Chapter Three:

The Loneliest Fairy Princess

At home, not wanting to do anything and mired in this sludge-like personal inertia, I moped for a day or two.  My inline skates, helmet and pads lay where’d I’d dropped them on the floor.  Sometimes I rolled over in bed and stared at them through the black foliage of my hair, blinking because the strands tickled my eyelashes.  Disinterested.  The ceiling light reflected dully on the plastic skates, the bland wall beyond. 

“You wanna go somewhere?”  Emily asked through the door.  I thought to myself, You’re just asking because you feel guilty about abandoning me.  As soon as one of your friends calls, you’ll ditch me.

“Go away,” I told her.  And she did.

It was like being in limbo.  Male soul, female body.  No one could possibly understand how it felt.  Well, maybe a few people could, but they had been born with it; mine happened while I was conscious of every little development.  Ugh… so fucking complicated!  Skating had been a release until the kids started rubbing my condition in my face, however inadvertently.  Skating sucks, I thought.  The whole world sucks.

But I could feel myself coming to a decision.  While Emily had been this huge “Grease 2” fan, I knew “Grease” to be the superior movie and I’d forced her to watch it with me once (although afterwards she told me she hated it, simply out of spite).  Yeah, “Grease.”  For some reason, I started thinking about how, towards the end, Sandy realizes she can’t go on living as this sweetie-pie girl next door and keep Danny Zucco.  So she gets Pinky to trick her out head to toe in bad-ass black and tease up her hair.  At the school fair, she blows Danny’s brains out with her smoldering sexiness and they sing and dance and fly away in a fantasy version of Greased Lightning, their pet hot rod, probably to some castle in the sky where they fuck like crazed monkeys.  Okay, that last part was my own story innovation but it was at least hinted at, right?  I felt dumb framing my dilemma in terms of Sandy’s choice, but maybe genderless freak wasn’t what I was meant to be anymore than she was meant to be a naïve young virgin.  A wild sex kitten had been living inside Sandy all the time.

What lived inside me?

Maybe some kind of girl.  Yeah, I should just fucking go all the way and be a girl, I thought, and my mood-clouds parted with a hint of a sun reluctant to show itself for fear it was all just a joke.  I imagined it as looking a little like the Raisins Bran sun, with a face and everything.  No, Mr. Sun, it’s definitely no joke.  I’m totally serious about this.

Then I lectured myself:  I mean, maybe that’s the message you received from your secret heart when you fell in love with that sundress at Macy’s, and you can’t deny it ‘cuz you know you wanted it.  You wanted it at the store, you wanted it at the beach.  That was your heart saying, “You are a girl now.  Go ahead and be one!”

It felt good to admit it.  Yeah, I agreed with myself, I could just try being a girl.  I mean, that’s what Patrick wants me to be.  That must be what God or Satan or Darla or a virus or bacteria or whoever or whatever turned me into this wanted as well, or why else would I be lying there feeling so tiny and helpless?  That’s what that Macy’s asshole sales guy and those little old ladies want.  Everyone wants me to be a girl, so why shouldn’t I get with the program and be happy for once?

The sun was out and smiling and showering me in raisins while I danced in the vineyard.  I sat up, got dressed and went into the kitchen where Mrs. Komori was enjoying a Saturday morning off.

“Um, I have an announcement to make,” I said.

“Okay…”  Mrs. Komori said, looking a little confused.

“I-I kinda… I want to get some girl clothes and try… you know…”

“Try them on?”

“Well, that, too.  But I mean more like try on… gender.  I want to try on a new gender.  I mean, the way I see it, I may be a guy inside and stuff but maybe I could try being a girl.  Just to see if I can do it.  Like it.  See if I like it.  Or something.”

“And you feel you need girl’s clothes to do that?”

“Yeah.  I mean, don’t I?”

“If you want them, I guess.  I mean, personally, I don’t feel clothes make any difference.  I mean, if you’re happy dressing like a boy…”

“But I’m not.  That’s the point.  I’m miserable like this.  I don’t know what I am.”

“You’re you.  You’re Martin.”

“Yeah, but that’s just it.  I don’t know if I am anymore.  Inside, yeah.  But like when I was skating I was free but then the… Patrick?  He he like… like-liked me.  A-and this one girl…  It was like I couldn’t escape.  But it’s like why did they have to treat me like that?  Why couldn’t I be just a person with them?  When I did things before, as a guy, I was Martin.  Now when I do things, I’m Amy to everyone else no matter how I think about myself.  It’s like everyone wants me to do this.  So I’m ready.  I wanna do it.”

“Slow down.  You’re really not making any sense at all.”

