Radical (19 page)

One of the guys says, “I’ll warm her up,” and the others laugh, loud and ugly. Lucy turns to me too deliberately and says too brightly, “What kind are you getting?”

She knows they’re talking about her. She knows. “Not sure.” She’s aware of it all. “What about you?”

“Mmmm,” she says, drawing it out and studying the case now that we’re close enough to see in. “I’m intrigued by the key-lime pie, but that could be a mistake if it’s really fakey lime with bits of cardboardy crust. I could get coffee chip or chocolate marshmallow. I’m not sure.” She takes my hand. “They all look good.”

I’m afraid to move. Afraid to look at them. Afraid to look at her and let her see my eyes. But I also can’t let go of her hand. It’s like she’s asking me to stand here with her, and I can’t say no.

“Sick,” one of them hisses.

I don’t look but I feel the group moving past us, their space pushing at ours.

“You should ditch that and come with us,” says one of the guys. Without even turning, we both know they’re talking to Lucy. “You can sit on my lap.” Laughter.

She doesn’t react at all. I stare at the mint chip and brace for impact. If I have to fight, I will. But I’ll have to get Lucy behind me. Maybe the old couple will keep them from doing anything, at least in here. But in here would be better than later, outside. The bell on the door jingles and jingles, and then there’s quiet. Quiet enough to hear the whir of the AC and some music on somewhere in the back. Lucy squeezes my hand and then lets go.

“The chocolate marshmallow. Definitely. Two scoops?” she says to the girl behind the counter. “In a cup. With sprinkles.” She’s pleased with her choice. “Bex?”

“Strawberry,” I say, without even thinking about it. “In a cone.” Just like I’m five.

We stand there in the shop, both taking our first tastes. Lucy makes yummy sounds. I scope out the scene outside, checking if any of those guys are still there. I walk over to the trash can near the door and take my time throwing away a napkin and getting another, and another, scanning the street.

“Want to walk?” She looks so happy with her ice cream, so at ease. Even the old couple seems to have forgotten about us. “Come on,” she says, moving toward the door.

Outside, it’s warmer, but Lucy keeps my shirt.

I scan the street in all directions and look toward where the car is parked to see what’s ahead. I glance back behind us as we start to walk.

“They’re gone,” Lucy says, and so is her overly bright giddiness. She takes another heaping spoonful, tilting her head to catch the sprinkles falling off her spoon.

“How do you know?” I ask, still scanning the street.

“Jerks like that are all talk.” I stare at her, wondering how she knows that, how for sure, and then her serious face breaks. “And I saw them drive off heading out of town in the opposite direction.”

“I didn’t think you saw them at first.” I lick around the bottom of the cone to keep it from dripping.

“They were looking when we came in. That’s why their girls were pissed. But then they figured it out.” She pauses to eat a huge spoonful. “They were embarrassed for getting caught looking. The rest was cover.”

“You don’t seem fazed at all.”

“I’m used to it.” She takes a seat on a bench. “I had boobs at eleven. By twelve I looked sixteen. You get used to being looked at, to shit being said. When I started dating girls, it got weirder, more hostile. But most of the time it’s all talk.”

I realize I’m still staring at her chest, and look away. “Most of the time?”

She takes a big bite of ice cream, works it around in her mouth, swallows. “Yes.”

She doesn’t want to talk about it, but there’s a slip in her “I’m cool” cover. They did freak her out, more than a little.

I push the ice cream into my cone with my tongue and start biting around the rim of the cone.

“What about you?” she asks.

“What?”

“Come on,” she says. “You get shit, too. You have to.”

I shrug and keep eating.

“Fine.” She tosses the nearly empty cup in the trash, a little harder than necessary.

“Sure,” I say. “But not like that. Mostly it’s people trying to figure out what I am, sometimes a mumbled ‘freak’ or some guys might drop ‘dyke’ or whatever. But not like that. Not like they’re checking me out or anything.” I finish my cone and get up to throw away the napkins in the can on her side of the bench. “Guys don’t look at me that way.”

Guys have never looked at me the way those guys looked at Lucy, which is fine by me. Now it seems like it’s always the ones who would stare at girls like Lucy who go out of their way to be nasty to me. I’ve thought I might have to fight before, but that was a hundred times scarier.

