Come out come out, p.17
Come Out, Come Out, page 17
And Jaq had believed it. Along with everyone else at the church, she pitied the Hammonds and marveled that they could have missed the signs of Mallory’s nature when looking back. Now it seemed so clear.
She was always so opinionated.
She had that look to her.
Nothing but trouble, if you ask me.
Mallory Hammond had become a cautionary tale of almost mythic proportions. Jaq had even told it to herself on occasion, never once remembering the fear she’d experienced that night in the car with Mr. Hammond or how much she had loved Mallory in her thirteen-year-old way.
The fear was back now. And it was all she could think about as she sneaked out her bedroom window and climbed into the maple tree that stood in the side yard.
Her hands trembled as she lowered herself between the branches. Her brain screamed at her to go back, stay safe inside her bedroom, and be happy with what she had, but the rest of her reached for something else. Yearned for it. She couldn’t just bury this part of herself any longer. Not even if she was afraid.
She needed to know.
Jaq hit the ground and froze, certain she’d seen someone standing on her front porch, watching her. Holding her breath, Jaq pressed in close to the trunk of the tree, squinting for a better look. The porch light was off and the little space drenched in shadows. She heard the slow creak of a floorboard, watched as the darkness shifted toward her, and for a heartbeat, she was afraid she’d been caught.
But as she studied the darkness, she found the outline of the rocking chair that had been on their porch forever. Saw it rock slightly in the breeze, whining as it moved.
“Why so jumpy, Jaqueline?” she muttered, hurrying down the dark street.
Fifteen minutes later, she was standing just inside the door of the old diner, stunned by the scene before her.
There were people. That wasn’t the stunning part. There were always people in Frank’s, or she assumed there were because the lot was always full. But these people were dressed in all kinds of clothes and costumes. One was in all black, the shine of pleather contrasting with their light brown skin. Another, with soft, fat curves, wore a tulle skirt in layers of pastel pinks and purples. Yet another was in a blush-red corset and jeans that made their moon-pale skin nearly translucent. They were all shapes, sizes, colors, genders. They didn’t even seem to be all in the same group, but were scattered around the restaurant as though completely unafraid to be in this very public space dressed the way they were.
Being who they were.
It was like nothing she’d ever seen. And a part of her relaxed instantly.
“In or out,” a man barked, cruising past with a tray of steaming eggs and burgers.
“Out! Out! Out!” the nearest table cheered, dissolving into silly laughter.
Jaq took a step back.
“They don’t mean for you to leave,” Devyn said, coming up behind her. So close it made Jaq’s skin tingle. “They mean they like being out better than the alternative. C’mon.”
Jaq did her best to look calm as she followed Devyn to a booth on the opposite side of the restaurant from what Jaq was now calling “the rowdy group” in her mind.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Devyn admitted, as they settled across from one another. Her cheeks were pastel pink, the wild snarl of her curls hidden by a braid.
“I wasn’t sure either,” Jaq admitted.
The waiter who had barked at her earlier arrived with menus in hand. He slapped them on the table and then stepped back, giving Jaq a full view of his outfit: a salmon-pink pullover with the words Mom Mode printed across the chest in bold black letters, and tight black jeans tucked into army boots. He was older than Jaq, but not as old as her parents. She would guess somewhere in his thirties.
“Dev,” he drawled, casting a suspicious glance at Jaq. “What are we doing here?”
“She’s new,” Devyn answered, defensive.
“You’ve barely been here a minute,” he countered, raising an eyebrow.
Jaq looked between them. Completely lost even though the conversation was clearly about her.
“Frank, give her a beat,” Devyn said after a few seconds.
He nodded, backing away from the table. “You know the drill,” he said, gesturing to the coffee in one corner and the soda machine in the other.
“So that’s the eponymous Frank,” Jaq said. “But what was that about?”
“You can’t figure it out?” Devyn smiled, then nodded like she should have known better. “You really are new.”
“New to what?”
Devyn’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and Jaq swallowed hard, the answer hitting her all at once.
“I’m not—” Her voice cut out before she could say the word. As though someone had turned the volume down suddenly.
“What? Not gay? Not queer? Or not ready to say it out loud?” Devyn asked.
Jaq whipped her head around, alarmed by the sound of those words. Terrified that someone might think they applied to her.
But all around the restaurant, people were only paying attention to each other. She had the sense that even if they had heard, they wouldn’t care.
“Jaq,” Devyn said, pulling her attention back. “I invited you here because I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable the other week, and I can’t stop thinking about it. About…you.”
The way Devyn looked at her made it harder to breathe. Harder to think.
“I know that you have a boyfriend,” Devyn continued. “And I’m not trying to break you up or anything. It’s just that I know there’s something between us, and I would regret it forever if I didn’t say it.”
“Devyn, I’m not—” Again the word vanished in her throat. Evaporated like rain on hot pavement. “I mean.”
