging from a few paragraphs to a few pages. Written by women who’d found out about their AIS when they were as young as twelve and as old as thirty-five, and by a few men with partial versions of AIS that sounded even more confusing and mind-messing than what I had.
Then there were links to information on other types of intersex, including conditions that were nowhere near as cut-and-dried as AIS was. Syndromes like 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, where you start out looking like a girl but then “virilize” when you hit puberty.
For the first time since my diagnosis, I felt like I’d gotten lucky. Only lucky didn’t completely describe my feelings: humbled was a better word for what I felt reading the honesty on that webpage. Truth stripped naked for the entire internet to see.
The common thread from all those stories was that talking helped, and listening, and time. One day I would find my own place. I couldn’t run there, though, because it didn’t exist yet; I had to build it myself, out of forgiveness, truth, and terrifying gestures of friendship.
CHAPTER 41
Before I left to go clubbing the next Saturday, I came up with a story for how I met Gretchen just in case her friends asked how we knew each other. Once we got there, though, I relaxed, because it turned out to be one of those clubs where the bass was so intense you could feel it in your cheekbones. It was the perfect way to hang out with four people you barely knew, because we couldn’t have had more than a five-word con
versation if we’d tried.
Gretchen introduced me to her girlfriend, Julia, as we waited outside in line, and I liked her instantly, even if I was intimidated by how glam and gorgeous she looked in a black sheath with a gold belt and fishnets. Inside the club, we met up with their friends Jenn and Leslie at the coat check. We’d barely exchanged words before I was half deaf from the pounding music and strangely amped up, itching to move. We plunged into the strobe-lit chaos.
For the first time since my surgery, I danced. Not the single-girl dance, all flirty and mussing my hair around, but the girl-friend dance, in a little circle with the others. I danced until I could feel the sweat soaking my top. Once in a while one of the other girls would take a break to go to the bathroom or get a drink, but I kept going even when I didn’t like the music, as if I were running a race. I just moved and enjoyed the feeling of being lost in a crowd.
Then the music stopped, and an emcee came onto the stage and chatted us all up. The crowd started to make that restless, get-on-with-it murmur, and we slid off the dance floor to get a better view of the stage. As I did, I saw a familiar lanky figure standing against a wall.
“Darren!” I yelled. I ran over, still high from dancing, and gave him a hug. Of course he was there—he was the one who had introduced me to The Concept, after all. I looked around for other kids from our school. “Are you here with Becky?” It was an eighteen-plus club, and Becky was a couple of years younger than we were. Club Eternal was notorious for kicking out kids with fake IDs if there was any suspicion that they weren’t legit.
Darren looked uncomfortable. “Um, no. Quincy and Jessica.” He fiddled with his ticket stub. “Who are you here with?”
“Oh, just some friends,” I said vaguely. I’d already forgotten my made-up story about Gretchen.
Quincy saved me, butting in to tug at Darren’s shirt. “C’mon, we scored a table over by the bar. Oh, hi, Kristin.” He brightened when he saw me, and glanced over at Darren before asking, “Wanna join?”
I looked at Darren. He didn’t say anything or meet my gaze, and I felt myself coming down from my dancing high. “Thanks,” I said quietly, “but my friends are over there.”
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