I hold out my hand. She takes it and we continue walking toward the car, hands swinging between us.

“But the ‘What are you?’ crap sucks,” she says, like she knows.

“Sometimes.” She gives me a look, like
fair’s fair
. “Yeah. When it’s a kid or just a double take, whatever, fine. But it sucks when people get mad. Like it’s suddenly my problem that they feel uncomfortable or whatever.” Like my being in the next stall while they pee is dangerous to them. “They act like I’m doing it on purpose just to screw with them. Or like I’m cheating or something.”

She nods. “My friend Jenny transitioned in ninth. People got really weird about it. Some of the lesbians worst of all. Like a straight trans girl was an affront to everything ever.”

Straight trans . . . Wait. What?

“Can I ask you something?” Lucy asks, stopping me before I can get in the car. I feel the heat in my face already. I don’t even understand what she just said, and now she’s going to ask me something I don’t know how to answer and think I’m stupid. “What happened?” She reaches out and touches my cheek where the scrapes were.

Oh. Okay. I touch my cheek. “It was nothing.” I walk around the car to get in. After she is in, she sits there, waiting for more. “Really,” I say, hoping we can postpone this conversation until later. I have no idea what she would think about Clearview or how much to say. We haven’t really talked about politics or anything that would tell me if she would even understand training, or if it would weird her out. And I still don’t really get if Clearview is supposed to be a secret or not, or how much of it is supposed to be a secret.

She’s quiet. Not making any move to drive. She’s looking at me like she thinks someone has been beating on me, like I need protection. If only she knew.

“I would have protected you.” I didn’t mean to say that, but now that it’s said I don’t take it back.

“From those guys?”

“Yes.”

She looks dubious. “From three guys who are bigger than you. And their girls.”

“Maybe not all at once, but good enough to get us away, or get you away, anyway. I’ve been training.”

“Training? Like fighting?”

“Defensive tactics. Hand-to-hand. But, yeah, fighting.”

“That’s what the bruises and scratches were from?”

“Yes.”

She thinks it over. “You’d really have taken them on?”

“I wouldn’t have started it,” I say. “And if there was any way to just defuse it and leave, I would. I’m not stupid.” She nods. “But if they tried to touch you?” I wait for her to look up from under a curtain of dark brown hair. “Then yes. I would have put myself between them and you. And they would not have touched you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

I can’t tell if she’s mad or impressed or something else. “I’m sure you can. You did, in fact. But I just wanted you to know that. I was being cautious, making sure they were gone, because I wasn’t looking for a fight. But if they’d tried something, I would have protected you.”

She takes a deep breath and lets it out. I’m not exactly sure what it means, but it feels important.

I scoot across the seat, duck under her hair, and kiss her. Just a small kiss, and then another, and then she turns toward me and opens her mouth, and this is where I’ve wanted to be all day, all week. Forever.

We kiss for a few minutes, just kissing. Last time I was so nervous, and then it was all almost too much, and hours later I couldn’t remember all these things I wanted to remember, to relive. I try to focus on the details of kissing her, how her mouth feels, how soft her lips are, the sounds she makes. I slide my hand into her hair and let my other hand rest on her leg, over her dress, just keeping us connected. I can smell her skin. She touches my arm, holding me close, and we take turns kissing until we both lean back. I know we should go, and not keep kissing in a car, on display here. Maybe she does, too.

She puts the key in the ignition and tucks her hair behind her ears, smooths out her dress, like she’s trying to make herself presentable. I shift around until my baggy cargos aren’t all twisted and bunched, then fasten my seat belt.

I love kissing her. And how she smells.

“Where to now? Unless you need to go home?”

“I don’t really have a curfew.” Not when Mom’s staying with Aunt Lorraine and Dad thinks I’m out with Cammie and Karen or whoever.

“My grandparents are out. Won’t be home until late. We could go there?”

“If they wouldn’t mind,” I say, testing if that’s what she wants.

“Nope.” She smiles and her face flushes. “They won’t mind.”

I hold her hand across the seat while she drives.