All at once, Jaq realized that she didn’t want to deny it. Sitting here with Devyn, surrounded by people who weren’t judging her even though a very loud voice in her head told her they should be judged. A voice that sounded a lot like her mother’s.
“I’m—”
Come back.
Cold sluiced down Jaq’s spine, and her lungs deflated. She reached for the cross charm at her neck and tugged, nervous tears threatening in the back of her throat.
“Hey,” Devyn said with a smile that faded almost as quickly as it had landed. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Jaq had never been a crier. Not even at movies. But under the gentle pressure of Devyn’s question, she was powerless. Tears flowed hot and fast down her cheeks. She didn’t know what had happened, but now that she’d started crying, she couldn’t stop. It was like the tears had burned through whatever thin shield had been holding them back, and now there were several years’ worth racing to get out.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing here or— Why—”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Devyn said, suddenly by her side, one arm wrapped around her shoulders. “You don’t even have to explain.”
For a long moment, all Jaq could do was lean into her. Let the tears come. And in a way, it felt nice.
Then she remembered that they were in the middle of a crowded restaurant with a very cranky owner, and she fought to regain control. Little by little, it came. And when she opened her eyes, she was surprised to find a pile of napkins on the table before her. That, and the restaurant was quiet.
When she raised her head, Frank was seated across the table from her, the rest of the customers watching her with something like reverence.
“Okay, kid, what’s your name?” Frank asked with begrudging kindness.
Jaq pressed a napkin to her face before answering. “Jaq.”
Frank nodded, then shifted his gaze to a point behind her. “Cole! Flip the sign!”
“On it!”
The name took Jaq by surprise. But when she looked, she found Cole Clark standing near the front door in an apron just like Frank’s, having flipped the sign from Open to Closed. He caught her eye and gave her an encouraging smile, the gesture drawing attention to a faded bruise around his left eye.
“This right here,” Frank said, sweeping his hands wide, “is a safe space when you need it. You come here; you’re family. But keep the shit outside, understand?”
Jaq nodded, then stopped. “Actually, no.”
“He means we can be messy, but in here, we support each other,” Devyn said. “Even if we’ve only been in town for a few weeks. Even if…we’re still figuring things out for ourselves.”
“Right, and on nights like this, when someone’s in the thick of it—” Frank started, rising from his seat and heading toward an old-fashioned jukebox tucked into one corner. Instead of turning it on, though, he hit the power button on a speaker perched on top. “We dance until there’s nothing but glitter in our veins and hope in our hearts. Clear the floor! And, Jaq, pick a letter.”
“A letter?” she asked, so confused. “Okay, how about…” She said the first letter that entered her mind. “D?”
Devyn coughed softly, covering her mouth with her hand.
“David Bowie it is.”
The room was in constant motion as people pushed the tables and chairs aside, creating a dance floor. Then the lights dimmed, and the synthesized chords of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” flooded the room.
Apart from the obligatory school dance, Jaq wasn’t really a dancer. She didn’t like not knowing what her body should be doing at any given moment, and the pressure or worry that what she was doing looked silly was even worse. But something about Frank’s, with the lights turned low and the floor filled with strangers who weren’t strangers at all, was freeing.
Jaq slid from the booth in something like a trance, then turned to look at Devyn, who was watching her with a bemused expression.
“Are—are we not supposed to dance?” Jaq asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“We are absolutely supposed to dance.” Devyn came to stand beside her. “I’m a little surprised that you want to.”
In response, Jaq spun around on her heel in time with the music, the movement itself enough to make her laugh. Devyn followed her lead, and they danced. To the end of one song and into the next.
“How did you know to come here?” Jaq asked between songs.
“Have you ever seen the Pride flag out front? No business owner flies that on accident,” Devyn answered with a wry grin.
“Do you come here because…” Jaq hesitated, not sure how to ask if Devyn’s parents were as intolerant as her own, but Devyn was already shaking her head.
“My parents are cool. But sometimes it’s nice to be around people who get me a little better than others. Who remind me that things like gender and sexuality are an endless garden of possibility. And we all get to bloom in our own way.” She swayed as another song started to play.
“My parents believe girls all bloom in the same way,” Jaq said. “A rose is a rose is a rose. So common you can buy them at the gas station.”
“Sure,” Devyn said, smile turning gleeful and vicious. “But even a common rose has thorns.”
Jaq spent the rest of the night with tears in her throat. A bitter squeezing sensation that wasn’t quite sadness, but something better and worse at the same time. She didn’t know what it meant that Frank and everyone here had seen something in her that she wasn’t brave enough to see herself. That they were making room for it the same way Mal had. That, like her, they were making demands of the world instead of letting it make demands of them.
As she danced, the pain in her throat eased, the feeling blossoming into something like joy, and for a few minutes she dared to think that everything would be okay because this was good. It was warm and bright and welcoming and good.
Just for tonight, she believed she could have something good.
Believed she was something good.
