grl2grl (8 page)

I told Grams I didn’t even want to see my mom. Ex-mom. She’d crossed my mind exactly twice in sixteen years. Once when I wondered
how I got born a girl when I wasn’t. Twice when I blamed her for polluting the gene pool. Kids, this is your DNA on drugs.

Grams and Gramps raised me. They raised Kevin too. We were their only grandkids. They hadn’t done so well raising their own
kids, my mom and uncle, who both turned out like crap. I guess by the second time around you’ve learned from your mistakes.
You do it right.

I’d probably go live with Kevin after high school unless Grams needed me. She was getting up there. Kevin graduated two years
ago and was going to trade school part-time
to be a mechanic. That guy could fix anything. He was always tinkering with the toaster or a leaky faucet or a baby bird with
a broken wing. When I was eight, some nasty boys busted up my bike. They stole it and slashed the tires and bent the frame.
They must’ve rammed that bike into the side of a house a hundred times to mangle the handlebars so bad. I figured I’d be a
pedestrian from then on, but there came Kevin with my bike, carting the pieces home in a wagon. He hammered at that frame
in the garage all night and was still hammering away the next morning. When I got home from school there was my bike sitting
in the driveway looking brand-new. It wasn’t that new to begin with. That baby gleamed.

Kevin had a way with broken parts, and people. He stayed by Gramps’s bedside that whole last month of the cancer. They talked
sports and cars and gladiolas. Gramps loved his garden. Kevin loved working on cars, vintage models. He kept Gramps’s T-bird
purring like a kitten. Until the day we buried Gramps, that car hummed a happy tune. After the funeral, Kevin set it on fire
and pushed it off a cliff.

On Wednesday Kevin picked me up to take me to work. Right away he knew something was different. “That’s a new look for you,
dude,” he said, checking me out as I slid into his Hummer. I buckled up.

“Yeah. Chicks were crawlin’ all over me today.” I straightened the slipknot on my tie.

Kevin snorted. He checked the rearview and popped the clutch.

Kevin got me. Grams was going blind from macular degeneration or something so she wasn’t on my case so much anymore about
the crew cut. She didn’t notice I’d started wearing Gramps’s clothes either. Kevin noticed. He didn’t yell at me or anything.
Just looked me over. Approved, I guess. I didn’t find myself doused with gasoline and plunging off a cliff.

Gramps’s clothes were fine. White long-sleeved shirts with cuffs and cuff links. Long, thick ties. Tweed jackets with suede
or corduroy elbow patches. Man, these were distinctive for their day. I had to cut off the pant legs, but I let ‘em hang long
and frayed. I knotted the laces on my work shoes.

People stared. Behind my back they scathed me. What else was new? I worked for many years perfecting my persona. It wasn’t
only the clothes Kevin picked up on. I’d always dressed like a boi. Today, I thought, it was my fresh attitude. I was authentic.
Binding and packing. Wearing my P. Could everyone tell?

Kevin pulled into Fazoli’s to let me out for work. “Dude, what time you get off tonight?” he asked.

“Eleven.”

He checked his watch. “I might be a little late. Therèsa’s coming over to study.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Study, dude.”

“Right. I get it.” I wasn’t stupid. He was doing his girl. I wish I had me a girl. “I can walk home,” I told him.

“No,” he said. “Just wait for me. I’ll call if it’s going to be more than fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“You’re slowing down in your old age. You need a hit of Viagra?” I smirked.

He shook his head. “I mean it, Valentino.”

“Vince.” Stop messing with me, I shot him a glare. I changed my name a lot, but it’d been Vince all month. Not Valentino.
Not Eva. Especially not Eva, the name my mother gave me. I opened the door and got out of the Hummer. “Give my love to Therèsa.”
I pooched my lips. Then held myself like a guy and went, “Hunh.”

Kevin shook his head again, but a smile cricked his lips. “You’re too much.”

“For you to handle. Let me know when you set Therèsa free.”

Kevin gunned the motor and backed up. I headed inside to work.

