Masks Chapter 18

*Before….

Mark’s there setting down tea stuff so we can make our own. “That’s the night that after the cops and Aunt Els got you home, you took the pills right?”

What?

“Oh…oh shit M.J…..” I’m freaked, floored and I’ve never heard any of this….

“It just hurt so much!” She wails. “They…they were supposed to be my friends! But they…they just turned their backs on me and called me slut and witch!”

......

That gets a sobby wet laugh from Mary Jane and I hug her tight, really tight and stay there. “M.J.?”

(Sobby-sniffle.) “Yeah…?”

“You never, ever fucking do that again you hear me? I can’t make it through this fucking curse with out you.” I sobbed out that last half of it.

She turns and she looks at me.

Yeah more tears are rolling down her face and she swallows a few times and nods. But instead of talking because we just can’t yet we hook pinky fingers again.

*And Now…

It’s so intense this whole afternoon and everything…I mean it’s been a super intense couple of days but this.

It’s other level stuff. I mean I get why they moved, I get why Mom and Dad are good with me and M.J. being girlfriends.

This stuff with her, it wasn’t that long ago.

It wasn’t that long ago that she tried to overdose and kill herself.

The thought, the thought of losing her, the though of losing my best friend, the best friend I have always wanted squeezes my heart so hard it hurts me physically just to think about it.

I can’t lose her, I just can’t.

I wouldn’t do something stupid but it really does feel like it’d kill me.

I’ve been so alone in this dark place for so long…

Which is why we’re pinkie locked and holding each other and both doing the full on ugly cry over each other.

We’re like that for awhile and it’s like sort of out of nowhere that Mom’s home and she’s rubbing my back and M.J.’s and making soothing noises and I’m looking at her and she’s wiping at my eyes and Mary Jane’s too.

“So now you know.” She says to me.

I hug M.J. tighter and nod. “Yeah…God Mum, why?”

I can feel M.J.’s breath catch too.

She looks at us both and it’s as intense as I’ve ever seen her. “Honestly?”

We nod in stereo.

“People can suck, they just can. What they did pure jealousy ad spite and being cruel little assholes just because they could.”

“Mom?” I’m kind of surprised.

“It’s never easy to be a decent person especially when all these others aren’t doing it.”

“But people can be nice just because and sometimes we have to work at it…but it’s worth it girls. I promise you decency’s worth fighting for.”

I hug her and she gives me that Mom kiss on top of my head before doing the same for M.J. I notice her looking over to the kitchen island and Mark’s there with Jenn and they’re cooking or making the rest of the stuff.

Well Jenn is and Mark’s doing what he’s told along with eating choice bits to go along with the supper we’re having. It’s our usual salad that we have with every meal like this and just about every meal actually.

My folks were raised on cheap stuff and while we’re not into all the fancy stuff. There’s a huge fridge in the kitchen and they’re usually full and we have lots and lots of fruits and veggies.

Not because it’s good for us but mostly because they never had it.

But Jenn’s salad looks really good. Romaine lettuce and some baby spinach with slices of cucumbers and zucchini… (We grow em.) but she’s putting in shaved turnip and carrots but green apple and red pears too and some jarred artichokes she’s grilling on our Foreman grill or Mark is while she uses the seasoned liquid from the jar as the base for a salad dressing.

Mark looks happy and they’re talking Harry Potter stuff and she’s quizzing him in I think what sounds like chemistry stuff.

Mom looks at us. “Okay, time for a break how about you two explain the stuff on the sketches?”

Mary Jane… (Sniffle) “They’re good aren’t they? Steph’s a good artist.”

“Really?” Mom looks pleasantly surprised.

I blush and shrug. “Just messing around, I think some stuff stuck with you.” (Sniffle)

She smiles. “C’mon we’ll go and check these out in the studio.”

“I…uhm okay…”

Mom takes my hand and I take Mary Jane’s and we head into the studio and I feel like I’ve skated two ends without a break. I had no idea that being a girl and living as one and more importantly feeling as one could be this hard.

