“It sounds way cooler than peninsula,” Griffey says. “Like you’d go to the pe-nin-sweh-lah to party.”
Sam laughs. “I’d party on the pe-nin-sweh-lah with you folks any day.”
The conversation drifts for a while. Esme starts talking about how she goes to thrift stores with her friend on the weekends and buys girl clothes, then hides them at home because her parents insist she’s sick for saying she’s a girl. She leaves her house wearing guy clothes every morning and changes in the neutral bathroom here. She starts crying as she says her dad found her expensive makeup and chucked it. She’d saved the money to buy it by mowing lawns all summer, even though it made her dysphoria wicked bad. Her dad told her if he ever found out she was dressing like a girl again, he would send her to live with her aunt in Texas.
Sam tells her that’s a horrible thing for a parent to do. “Like grade-A actual worst.”
“Totally,” I agree. “You win the crappy-dad contest.” At least mine never threatened to throw me out.
Esme sniffles. “Sometimes I think there’s a universal law. Dads are required to suck.”
“You want me to punch his lights out?” I push up the sleeve of my Chainsmokers shirt to show my nonexistent bicep.
She laughs through her tears. “He spends every night drinking Bud Light and watching ESPN. You could totally take him.”
“Well. Probably I need to do more push-ups first.” I pull my sleeve back down.
Sam snaps their gum. “It’s such a load of smelly bull for a parent to make their kid feel bad about who they are. I’m sorry you have to deal with that.”
Esme gives us a grateful smile. “So hot and smelly.” She wipes her face. “Thanks. For real. You’re cool, Ash. Even without the push-ups.”
I feel my cheeks turn pink, which is so not a dude color. I gotta get the focus off me fast. “Did you know ‘trans teens’ spelled backward is ‘sneet snart’?”
Sam, Esme, and Griffey burst out laughing. I take out my phone and pretend to be fascinated by my wallpaper. My face is so red I’m sure people can see the glow from Kansas.
While Mom’s driving me to Zoey’s, she mentions she got a voice mail from school that I had a lunch DT. “What was it for?”
“Wearing socks with cuss words on them.”
She makes a raspberry sound. “Guess it’s a relief you weren’t setting off smoke bombs in the teachers’ lounge. Maybe I shouldn’t have encouraged you to wear those particular socks to school.”
“Yeah, probably not.” I keep trying to pop my already popped knuckles. I texted Daniel after school to ask how Chewbarka was, and he said Cute as ever and sent a few pictures. I can’t stop thinking about what’s gonna happen when he finds out I told Bella. And what will happen if Bella goes looking for me on social and finds the Gatorade video.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Mom says after a while.
“Just tired.” I look at the weather. It’s gonna get stupid cold tonight.
“How’s Griff?”
“Fine.” Whoops. “For getting rejected. I met the kid at lunch. Cute but dumb.”
She gives me the side-eye. “Well. It’s important to support the people you love.”
“I know.” Was that a dig? Because I didn’t go to the meeting for PFLAG so she could “support” me by shoving me into a social situation I don’t want to be in?
Keeping my mouth shut is the best strategy. Luckily, the rest of the ride is short.
Rex the shepherd is happy to see me when we get to Zoey’s. He noses my hand again and sniffs all the Booper smells on my jeans. “You must be a dog person,” Zoey says. “He’s usually standoffish when people come over.”
“I love dogs.” More than people, usually. I hug Rex. When Olivia starts banging the drums, he startles like last time and goes back into the house.
Practice doesn’t go great. My head’s not in the girl-punk groove. My mind’s too busy holding up everything Sam said against what Dad said at lunch. Trying to figure out who’s right. If they both are. If I should stop thinking because it’s all baffling and I feel gross about not having anything figured out. It’s killing my confidence.
Zoey keeps giving me weird looks, like she’s confused I’m not as excited as I was last week. I realize I must seem like a different person than I was then, when I was jumping around all pumped up on the music.
I pull it together enough to be sort of convincingly enthused. When we’re done playing “Rebel Girl” for the third time (they’re improving, but slowly), I take my phone out and start walking the girls through how to use GarageBand to layer tracks. Zoey and Jordan follow along on their iPhones, but Olivia has an Android. She keeps losing interest and wandering off to play drums. Zoey gets annoyed with her for making noise while I’m talking and tells her to get her head in the game, that we won’t be ready for Girls Who Rock if everyone’s not on the same page. Olivia sighs and comes over to watch me explain how to add in a beat. “Let me hear that one again,” she says while I’m showing Zoey the presets.
I turn my phone volume up and loop it for her. She sits at the drum set and starts trying to play along with it. She’s got the general idea, but the specifics are eluding her.
Zoey asks how the song I’m writing for the fundraiser is coming along.
“It’s getting there. I’m mostly focused on the bridge now. It’s a little tricky.”
“What’s a bridge?”
It’s hard to believe someone who has a punk band doesn’t know what a bridge is. “It’s that part
