Being Samantha Masters
an homage-sequel to Being Christina Chase
(Content warning: there's a few t-slurs in the very last section of the chapter.)
Chapter 4: The Simple Version
Sammy followed Rowan inside, creeping after her as quietly as possible. She made no such allowance for the late hour (or, rather, the early hour) and clomped up the stairs to her room. She weaved slightly as she went, and Sammy wondered if it was alcohol or exhaustion; the girl had ample cause for both.
Once in her bedroom, Rowan went straight to the drawers inset into her closet and started rummaging. She had a pair of pajamas in hand before Sammy could figure what she was even looking for.
There might be pajamas in the roller bag. The only question is if he’d recognize them as such. He himself had not slept in anything more elaborate than a teeshirt and a pair of briefs for years. Weren’t pajamas for little kids?
He went digging in the bag and came up with something that looked probable. Lifting it up with a look of triumph, he turned to show them to Rowan and boggled.
She was naked.
Club gear dropped in a pile at her feet and one half of the pajama bottoms pinched between her knees, she squirmed her upper body around as she struggled to pull on the top half of the pajamas. Her exposed breasts bounced around merrily throughout the effort.
Sammy couldn’t look away. He’d never seen a girl’s boobs before, not in real life. And her head was buried inside her pajama top, so she couldn’t see him watching, which he really shouldn’t be doing, but… boobs.
Eventually the girl’s blonde locks started spilling out of the neck hole and Sammy tore away his gaze before her eyes inevitably followed. He shucked off his own clothes as quickly as possible: top and skirt and fishnets, no wait, sandals first and then fishnets, and bra and—whoops, there went the breast forms.
By the time he’d scrambled to catch them as they bounced across the floor, Rowan had crawled into bed, pressing herself up against the wall. “We can make this work, right?” she asked sleepily. “I just need like two hours.”
“Yeah, I can, uh, fit in there,” he answered, pulling on somebody else’s pajamas over the underwear that also wasn’t his, but that he was also absolutely not going to take off, because he had seen a rather nice pair of bouncing boobs, in person, and there were natural consequences for seeing such things. Hard consequences.
He climbed into bed, striving to keep a good six inches between his butt and Rowan’s everything. His knees and hands dangled over the the edge of the mattress.
“No, that’s not how it works,” Rowan murmured, and reached forward to slide one arm around his neck and the other around his middle, pulling him close. “Haven’t you ever had a sleepover?”
“Uh, not since I was, like, twelve?” he chuckled breathlessly. “One of the guys in my Boy Scouts patrol had a sleepover birthday. But we all slept in our own sleeping bags on the basement floor.”
“Pssssshhhhh,” Rowan huffed, wafting warm, 100-proof breath over the back of Sammy’s neck. “Boy sleepover. Doesn’t count.”
Sammy might have said something agreeable, but he wasn’t sure. He was entirely distracted by the warm press of Rowan’s body up against his. He was the little spoon; her legs were curled up under his legs, her belly up against his butt, her boobs squished up against his shoulderblades. She was so soft. He hoped like hell her hand, latched around his belly, wouldn’t brush up against his ridiculous erection.
Because it was clear that no hanky-panky was going to happen; in fact, Rowan was descending precipitously into dreamland. Besides, it wasn’t like she had any interest in him.
“Hey Rowan?” he murmured. “Can I ask you a question?”
She mumbled in the affirmative and snuggled her face against his shoulder.
He figured it was fifty-fifty that she’d even hear his question, so what the hell, why not? He asked the darkened room: “When everybody else was taking a turn kissing me, why didn’t you?”
She chuckled, and he could feel her lips on the back of his neck as she said, “Cause you’re my cousin, silly.”
“Yeah, but not really,” he answered, probably too hastily. “Not, like, genetically. We’re both adopted.”
That brought her out of her descent, and she raised her head. “What are you talking about? I’m not adopted.”
“You have two dads?”
Rowan snorted and tucked herself back in behind him. “My Tate grew me in his belly just like a regular father,” she said, and giggled at her own joke. “Didn’t know you were adopted, though.”
“Yeah,” he told the darkness. “I am.”
“Doesn’t matter, though,” she mumbled on. “You’re my cousin and I’m going to see you lots more, and have breakfast in the morning, and hang out other times. Hopefully this won’t be your last visit. And making out with you would have made all of that weird.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. Because sleeping like this didn’t make anything weird. “I guess that’s true.”
Rowan snorted into him again. “We’re not kissing cousins,” she giggled. He ignored how her giggles made her tits wobble against him. When her levity waned, she added, “Besides I was pretty fucking jealous, so. Focused on holding it together.”
He shifted as if he was turning to face her, although he barely moved. “Jealous? Of me?”
