Double Exposure Page 3

  She’s got speed, but my stride is longer. I stay a footfall behind her to make sure I catch enough air when she lays the ball up. When she goes up, I go up. I’m there, perfectly positioned behind her, but instead of laying the ball softly against the board, she pummels it so hard it ricochets off the backboard, and I crash land in the bushes.

  Laughing, she takes off running.

  “Now we’re tied!” she hollers, grabbing her phone off the picnic table, kicking her ball in front of her, and racing toward the pillared house. I stand up, brushing myself off, touching the scrape on my cheek. A prickly branch barely missed my eye.

  Collecting Dad’s ball, I head home, not sure if I’ve made an enemy or a friend.

  CHAPTER 8

  Spittin’ Image

  That night, I lie in Mom’s old white-framed twin bed surrounded by the smell of fresh paint, the hum of fish tanks, and the drone of traffic noise. Grizzly painted almost everything in the room lavender—even the wrought iron legs on the fish tank at the end of the bed.

  I try not to, but I keep thinking about what Grandpa and Grizzly think.

  Really think.

  Of me.

  Why does it matter? I tell myself. No biggie. They’re both bizarre themselves. Then from the living room, I hear Grandpa say my name.

  Instantly alert, I sit up and switch off the aerator on the fish tank. Even more than people staring at me, I hate people talking about me.

  “Daddy, it’s the middle of the night. Can’t this wait ’til morning?”

  “Now you listen to me, young lady. California or no California, I’ve been around eighty-eight years and I never heard such a thing. It’s one thing if Alyx’s a queer. He needs to know we love him just the same. He don’t need to turn himself into a girl! Not that I got a damn thing against girls. You and your mother’ve been the best gifts of my life. But hell, Liberace was queer, everybody knew it, and we loved him just the same. Grew up next to the Lamperts. Played that damn piano day and night. Once I joined him with my squeezebox at the Legion Center. Boy, did he have an odd taste in jackets though—”

  “Daddy! We’re not talking about some obscure piano player from the fifties.”

  “Obscure? That kid became one of the highest paid entertainers of all time. Remember his outfits—looked like they were made of his mother’s upholstery.”

  “I do remember. I also remember him having to deny who he was, and you calling him a queer.”

  “Well, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I think.”

  They grow quiet for a moment, and I can feel my stomach churning. The sour taste of sauerkraut burps up into my mouth. I muffle the sound, quietly get out of bed, and make my way to the door. They start speaking again, only softer now.

  “One Christmas he did bring a pretty little thing home with him. She sang, too.”

  “That was Christina Jorgenson, Daddy, the first transsexual to talk openly about her operation. She was probably born like Alyx, so you see, this is complicated.”

  “More complicated than pretending he’s a girl?”

  “She isn’t pretending anything. She’s figuring out who she is!”

  Their voices get loud again. I lean my ear against the crack of light seeping through the door and close my eyes. Must be pretty friggin’ weird for Grandpa.

  “If Alyx was supposed to be girl then why’d you and Avery make her a boy?”

  “We didn’t make her anything. Remember what I told you? Intersex, they call it.” Mom says it soft and slow, so that I have to strain to hear.

  “Inner—what? Speak English, girl.”

  “Shushhh!”

  “The kid’s got sadness in his eyes, Sunny, way beyond fifteen years. I just don’t want to see ’im suffer.”

  “You think I do?”

  “Maybe if Avery’d laid off that dope, the kid wouldn’t be dealing with this.”

  Touché, Grandpa.

  I wait for this comment to push Mom over the edge. Instead, it gets quiet again. But Grandpa does have a point. Even before he got sick, Dad had an appetite for illegal substances, and I’d certainly wondered the same thing myself.

  “Leave Avery out of this.” Mom’s voice gets fierce. “Millions of kids are born this way, and Dr. Royce believes Alyx deserves this chance, and by God, I do, too. So don’t you say or do anything to make her feel self-conscious, you hear me? Say what you want about me. But this is my child, and I’m the parent here, not you!”

  It gets dead silent again. I shift, put my hand on the doorknob, think about opening it and going out there. But what for? Help Mom defend me, or try to explain to Grandpa something he can’t possibly understand? What use would it be? I stay put.

