by Ami Polonsky
“Hello to you, too.”
“Please?” they fake begged, clasping their hands together. “We have approximately one billion posters to hang up.” They dropped their backpack onto the ground and dug out a stack of papers.
“What are they for?” I asked, looking through the pages of bright, bubble-lettered cardstock.
“GLOW Club,” Ollie said. “Gender and Love Open-minded Warriors. We’re going to erase all the hate in the world.”
“I hate hate,” I told them. “So it’s like a GSA?” We had a Genders and Sexualities Alliance back home. I’d never paid much attention to it.
“Yeah, just with a much better name. So you’ll help?”
“Sure!”
I threw my backpack into my locker, and Ollie, Savannah, Luciana, and I hung posters around school while some of the other members of the club went off to brainstorm fundraising ideas.
“We have to publicize and recruit more members,” Ollie said when we all met on the stone steps at four. “We only have seven participants.” Before I could say a word, they turned to me, grinning. “I know you’re just here till December. But yes, including you.”
93 DAYS LEFT
92 DAYS LEFT
Ollie had no problem recruiting seven additional people, so, in total, fourteen of us attended the first GLOW lunch meeting on Friday. Ms. Rose, the faculty sponsor, plopped a bag of colorful, rainbow-shaped erasers onto the table among our lunch bags and trays.
“Yay, they came!” Ollie said, jumping up and riffling through the bag. “Ms. Rose and I ordered them forever ago,” they explained, taking a few and passing the bag to a sixth grader with a pink streak in his hair.
“They started this club,” an eighth grader told me, referring to Ollie. “At the beginning of last year.”
Ollie shrugged at us. “It’s no big deal,” they said.
I thought it was. It was awesome.
“We can pass them out starting Monday,” Ollie told everyone, referring to the rainbow erasers. “As publicity, and to pique more interest,” they said. “We need as many new members as we can get.”
I wondered how many new members Ollie was hoping for. Fourteen people seemed pretty good for a school club. Back home, the GSA was way smaller.
* * *
That night, after Dad’s four o’clock class, I met him at the Indian restaurant. Again.
“We should eat as much Indian as possible before going home,” he said once we’d ordered.
“Do you even want to go home?” I asked impulsively. As soon as the question settled over us, I knew I wouldn’t get the type of answer I was hoping for.
“This is a fun adventure,” he replied evasively. “Do you want to go home?”
“Obviously,” I answered quickly, but then thought of Ollie. “Well, when the time comes.”
Dad smiled, unwrapping two Lactaid pills.
“But do you…?” I didn’t know how to finish. Do you miss Mom? I didn’t need to ask him to know the answer was no. Mom and Dad coexisted; they definitely didn’t seem in love with each other. Not, for example, like Emily’s parents, who were constantly kissing and hugging each other, did. As far as I knew, he and Mom had barely even talked since we’d moved. So I settled on “Do you like this job better than your job back home?”
“It’s different,” he replied. “Apples and oranges.”
Talking to Dad was like avoiding words, avoiding labels for what he wanted, what he felt. It always had been, unless he was discussing sociology. So I asked him about his classes, and he talked and talked about the statistical significance of a study on rural education until our food arrived.
91 DAYS LEFT
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror brushing my hair. Ollie was coming over; the day before, we’d made plans to draw even more GLOW posters.
“You mean one billion isn’t enough?” I’d joked as we’d stood on the steps together after school, the afternoon sun beating onto the sides of our heads. We’d waved to Luciana and Savannah as they had headed off to an informational meeting about the volleyball team.
“Definitely not,” they’d replied seriously. “We should hang some in the Lower School, too. Maybe we can get some fifth graders involved.”
Now we sat together on the front porch among Crayola markers and strewn poster board. They caught me watching as they drew a rainbow. “You’re a good artist,” they said, snapping the cap onto the purple marker.
“Thanks.” I eyed their uneven lettering. “Um, you too?”