His cousin sighed. “I’ve been trying to get Vik to kiss me for months. It wasn’t easy watching.”
“I’m sorry.”
He could feel her shaking her head. “Not your fault. Vik says he can only date desi girls, because of family expectations, blah blah blah, except I know he’s dated white girls before, so why not me?” She squeezed Sammy tight. “Sometimes it’s right there, right under the surface, you know? I know he wants me, but then he backs off. Does something stupid to distract himself.”
Oh. “Like kiss some out-of-town boy.”
“Out-of-town girl,” she corrected, and shifted her fingers so she could poke him in the belly to punctuate her point. “Out-of-town girl that he’s probably never going to see again, but won’t it be fun to wind up the country girl on her first big trip to the City. Um. No offense.”
He shook his head; she wouldn’t see it, but she could feel it. “No, that sounds about right. Vik and the girls: it was kind of a silly game to them.”
“Not for Finley, though,” she purred, her grip around his middle slacking. “They would have put you in their pocket… and taken you home for the night.” This was punctuated with a long, dreamy yawn.
“I still don’t know how I feel about that,” Sammy giggled. “I don’t think anybody’s ever wanted me like that before.”
“Mmmm,” Rowan mumbled into his back, falling back towards sleep. “See a pretty girl, whatcha gonna do? Flirt her up, make her blush, see how far up her leg you can get a feel.”
“Pretty sure all four of them felt my underwear,” he said with a wan smile—suddenly he wondered if he should actually be proud of that, in any way, shape, or form—but his cousin didn’t answer except to snore softly.
Sammy watched the sunrise light up the street outside. As his buzz faded, he found himself mulling over the night, uncertain. Of course it had all meant nothing; everybody was drunk and acting out. It was the kind of wild stuff that happened when you went out partying, right? They’d probably tell stories about it for years, that night they played a quick round of “wind up the country girl” and sent her staggering into the early morning.
Should he feel ashamed? Or had he played the game just as much as they had? After all, he got kissed and felt up and… hm. Another question barged into his mind, flattening everything else.
Would they have ever played a quick round of “wind up the country boy?”
The simulated shutter sound of a smartphone taking a picture brought Sammy out of his fitful sleep.
“Daddy,” Rowan groaned. “You’re supposed to get consent before you take people’s pictures.”
Henry Masters stood over them looking a little sheepish. “Yes, but the two of you were so adorable, and I was only going to share it with Tate.”
“I get veto rights,” she groused, “before it goes anywhere. Geez, what time is it?”
“Nearly nine-thirty,” came the answer. “I’ve been calling for Sammy here since nine. I didn’t know you were in here. But if you’re both up and moving, I’ll go down and toast another bagel for you, honey.”
“Thank you,” she answered muzzily, grinding her palms into her eyes. “Fuck, we didn’t wash our faces last night.”
Before he left, Uncle Henry said, “Sammy, we’ll need to leave by ten thirty at the absolute latest. Ten ten would be preferable.” He delivered the news with the gentle insistence that Sammy’s own parents had used on numerous mornings. A common denominator of parenthood.
“Yes, sir,” Sammy answered, sitting up and forcing himself to nod.
Once the door closed behind Henry, Rowan turned in the bed, planted her cold-ass feet against Sammy’s back, and shoved him out of bed. He went sprawling. “Alright, bitch,” she cried, “that means we’ve got half an hour till showtime!”
Rowan scrubbed down his face, decided he didn’t need (and didn’t have time for) a shave, gave him some “respectable” light makeup, and then brushed out and pinned up his hair. Then she found her purse on the floor, produced her little pill case, and popped one of its little blue pills. Then she held the pill case out to him.
“In the morning?” he smiled, not at all against the idea. If whatever mild high these gave him contributed to his night last night, he was all for more.
“One every morning, one every night,” she answered as if it were obvious. “Don’t you…?”
He shook his head as he took a pill. “We don’t have this sort of thing in Oak Grove.”
Rowan looked thunderstruck. “Oh shit, of course. I made a bone-headed assumption, didn’t I?”
He shrugged. That Rowan didn’t understand the drug culture of a place she’d never been to didn’t seem very remarkable. All they had in Oak Grove was booze, pot, and meth: two for occasional indulgence, one to stay the hell away from; nothing to get very excited about. “Thanks for supplying,” he smiled, and tucked the pill under his tongue.
Besides, there was no time to talk comparative drug availabilities; they were rushing to get out the door. Since he’d only worn it for an hour or two, he threw on the outfit from dinner the night before.
“That’s wrinkled,” his cousin pointed out, “but a couple stops on the 7th Avenue Express will take care of it.”