  “I hope you’re right, Sunny. You know, he’s the spittin’ image of your mama.”

  “I know she is.”

  “I meant she.”

  There’s a long pause, then footsteps in the hall. Knowing Mom wouldn’t want me to hear all this, I stand still, barely breathing, until the footsteps retreat.

  “Too bad Clara’s not here. She’d know what to say. Least the kid likes basketball. Saw him . . . her . . . shooting baskets with the Pitmani girl. Kid loves basketball—least it gives us something in common. Something to talk about, I guess.”

  “Just be nice, Daddy, okay?”

  “Who’s not nice?”

  “Good night, Daddy.” Mom sighs, then I hear her feet scamper up the stairs.

  I walk silently back to bed, the wood floor cool under my feet, flip the aerator back on, and crawl into bed. After wiping my wet face on Grandma Clara’s quilt, I press my cheek against the smooth glass of the fish tank. I want to be pissed at Grandpa.

  I can’t be.

  I mean, the guy is ancient, can hardly hear, can hardly see, and out of the blue his long-lost daughter returns home after being gone for practically forever, and she brings along his only grandchild, who turns out to be a “she” instead of a “he,” and Grizzly moves the poor old guy’s bedroom into a musty basement with a bunch of carnivorous fish. Who can blame him?

  CHAPTER 9

  Why Is Water Wet?

  What must seem super-strange to Grandpa is old news to me. I remember way back in second grade when I was invited to a pool party. Dylan and I had to change in front of each other. Afterward, he asked Mom why my dick was so tiny.

  “The penis doesn’t make the man,” she’d said and warned him not to tease me or she’d put him in a vice grip.

  Dylan helped me figure out how different I was from the other guys.

  “Alyx, why don’t you have balls?” he’d asked me as we walked home a week later. I just shrugged and answered with one of Dad’s witticisms. “Why is water wet?”

  Later, Dad explained that Dylan and I were born with the same testicular tissue. Only one of my gonads never fully dropped and the other turned into an ovary.

  “I’m deformed?” I had said.

  Dad got all intense, grabbed my arm. “Not deformed, Alyx. Just my rare and beautiful boy.”

  I thought he was going to bust out bawling, but he didn’t. Just patted my back, lit a cigarette, and walked off, saying he needed to get some air. That was the year he got sick. And after that, we never really talked much about what made me different, or anything else for that matter.

  Till the day he died, I remained his beautiful boy.

  CHAPTER 10

  New Normal

  I wake to the smell of Grizzly’s gut-rot coffee percolating in the kitchen. He’s promised me a ride on the first day of school. Mom warned me before she took off for her new job at the hospital that Grizzly can get snarly in the morning.

  Not surprising. The guy has a zillion jobs.

  Last night, he covered for an on-call mechanic at the municipal garage. The night we got here, he had to run off and work as a bouncer for a private event at O’Riley’s Tap around the corner. Today, he’s off to his regular gig at Harley Davidson. Mom claims he gets along with the people who work there so we
ll that they took him off the line and put him in management.

  Maybe they’re all terrified of him?

  I’m just grateful that my room is upstairs, and far, far away from his fish-fetish thing. And I am even more relieved to have my own private bathroom.

  Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I groan.

  The humidity’s turned my hair into a major Rasta-style mess. No amount of product’s going to tame it down, not even Dylan’s cheap trick—Vaseline!

  I hate the hippie-look.

  It’s okay on Mom, but the Rasta thing is too grungy for my taste. I had my hair trimmed before we left California—only the ends though because I’m growing it out. At an inch a month, by the end of the year I should be able to pull it back in a ponytail.

  The label on the conditioner Mom bought reads: ORGANIC GRACE, GUARANTEED TO TAME YOUR INNER LIONESS.

  Worth a try, right?

