Butterfly Ginger

by Stephanie Fournet

  “I’ve been rude, and you’ve been so kind,” she said, wanting him to feel at least some of the truth — that he wasn’t to blame for everything that had happened. She gathered up her bag and umbrella and spoke in a rush. “Thank you so much for the ride and the coffee. It… it really was good to see you again.”

  “Don’t go yet,” Nate said, the look of sadness in those lovely brown eyes nearly shattering her.

  “I have to go… I have to go,” she stammered, ready to burst into tears.

  “Well, can I call you? Is your number the same?” He asked as though he didn’t deserve an answer, as though he was the despicable one. She reached for the door handle to make her escape.

  “I’m not the person I used to be, Nate.”

  He shook his head in frustration.

  “Then let me get to know who you are now. I want to.”

  “No, you don’t.” Blythe let herself slip from the truck, and she ran through the rain up to her porch steps. She glanced back to see him watching her, the same look of confusion across his beautiful face. She entered the house and shut the door behind her.

  She waited there with her body pressed to the wood of the door, listening for the sound of him pulling away. Nothing rose over the din of the rain, so she let herself peek through the rectangular pane beside her front door.

  Even through the downpour and the fading sunlight, Blythe could see Nate behind the wheel with his head in his hands.

  “Oh, Nate,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  Blythe spun around to find her mother in the kitchen doorway, eyeing Blythe with concern.

  “No one! Myself… All this rain,” she rambled, busying herself with setting her umbrella next to the hall tree and unbuttoning her coat. She pushed her emotions down and tried to mimic something close to normal.

  “How was your first day?” Alexandra asked, turning away from her daughter and back to the stove. Blythe smelled chili powder and guessed that her family would be eating con carne for dinner. She clutched her half-full latte and silently thanked Nate again. The soymilk would give her six grams of protein, and she could get by with a big salad for dinner tonight.

  I really need to move out.

  “It was great,” Blythe said honestly. “I like it there.”

  “Well, come in and tell me about it!” Alexandra chattered with excitement.

  Blythe took a step back.

  “Let me change and… get settled first. Long day.” She needed a few minutes to compose herself, to absorb the time she’d spent with Nate. To close her eyes and picture the man he’d become.

  “Oh, of course. You must be so tired! First day and all that rain? How did you make it home without getting utterly soaked? It hasn’t let up all afternoon…”

  She could hear her mother still talking as she sped up the stairs.

  I really, really need to move out.

  The thought was revolving around in her mind when she opened the door to her bedroom and stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Oh my God, Calvin!”

  Her sixteen-year-old brother stood in the center of the room wearing her sleeveless cream shell with the ruffled neckline and her Forever 21 black pencil skirt. She saw this first — before she saw the earbuds in his ears and before she saw the look of horror on his face.

  “Oh fuck…” he cursed.

  Calvin turned green and ripped the headphones from his ears.

  “Blythe, shut the door!” he hissed.

  Instead, she stood frozen.

  “Cal… what are you doing?”

  “Shut the door!” He snarled at her through gritted teeth, but his eyes were full of anguish. Blythe closed the door and stood with her back to it; shock was slow to give way to comprehension.

  But as she stared, realization struck home. Her scattered cosmetics. Her missing clothes. Calvin’s incessant nagging for her to move out. The shame her brother now wore in his eyes. As she stared, those eyes filled with tears.

  “Calvin, I’m not judging you,” she said in rush, and she crossed the room to him. But he stepped back and held his hand to stay her.

  “Why do you have to be here? Why did you have to move back?” The anger in his words hurt, but Blythe pressed on. She knew he had to be terrified.

  “Talk to me! I swear, I won’t tell anyone,” she promised. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  A lone tear rolled down her brother’s cheek, and he eyed her with doubt.

  “You won’t tell?”

  Blythe placed a hand on her heart.

  “I swear on my life… Let’s sit down, and you tell me what’s going on. And I’ll listen, and I’ll help you if I can.”

  To show she meant it, Blythe sat on the foot of her bed and patted the mattress next to her, but her heart was racing.

  “I don’t think you can help me,” Calvin said, suffering clear in each word.

  “It will help if you have someone to talk to,” she said softly.

  Calvin’s eyes hardened.

  “You think I’m a freak.”

  Blythe shook her head.

  “I think maybe you’re trans…” Calvin blinked in surprise, and Blythe hurried to amend her words. “Or you’re exploring it… I don’t know because you won’t talk.”

  He still watched her with wide-eyed shock.

  “How do you know about that?”

  Blythe rolled her eyes.

  “Cal, I lived in New Orleans for six years. I know what ‘trans’ is.”

  “I’m not gay.”

  “I wouldn’t assume that you were.”

  She held his gaze to prove that she spoke the truth, and, finally, he pulled out the chair at her vanity and sat in it.

  “I like being a guy…” His voice shook as he spoke, and he folded his arms over his chest, gripping his biceps with long fingers. “I don’t want to cut my junk off or anything.”

  Blythe allowed herself a smile.

  “Okay.”

  “I like being a guy…” he said again, his inflection lifting tentatively as he watched her. “But sometimes I want to be a girl, too.”