Jerome, my shift mate, was a cool bro. We’d play gangsta rap and jive each other while we piled pasta onto plates and slathered
marinara over the edge. We’d make lewd jokes about the meatballs and sausage. “A squirt of juice here,” Jerome’d say. “Yes,
ma’am. Meaty balls.” We’d arrange them with anatomical exactness on the plate. Jerome high-fived
me in greeting, then hitched his chin toward the front counter. “We got us some tasty new chik-fil-ay.”

“Yeah?” I swiveled my head. A new girl was training up front with Broomhilda. Right away I knew me and Jerome would be vying
for this girl’s attentions. She was hot.

I strung on my apron and got busy with the dinner rush. A couple of hours later, Broomhilda cranked back to the kitchen to
hassle us. She was a scary bitch. Her real name was Honey Bea, if you can even imagine. The names parents give their kids.
Eva. Honey Bea. When I have a kid, I’m going to name it Jesse or Mel. Something ambiguous. Free-choosing.

Honey Bea was on the eternal rag. She barked orders at us like we were deaf dogs. “Why is that tray of breadsticks out on
the counter?” she woofed. “I told you they’d get hard. Who dropped the parmesan on the floor and didn’t sweep up? We’ll have
rats in here.”

Jerome muttered, “More ’n one?”

I stifled a snort.

“Don’t just stand around. Unload the dishwasher.”

The other girl, the new girl, looked terrorized. Broomhilda said, “Jerome, show Nevaeh where the pasta forks go.”

“I know where I’d like to stick one,” he said.

Broomhilda tore his flesh with eye shrapnel. Jerome yawned and went, “I’m on my break right now, Ms. Honey. It can wait a
few minutes. Anyways, I’m beat. How ‘bout you, Vinnie?”

“Vince,” I corrected him. “Yeah, I’m eviscerated.” Everyone looked at me, like, huh? Kevin and I used to play a lot of Balderdash
with Grams and Gramps. Before the cancer.

Eviscerated. Right. We’d had maybe three customers in the last twenty minutes.

Nevaeh, in particular, had glommed onto me. Shit. She heard my voice. Soon as I could, I was starting testosterone. It’d lower
my voice and turn my fuzz into real facial hair. I couldn’t wait for the day I could afford T.

The front door dinged and Honey Bea stormed out to assist the public. Nevaeh stayed behind, staring at me.

“Heaven spelled backward, right?” I said.

She blinked, but her eyes didn’t warm.

Jerome said, “Wazzat?”

I turned to explain. “Nevaeh’s name. It’s heaven spelled backward. My mom was named that.” She extracted my name from hers.

“Was?” Jerome said. “She dead?”

I hesitated. “Yeah.” To me she was.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” He held up a palm to high-five me. I slapped him and he gave my hand a squeeze. Stepping
forward toward Nevaeh, Jerome pressed the same palm to his chest. “I’m Jerome Kahlil Monteh Nathanial Washington the third,”
he said. “You can call me stud nut. This here’s Vinnie.” His arm swept to the side to indicate me.

“Vince.” Dammit. Get it right. I extended my hand. She
gazed at it for a long second, then shook it. More obliging than willing. She let go fast. She had long, elegant fingers.
Fake nails all manicured and lacquered. She wouldn’t be scraping the grill or chopping chicken strips anytime soon.

“I need help out front.” Broomhilda’s gnarly face swelled up like an ogre under the heat lamps.

Jerome answered in a lowered voice, “Lady, you need help in front, in back, in every which way.”

I couldn’t smother my laugh. Nevaeh said, “Are you a girl?”

Out of the blue. Just like that.

I swallowed hard.

“Sorry,” she said, lowering her eyes. “I couldn’t tell.”

Boi, I thought. I’m boi. Transman. Born girl, but changing over. One day, soon as I get the money for T. For surgery to remove
my breasts, maybe.

Honey Bea, for once, saved the day by posting the customer’s order and sniping, “Nevaeh! You take this.”

She startled, almost leaping onto the stove.

Jerome snatched the order off the carousel. Nevaeh squinted her eyes at Honey Bea’s retreating back. She said, “Already I
hate this job.”

“Don’t quit,” I told her. “Give it a few days. Broomhilda’s just testing you. Exercising her authority over you, or determining
if she can.”

“Yeah,” Nevaeh said. “Well, she can exercise it over my gone ass.”