  After I shower, I sift through the pile of perfect first-day-of-school outfits I laid out on the floor last night. Khaki shorts, jean shorts, skirts, sandals, or cross-trainers—which I quickly decide are too old, worn, and beat up. Socks, no socks, a rhinestone studded belt, no belt, a black leather belt Grizzly donated to the cause. Too hard-ass, I decide. Silver earrings. Gold earrings. A heart necklace. Maybe no necklace. Finally, I settle on a simple green T-shirt, a plain silver chain, the yin-yang studs Dylan gave me, khaki shorts, and Mom’s Birkenstocks. Let’s hope they’re not too hippie-looking.

  In case we’re taking Grizzly’s bike, I decide skipping the skirt’s a better option.

  Check the mirror again.

  Not bad.

  Semi-normal looking. Then I decide to talk Grizzly into driving the Sunbug Mom left parked out front to save money. She now rides the bus to her new job.

  In the living room, Grandpa’s out. Slouched down, chin on his chest, his La-Z-Boy tilted back as far as it can go. The sound of his snoring fills the room.

  “Grandpa?” I touch his shoulder.

  “Someone turn that damn grinder off,” he mumbles, waving a wrinkled arm in the air.

  “You want help getting to bed?”

  “No,” he coughs. “Thanks, son, I’m fine.” His eyes flutter open, shut again. “Spittin’ image. Clara’d know what . . . to do.” Instantly he’s back to sleep.

  “Thinks he’s back at the factory makin’ sausage. Happens every morning.” Grizzly tromps through the living room on his way to the kitchen. “Don’t bother with ’im. He won’t move ’til noon.”

  I follow Grizzly to the kitchen table, where Mom’s left a note and my lunch.

  She opposes school lunches.

  “Any organization that counts ketchup as a vegetable,” she says, “can’t be relied on for sound nutritional advice.”

  For some reason, she’s super paranoid about chemicals getting into my body. Even normal stuff that everyone consumes like coffee or espresso or anything with caffeine, and she’s totally militant about corn syrup or fake sugar—or anything resembling sugar.

  Seriously.

  Even thinking about sugar makes her have to stop whatever she’s doing and do deep Pranayama Yoga breathing. That’s how wigged-out she gets. And God help anyone who blows secondhand smoke in her general direction.

  I sneak a peek in the bag. It contains freshly ground peanut butter on organic whole-grain gluten-free bread, cut carrots, and four fake Fig Newtons made with real honey, which is as close as she ever gets to junk food. I don’t mind; most of the time it’s passable for food, and it keeps my face from breaking out.

  If you wear braces, you can’t have a zitty face, too. There’s only so much ugliness the world can handle.

  Grizzly looks annoyed. He’s rummaging through a kitchen cabinet Mom’s already begun to organize. After he digs out a super-sized plastic mug, I ask, “Uncle Grizzly, can we take the Sunbug?”

  He pours syrupy black coffee into the mug.

  “My bike scare ya?” He’s dressed in his unofficial uniform, a black T-shirt, leather vest, blue jeans, and some mean-looking ass-stomping boots. Same as yesterday, and the day before, and the day we arrived.

  I put the sugar bowl next to him and shake my head. “Helmet might mess my hair.”

  He grunts.

  Last night, Mom braided his hair like hers. Now Rasta braids aren’t bad on her, but on Grizzly, they’re downright terrifying. I grab some toast and head back to my room. I’ve changed in and out of the same outfit three times and my bedroom’s a disaster area by the time he’s ready.

  Grizzly shoehorns himself silently into the Sunbug. He’s added a couple of his own bumper stickers to the back: PRO-ACCORDION AND I VOTE and MOTORCYCLES HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS.

  “Thanks, Uncle Joe.”

  He smiles. “Scared shitless?”

  “Kind of.”

  He nods at my hair. “Like your ’do. It took your mom three hours to get mine just right.” He primps his.

  I’m too nervous to laugh. At first I didn’t plan to ask him, but I do anyway, because I just have to know. “Do I look, you know, like a regular . . . girl?”

  He rubs his chin, smiles, and starts the car. “Only thing missing is the leather.”

  I slap a foot up on the dash.

  “Birkenstocks don’t count. Too California. Not Milwaukee normal.”

  “Milwaukee normal?” I punch his arm. “The studded belt’s way-cool, but I don’t want to get a badass rep on my first day.”

  “Better a badass rep than a badass beating,” he says to himself, giggles, and guns the car, leaving a trail of burned rubber in our wake.

