We set off for Ash’s apartment, my foolish heart an equal mix of fear and hope.
5
Crossed Fingers
Ash
I’m arguing with Mom about cross-country at quarter to five when I finally get a text from Daniel: Almost there!
I shove my phone in my pocket. “You’re not getting this,” I tell Mom. “You’re confusing ‘This school has a gender-neutral bathroom’ with ‘Ash will have no problems with sports at this school.’ Those are two totally different concepts.”
“Kid, we didn’t move to the whole other side of the city so you could go back in the closet. How can you know sports will be a problem here if you won’t even try?” She’s still wearing her blue work shirt and it has a big smear of truck grease on the shoulder. She slices a lime and drops a couple wedges into a cocktail glass with some ice. “I’m sure they’d be fine with a gender-fluid kid running as whatever—”
“Ugh, ‘gender fluid’ sounds like some goopy crap you gotta dump in a car when it’s making a weird noise.” Plus Dad says it’s a made-up label for people who haven’t figured out what they are yet.
Mom gives me that look like I know you better than you know yourself. “I’m sure Oakmont would let you run as whatever gender you want if you joined. The whole mentality at your new school is different. They have a Rainbow Alliance, for example.”
She’s freaking obsessed with RA. And anyway, maybe at cross-country they’d let me run in the group I want at practices, but competition races are divided into boys and girls and they’d definitely want to know the deal then, just like they did at Bailey Middle. “Why can’t ‘I don’t want to’ be enough? Why are you pushing me to do this?” The guy feeling that started to creep in earlier this week has gotten stronger over the past couple days, and I’m afraid it’s starting to show. My voice wants to drop low and come out of my chest instead of my throat. My hands feel awkward and too big when I play my keyboard.
Mom dumps cherry juice concentrate over the limes. “Honey, you loved cross-country at Bailey. I just want you to be happy here. This and Rainbow Alliance seem like a way to make that happen.”
“I liked practicing, not competing.” At practices, it’s just plain running. Not worrying if you look like the correct gender while everyone watches you race against other kids in a gendered group. I get the 7UP out and hand it to Mom. Booper sits by my foot with his Nylabone, making his funny nyar-nyar-nyar sound as he chews it.
“You were friends with everyone on the team. Joining would be a great chance to make more new friends at Oakmont.” She pops open the can and pours 7UP over the juice and limes.
“I was friendly with them, not friends. Anyway I already have a friend here. His name’s Griffey. Pretty sure you’ve met him six thousand times.”
Mom rummages in the fridge and comes out with a pint of blackberries. “You hung out with the cross-country kids. You went to Ethan Schmidt’s preseason party in August.” She pops a blackberry in her mouth and gives me a handful of them.
I bite into one. It’s super sour, just how I like them. “I spent the whole time playing with the dog. I couldn’t wait for you to come get me.”
Mom gives an exasperated sigh as she smashes blackberries against the inside of her glass with a spoon. “Sometimes I think we’re from two different planets, kiddo.”
“Yeah, you’re from Planet Extrovert. I’m from Planet Introvert.” We have to stop arguing. I need her to be in a good mood when Daniel gets here, not cranky ’cause I’m ruining her Friday post-work mocktail. “So. Speaking of friends. Someone from school is gonna come by.”
She smiles. “Yeah? Someone from Rainbow Alliance? What’s her name?”
“His name is Daniel. From photo class.”
“Oooh, a boy!” She chugs her drink. “Friend or crush?”
“Oh my god, Mom.” I take my water bottle out of the fridge. When I close the door, I grab the flowery cross-stitch magnet she made that says I stab fabric so I don’t stab people and shove it in a drawer because it’s embarrassing. “I’m going outside to wait. Don’t be weird when I bring him up here. And don’t drink your weird drink in front of him.”
Mom holds up both hands. “I’m the paragon of normal. I’m exceptionally ordinary.”
“You have green hair and ear gauges and a porcupine tattoo on your butt cheek that you always bring up within like three minutes of meeting someone. You fix trucks for a living and your hobby is cross-stitching profanity.”
“Says the ‘normal’ kid who sees sounds and has purple hair.” She tugs a curl.
“Partly purple, and I’m thirteen, not thirty-six. It’s normal for me to ‘experiment with my look.’” I do air quotes to mock the words from the book she bought me when I turned eleven, Puberty: Weird but Normal.
“I’m not experimenting. I’ve settled on porcupines and green hair.” She sticks out her pierced tongue. “But about cross-country—”
“Okay, I’m out.” I take my water bottle and leave.
The apartment complex’s playground is swarming with kids burning off the school day’s pent-up energy. I sit on the only unoccupied swing. I wish I hadn’t left Booper upstairs. Our last apartment was on the first floor and we’d clip him to a tie-out so he could sniff all he wanted. Now we’re on the third floor, and every time he has to poop or pee, one of us has to take him outside. The stairs are rough for him since he’s getting so old. I usually carry him and wind up with fur all over my clothes.
I’ll walk him after Daniel gets here with Chewbarka. We can take them around the complex together.
My stomach does that roller-coaster
