Masks Chapter 8

*Before…

“You’re welcome honey…You’re my niece I love you.”

I squeeze her really hard and she does back. One of those hugs that gets right there inside of you right where you usually don’t get hugged but need it the most in.

I head home and it does really suck going back to being Steven but this time…this time it’s different.

The real me that girl sealed away in that drum curled up in the dark.

She got hugged, told she was loved.

And inside my dark place that’s like me suddenly having someone give me this emergency candle and I have a little bit of light there in this dark place.

Candles can be amazing right?

*And Now…

It is the thing that kept me going through the walk home through the dark and taking the shortcuts through the yards and shrubbery and stuff until I got home and even as rough as ending this Cinderella in sweat pants night was I smile at the house.

It’s all Halloween stuff but Dad has the stuff out and the house done up like most people do Christmas and this isn’t even close to what we’ll have up on the actual night.

But the hanging jack o lantern lights from the porch welcome me home as well as the three or four real candle lit ones he puts out as soon as pumpkins go on sale. They start going funky he just makes new ones.

You can smell the candles, Mom’s thing I think she put spice scented candles in them Instead of the regular ones.

It actually matches the smell of the house too.

All that pumpkin and mom’s usually making something pumpkiny to use the stuff up. There’s just something really nice about it actually.

And that light inside really helped.

Sometimes you just need the little lest thing to hang onto.

Mom’s actually in the kitchen and Dad’s in the den watching TV and shelling pumpkin seeds that they’ve roasted off.

Billy and Bobby I can here upstairs through the clank of weights in their room and their rap music and the banging and crashing. I sigh looking up as I take off my sneakers. They’re so noisy.

But they’re guys.

But I swear testosterone makes you deaf.

I hang up my coat and slip into the den to see what Dad’s watching and it’s a home building show on Halloween stuff and I sit on the arm of the couch and eat some pumpkin seeds and Dad moves just enough so my butt slips off the arm of the couch in beside him.

He did that on purpose.

He can frustrate the heck outta me but he’s a really sweet guy most of the time. He sets the bowl of unopened seeds in between our two legs and I help him shell them.

“Very cool today with Mary Jane.”

“Huh?”

“I saw the pinky swear.”

“Dad…It’s…”

“It’s a seriously cool think you did Steven. M.J. was into the wrong crowd with the divorce and everything and she was drinking and stuff.”

“Drugs?”

“Yeah…she actually almost O.D.’d going to some party for older kids.”

“Because she can pass for older.” Oh M.J. I can so see where that might have went. “That’s why they moved here?”

“Yeah, family and a fresh start and stuff.”

“Dad?”

“You okay with this…this girlfriends thing?”

“It’s brave and it shows so much heart. That’s what being a man’s about.”

And spiraling crash as I was just another sentence or two from telling him.

So close it hurts.

I pop a handful of seeds to chew my frustration.

Being a man…Yick.

“You okay sport?”

“Yeah.” No…but…sport…

“I mean with the dressing up thing with your cousin M.J.?”

Hmmm….maybe?

“I think with practice we could likely place in the contest.”

“Practice?”

“Dad, I so don’t want to look like some guy in drag. I want to have people go like holy shit if we place or win.”

“Yeah that whole freaking them out thing is really awesome.”

Oh..? I could freak you out dad.

“So I might need to buy some more things for our costumes and stuff plus like I said practice.”

“Fine by me, maybe you can ask your mom for like help with the whole girl stuff.”

“…………………..”

He leans back and yells to the kitchen. “Hon? Can you come here a sec? Oh can I have another beer?”

Mom comes in and she has a beer for him and she sits on the arm of the couch (the other one.) and she starts to drink said beer in front of him. “What’s up?”

“Steve here’s going to partner up with Mary Jane and go as a girl with her this year.”

“Oh so that’s why the wig.”

“…………………….” That’s me by the way.

They’re both looking at me.

I blink trying to get unshocked. “I…I might need a little help Mom.”

“A little? Okay are you serious about this? You might not know it by looking at her but Mary Jane’s a bit messed up.”

“He knows. I told him.” Dad says.