  It’s a whole new definition of normal.

  CHAPTER 11

  Double Winner

  After the 7-Eleven disaster, Mom came out fighting for me. I think she was scared, too. She’d talked to every doctor in California who’d ever examined me. She talked to my former shrink in Berkeley and her own internist, as well as mine. She talked to her medical friends at the hospital. She talked to sex-reassignment clinics all over the US and even in Denmark. Finally, she managed to snag an appointment with a famous pediatric endocrinologist, a former colleague of Dad’s, Dr. Rene Royce.

  Dr. Royce specialized in helping kids like me.

  Only, on the phone, he told Mom he rarely worked with teens. Most of his patients were infants and, on occasion, adults. He told her to call back on my eighteenth birthday.

  Mom wouldn’t take no for an answer, though. She knew a suicidal kid when she saw one. Dad had just died, and she wasn’t about to lose me, too.

  That whole day is imprinted on my brain—the Sunbug almost stalling out in traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, me getting whisked into the examining room at Dr. Royce’s office. The smell of sage plants lining the windows, and the nurse saying, “Don’t worry, Alyx. Dr. Royce is the best in the business,” as she hands me a paper gown.

  After she leaves, I pull off my clothes and wipe at the willowy armpit hair that I hadn’t had the guts to shave off yet. Sweat drips down my sides. I fold everything neatly, setting it on the chair. In the mirror above the sink, I examine my uncertain breasts, touching one nipple lightly. A shiver runs down my spine as I stare at the pubic hair that had popped out around my sorry excuse for a dick.

  To this day, I have a hard time looking at the thing.

  If only Mom and Dad had just made me a girl in the first place. That’s what most parents and medical professionals used to do with babies like me. But, no! My parents had to be politically correct. Wait and see, maybe let me choose. Problem is, they chose first. And secretly, and while he never said it, Dad had wanted a boy. That’s why.

  Mom probably went along with him because she didn’t want anyone cutting into me. I’m her only kid, and when something happens to me, it’s like it’s happening to her.

  Sometimes that’s okay, but most of the time she hasn’t got a clue what it’s like to be me.

  After almost twenty minutes, Dr. Royce breezes in wearing purple clogs and a fancy sports watch. Like m
ost doctors I’d met over the years, he doesn’t talk much. Dad used to say it was the ones with no personality, “NPs” he called them, who made the finest surgeons. Dr. Royce was a definite “NP.”

  He flips through the three-inch file from Dr. Matthews and pats the table.

  “Let’s have a look, Alyx.”

  I lean back and close my eyes. Snap, snap, snap ricochets around the room when he pulls on the rubber gloves.

  “I’m just going to palpitate your pelvic region. Try to relax, okay?”

  Eyes closed, I nod, hating every minute. His rubbery fingers feel like ice against my thighs.

  “How long have you considered yourself a girl, Alyx?”

  “Forever.”

  “Is it tender here?” He pushes down on a lump I’ve had since birth. When puberty hit, it began to grow.

  I open my eyes. “A little.”

  “Hmmm.” He pokes a bit more and then asks, “What’s your favorite subject in school?”

  “Science.”

  He grins. “Like Dad, huh?”

  I can’t help but notice his eyes. The right one’s a deep olive green and the left one’s the color of the sky. I’d never seen a person like this before. His fingers brush over the lips of my vagina, and I lay there, wishing he’d hurry the hell up.

  “Dr. Matthews is right. You’re a double winner. Any sign of menstruation?”

  “No.” Sounding bitter, I prop myself up on my elbows. Double winner? It wasn’t like I’d won the lottery or anything. I hated to break it to him, but having the dysfunctional organs of both genders didn’t make me lucky—didn’t make me any kind of winner. Easy for him to say. Dealing with different colored eyes had to be a hell of a lot easier than a dipstick penis.

  “Are you almost done?” I ask.

  He just keeps probing. “Almost. Are you sexually active?”

  Was he kidding? Who’d want to date me?

  He gently presses around my penis and everything in me wants to bolt off the table. But I stay put. I need this guy way more than he needs me. He pushes on the lump again.