Being Emily (6 page)

I turned away from the mirror and went to my computer. It was an iMac that I got off eBay for a few hundred bucks a year and a half ago. Although slow, it still had some life in it, and anyway it only connected to the Internet at a blazing 56K. I wanted high-speed access, but Mom and Dad wouldn’t pay for it, and I didn’t want to spend that much of the money I made helping Dad with his cars just to get online.

There were a few good communities online, but my favorite was called
GenderPeace
. Even the name was cool and the administrator described it as a place for people “in the process of surviving
transsexualism
” which I liked, because I didn’t want to be “a transsexual,” and be a woman stuck in a man’s body my whole life.

I’d found the website last fall and had been hanging around on it for about six months. A few hundred members participated from all over the world and they gave really good advice and talked about their lives. I spent a few months lurking and just reading the public posts until I decided to create a free account and become a member. I had to sign in each time rather than being logged in automatically, because I erased any evidence of my having been there when I logged off for the night, just in case Mom and Dad suddenly figured out computers. I assumed I could never be too paranoid.

My user name was “
EmilyCH
” for Emily Christine
Hesse
. I thought I’d keep Christine in honor of my Mom’s cool moment and the choice they made to name me in the first place, and I got Emily partly from my Grandma
Em
and, I confess, a little from Emily Dickinson.

A couple of days ago, a new thread caught my eye and one posting in particular from a girl whose online name was “
Bratalie
.” In her profile it turned out her name was Natalie and she had already transitioned and was going to high school as a girl in Minneapolis, an hour’s drive from me. First I had a gut-wrenching pang of jealousy. To be able to go to school as a girl, how amazing! But then I just wanted to know all about it. I’d sent her a quick note saying I was in Liberty, Minnesota, still living in boy drab, and asking what it was like for her to go to school as herself.

When I logged in that night, I saw that I had private mail from her.

“Hi Emily,” she wrote. “We’re neighbors! Liberty is out in the boonies, though, how do you survive? You should come into the City! We could have lunch!” She included her cell phone number in the closing, along with a few more exclamation points.

Between my excitement about Natalie, and the growing dread in my stomach about seeing Claire at school, I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I stayed up posting on the GP board for a while and then doing my homework.

Twenty minutes before my other, loud alarm was due to ring, I erased the evidence of my web surfing, undressed, put my clothes back in the decoy duffel bag and dropped it casually at the foot of the bed so it would look like I didn’t care about it. Then I crawled under the covers and waited for the alarm to ring while I looked at the stars through the window. I could only see a couple points of light in the murky, dark gray sky.

“You look awful,” Mom said when I appeared for breakfast in my jeans and sweater number two.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I didn’t want to attribute it to Claire or she’d think we’d had a fight and possibly ask why. “I might be getting a cold.”

She touched my forehead. “You feel fine, but I want you to bundle up.” Then she turned back to the sandwiches she was making. “Chris, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about seeing a doctor for your moods.”

“What?”

“You’re so unhappy all the time. I want you to go talk to someone professional and have
them
help you.”

I tried to figure out if I was supposed to fight about this or not. It really depended on the doctor whether it would be worthwhile. I settled for indifference, which always worked when I didn’t know what to do. “Sure, Mom,” I said.

“Good, because you have an appointment today after school.
I want you to meet me here at three forty-five and we’ll go over together.”

Okay, that was my cue to get mad, which wasn’t hard since I already felt like crying. She’d messed with my schedule without asking, that was a clear violation. “What? You made an appointment without even asking?
Mom, what the hell!”

She closed a paper bag with a sharp snap and glared. “Chris, watch your language, young man!”

That shut me up, but not for the reason she thought. I hated being called “young man” even more than “son.” I took a deep breath. “You didn’t even ask me.”

“I’m your mother,” she said. “Sometimes I can do things just because they’re good for you.”

I shrugged. On five hours of sleep for many nights running, I didn’t have the energy to keep fighting.
“Fine.”

“Don’t be late.”

I stood up and automatically kissed her cheek though at that point I was honestly pissed.

I was already halfway to school when I realized I’d forgotten my lunch and would have to eat a dry hockey puck, or whatever the cafeteria was serving.

A doctor?
Some kind of psychiatrist, I was sure, when what I really needed was an endocrinologist to put me on the right hormones. I felt a miserable disconnect between my body, which wanted very badly to punch something, and my heart, which just wanted to cry. My eyes burned but didn’t actually tear up, which was probably for the best if I didn’t want to get my ass kicked by the football guys.

When I rounded the corner of the main hall, I saw Claire standing at my locker with her back to me. Momentum carried me toward her for a few more steps and then I stopped. If she dumped me now, I would fall apart.

She turned and saw me, then pushed through the two dozen students between us, while I stood frozen in place. She was wearing her favorite black sweater with a cobweb design stitched around the elbows and a long, black skirt over her boots.