And when it was all over, Devyn drove her to the top of her street, then waited as she climbed back through her bedroom window. When she’d silently changed out of her sweaty clothes and into pajamas, she felt good enough to do something that hurt just a little.
She slid John’s promise ring from her finger and put it away.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Fern
If there was such a thing as perfection, then it was kissing Kaitlyn Birch.
Fern lived inside the kiss for three days and three nights. She let herself sink into the memory of it, replaying the kiss, the sensation of Kaitlyn’s hands at her waist, the way she had slipped through Danny into an ethereal, buoyant place within herself.
She hadn’t even seen Kaitlyn on Monday because there were separate calls for the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds, but today they were running ensemble dance scenes, which meant they’d be together almost every minute.
Buzzing, Fern slicked her hair into a low ponytail at the back of her neck, then selected a plain T-shirt and jeans. The whole time, she played the drive-in scene in her mind, unconsciously reciting Danny’s lines out loud along with her own as she laced up her shoes and reached for a black corduroy jacket. The ensemble wasn’t quite right; she didn’t seem to own much that wasn’t tailored for curves or related to the pastel end of the color spectrum, but it was better than anything else in her closet. Her wardrobe was essentially a shrine to traditional femininity, which, while not terrible on its own, wasn’t her. All of her. Them. Fern.
“Do you want us to try different pronouns?” Mal had asked.
She did. He did. They did.
Even just in their own mind, the words didn’t feel anchored the way they once had. Fern was a girl, a boy. Neither and both. If they dug, they could find an anchor in girl or boy—a touchstone, a word, a feeling—but a gentle instinct whispered that they didn’t need to. Right now, it felt good to be more fluid.
Fern was shifting. At first, after the wake up, the unbecoming and rebecoming of Fern’s memories and self had felt disjointed and upsetting. This, though…this new becoming was exhilarating. Discovering something that had always been there, inside. And in a way that they would soon be able to share with someone. With Kaitlyn.
“It hasn’t been that long since laundry day,” Fern’s mom announced, coming into the kitchen just as Fern was finishing breakfast. “And what is going on with your hair? With it pulled down like that, you look sick. Wait, are you sick?”
“I’m not sick, Mom. I’m fine,” Fern protested, but their mother was already coming for them, brow knitted in concern.
She pressed the back of one hand to Fern’s forehead. “No fever,” she murmured.
“I didn’t feel like dressing up today.” It was a lie. This was dressing up. It just wasn’t in a way their mother would understand. Which was evident by the way she was staring at Fern as though they’d just told her they’d committed a murder.
“Honey,” she started, perching on the seat next to Fern. “I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure recently. Senior year is tough, and doing all of that while also being the star of a show is even harder. It’s okay if you’re struggling.”
“I’m not—”
“Lots of girls your age struggle, and I wouldn’t be surprised if being in this show is a little harder than usual,” their mom continued. “It really isn’t fair of Ms. Murphy to ask you to take on a role like this, playing opposite a girl. You know, a group of parents complained to the school board, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets into trouble for this. I’m this close to saying something myself. It’s fine if they want to do this sort of thing at the college level, but it’s inappropriate in high school. I would completely understand if you’re upset about it. It’s truly irresponsible of her.”
“Mom, I’m really fi—”
“We probably should have had this conversation a lot sooner.” She gave Fern’s appearance another studied glance. “I’ll make you an appointment to see someone as soon as possible.”
A memory of their mother walking into their bedroom one evening flashed through their mind. They were bent over a graphic novel they’d checked out from the public library with Holly. It was written by a trans author about having been a trans kid, and their mother had snatched it away. Fern would never forget the horror in their mother’s face as she flipped through the pages, or the vitriol in her voice when she’d whispered, “This is sick.”
Fern remembered trembling on the floor. The secret validation they’d felt seconds before now rotting in their chest. Withering beneath their mother’s accusing stare.
“Fern, there is nothing wrong with you,” she’d said, snapping the book shut and throwing it into the hallway. “You are a perfect, beautiful little girl, and we’re going to get through this.”
The next thing Fern knew, they’d been in a therapist’s office seated next to their mother, answering questions they didn’t have answers to and that made them feel uncomfortable and gross.
That made them feel unsafe.
That still made them feel that way.
“Mom, stop!” Fern’s throat tightened around the words and around that old fear. The irony was that they actually did want to talk to someone, but they had learned a long time ago that they couldn’t trust their mother. “I’m fine. Seriously. Wearing jeans isn’t a cry for help, and I don’t need therapy because I decided not to curl my hair today. I’m not sad. Actually, I feel really good about things, okay?”
Their mom considered them for a long moment, as though the idea that Fern—or anyone—could be okay in this situation was cause for alarm all on its own. A familiar spike of fear wormed its way down Fern’s spine. The one that reminded them it was dangerous to speak up, to give any indication to their mother that they were anything other than their mom’s idea of normal. No matter how much they wanted to.
“I’m good,” Fern repeated, willing their mom to believe it.