  She nodded. “In college, I had an art class with a gender-fluid student named Alex.” She smiled again. “I think half the class had a crush on him. And the whole class had a crush on her.”

  Calvin’s eyes bugged.

  “Really?!”

  Blythe shrugged, picturing Alex’s slight frame, muscled arms, and punk hair. She had confidence, and he had allure.

  “Alex was pretty hot,” she admitted.

  This time, Calvin smiled. He even seemed to relax a little.

  “So you don’t think I’m a freak?”

  Blythe drew in a breath and looked him straight in the eye.

  “It surprised me. I’m not going to lie. But… Calvin, no. You’re not a freak.”

  He pressed his lips together, but a grateful smile was there on his beautiful face. And then his eyes clouded.

  “Seth will think I’m a freak.”

  “Seth is an asshole.”

  Calvin laughed, but they were both right. And Seth wouldn’t be the only asshole Calvin would have to face.

  “And Mom… well…” he started.

  She just nodded. That was an impossible situation. Alexandra would make life unbearable for him. Even if she could understand — and Blythe had her doubts — their mother would never stop talking about it.

  “There’s a lot I haven’t figured out yet,” Calvin said, looking so somber, so much older than sixteen. “I’m not ready for anyone to know… I may never be.”

  “I get that,” Blythe agreed. “But you must have wanted me to know. I mean, you’re in my room wearing my stuff.”

  Calvin cocked an irritated brow at her.

  “It’s not your room. It’s my room.”

  She felt a sting of guilt. Calvin’s life was hard enough. Her presence in the house only made it harder for him.

  “Still, you had to know I
’d be home soon.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Blythe, it’s Friday night. I thought I was safe. Don’t you have any friends?”

  Her head snapped back like he’d smacked her.

  “Wow! Mean much? This is how you treat the sister who lets you wear her clothes?” she teased.

  A look of chagrin passed over Calvin’s face. He ran a hand down the front of the shell.

  “Sorry… it’s… it’s pretty.”

  The longing in his eyes made her suddenly sad, but she played it off with another shrug.

  “I have to admit — it looks good on you.”

  Calvin laughed.

  “Does that mean I can keep it?”

  She faked outrage.

  “Hell no! That’s real silk!” she protested before cracking a smile. “But you can borrow it.”

  He raised a jaded brow at her.

  “Just how would I do that?”

  Blythe sighed. If she couldn’t wait to be out on her own again, Calvin probably was ready to explode.

  “Well, for now, you could wear it under a sweatshirt,” she suggested. “True, it wouldn’t be as pretty, but you’d know it was there, and it would feel pretty. Like lingerie.”

  A light sparked in his eyes. Then it dimmed.

  “I don’t know… Maybe. I’d be super nervous.”

  She couldn’t blame him. Why was it that no one would bat an eye if she wore one of his shirts, but if he wore one of hers, he risked ridicule or even violence? Blythe prayed that such a thing would never happen, but she knew it happened somewhere every day. She sighed again. This wasn’t what she would have chosen for her brother, but Blythe understood that choice had nothing to do with it.

  Calvin shook his head and stood as though he’d had enough of the conversation.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to find out,” he said, gathering up his T-shirt and jeans that lay crumpled on the floor. “But I’m kinda glad you did. I had no idea you’d be so cool about it.”

  “Haven’t you learned yet? I’m the coolest person in this family,” she teased, standing up with him.

  Calvin eyed her with pity.

  “How can you be when that’s clearly me?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Okay. You’re the coolest. Are you cool enough to hug me?” she asked, stretching out her arms.

  Calvin’s posture slumped as any sixteen-year-old’s would.

  “Fine,” he droned, walking with resignation into her embrace. She wrapped her arms around him. When had he gotten so tall? Blythe felt a lump grow in her throat at the thought of the little guy with scraped knees and endless questions. His life would never be that simple again.

  Calvin untangled himself from her arms and took a step back toward the bathroom.

  “So, now that you’ve got that job, are you going to move out at last?” he asked, reminding her again that he was sixteen, not six.

  “I’m working on it, Cal. I promise.”

  “Good. Hurry.”

  And then he was gone.

  Blythe collapsed on the foot of her bed and cradled her head in her hands. Exhaustion pulled her down. Her mind spun with the events of the day. Her new job. Nate. Calvin.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered to herself. “I really need to move out.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HE WASN’T GOING TO STALK HER.

  Nate made that decision as soon as he’d dropped her off more than a week ago. And he’d managed to keep himself from taking any unnecessary trips past her house or her office.

  But every workday morning at 7:30, he knew with a kind of full body certainty that she was standing at the bus stop on the corner of Agnes and University, and he’d have to fight the worst temptation.

  His more selfish impulses told him that he could just offer her a ride — every day. Nate was grateful for the mild weather that had followed the rainy front. He didn’t think he could restrain himself if he knew she was battling the elements again.

  And at five o’clock each day, he worried about her making it back to the bus stop okay. Panhandlers and junkies came out in droves downtown as the day ended, hoping to catch people on their way to Tsunami or The Filling Station and try to talk them out of a buck or two. If he just pulled up outside of The Cory Group to take her home each evening, no one would have time to hassle her.