She was right. I’d been babbling and waving my hands around like a crazy person.  But I was thinking on the fly, working out things out loud instead of in my internal dialogue.  It was a jumble but what I was trying to explain to her was this feeling that Martin-soul in Martin-body equaled one person, Martin-soul in Amy-body equaled another person.  I’d tried just being the old me wearing a new skin, but it led me to ennui, to malaise, defeat, depression, gloom and bizarre fixations on Olivia Newton-John and the Kellogg’s Raisin Bran cereal mascot.  I had to be a new me.  The one people expected when they saw this bony girl.

So I cajoled Mrs. Komori into dragging me right back to that Macy’s store—I was so impatient to get out to the mall I was actually squirming and grinning like an idiot in the car-- and buying some tops, dresses and skirts for me.  Since school was coming up, we needed to be practical and mostly bought items for fall, but they were all intensely feminine in a wannabe teeny-bopper way.  This time, when I tried clothes on, everyone seemed to approve; I was being rewarded for doing things in the right way.  If Mrs. Komori evinced any doubt, she was careful not to voice any misgivings.

“You look great, Amy,” she said, but I thought I heard something off in her tone.

I was too busy, too focused to care.

“I wanna check one more thing,” I said.  My eye brows up, I looked questioningly at the clearance rack.  End of season sales, big mark downs and discounts.  Would it be there?  What if it wasn’t?  I bounced over to check…

And it was.  That little sundress, like pure love made of cotton and summery colors.  It had waited for me, and this had to be a sign from the gender gods.  We’re well pleased with you, Daughter of Eve.  I beamed happily as I took it off the rack, but turned to Mrs. Komori with this hesitant, embarrassed feeling in my stomach.  Oh shit, what was Emily going to say or think?  She knew I wanted this stupid thing since way back and she was gonna give me so much shit about it!  But the wanting was strong and overrode all other desires and fears.

“That’s soo cute,” the sales woman told me.  Mrs. Komori came over, felt the material, and checked the price tag, which was marked in red.  It was super cheap. 

She said, “Go.  Go try it on.  I’ll wait.”

I practically ran to the dressing room.  I couldn’t remember being this excited about a piece of clothing in my life.  I pictured myself skating in my old Martin pants hurling skyward off the vert into an impossibly vivid sky, a kind of shaky-cam mind-video of the butch little monster I’d been less than a week before.  As I slipped out of my clothes for the billionth time that day and into the sundress-- the pale lines on my shoulders sharply contrasted with the darkness of my tanned skin-- I saw that aggressive skater girl take a huge tumble and come up changed.  There she was in the mirror, farmer tan and all, but much softer now, frail and pretty.  Black hair, ridiculous.  Black eyes, glittering.  High cheeks, long nose, a couple of black freckles like lonely stars in an empty galaxy, waif-thin body in a floral dress that came down to just past my almost chocolate knees.

Oh fuck yeah, I sighed to myself.  This is what I was craving all along.  Despite the misgivings in her eyes, Mrs. Komori took it all so bravely.  She even greeted me with a supportive hug, helped me pick out a sweet pair of brown Teva sandals to complete my sundress outfit, plus enough undies to last two weeks and put all my discoveries on her credit card to boot.  I felt warm all over as I wore the sundress and sandals home, the cashier cutting the plastic tags for me while I stood there smiling.

My cheeks hurt!

Emily was in the kitchen drinking a Dr. Pepper when we came in.  She did a spit take, spewing soda and foam all over the kitchen counter, which pissed off Mrs. Komori and led to a short little argument between them while I put the bags in my bedroom.  I checked myself in the mirror.  Still a girl, I thought.

“Marty-marts!” Emily called.  “Come lemme see your new look!”

I bit my lip.  Oh fuck, here we go, I thought, and walked down the hall, my arms stiff at my sides.  I stepped into the kitchen and Emily was still wiping up her mess with a paper towel.  She stopped and looked me all over.

“Turn around,” she said.

I folded my lips back and mashed them firmly with my teeth as I slowly rotated.

“Wow,” Emily said.  “I mean, just wow!”

“Wow good or wow bad?” I asked.

“I don’t know.  How does it feel?”

“Pretty good.  I didn’t tell you before, but I’ve decided I’m gonna try to be a girl now.”

“Okay…  Don’t know why you need a dress to—“

“Emily,” Mrs. Komori said, a warning in her voice.  “This is what she wants.”

“She?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “And you don’t have to call me Martin anymore.  Just Amy.”

“I was already doing that half the time anyways, in case you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed.”

“Well… okay.  I mean, good for you.  I just think you should be who you are—“

“This is who I am.  Now.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Emily was really scrutinizing me.  I could tell her bullshit detectors were working overtime and she usually had them set to high-gain or ultra-sensitive frequencies anyways.  I had no idea what she detected there in the kitchen, or what she thought she was detecting.