It’s like I have shoved and bottled away all this stuff and when I’m just being me there’s no big guyboden wall that’s keeping me from crying and feeling and letting all of this stuff out or even experiencing it.

Pardon the pun but I feel rubbery.

We head into Mom’s studio and she takes us over to her window couch. It’s supposed to be one of those window seats only Mom actually had Dad remove all the platform stuff and set in a love seat in there about a foot off the floor and the rest of the room is this big side parlor like room that’s got high ceilings and a fireplace in one wall and is otherwise pretty non-descript except the walls are randomly and overlappingly decorated with posters ranging from her favorite bands to stuff playing in town and playbills from the theater here in town and anything and everything else that she thinks is interesting at the time and she usually just staples it up on the walls when she gets them.

Mom’s got years of like local event ads or well history here.

The rest in her workbench and her painting easels and she has a whole bunch of her paintings piled up against the wall mostly stuff that she has done for fun or she did on a whim and some are waiting for her next sale.

She did some gallery stuff but mom paints on anything sometimes and she will do her own sales around Christmas and stuff and sells them fairly cheap for a painting because she thinks that everyone should be able to afford a painting.

She donates some and she trades other artists in town too.

We still have tons of honey from some beekeeper she did paints of and his farm. Plus a whole lot of handmade candles from one of her friends she’s traded with.

Between that and commissions she makes some pretty good money and then you add in Dad who makes really good money and we’re really well off.

But I inhale once I’m in here and between her natural herbs and pigments and the paints and all the paper on the walls plus the fireplace it has the scent here. Like a painter’s place should but also that wood smoke hint and almost this old book smell from the papers and just the hint of herbs and stuff.

It’s like a sorceress’s workshop in here and feels like it too.

I used to do my homework in here while I was little and I’d be in that whole staring fascinated at both my Mom because I felt something even then and in awe because watching her make stuff was magic to me.

She spreads out our stuff and we take some time to explain what we want to do or to try and do with each of them and Mom being a Mom she does something that hadn’t occurred for either of us and she starts to make lists of the stuff that we’re going to need for both sets of costumes.

And we’re brainstorming about all of that too and the mood is slowly lightening as we’re starting to get into it and excited by it again.

Mom looks at me. “You really want to go to the dance as Alice?”

“Uhm…yeah a dry run?”

“Okay though it might ruin the surprise with the contest.”

“But other people in town won’t know that it’s me.”

“Okay, good point I think it’s a good choice.”

“I thought so and M.J. has the red hair so we can so use that in like the mad hatter costume and we can do the crazy make up stuff and even color it some like Johnny Dep did for the movie but like a girl cosplay version of it.”

Mom’s nodding and grinning. “Actually I think that both of this stuff rocks girls.”

Aunt Elsbeth comes in quietly and sits on the other side of Mary Jane and gives her a nice long squeeze and kisses the top of her head and just sits there and holds her. We end up kind of sharing eye contact and it’s one of those things that cuts through my teenagerism and I get that there’s stuff that’s just as messy and just as hurt and just as important as me.

And that I’m important to them but for reasons that aren’t as selfish as mine are.

It’s kind of humbling in a good way I guess.

She looks at our stuff too after a while and she says that we’re doing a really good job and that she likes the designs and stuff.

It’s kind of surreal.

I know what happened with them.

I know that she knows that I know.

But it’s not like she’s faking that all that stuff didn’t happen but it’s kind of like somehow she like rolled with it and she’s actually good.

No, maybe not good but she’s okay.

God how can I be like that to just go through stuff and come out of it Okay?

Being okay would actually be pretty good.

We even share a smile before Dad shows up and watches us and is leaning on the doorframe. I like that he’s sort of like taking a minute until the others catch on that he’s there.

“Ladies, supper’s ready.”

It’s so… Mom saying and including me in ‘You girls’ and now Dad with ‘Ladies’ it is such a small thing really but it really helps.

And he actually stays there as we get up and he waits until we all go passed him before he follows. I mean it’s like just Dad and like really casual but it’s still like ladies first and it’s still pretty cool to me.