“You look miserable,” she said.

“I’m sorry about last night,” I told her.

“Sorry for telling me?”

“For my stupid question about us being together.”

“Is that why you’re upset?” she asked.

All I saw in her face was confusion, and what I really wanted was certainty that she wasn’t going to break up with me. I didn’t have the guts to ask again if we were still together. 

“That and Mom wants me to go to a shrink,” I told her almost inaudibly.

She shrugged. “That could be good.”

The bell rang, warning us that we only had a minute to flee to class.

“Hang in there,” she said.

I tried to smile, but failed pretty badly. She hadn’t said we were still together. Was she trying to let me down gently?

I stumbled through the day on autopilot.

/run: please teacher

1.
raise
hand

2.
give
correct answer

3.
repeat
once per class

/run: lunch with the guys

1.
pick
one parent—complain

2.
mention
sports

3.
mention
car

4.
joke
about girls

5.
nod

6.
nod

7.
nod

8.
grunt

9.
nod

While that was going on externally, I tried to figure out how Claire felt from our brief conversation that morning. She hadn’t said one way or the other if we were still going out or how she was dealing with everything I’d said. Was she freaking out and hiding it, or was she genuinely supportive? Did she want to break up with me and just not know what to say?

In psych class we learned how embryos are differentiated in the womb, which was a good distraction though I had to keep my eyes half-closed in mock boredom and remember to groan when the guys did. In the first weeks of gestation, embryos are all basically anatomically female, and then when certain hormones start, the undifferentiated material of the fetus turns into the female or male configuration. It was actually more complicated than that, but Mr. Cooper didn’t get into it, and I didn’t blame him.

Even as the fetus developed, it wasn’t necessarily as clear-cut as simple male and female. Mr. Cooper didn’t talk about it, but a small percentage of babies were born with ambiguous genitals,
neither fully male or
female. In the past doctors picked which one they thought the baby should be, but recently some had started letting the kids grow up and say for themselves what gender they were, which made sense to me. I wished I’d had a chance to tell a doctor that I was a girl and have
them
just work that out for me.

By the end of class I really wanted to talk to someone who would understand how I felt. I
hightailed
it for the door the minute it ended. The school lobby was a mess of sound, but I went for the pay phone anyway. I had no cell phone for the same reason I had no high-speed Internet: cha-
ching
. I crammed a bunch of quarters in the phone.

On the third ring, someone answered.

“Natalie?” I asked.

“Who’s this?” she asked and my heart fluttered because she had a girl’s voice, a little throaty, but clearly feminine.

“I’m from GP,” I said neutrally. “You sent me your number last night. I’m the one in Liberty.” I was hyperaware of everything I said because there were about a hundred students who could overhear me if they wanted. Of course none of them were listening, but I couldn’t be too careful.

“Emily?” she asked.

“Um, yeah, I’m at school. No cell phone.”

“Oh, you can’t talk, got it. Do you have a car? You want to meet this weekend?”

“Totally.”

“Saturday afternoon? Do you know where
Southdale
is?”

I grinned. “I can figure it out.”

“Great, meet me at two in the lobby of the theaters. What do you look like?”

“Orlando Bloom,” I said.
“Only taller and a lot less cute.
And my hair’s lighter.
You?”

She was laughing. “I’m tall with red-brown hair. I’ll wear a black skirt and black boots and carry a flower or something.”

“Hey, can I bring my girlfriend if she wants to come?”

“The one you just came out to? Your post was awesome! Of course, that would be great. She sounds fantastic! See you on Saturday!” She talked with as many exclamation points as she used in her emails.

“Cool,” I said and hung up. Then I looked at the clock hanging over the big double doors of the school and bolted for my car. I drove it cold, groaning and complaining all the way, and skidded up to my house at three forty-five on the nose.

Mom came out of the house as I pulled up; obviously she’d been waiting just inside. I slammed my car door and crossed the icy front lawn, hands jammed deep in my pockets. She was still in gray slacks from work with her eyes
madeup
and little earrings glinting in the amber sunlight.

 “You’re pushing it, kid,” Mom said as she locked the front door behind her and gave me a shove toward her car.

“Sorry, school’s crowded when it lets out, you know. I don’t have a clear shot home.”

“No lip,” she said. “Get in.”

We drove in silence a couple miles to a low office complex.

On the second floor was a uniformly beige waiting room where we waited. Mom filled out a bunch of forms and then a man came out of an office and shook her hand. He was almost handsome, with short black hair that grayed in that dignified way over his ears, and steel blue eyes. The two elements that messed up his good looks were his really thick brow ridge, like seriously caveman thick, and the way his smile looked like someone had just pushed the sides of his mouth up with their fingers and he was trying hard to hold the shape.