Mrs. Komori left us alone to go put up her bag and car keys.  Emily came over to me and flicked the little string bow over my left shoulder.  She circled me, just looking down at me.  It made me feel pretty dumb, almost naked.  She appraised me with her artist’s eye and that cunning, evil genius mind of hers.

“Yeah, I knew you wanted this dress the first time you saw it,” she said quietly, her voice almost conspiratorial.  “I just never expected to actually see you in it.”

“Yeah.  I dunno why I wanted it.  Something just clicked.”

“That’s cool.  You look really good in it.  Remember when I suggested getting a haircut?  You should let me take you to the place I get mine done.  If you want.”

“Yeah, cool.”

“I’ve kinda been neglecting you, but there’s all this shit I have to do before school starts back.”

“Yeah, I remember what it was like.  I guess I’m on track to start… I don’t know what grade.  Seventh?”

“Um… Amy?”

“Yeah?”

“You really know… like dresses and stuff?  I mean, yeah, I like them too and all but it’s not really necessary or anything.  If you really do want to be a girl, just be one in your own way.”

“This is my own way.”

“I hope so.”  Then she added, softly, “Or you’re in for a wicked surprise.”

The following Monday, wearing my awesome, freshly laundered sundress, I took Emily up on the haircut thing.  She had her hairdresser—this muscular cool dude in a tight tee and jeans—give me a bob with short bangs and little points curling below my tiny ears, the back practically shaved.  We hit Moldy Oldies for a vintage dress, long and in ice blue velvet.  We even stopped by this jewelry story and I had my ears pierced... two little silver rings in one, three in the other, one up top. Seemed like the thing to do. I felt so adorable, it was sickening.

Little Amy Girly-girl. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was doing, but I worked at it with more diligence than I’d ever approached anything before, other than aggressive inline skating.  In a way, it was like learning to pump on the vert all over again.  It was certainly very physical.  I tried walking like a girl, talking like a girl.  And while it caused me pain at first, I fake-giggled a lot.

But whenever we drove past the skatepark on some Komori family errand, I ducked down in the car so Patrick and the others wouldn’t see what I’d become.  They probably don’t even miss me, I thought.  Fuck ‘em.  I’m a girl now.  Girls don’t do that stuff.  Well, Maki, Fabiola, Ayumi and some others do.  And the girls on skateboards tearing it up on the vert without me—there were more now.  But most girls don’t.  And I’m like them.  The acceptable majority, acceptably girly in the most acceptable of ways.  I will play with my precious Barbies.  Except for being too old for dolls and not even interested in them in the least.

I can do this, I thought confidently.  Bravada.  Soon school would start and I’d be pretty well versed in this being a chick business.  So I thought.  Then I overheard Emily and her mom discussing how concerned they were about ridiculously exaggerated  my act was becoming.  Not long after that, Emily took me aside.

"Knock it off with the fucking drag queen act, okay?" she whispered.

"What?"

"You're flitting around like a-a little flamer. I liked you better when you were a butch little skater."

I flushed with anger instantaneously.  She'd poked me hard, right in the spot most sore.  "What am I supposed to do? I'm a girl now!"

"Act like a girl, then. Not... I don't know.  This is exactly what I tried to tell you!  I don't know what you're acting like, but it's scary!"

"Yeah, and nobody’s teaching me how!”

“Amy, I have my own life, too.”

“But I don't!  I don’t have any life at all!  And I’m doing this all alone!”

“Do you honestly believe that?  I mean do you really and truly think no one is doing anything to help poor little you?”

“I don’t know!  Probably!  The only thing I do know is I used to have this thing between my legs I'd stick in you... remember that?"

Emily slapped me. She instantly looked more shocked and hurt than I did.  “Oh shit, Amy… Martin!  I’m sorry!”  So distressed, the situation so twisted, she didn’t even know what to call me anymore.

But I was already running to the bathroom.  I took off my dress and climbed into the bathtub in my underwear and turned on the water, hot and steaming.  Emily came in to apologize, and I screamed at her, my face red, my eyes streaming, “Go away!”

“Martin, I’m so sorry!  I-I didn’t mean—“

"Get out! Get out!"

She did.  I cried in the tub for hours and no one came to check on me.  My fingers turned all prune-like and I compulsively gnawed the fingernails down to the quick.  They itched and bled.

This was worse than breaking up with Emily at the beach.  It was breaking up with myself.  I’d failed at staying me, I’d failed at being a girl.  What did that leave me?

Nothing is what.  Even Emily and Mrs. Komori started freezing me out.  Their patience had limits, and I'd trampled all over them with rage and ingratitude, scared the only two people I had left in the world right out of my life.  I had food on the table, but we all ate in silence and I retreated back to a room that wasn’t really mine and where the closet was stuffed with both boy and girl clothes and my inline skating stuff lay ignored.