Supper’s nice too; Mark and Jenn seem to have taken over and it’s actually pretty. They took one of the table cloths that we have and put it on the table and put fall leaves on it and they still have some play in them so their not like dry but still have some play and their just kind of pretty and the eggplant-parme-zgna is on the table and someone had taken one of the many pumpkins and hollowed it out after cutting it in half and had them carved into salad bowls with the salad in one and homemade garlic bread in the other like a bread bowl and there’s even two little small decorative ones hollowed out and has tea light candles inside of them.

And the table is all set and stuff and it looks great and cute.

I can smell something baking too in the kitchen for desert.

“Mark, Jenn this looks really cool.” I can’t help it they did a good job and from the look on Mom and Dad’s face they agree and we sit down to eat and I see the twin and they’re showered and clean and even are at least acting quiet.

Jenn says. “Thanks but really a lot of the work for making supper you girls already did mark and I was just helping out.”

We actually dig in with gusto and there’s passing of plates and smiles and someone made polenta to go with things and there’s a dish of olives out on the table. We kind of really go for stuff like that.

Billy’s looking at me and then Bobby too and both finish chewing their first bites. “Hey…this, this is pretty good Steph.” Billy says and Bobby just nods kind of slow and I’m looking at them with a little bit of…huh?

What did mark say to these too. Okay they don’t look like they were comfortable saying it but they still said it.

“Uhm thanks guys but I had help.”

Bobby adds in. “Yeah thanks M.J. you too are alright cooks.”

They’re guys and fifteen year old ones that’s kind of a really good compliment getting it out of them I figure.

Mary Jane and I share a smile and keep eating and it’s Mom that finally asks what I’ve been dying to know. “So Jenn just how did Mark and you meet?”

She grins. “Dance class.”

“What!?”… Billy.

“Bwahahaha”…Bobby “Dance class!” He snorts at Mark who has this semi-pissed look on his face and that would have been an automatic big brother enforcement of the hierarchy but mark just has this look between him and Jenn and he doesn’t do anything.

She smiles.

Bobby can’t keep his mouth shut and make this. “Whissssp!” sound and Aunt Els reaches over and does that wrist flick slap-snap in back of the head making him go. “Hey.”

Then he realizes that all of us girls are looking at him and he ducks his head and hunches his shoulders. “Sorry.”

Mom just picks the thread back up. “Dance class? Mark when’d you start taking dance? They don’t offer it in school.”

Dammit I sort of just had my hopes up that sounded like fun.

He colors a bit. “I take Sonja there, she wanted to learn and stuff so it’s one of the things I do with her.”

Mom and Dad nod like they knew he was doing that. I imagine they might have had to sign stuff since mark’s only seventeen with the whole Big Brother/Big Sisters thing and all.

I look at Jenn and despite the whole Japanese thing where Asian girls are supposed to be thin or that’s what like the stereotype is. But a dancer…she so has that ballerina build going on.

I ask her. “What are you taking there?”

She smiles. “I help my Aunt teach mostly and I train with her but usually I have to go away to a workshop or something when I want to pick up some more techniques.”

Mom nods smiling. “So you’re that good already?”

She shrugs. “I’m working at it I do want to go and study dance after school.”

Mark smiles at her and he looks a little bit smitten. “She got a gold ticket last year for ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’ So yeah she’s that good.

That’s a reality dance show for like non-professionals that is like the dance equivalent of American Idol and a gold ticket is a call back to go along further that the first auditions to get onto the show. That’s actually pretty damned good.

She blushes a little. “I only got as far as the choreography and I blew it and twisted my ankle.”

Then Dad’s like. “But you might have gone all the way.”

“Maybe sir but the ticket’s the big win for me.”

Mom… “How’s that?”

“It means that I’ll have at least some serious auditions then it comes to go to school after high school.”

Mom… “And you volunteer?”

“Yes ma’am, there and at the food bank and I run sometimes.”

I look at her. “Run?”

“Sponsored stuff like Run for the Cure and the Terry Fox Run.”