“Ah, don’t sweat it.” I took a toothpick out of my pocket and rolled it between my teeth. “I’ll protect you.” I winked at
her and balled a fist to jab her shoulder lightly. I only touched her arm playfully, but she reeled back into the trash bins,
making a racket.

Geez, sorry.

“I’m not that way, okay?” She circled the bins, rolling a trash can between us.

Not that way — like, human? I shrugged. “Whatever.”

Jerome sauntered past with a plate of alfredo, which he slid under the heat lamp and announced, “Order up. One snarf and barf
to go.”

Honey Bea scuttled over and scowled at him. Some people have no sense of humor.

There was a queue of customers around eight-thirty, nine, then it died again. Me and Jerome busied ourselves in the kitchen
rapping about music and chicks and politics in the Middle East. His cousin was touring Baghdad. My shift ended and I told
him, “Later, man.” He closed up.

“See ya, Vince.” He saluted. “Mañana.”

Outside the front door, I waited for Kevin. It was a brisk night. Bracing, Gramps would say. Invigorating. “ ’Tis an evenin’
for the Willoughbys,” he’d say. I had no idea who the Willoughbys were. I should’ve asked when I had the chance. My breath
streamed out in a vapor trail. Blow out. Suck in. I jammed my hands into Gramps’s suit coat and felt my box of round toothpicks.
I fingered one out and stuck it
in the side of my mouth. I counted cars in the lot. Three to be exact. Not exceedingly busy at this late hour. Where was Kevin?

I leaned against the smooth brick and squeezed my thighs together to ensure it was still with me. It was.

I loved the sense of it. The sensuality. It made me feel confident and complete.

The door swung open and Nevaeh stepped out. I pushed off the wall. “Hey.”

She lurched backward.

My hands came out of my pockets and I held them up. “Don’t worry. I’m not contagious.” I slid my hands back into the pockets,
balling my fists hard against my thighs.

Her breath willowed up and dispersed in a mist. Her eyes swept the parking lot and she shivered.

My first instinct was to offer her my jacket, but wow. She was cold to me. “You waitin’ for someone?” I asked. Her boyfriend,
probably.

She nodded. “My brother.”

What, no boyfriend? She had to have a boyfriend. Hot girl like her?

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was… I forced myself to glance away. Out of bounds.

“Look, I didn’t mean anything, okay? I’m just not that way.”

I twisted my head back slowly. “Yeah, I get it. I wasn’t coming on to you.” Much.

Our eyes held. Hers broke off first. She gazed into the
distance and murmured, “He’s always late. I can’t stand when people are late. It’s so rude.” She scuffed the sidewalk with
her boot.

“I know. I hate it too. I’m always on time.”

“Me too. I’m, like, anal about it.”

I grinned. We had that in common. I took the extended conversation as a truce.

“How long have you been working here?” she asked.

“Me?” I said. “’Bout eight months.”

“Wow.”

I’m steady, I wanted to say. Reliable.

“I worked at Kmart for almost a year before they shut the store,” she said.

“The one in Four Points?”

“Yeah.”

“I shopped there all the time,” I said.

She hugged herself. “You’re the only one.”

“I need —“ “I want —“ we both began at once. And cracked up.

“Go ahead,” I told her.

“I need to work,” she said, “so I can pay for my dance lessons.”

“You’re a dancer?” I tried not to check out her body, but my eyes had a mind of their own. “You look it,” I said.

Her eyes fell. “Thanks.” Rubbing her hands together, she added, “I’m not going to stand here all night.” Nevaeh pivoted
and hurried down the sidewalk in the direction of the drive-up window.

“Hey.” I hustled to catch up. “You shouldn’t be out walking alone. Not in this neighborhood.” Impulsively, I reached over
to touch her. She flinched. I withdrew my hand quick. “It’s dark. The streetlights are all shot out. Can I walk you home?”

“No!” Her voice softened. “But thanks.”

A car squealed around the corner and flooded us in headlights. Tires crunched gravel and the fender overshot the curb. Instinct
made me pull Nevaeh back a foot. Two guys hauled out of the car and swaggered up to us. “Nev, you okay?” One of them clenched
Nevaeh’s upper arm and jerked her away from me. “This guy bothering you?” he said.

The other dude, the taller one with a dirty cut on his cheek, checked me out.