Halfway through putting his second fake tit into his bra, it occured to Sammy to ask: “Hey um. Last night, Zoey, like, full-on felt me up…”
“I was there. She was… aggressive.”
“Yeah, but she was, you know, grabbing these,” he said, waving the floppy silicone boob in demonstration. “Not actually grabbing me, but I like… I kind of felt it anyway? It felt like she was grabbing my boob, even though I don’t have a boob to grab.”
Rowan, halfway through doing her eyeliner, said, “Yep. That’s how it usually works.”
“Yeah, but… how?”
She paused and looked at him in the mirror of her vanity. “You want the simple answer, or the complicated answer that deals with, like, internal conception of self, proprioception, and phantom limb syndrome?”
Sammy wasn’t sure what any of those things were, so he said, “Uh, the simple version.”
“Bodies are weird,” she shrugged, and finished her line.
“Ha, thanks.”
When she moved on to mascara, she elaborated: “Bodies know the shape they’re supposed to be and when they’re not that shape, they compensate. Don’t even get me started on eyeballs, how they actually work is existentially disturbing.”
Sammy very suddenly needed a change of subject, so he did ask her about eyeballs. That took them all the way downstairs to the kitchen, where Henry joined in with further details. The two of them went back-and-forth on the subject all the way to the subway.
“But why can’t we just grow rods and cones overtop of where the optic nerve, like, plugs in to the back of the eyeball?” Sammy asked as the train slowed for Columbia University station. “I want to know that what I’m seeing is what I’m actually seeing, and not just… made-up stuff!”
Both Henry and Rowan shrugged as they disembarked, and then they had to part ways: registration for Preview Days was up the northern street-level exit, while Rowan’s dorm was the opposite way. “Have fuuuunnnn!” she called as she went.
The campus was compact, dignified, and intimidatingly high-class. Sammy stared awe-struck at the venerable old architecture, the sharp lines of red brick and white trim, the endless columns. Blue and white balloon arches and banners all over the campus proclaimed it to be Preview Days. Following these like signposts brought them to a collection of tables set out on the central lawn.
“Welcome!” called out a chipper clerk behind the table, a middle-aged woman dressed in business attire. Her sweater vest was bright blue. Before her on the table was a stack of glossy magazines and a huge array of nametags. Are you here for Preview Days?”
Sammy threaded his thumb under his backpack strap. “Um, yeah.”
“What’s your name, dear?”
He ignored how she said ‘dear,’ despite how weird it struck him. Women said it like that to guys, too, right? “Uh. Sammy Masters.”
“Oh!” she squealed, recognition lighting up her face. “Our last-minute name change.” Before Sammy could ask what she meant, she’d raked over the array of name tags and held one out to him. It read “Samantha Masters.”
Sammy took it between numb fingers. “But I registered online as Sammy…”
“Your uncle called us this morning and explained your situation,” she said with a tight little smile.
From behind him, his uncle placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “I wanted you to feel welcome as your whole self. I hope I didn’t overstep?”
You absolutely did, Sammy thought but did not say. Even if he was going to be wearing a skirt all day, he really would have rathered his nametag said Sammy. That was even properly short for Samantha, wasn’t it? But he didn’t want to upset his uncle, or give him any clue to this bizarre deception he seemed trapped in, so he said, “Uh, no. Thank you, Uncle Henry.”
“So you can stash your bag right over here,” the clerk went on, indicating a collection of other small luggage behind a barricade of folding tables. Henry wheeled it over. “All your electronics—tablet, laptop, and so on—they’re in your backpack, right?”
Sammy nodded. “As instructed in the registration confirmation email.”
“We’ll keep your things safe until you head to your student host’s dorm room, but the pre-law student volunteers don’t want us to be liable for computers and things,” she explained with a wink.
A beat later Sammy realized that had been a joke. He forced out a little laugh.
“The next campus tour is starting right over there,” the clerk went on, pointing to a small group of young people standing under a pair of criss-crossed balloon arches. “The tour will end at the dining commons for lunch. There are a bunch of classes you can sit in on throughout the afternoon. And then you’ll come back here to touch base and go meet your student host!” She was very excited about the whole process.
Sammy tried to muster enthusiasm to match her. This is what he came here for, right? “Thank you, ma’am.”
Henry’s hand came down on Sammy’s shoulder again. He bent over slightly to tell him, “My three o’clock is one of those sit-in classes, if you want to see what Intro to Anatomy looks like. No pressure, though.”
“Thanks, Uncle Henry, I might just do that. But I should probably go join the group?”
“Absolutely,” his uncle chuckled. “Enjoy the tour. Make new friends.”
Sure, thought Sammy. I’ll make a whole bunch of friends—they’ll all think I’m a girl and then if we cross paths when school actually starts, they’ll think I’m a confused weirdo who couldn’t make up my mind about my own gender. But he went anyway.
