Although Girl loved her stepmother and knew Stepmother loved her, she was never the person Girl turned to in a crisis. Mother had taken a part-time job at a tax preparation company, and Stepmother didn’t have to work, so she had flown up on less than twelve hours’ notice to help. Girl thought maybe she and Stepmother needed a road trip to help her lose her resentments.
They turned on the Weather Channel and saw that a big storm was approaching, so they decided not to wait until Aunt Kiki got off work to leave. Girl didn’t have anything to pack, didn’t even have clean underwear, so they loaded up the dog and cat and got on the road. Girl was too afraid to call her boss—she couldn’t deal with the guilt of leaving without any notice, so she tore five pages from her diary and handwrote a note, hoping her boss would understand. Girl fed her letter into a hotel’s fax machine the first night on their four-day drive south.
They listened to the radio to drown out the cat, who cried the entire trip. Every time Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” came on, which was at least once a day, they turned the knob all the way to the right and sang along at the top of their lungs. They ate at Cracker Barrel whenever there was one, and picked up some Hanes Her Way underwear and simple clothing and toiletries at Walmarts and truck stops. Girl had her emergency money in the trunk, but Stepmother insisted on paying for everything. “You’ll need that later,” she said. The storm they saw on the Weather Channel had left a foot of snow all the way to South Carolina, where cities didn’t own many snowplows and towns were shut down. With every mile they drove, the terrible sadness inside Girl lessened. She could feel her past flowing out behind the car like long ribbons undulating in the wind, stretching all the way back to Rochester, New York. Round about Georgia she felt the ends of those ribbons fly free, the ties that bound her in helplessness ripped away by the wind. Taking action had given her strength. Girl was only twenty-six, and it could only get better from here. Finally, they pulled into the driveway in Key West, 1,600 miles from where Girl began. The January night was warm and sweetly scented with night-blooming jasmine. The change in latitude made the night sky look different—the constellations loomed closer, seemed more personal. “That’s Cassiopeia,” Stepmother said, pointing to the constellation. “It makes a W in the sky.” From then on, it was Girl’s favorite, and she looked for it whenever she looked at the stars.
key west
Every night after work, Girl went rollerblading on the bike path next to the Atlantic Ocean. She began at Higgs Beach, first changing into Lycra shorts and a tank top in the round bathhouse. She filled her water bottle at the drinking fountain and then followed the path until it ended at a stoplight at the top of the island, then turned back—seven miles round trip. Rollerblading reminded her of roller-skating as a child—it tapped into long-forgotten innocence, a place where nothing mattered as much as the vibration of concrete through her feet. When Girl got too hot, she took off her tank top and skated in her exercise bra, enjoying the honks from passing cars. She jumped over cracks in the sidewalk, but tried not to sway too much to the music in her headphones—she didn’t want to be too dorky. But the sun sparkling on the water filled in all her broken pieces with joy and hope.
Key West was an island of misfits, artists, and broken people who came to “the rock” to put themselves back together again. Girl dressed in donated clothing from Mother’s friends and things she found at the Salvation Army. She went to the “Gay Church” with her parents, to “Gay Bingo” at the 501 Bar on Sunday afternoons with Brother, who was spending the winter there as well, and to the straight dance club with her new friend, Lorraine. Girl got a job at a car insurance agency, and soon knew enough people to recognize faces in the grocery store. Soon she had a drag queen roommate who helped her accessorize and shared her clothes, as well as a few other close friends. She was able to say “my mom’s a lesbian,” without anyone acting shocked or fascinated. She hadn’t known how much she needed that. For the first time, she lived in a place that wasn’t segregated by sexuality—people mixed freely. She kissed a girl or two, now that she could be curious without feeling like it would be fulfilling some unspoken prophesy. In the end, though, she liked kissing boys better.
Girl found a new good boyfriend, one her parents liked, even.
“Be sure your apartment is clean every time he comes over,” Stepmother told her. Girl was lying in the sun in a bikini at her parents’ house, as she did most Sunday afternoons between church and Bingo.
“Are you fucking serious?” Girl asked. “My lesbian stepmother is giving me man-trapping advice?”
“I’ll teach you to make Swedish meatballs,” Stepmother said.
“I know how to cook, Stepmother,” she said. “And whatever happened to feminism?”
“He’s a nice boy, Girl.”
Girl flipped over onto her back.
“You really have a beautiful body,” Stepmother said, a small smile on her lips. Girl wanted to throw up.