Mom’s like…. “That’s a lot of stuff.”

Jenn nods. “Sometimes Ma’am but helping others out is kind of like paying rent on the life I live.”

Oh…Yes, yes that.

Aunt Els is nodding like of course.

I look at Mark and he’s definitely smitten by the looks he’s still giving her.

God I want to be like them…Jenn, Mom, Aunt Els they just seem so with it.

We finish eating after the guys have seconds. I had seconds on the salad. The whole shaved root veggies with the pear and apple was good. I had no clue that turnip was spicy as well as being sweet when shaved thinly, and nuts in a salad of any kind is almost always good.

Jenn and Mark go get dessert…Apple pie but apple pie with maple syrup for the sugar and a few spices but the kicker…Walnuts…like the ones for baking but they’re covered in the appley-mapley sauce from the pie and it’s soooo good.

I only go for a smallish piece but it’s so good with a cup of coffee. There’s a semi collective sigh and a pause after than and I take a breath and get up and start clearing the table.

M.J. gets up and help and Billy sighs and I look at him. “I’ve got this Will you and Rob split wood al afternoon.”

Both of them are staring at me and blinking. Rob/Bobby says. “Uhm…you sure?”

“Definitely, but thanks for offering to help Rob.”

No I didn’t change their names. Technically they’re William and Robert but as long I’ve ever heard Billy and Bobby. It’s a twin thing I think they go stuck with and they weren’t total butts just now so maybe I’m trying to keep the momentum up.

Show them Stephanie isn’t Steven.

Will/Billy looks at me and gives me this awkward sort of smile. I get that. I mean I was to him his little brother and stuff and I am in ‘drag’ so he likely has no idea how to act around me like this. “Thanks Stephanie, but let me and…Rob at least help clear.”

Bobby/Rob nods though he looks sort of pleased at the name thing and we all clear and Mary Jane and I start to wash the dishes then Jenn comes in with Mom and Aunt Elsbeth and some music gets turned on and we get this kind of line thing going with me washing and M.J. is rinsing and Jenn’s wiping and Mom knows where everything goes and she’s putting stuff away.

Aunt Els is helping too and that’s with chunking up the pumpkin bowls and she’s making bite sized chunks with them peel and all. Jenn’s watching. “What are you doing?”

Aunt Els is dumping sweet chili sauce on the bits and some salt and a lot of brown sugar and mixing them all together. She grins at Jenn. “You ever heard of watermelon rind pickles?”

“Sort of is that what you’re doing?”

“Yep a hot spicy version of it.”

I nod. “They’re actually pretty good after they sit up all winter and you have them as a side with like BBQ.”

Jenn looks surprised and she’s smelling it then coughs because there’s a lot of that sweet chili sauce on there. “You guys don’t waste anything do you?”

Mom’s gearing up for more stuff. “Nope and we gift a lot of it out too but we’re a pretty big family so we do this a lot.”

Aunt Elsbeth grins. “It’s good for the planet too. Canning stuff means you can reused the bottles over and over, you’re not running to the store wasting gas and it’s family time done right…I want M.J.; to learn all this stuff too so she can do it with her kids and to feed herself.”

Mom nods. “You never know when hard times can hit too.”

Dad and Mom both never came from money, they were pretty poor and when Mom was pregnant with Mark in college they both stuck it out instead of quitting. I’ve seen some pictures and yeah those were some lean to bare years.

Jenn’s like. “Can I help? Looks pretty neat to learn.”

Mom’s like. “Sure in exchange you can show up some dance steps and help the girls learn how to dance and it wouldn’t hurt me or Elsbeth to look like we’re not all dated.”

Mary Jane squeaks. “Please! We have a dance this weekend and I’ve only been to a few.”

I blush and admit. “I have no clue how to really dance like a girl.”

Mom’s looking at me a bit, her head tilted. “Stephanie?”

It’s this, all of this and I just…I just can’t hold it in anymore…

“This is me Mom, I’m a girl. I always have been…… I’m Transgendered.”

And everyone just stopped...