Four other teenagers waited under the balloon arches. The largest and most notable was dressed in a three-piece suit, which would have been mockable if he didn’t wear it so well. The two girls of the party—one pale, willowy, and dark-haired, the other short, curvy and blonde—seemed to be keeping their backs to eachother. The last kid, a scrawny guy in a hoodie and jeans, was poking desultorily at his phone. The whole collection looked bored right up until Sammy approached. Suddenly their expressions went from blanket ennui to confusion (short blonde), suspicion (three-piece suit), interest (tall brunette), and terror (hoodie).
“Hey,” Sammy said, pairing it with a limp wave. Way to make a first impression, he kicked himself internally. He cleared his throat. “I’m Sammy.”
Before any of them could respond, a young man in a bright blue Columbia-branded tee shirt jogged up to them. “Okay! This the eleven fifteen batch? Alright! Who wants to go on a tour?” As he led them down the sidewalk, the tour guide enthusiastically asked all their names and hometowns. Sammy didn’t retain any of this deluge of information and barely mustered his own response, remembering at the last moment to say Samantha and not Sammy.
“Our first stop is Butler Library,” the guide narrated, taking them up the steps of a—to be frank—ludicrously intimidating building. Inside, the high ceiling glowing with indirect lighting and endless bookshelves did not make it any more approachable. The guide rattled off dates and names excitedly, voice hushed so as to not disturb the many students hard at work studying.
“It’s even prettier than the pictures,” the short blonde cooed.
“It is,” the guide grinned proprietarily. “Which is great. You don’t actually mind spending four or five hours a day hitting the books when you get to do it here.”
Sammy chuckled at what sounded like a joke, but everyone else nodded eagerly. He stifled his mistaken mirth with a fake cough and a hand crushed over his lips (careful not to smudge his lipstick).
As they came out of the library, the guide turned and asked, “So what about attending Columbia are each of you most excited about?”
“Greek life, internships, networking,” suit jacket said with easy confidence. “Other schools brag about getting good jobs right after graduation, but my brother started working in finance halfway through his senior year. I want a piece of that.”
“Research for me,” the curvy blonde beamed. “I dunno what I’ll get to work on, of course, but I’m so eager to get my hands dirty with real lab work.”
“There’s a bunch of tech incubators here,” hoodie said, as if that was a full and comprehensible answer.
The tall dark-haired girl merely hooked her thumb behind her. “Butler.”
And then everybody was looking at Sammy. “Um,” he mumbled. “Mostly just the City, you know? How many other places let you go to school in the middle of New York City?”
The brunette snorted at his answer and gave him a patronizing little smile. “There’s like, three dozen colleges and universities in Manhattan alone, Samantha.”
“I know that,” he lied. “But this one’s special, you know?”
That they all agreed with, and Sammy gratefully slunk back to the rear of the group.
They walked past or looked into an astouding number of buildings, all seemingly stacked on top of and right beside each other: the fitness center, a dorm, the pool, a lecture hall that could probably seat Sammy’s entire high school. The number of times the guide said, “And this is the something-or-other department” made Sammy’s head spin. How many departments could a university have?
And then it was finally time for something Sammy did understand: lunch. The guide led them up to a dining hall named, like everything else on campus, after somebody historical and famous, and directed them to the center page of their programs, filled with five punch-out meal tickets. This would get them inside, after which it was a giant buffet and they should help themselves to whatever looked good.
“But this is where I leave you,” he said in conclusion. “Your programs have a listing of all the open classes and presentations you can find on campus. The back page has a map, and you can always find your way back to the registration desk in the center of campus if you need directions. If there are no questions, I wish you all bon apetit!” And without actually waiting for questions, he jogged off towards the campus green.
Suit jacket jumped forward to hold the door open, gesturing grandly inside. “Ladies,” he intoned. The smile on his face looked genuine when the blonde passed by, but Sammy could have sworn his lip curled as he stepped inside. The brunette followed behind him, and then suit jacket let the door swing for hoodie to catch as he brought up the rear.
They handed over their torn-out tickets, found trays and plates, and filled them. By unspoken agreement, they all flocked to an empty table and sat together.
Sammy tore into his lunch, which was a motley collection of any food he saw and didn’t recognize (trying new things!), along with a few old reliables (because he was starving).
“That’s quite a spread you fixed yourself,” suit jacket observed. He’d stacked two burgers on his own plate, atop a small mountain of fries.
“I came to check the place out,” Sammy retorted with a shrug. “Need to know if the food’s any good, right?”
“Is Columbia not your first choice school?” suit jacket asked dubiously.