Ollie laughed. “Shut up,” they joked, rubbing the smear of ink on the side of their hand.
The front door opened and Dad came out with my phone. “Hey, guys,” he said, holding the phone out to me. “It’s Mom.”
Mom. I hadn’t told Ollie much about her. Just that she was planning a giant installation of scrap metal falling through a hole in the drywall of a New York gallery’s ceiling. Like that was normal. I took the phone. “Hey, Mom.”
Ollie looked on curiously as Dad returned to the air-conditioning inside.
“Hey, Es! Just checking in. It’s been a few days.”
Four days, to be exact. So maybe I’d been testing her, just to see how long she’d wait before calling. How independent did she really think I should be? “Yeah, hi,” I said, opening a yellow marker and drawing an I’m annoyed emoji face with a straight mouth on the back of my hand. I held it up for Ollie to see. They laughed.
“How’s life? I haven’t heard from you, so you must be having fun.”
“I am, actually,” I told her as Ollie drew a red face with a zigzag smile on the back of their hand for me. I giggled. Even though I’d been waiting for Mom to call for four days, I didn’t feel like talking to her. “I’m actually kind of working on something for school with a friend. Can I call you later?”
“Sure, great. Call whenever. I don’t want to interfere.”
I rolled my eyes, said goodbye, and looked from Ollie’s hand to their perfect face. “My mom…,” I started.
“Yeah?” I felt like I could tell them anything in the world.
“She’s just … aloof,” I finally finished.
They looked guilty. “I know,” they admitted. “My mom kind of told me. Are you mad?”
Mad? I wasn’t mad. I was surprised—that Dad had talked to Marianne about Mom at all.
* * *
Several GLOW posters later, I walked Ollie to the corner, the sudden wind blowing in humid gusts against our backs. “My mom wasn’t always so distant,” I told them. “She used to be really involved.”
“What changed?” they asked, holding tightly to the poster boards as they flapped in the wind.
“I went to middle school.”
“And?”
I laughed, even though it was more weird than funny. “I don’t know. I think she wanted to give me my freedom. Her parents were really controlling when she was a teenager. She used to tell me stories about sneaking out her window to see friends because she was supposed to stay home and study all the time. Maybe she’s trying to do the opposite with me?”
“Wait, her parents wouldn’t let her leave the house? That sucks,” Ollie confirmed.
“Right? But it’s also kind of dumb to do the polar opposite.”
“That’s true,” Ollie agreed, waiting for me to go on. But I didn’t feel like talking anymore about the way that Mom was, for the past year, suddenly uninvolved in my life.
“I was wondering,” I said, “fourteen members is pretty good for GLOW, isn’t it? I mean, back home there were only five or six people in our GSA. When do we stop trying to get more members and move on to, you know, other stuff?”
Ollie slowed and their face hardened as if, suddenly, they were … something. Mad? Disappointed?
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m good,” they finally said. “You’re right. Fourteen is a great number. It’s just…” The wind gusted, fluttering the poster boards again. “I guess it’s hard to explain.�
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I watched them, waiting for more. Wanting more. But they stayed quiet.
Explain it anyway, I wanted to say. But I didn’t know how. “Okay,” I said. “So I guess I’ll see you Monday?”
They nodded, waved, and were gone.
90 DAYS LEFT
89 DAYS LEFT
“Rabbits are stupid substitutes for dogs,” Ollie said as we sat, looking at each other through their bunny’s cage on the living room floor. Then, by way of introduction, “Essie, meet my furry sister Froggy. Froggy, meet Essie.”
“Froggy?” I asked, laughing, as the bunny wiggled her nose at me.
“Rabbits hop, frogs hop … Hey, I was in fourth grade when I named her. Don’t judge me.”
“She’s cute,” I told Ollie, sticking my finger through the bars of the cage to rub Froggy’s ear.
“I agree. She’s no dog, but she’s cute.” Ollie opened the cage and scooped Froggy out as I looked over the bunny’s ears to them—their backward black baseball cap, gold hoops. Their eyes.