Lucy’s grandparents’ house is about as far east of the station as Uncle Skip’s house is west. Like Uncle Skip’s place, it’s surrounded by what used to be family farms, but her grand-
parents obviously sold off parcels a while ago, because you can see other houses from their porch.

Lucy leads me in by the hand, showing off the pictures of her all over the place. The mantel. The walls. Pictures of her mom and dad, too. Her uncle and his husband, and it still feels weird to hear her say that.

Her fingers are perfectly entwined with mine. And so smooth.

Her room is in the back of the house, displaying bits of her from every summer. Trophies and camp crafts and fair prizes. If we had met last year — at the station or wherever — would she have even seen me, looking like Mom wanted me to look? Lucy kicks off her sandals and sits down on the side of the bed.

I walk around the room, looking at this picture and that, asking questions, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do and what I want to do and if my stomach is rejecting the pizza and ice cream, or if I’m just freaking out.

“Bex,” she says when I’m getting ready to start lap three. She leans back on the bed, her elbows propping her up, legs slightly spread. I can see the outline of her legs through her dress. The soft curves of her belly and hips. Her breasts, but I try not to stare.

Am I supposed to just get into bed with her?

All my nerves are jangling and snapping.

She slowly smiles and then sits up. Then she stands up. “Want to see if there’s a movie on?”

“Yeah. Sure.” The butterflies calm down, replaced by disappointment, as I follow her to the living room. And then frustration, at myself and what a coward I am.

She hands me the clicker, points at the couch, and says, “I’m getting some tea. Want some?”

“Does the tea have sugar?”

“Yes,” she says, like my question was insulting
and
stupid.

“Then water. Please,” I add as an afterthought.

I check my phone, trying to ignore the sweat breaking out on my palms and neck and the backs of my knees. Relieved sweat. Disappointed sweat. You’re-an-idiot sweat. I could have gotten into bed with her. Or at least
on
the bed with her. She probably thinks I’m stupid or a baby. Or not that into her. Which is amazingly wrong.

After she puts our drinks down, she takes the clicker from me and goes straight to the menu option, scrolling fast, until she finds something she deems worthy. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care.

We watch for just a few minutes. Sipping our drinks and then putting them back. I can’t get comfortable on the itchy tweedy couch. She crosses and uncrosses her legs and taps her hand on her knee every few minutes.

Maybe she’s nervous, too. Or maybe she’s bored. Or maybe she thinks I am.

I reach over and put my hand on her hand, just as she was getting ready to tap again. She looks at our hands and then at me. And then she smiles and turns her hand over so we are holding hands. It’s nice, for like five minutes, and then it’s awkward again. And my palm is sweaty. We both lean forward for our drinks at almost the same time, and our hands sort of pull between us. It’s funny and stupid and weird and nice. We both put our glasses back on their coasters and then look at each other. The light from the TV flickers blue-green and then light across her face.

She turns so she’s sort of facing me and mutes the TV.

I wish I had put on more ChapStick.

We both lean forward at the same time, hesitate, and then lean closer. Our mouths hit, and it’s only sort of a kiss. She pushes forward and grabs hold of my hip so we can kiss longer.

When I shift closer, she does, too, and then I can get my arm around her shoulders and she’s leaning into me, and we can relax into each other.

She’s kissing me harder. Her fingers grip and regrip at the sides of my shorts. Too hard. I pull back, to swallow and breathe and find that good place again.

Her hands relax, I turn a little more, so does she, and then it’s like we slot into place. Her chest against mine. I can feel myself smiling at her, at how it feels to feel her pressed against me.

Her face is pink and blotchy from the tweedy couch and my face and my hands, her lips puffy and red. She doesn’t look at all interested in stopping. She pulls me closer until I’m sort of leaning over her, bracing my weight with the arm trapped between her and the back of the couch.

“Wait. Ouch.” She turns, twisting, and I have to grab the couch not to topple to the floor. She yanks on my shorts to keep me with her until we can get situated on our sides, face-to-face. “Better,” she says, and then she kisses me again.

But now we are lying down, pressed together, as much so I don’t fall off as to be close. Her leg is between my knees, and she turns just enough to hook me closer.