Sammy immediately sensed a trap, but figured he could play it cool. “My dad went here, so I’m mostly humoring him. That and I thought it’d be cool to hit up a college party, you know?”
“Party?” the blonde asked incredulously. “Here? Who in the world told you Columbia was a party school?”
“Dad, probably,” sport jacket laughed. “Waxed rhapsodic about his glory days, with a generous amount of nostalgic embellishment.”
Okay, fuck this. Sammy shrugged again. “I mean, we went clubbing last night, and it was a good time. So I’ve already checked that item off the to-do list.” That should shut him up.
Suit jacket rolled his eyes instead of answering, which Sammy decided to take as a win.
“I can’t imagine coming here just to party,” the short girl opined. “I worked too hard to get here just to drink the same booze I can get from the grocery store back home.”
“Exactly,” sport jacket nodded. “And I am so looking forward to dropping all the bullshit I’ve had to do for years just to pad out my application.”
“Stupid clubs,” hoodie muttered. “Academic fucking decathalon.”
“Volunteering,” the brunette groaned.
“Kissing up to school administrators,” the blonde spat, and leaned in. “The guidance counselor at my school has been pushing me to add these stupid GenEd requirements—Civics and a Fine Art elective and P.E. of all things—and I had to tell her, look, this crappy school you work at doesn’t do AP Civics, it doesn’t have a single AP Fine Art available, and it certainly doesn’t have any AP Phys Ed, and I’ve got to protect my GPA. Those gen-pop classes only give 4 points for As, and if I lump that underachiever bullshit in with the rest of my course load, that will bring my average down towards 4.”
Down towards 4? Sammy boggled. But GPA could only get up to 4. And his was… not near 4 at all. How did she get hers higher than the top?
But suit jacket just nodded. “I tested out of some classes to avoid that.”
“I tried that,” the blonde hissed, hostility aimed not at suit jacket but at the absent guidance counselor, “but I got shut down because they’re ‘experiential’ classes.”
Suit jacket snorted in disdain. “That’s not a classification in any entrance requirements I’ve ever seen.”
“Right? But it’s a classification that my school apparently takes very seriously,” she groused. “So finally, I had to convince her to delay all of that shit until second semester senior year, because applications go out before the final semester’s grades hit your GPA.”
“Ah, smart!”
She shrugged. “At least my baby-level course load this semester gives me time to study for AP exams. I’m taking three outside of classes.”
Sammy opened his mouth to ask what ‘AP’ was, thought better of it, and kept his silence.
Instead, the dark-haired girl said, “So Samantha, when did you come out?” which was probably the one question he was most fearing to hear. He wasn’t the only one: suit jacket muttered darkly into his soup.
“Uh,” he responded intelligently. He had been impressed with how girly Rowan had made him look, but he knew he didn’t look like an actual girl. Girly, not girl. And here was confirmation. He’d been clocked, and given that nobody looked surprised, apparently all four of them had seen him and thought, ‘trans girl.’ He coughed. “Well um. I’m… not, really? Out. Not at home.”
Her eyebrows shot upwards. “Oh wow. So this is the escape route. How small a town is that small town you came from?”
“Small,” he answered with a decisive nod. “We saw more people walking around campus today than there are who live in Oak Grove.”
“Wait, so…” the bubbly blonde perked up, sensing the other girl had broken the ice and she could ask the questions that had been smouldering inside her. “Nobody at home knows you’re…” Or apparently if she wasn’t up to actually asking questions, she’d strongly imply them.
Sammy took a deep breath. “Trans. Transgender.” He almost didn’t stumble over the words.
“So you were… born… a…?” she kept pressing.
“Yeah,” he said, blushing so hard he could feel it in his ears.
The brunette shook her head hard enough to derail the blonde’s line of questioning. “You don’t have to answer anything. You’re Samantha, that’s all we need to know.”
Suit jacket snorted derisively.
The dark-haired girl scowled at him. “You’re not going to climb the corporate ladder here with that kind of attitude, hick boy.”
“I am not a hick,” he shot back, his voice far louder than it needed to be. He leveled a thick finger at Sammy. “If anybody here is a hick, it’s him. Her. Fuck.”
“Oh my god,” the willowy brunette groaned dramatically, and then locked eyes with Sammy. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she declared, but didn’t move to stand up.
It took a moment for the neurons in Sammy’s brain to connect. Girls went to the bathroom in packs. This was an invitation, and an excuse to get away from the table. He put his napkin down. “Yeah, me too.”
The blonde invited herself along, as well, and with only a little uncertainty as to where the bathrooms actually were, the trio marched away. “I’m sorry about that,” the brunette told Sammy as she pushed open the door with a skirted silhouette on it.