They sighed. “So we’ve never actually talked about it—the gender stuff. You know. Who I am. What it’s like.”
I didn’t know what to say. Was that a good thing, that we hadn’t talked about it? Or did that mean Ollie was mad that I’d never brought it up?
“It’s just that I sort of have to be an advocate sometimes. Like, raise awareness and educate people, which can be exhausting and annoying. But at the same time, I kind of love it. It’s weird.”
“I get that.”
“And I have to bring people together, so nobody feels alone,” they went on, handing Froggy over to me. Her fuzzy nose twitched as she settled into my lap. “I mean, people need to know that lots of people like me exist,” Ollie continued emphatically. “I’m not that unique.”
“Okay.” It made sense. “You just always seem so comfortable with yourself. I didn’t think the gender thing was an issue for you.”
Smiling, Ollie took off their cap. “It’s not.”
Froggy jumped off my lap and Ollie handed me a strand of dusty alfalfa to feed her.
“But you seemed annoyed when I asked about GLOW membership. I’m confused,” I admitted.
“Can we be confused together?”
“Forever.”
“Or,” Ollie said, blushing, “at least until you ditch me in December.”
* * *
After Marianne fed us cookies and lemonade, Ollie walked me home so they could borrow my math notes.
“Sorry about the mess,” I said, leading them past the coffee table, piled high with Dad’s grading, and into my bedroom for my notebook.
“Whoa,” Ollie said, stopping in the doorway, staring at the twenty-two tally marks on my wall.
“It’s a nice prison,” they went on, looking at my overflowing closet and unmade bed.
I laughed.
“The warden must trust you—no bars on the windows,” they continued.
“My dad is a complete space cadet. I could get away with anything,” I said, surprising myself because there had never been anything I’d been eager to get away with before.
“Really?” They looked excited. “Have you ever taken advantage of that?”
“Nah. I’m boring.”
“Yeah, me, too.” There was a moment of silence. Ollie moved a pile of folded-but-not-put-away clothes and sat on my desk as I lay back against my wrinkled pillows. “So you really want to get out of here, huh?” they asked.
I didn’t. Not anymore. Maybe making the tally marks had just become a habit. But I felt like Ollie was kind of asking me if I liked them, and I didn’t want to tell them the truth until I knew they liked me, too. So, in classic Essie fashion, I just shrugged.
88 DAYS LEFT
“You got out of prison!” Ollie confirmed happily when I met them at the corner.
“Not before drawing another line on the wall,” I joked.
“Funny.” They didn’t look like they thought it was funny, though, and that made me selfishly happy. Maybe I had zapped them, too. “Turn around.”
Over the rooftops, in the crook of a tree branch, hung an orange, glowing half-moon. “Whoa, that’s incredible,” I told Ollie, pulling up my hood. The late September nighttime air was finally cool.
They grinned proudly.
“We need lawn chairs or something so we can sit and look at it!” I told them. “No, a hammock!”
“We so need a hammock.”
87 DAYS LEFT
I’d known Ollie for three weeks, but I didn’t know them know them. I mean, I knew certain things:
Their pronouns were they and them. Maybe they were nonbinary. I’d read up on stuff online.
They were an advocate because they had to be and, also, because they wanted to be.
They’d told me other important things: Luciana had been their best friend forever. They got along with their parents. Like, really well. They wanted, no, needed, a dog.
So yes, I knew some things about them. But I wanted to know them.
“I have a question,” I said as we sat on the porch swing after school, watching the September drizzle.
“Crap.”
“Why ‘crap’?”
“You want to talk about my gender, right?”
“No!” I said quickly.
Ollie looked at me sideways.
“Yes.”
“I knew it. Everyone wants the lowdown eventually.”
“Is that annoying?” I asked.
“Totally. But not with you,” they added immediately, not looking at me. “You can ask me anything.”
Zap.