  The weather would only get colder once November arrived, and Daylight Savings would end on Sunday, which meant she would walk to the bus stop in the dark after work.

  The thought of both drove him to distraction as he tried to winterize the Anderson’s yard in Bendel Gardens. When he caught himself staring off into space instead of laying a blanket of cypress mulch on their perennial beds, Nate threw down the mulch sack and reached for his phone.

  It was time to find out if Blythe still had her old number.

  As the phone rang, he remembered that it was two o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday, and Blythe was surely at work. She might not even answer, and he couldn’t imagine she’d call him back.

  “Hello?”

  Her questioning voice shook him from his doubts.

  “Hello… Blythe?”

  “Nate… You changed your number?”

  “No — well, yes. It’s Richland’s,” he answered. “I switched to the business line after Richland died… It just made sense.”

  “Oh…”

  Nate was caught between the thought of Richland and the realization that after all that time; she still recognized his voice when the long and awkward silence finally nudged him.

  “H-how are you?” he stuttered.

  “I’m okay… Working… You?”

  It shouldn’t have, but her question made him smile.

  “I’m working, too. Or, at least, I’m trying,” he admitted. “I’m finding it hard to concentrate… I keep thinking about you instead.”

  He heard her sigh over the phone.

  “Please don’t try to flirt, Nate.”

  Ouch! Damn.

  Her words hurt, but he was sure that she hadn’t told him unequivocally that he couldn’t call her. And until she did, Nate wasn’t going to give up. Not this time.

  “Trying to flirt? I’ll admit that it’s been awhile since I did that, but I wasn’t trying to flirt.” He hoped that she could hear the smile in his voice. He wanted to remind her that he used to make her laugh all the time. “I was stating a fact. I’m trying to work, but I’m worrying about you instead.”

  “Worrying?” She sounded doubtful, but curious. He could almost see her frowning in that pretty way she had. The way her frown could sharpen the startling blue of her eyes.

  “Yeah… Would you like a ride home from work? I could pick you up…”

  “Thank you, Nate, but no,” she said firmly. “I am perfectly capable of walking half a block to the bus stop.”

  She was. He knew she was. That didn’t stop him from worrying. She was also capable of being assaulted or mugged.

  “Whatever happened to your little Toyota? You once told me you would drive it until the wheels fell off.”

  “Well, the wheels fell off,” she said, a mirthless tone in her voice. Nate sensed there was more to the story.

  “It just up and died on you?”

  He heard her sigh again, but something about the sound told him that it wasn’t because his question irritated her.

  “No, a monster got it.”

  “A monster?”

  “Well, a monster truck.”

  Nate blinked.

  “Holy crap. You were in an accident?”

  “Yeah, a couple months ago.” Her tone seemed to dismiss the whole thing, but Nate wanted to know what happened. If a monster truck had totaled her car, she was lucky to be alive. The thought chilled him to the bone.

  “Blythe, were you hurt?” he asked, frowning and turning his body to face the east — towards downtown — as though the motion would bring him closer to her.

  “Not bad… It’s a long story. Lo
ok, I really need to get back to work, Nate.”

  “Wait… wait,” he said. He heard the desperation in his voice and tried to rein it in. “Can I see you this weekend? We could go out for dinner and talk…”

  Silence.

  “I don’t think that’s a good i—”

  “Why not?” he asked, cutting her off. “You said last week that it was good to see me. Was that true?”

  It’s still me, he wanted to tell her. Do you remember how we were?

  “Yes…” She sounded reluctant, but honest, too.

  “Well, it was good to see you, too. And I’d like to see you again. What about Friday night?”

  “I-I can’t go out this weekend,” she said in a rush. “I’m moving into an apartment Saturday. I’m going to be swamped.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll help you move.” It was a perfect opportunity to be with her. It would take all day, and having work to do would keep things from being too awkward. Maybe they could get past some of this tension that was like a force field between them.

  “Nate, you don’t have to d—”

  “I’ll bring one of my trailers. It’ll make it easier. What time should I be there?”

  Blythe went quiet. Nate held his breath and prayed that she wouldn’t shoot him down.

  “Eight o’clock,” she said, resignation clear in her voice. “I really do have to go now, Nate.”

  Nate silently punched the air.

  “Okay. Yeah. I’ll see you first thing Saturday.”

  “Bye.” And then she hung up.

  He stood in the Anderson’s front yard amidst bags of mulch and tried not to let the hope make a fool of him. Blythe didn’t sound thrilled at the idea of seeing him again, and he couldn’t blame her. He knew he would have to take his time and show her that if she let him back into her life, he would do whatever it took to regain her trust.

  But the fact that she’d agreed to see him at all made a ridiculous smile break across his face.

  ****

  AT 7:45 SATURDAY MORNING, Nate parked his truck and trailer in front of the Barnes’s house. He’d hardly slept the night before, unable to think of anything but seeing Blythe again. And this time was different from their chance occurrence at the bus stop or his accosting her after work. He had asked to be with her, and she’d said yes.