He barely registered the apology as the threshold of the bathroom rose up toward him. Was he doing this? He guessed so, since his feet were following along after her. Besides, it was just a bathroom, right? “Wasn’t your fault,” he said, almost as automatically as his feet.
“It kind of was, I started the conversation,” she said, making a face. She bounced her hips a little. “Well shit, now that I’m here, I actually do have to pee.” She disappeared into a stall.
Sammy leaned up against the sink counter, trying to look like he did this all the time. The fact that it was, in fact, just a bathroom didn’t seem to matter much. His heart hammered in his chest. He wasn’t supposed to be in here! The sudden sound of pee tinkling into the toilet bowl didn’t help at all.
The blonde produced a tube of lipstick from her bag and touched herself up in the mirror. “What’s it like?” she asked, not making eye contact.
It took Sammy a beat to realize he was being addressed. “What’s what like?”
“You know,” she said with a shrug. “Being… like you.”
“Cindy,” the brunette groaned from inside the stall, “she doesn’t need to get it from you, too!”
“I’m curious,” Cindy shot back, “and respectful.” Finally she made eye contact with Sammy. “I’m an ally,” she told him very seriously.
“Allies don’t claim allyship, Cindy!” came a frustrated retort from the toilet.
“It’s okay,” Sammy said, shrugging softly. “It’s…. um. It’s still new. Getting to… be me, not… the knowing I’m me. I’m, uh, an Always Knew Tran.”
The blonde squinted. “What’s that?”
“Oh, uh,” Sammy scrambled. Rowan had thrown the term around like everybody knew what it meant. “It just means… I always knew I was… Samantha, not Samuel.” He cleared his throat. Wasn’t he supposed to not admit to his old name? But maybe it was a good idea for him, given that he’d be back, “detransitioned,” when classes started. He could lay the groundwork now. “This weekend I’m just… trying things out, you know?”
“But you’ve always known you were a girl,” Cindy pressed again. “Even though you grew up with a…”
“Oh my god, are you just trying to get her to say the word ‘penis’?” the brunette thundered as she came back out, toilet gargling behind her. “We came in here to get her away from the topic. I’m sure she’s sick of it.”
“Not really,” he shrugged. “Everybody talks around it. Like they’re scared of saying anything. It’s kind of a weird vibe.”
“The tech incubator kid is kind of a weird vibe,” the brunette grumbled as she leaned forward to wash her hands.
“The quiet one?”
The dark-haired girl raised an eyebrow at Sammy. “Have you not seen the furtive little glances he keeps shooting you? He’s gotta be an egg or a chaser.”
Sammy nodded as if he knew what either of those things were. “Yeah, probably.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Cindy faking a confident nod, too.
“So do you want to go back to the table?” the brunette asked Sammy. “We can just bolt out of here directly.”
“Still kind of hungry,” Sammy admitted sheepishly. “And I’ll be fine. Stuff like that doesn’t bother me.” Because, he added mentally, suit jacket had the right of it and Sammy was properly referred to as a ‘him,’ anyway.
“Yeah, and you can fix your lippy afterwards,” Cindy chimed in and gestured to her own lips.
Sammy glanced into the mirror and saw that nearly all his lipstick had come off during lunch. “Oh fuck. I… didn’t think to bring mine along.”
Cindy held hers up magnanimously. “You can borrow mine. It’s not exactly the same shade, but it’ll do.”
“Are you guys going to the community outreach presentation?” the brunette asked. She’d produced the Preview Days program from her backpack and was scowling down at it. “I thought I’d hit that before going to an open classroom.”
“I’m down,” Cindy agreed with a smile. “The open class I want to hit is Anatomy, and that’s at three.”
“Oh, that’s my uncle’s class,” Sammy blurted without thinking.
The curvy blonde blinked slowly. “Your uncle is Doctor Henry Masters-Roth?”
It was the first time Sammy had heard the double-barrelled surname, but that seemed like something that two men might do when they got married. He nodded.
Cindy turned on a dazzling smile complete with deep dimples. “Can you introduce me?”
“Uh, sure?” he stammered. “But first can we get back before all my food gets cold?”
When the girls—plus Sammy—returned to the table, suit jacket was already gone and hoodie got up to leave. “Didn’t want them to clear the table if you weren’t finished,” he explained nervously, very much not making eye contact with Sammy.
Yeah, Sammy thought as the kid scampered off. He was weirdly twitchy.
The two girls picked at the remains of their own plates and made idle chit-chat while Sammy polished off his smorgasbord of weird and familiar foods. It did not take long. And then they were stalking off across campus to a spacious dorm lounge. Beyond the huge banner proclaiming “Columbia Cares!”, the space was filled with tables, placards, and smiling college students.