I thought back to what I’d read online. “So you were assigned female at birth?” Even though Ollie had said I could ask them anything, I felt nervous as the words left my mouth; I’d never had a conversation like this before.
At first, Ollie didn’t respond, and I felt my face flush. But then they turned to me. Smiled. “Have you been on the internet?” they asked.
“Maybe?”
“Yeah,” they answered. “For a long time, I was fine being called a tomboy.”
“And you’re sure you’re not a boy? A trans boy, I mean?”
“Do you wish I were a boy?”
“I don’t,” I answered quickly. And I meant it. Now that I knew Ollie, I couldn’t imagine them as anything other than who they were.
“I’m not a boy; I’m a girl who’s a boy.”
I nodded, because knowing Ollie, that made sense to me. “Are you gender queer?”
“I’m definitely gender weird.” They made eye contact with me. Wiggled their eyebrows. Smiled.
“Are you nonbinary, then?”
“Yeah.” They swung their leg. Impatient.
“Are you okay?”
“Definitely. Can you hurry up, though?”
“Hurry up and what?”
“And get used to it, so I can just be Ollie?”
I thought of advocate-Ollie. “Do you want to just be Ollie?”
They laughed. “Sometimes.” Then they added, “When I’m with you, I do.”
86 DAYS LEFT
Ollie, Savannah, Luciana, and I walked out the front doors of school into the muggy three-o’clock air. In unison, we dropped our backpacks to peel off our sweatshirts. The shift from full-blast AC to sunny September afternoons in North Carolina was brutal.
“You babysitting for your brothers, Lucy?” Ollie asked, shoving their sweatshirt into their backpack. They smelled like clean laundry.
“No. Remember, someone talked me into joining volleyball?” Luciana joked, narrowing her eyes at Savannah. “We have practice. The only upside is less babysitting for Carlos and Diego.”
Savannah grinned. “Hey, you’re getting better,” she said. “Remember yesterday, when you didn’t squat down and cover your head when the ball came your way?”
We all laughed.
“Are you walking home?” Ollie asked, nudging me.
“Yup,” I said, digging my phone out of my back
pack. We waved to Luciana and Savannah as they headed off toward the athletics building. Ollie and I made our way to the sidewalk, and I thought (again) about our conversation the day before:
They didn’t always want to be just-Ollie, but with me, they did.
What did that mean? I mean, I thought I knew what it meant, but I wanted to know for sure; I wanted them to put more words with it. I wanted labels for the feelings—theirs and mine.
“Essie?” Ollie waved their hand in front of my face as if it wasn’t the first time they’d said my name. “Were you thinking about me?” they asked jokingly, the afternoon sun making their blue eyes bluer.
“Obviously,” I replied (not) jokingly.
I turned my phone on. There were a few texts from Ava and Beth, who I’d totally neglected since arriving in North Carolina. And I’d just missed a call from Mom. I sighed and held it up so Ollie could see that I had a voicemail from her.
“A message from the free-range mother!” They grinned.
“Seriously,” I replied, playing the voicemail.
Hey, Es, it’s Mom. Just calling to say hi. Call back whenever you want. Love you!
It was weird that, beyond the few, surface things I’d relayed to her, Mom didn’t know anything about my life in North Carolina. Unless she’d talked to Dad recently, which I seriously doubted. In fact, the other day I might have scrolled through his phone, confirming that they basically never texted or called each other.
It was an accurate label that Ollie had used for Mom: a free-range mother.
I could label Dad easily. He was spacey. Sort of out-of-touch. But definitely nice.
What about their marriage? What was the label for that? Over?
“Do you want to call her back?” Ollie asked, adjusting their backpack.
I didn’t. “Nah, I’ll call her later.”
“Okay.”
We walked awhile in silence.
“Hey, so, according to the interweb, the moon should be completely awesome again tonight,” Ollie said kind of awkwardly, looping their thumbs through their backpack straps, sneaking a glance at me.