“What is this, again?” Sammy asked as they waded into the fray. The students manning the different booths beckoned them forward, asking them if they were worried about climate change or if they’d like to help ensure nobody went hungry in Morningside Heights.
“It’s all the community outreach organizations,” Cindy explained. “You know. Feed the homeless, clean up the park, mentor disadvantaged youths.”
“I worked at a food bank,” the brunette called back, voice elevated to cut through the din. “Every Saturday, butt crack of morning. Wanna connect with the people doing similar work here.”
“I did river clean up and active transport activism,” the blonde explained as they came to a stop at a crossroads of booths. “Keep an eye out for me?”
Sammy realized they were both looking at him again. “Uh. What?”
The brunette prompted, voice pitched like she was speaking to a small child, “And what did you do, Samantha?”
“Oh, uh, nothing,” he answered, shaking his head.
Cindy blinked. “What do you mean, nothing?”
“Nothing like this,” he elaborated. “You guys are… really cool for doing that stuff. That’s… that’s really excellent.”
“You didn’t put any community engagement into your application?” the willowy girl asked incredulously. “You don’t think that’s going to be a big, gaping hole?”
She seemed to be getting angry, which Sammy did not understand in the least, so he spread his hands. “I mean, I didn’t really think about it much?”
The brunette’s eyes slitted. “Ah. I see how it is,” she nodded. “Daddy’s an alum, uncle’s an alum and the current head of the Biophysics department. Who needs to actually work at putting together a decent application when you’re a legacy.” She spat the last word like it was a venomous insult.
“I don’t think they actually do that anymore…” Sammy tried to say, quailing before the girl’s sudden rage.
He needn’t have bothered, because Cindy was jumping forward to shout in his defense. “Lay off of her! She’s had to deal with so much! So what if she didn’t have time to help out the community that piled so much hate on her?”
“Oh fuck off, Cindy,” the brunette spat. “You just want her to introduce you to her uncle. She’s your ‘in’ to the old boy’s network.”
“That’s not true, I’m an ally!” the blonde insisted, but her valiant defense landed only the willowy girl’s back as she stalked away, flipping the bird behind her. Cindy watched her go, shoulders tense and back ramrod straight, until the other girl couldn’t be seen.
Sammy considered slipping away into the crowd the other way, but he wasn’t fast enough.
The short blonde turned to face him with a sigh. “I’m sorry you had to hear that Samu—mantha.” She started talking very fast as if she could distract him from how she’d almost used his correct name. “This is a stressful time in our lives and some of us have… a more tenuous bid for admission. Don’t have the grades, try to supplement with flashy good deeds, you know? And if that gets threatened, any of us might lash out. I hate that she picked you for her target, though. That was completely unfair.”
He nodded numbly and said something vaguely agreeable. The two of them completed the circuit of booths—Cindy talked at length with the bike people and the litter picker-uppers—and then they made meandering progress towards the lecture hall for Intro to Anatomy.
The class was in one of those cavernous lecture halls with stadium seating, and apparently well attended given that the room was already half full. Henry wasn’t in evidence yet, so they found seats somewhere in the middle.
At three o’clock exactly Uncle Henry came in at the stage door, deposited his bag next to the podium and leapt right in to talking.
About ten minutes into the lecture, Sammy realized that, beyond “Hello” and “Welcome to Intro to Anatomy,” he had not understood a single thing his uncle had said. Everything was ventral this and anterior that and he was pretty sure most of the time Henry wasn’t even speaking English. Diagrams and photos were displayed above his uncle’s head to illustrate what he was talking about, but if anything they only confused Sammy further.
Cindy, of course, was eating it all up with rapt attention and wide eyes. He tried to ask her a question but she only shushed him. She was rivetted.
Sammy looked around the room. Everyone else was paying attention, nodding every once in a while, jotting down notes. They all seemed to understand what was happening.
It was just Sammy who was lost.
Maybe, Sammy thought dreadfully, there was a reason for that. Maybe nobody thought he could get into Columbia because they knew his capabilities better than he did. And because his brain was very helpful that day, it put this into simpler language: maybe he just wasn’t smart enough.
Cindy and the others had GPAs that were over 4.0 somehow. His wasn’t even above 3.
Apparently you had to ‘pad out’ an application with stuff you’d been doing throughout your years in high school. Sammy had done nothing except attend class and sort of pay attention sometimes.
The kids here for Preview Days had come, not just with dreams, but with plans and specific things they wanted to do and accomplish. Sammy’s vague desire to see the city seemed petty in comparison. And he wouldn’t have even accomplished that if it hadn’t been for his cousin taking pity on him.
The kids here for Preview Days seemed like they weren’t even kids: they were already adults. They were competent and knew things about the world around them and had vision for how they’d fit into it and plans on making their mark.
That’s what a Columbia student looked like, and that wasn’t Sammy.
If he couldn’t get into Columbia, he couldn’t come live in the City. And if Columbia wouldn’t take him as a legacy, all those other schools here had even less of a reason to admit him. And if he didn’t come live in the City, he’d be stuck in Oak Grove his whole life, making fucking chairs and living above a hair salon.
Everybody was standing up, now, and his uncle wasn’t talking at volume. The screen above him was blank. Apparently the lecture was over. “C’mon,” he said to Cindy with a sigh. “Let me introduce you.”
They tromped down the steps to the stage, where Henry was talking with a short queue of students. When they approached, he gave Sammy a smile and gestured him forward. “Everyone, this is my niece, Samantha. She’s here for Preview Days. Maybe you’ll see her on campus next year.”
Fat chance of that, Sammy thought to himself, but half-turned to indicate Cindy behind him. “Uncle Henry, this is my friend Cindy. She wanted to meet you.”
Cindy didn’t leave him any more time or space to continue, shooting forward with her hand extended to shake. She nearly knocked Sammy over in her haste. “Doctor Masters-Roth, I’m so excited to meet you, you are one of my top five reasons for attending Columbia.”
His bushy eyebrows floated upwards. “Oh am I?”
“I follow the results of your lab religiously,” she went on without even pausing, “and I think the work that you’re doing is absolutely visionary. It is my dream to get accepted here and join your research team and if there is anything you can tell me to help me realize that dream, I would just love to pick your brain.”
“Well I have office hours until six,” he told her with gentle amusement. “Let me field the questions these students are waiting to ask, and then I’d be happy to…”
Sammy slipped away before hearing any more. It’s not like he hadn’t understood that she was just using him to get to his uncle—the brunette from their group had said as much explicitly, after all—but it would have been a nice surprise to discover otherwise.
Nobody wanted him for himself, just as an ‘in’ to his family members or as a plaything in a drunken game while clubbing.
The air was chilly when he stepped outside. The sun, low and orange, cast long shadows up the walls of the campus, looking far warmer than it was. The cold went right down his bared chest while also swirling around under his skirt. Sammy wished he’d dressed warmer, or brought along an extra layer, but they’d been in such a rush this morning. It hadn’t occured to him.
Actual Columbia students probably weren’t so stupid to leave the house without a coat in February.
He caught sight of the registration tables down the way and checked the time on his phone. He could go meet his student host now. They were scheduled to grab dinner together, with the idea that the host could answer any questions Sammy had about student life. Sammy didn’t have any questions right now, beyond “why am I so fucking stupid,” but eating sounded good.
Sammy collected his roller bag and followed the (honestly very complicated) directions to his host’s dorm room. Maybe he could bail in the morning, switch his ticket for an earlier bus, and beg Alexei to come get him a day early. He dragged his luggage up a whole bunch of steps and finally found the right door with the right number on it, and knocked.
A guy in athletic wear opened the door. He looked Sammy up and down once in confusion, and then a second time with increasing incredulity. “The fuck is this?”
“I’m Sammy,” said Sammy. “I’m your Preview Days guest that you signed up to host?”
“Oh hell no!” the guy exclaimed, rather loudly. Suddenly somebody was chortling behind him, deeper in the room, then stumbling up to hang on the first guy’s shoulder and stare. “We are not letting this—” and here he gestured vaguely at Sammy “—into our room.”
“But you signed up—”
“I signed up to host a dude,” he shot back. “Not some fucking tranny.”
All language fled Sammy’s brain. The word felt like a slap in the face, a shock so sudden and vile that he didn’t even have the bandwidth to muse on whether he should be offended since it was actually inaccurate. It just hurt, because specifics aside, the real intent was, “you’re broken, you’re worthless, you’re less than human,” which immediately dovetailed into Sammy’s own internal monologue.
“Dude,” the athletic wear guy’s friend whispered like only the very drunk whisper, at a volume slightly louder than their speaking voice, “you’re not supposed to say tranny anymore.”
“I’ll say whatever the fuck I want!” came the immediate and very shouted retort. “Tranny tranny tranny! Fuck off, tranny! You don’t belong here!” And he slammed the door.
It took almost a full minute before Sammy found his words. “You think I don’t KNOW THAT?” he screeched at the closed door. “That’s all anybody’s told me all fucking day! I’m not fucking good enough for you assholes, I know! Fuck you!”
He stomped down the corridor and down the stairs and got all the way to a park bench fifteen feet outside before the tide of emotion overcame him. The handle of his bag slipped out of his hand, he collapsed onto the hard wrought iron of the bench, and he sobbed.