I nod. “We’re actually kind of girlfriends now mom.”

“Oh?” She takes a few more sips before giving the last half the bottle to dad finally.

Okay I love the way he smiles at her for doing that and the fact that she sort of somehow made it better for him by drinking from it.

It hits me right in my girlaoblongata.

“She was freaking out mom. I had the wig on and was setting stuff up in the boat garage when she was reminded of this girl she knew and we sort of freaked both the talked and she was just so hurt and lonely and stuff so I pinky swore to be girlfriends with her.”

“Pinky swore.”

“Uhm…yeah?”

“You know that’s like a blood oath in girlese right.”

I know, I speak female.

“I know.”

“Your Aunt called me and told me she was really proud of the kid I raised.”

“I know.”

“Y’know she loves all you guys right?”

“Yeah I know.” I can’t help but to smile at that and the understanding and send off Aunt Elsbeth gave me.

“Well she’s never said anything like that about your brothers.”

“Oh…?”

Dad’s grinning. “Yeah my little sister can be sparing with the praise sometimes but she’s al heart…that’s why she tells it like it is sport.” He ruffles my hair and just…

I shoot mom this pleading look.

“Rob, if we’re going to do this we’re going to have to do it too.”

“How so?”

“You don’t call girls the names you call the boys and you ever, ever mess with the hair.”

I nod. “That’ll get you shanked with a nail file.”

Dad winces and mom snickers and she looks at me with this. Oh my god that was funny look. It feels kind of nice to surprise her and we sort of share a smile.

“You know that this won’t be easy if you want to have the Ohmigod effect.”

“I know.”

“You think you can handle this it’ll mean Girlimersion stuff like after school and hanging over with M.J.”

“Definitely. I can hang with her we actually get along more than my brothers actually.”

“Yeah, well good you might learn something, I might have missed in trying to teach the other three.”

“Two and two is four?”

“Stephanie…”

ZOMG!!! She, my mom used My real name!

Snarkasm to keep from bawling right there and then.

“Which way did he go George, Which way did he go?”

Score!

Dad nose shoots beer.

Mom and I have our second laugh together, our second sort of mother daughter laugh together.

“You’ve definitely picked something up tonight at least, come on and you can give me a hand in the kitchen for awhile.”

“S…sure?”

“Oh c’mon you wanted to learn and there‘s more to just being a girl than looks and clothes. Come and spend some time with me. An hour.”

I think Mom didn’t get my yayness over the surprise of it. I follow her in and she’s making pumpkin candy and brittle.

The candy is chunks of pumpkin big ones that are spiced and stuff. I help by taking the chunks from the steamer and set them on a cookie sheet to cool.

Mom smiles. “So how’d you like your cousin?”

“M.J.’s great but I didn’t know about the other stuff with her O.D.ing and stuff.”

“There’s other stuff?”

“We talked about her and puberty hitting her with the super bingo bonus and how all of that is scary.”

“It is actually…you hit puberty as a girl and things drastically swing and change for us and suddenly you’re thrust into this semi-adulthood status sometimes and you’re not eve close to being ready for it.”

“You sound like you get that Mom.”

“Most girls get that honey, some can cope others can’t it leads to a whole lot of stuff.”

“Like?”

“Partying, sex all sorts of stuff that comes from attention you’re not used to having.”

“She said she had friends that really changed. I think it hurt her when they did.”

“It happens, it happens a lot and honesty if you’re pretty you fall into that trap really fast.”

“Mom?”

“I went over board when I was a teenager and did stuff I hope you kids never get mixed up with and I could’ve turned out differently except for one thing.”

“What was that?”

“Me marrying your dad.”

“Huh?”

“My dad was my friend I was daddy’s little girl and we did everything together but I got my period and my curves and that changed…suddenly I was a GIRL and he wasn’t allowed to be the same guy with me.”

“He was guyboden.”

“Guyboden?” She has her head tilted and looking at me oddly.

“Yeah…y’know…no crying, show tough emotions, no being girly or femmy, no liking unmanly things. Y’know stuff that’d violate your man-card.”

She saps her hand over her mouth in that surprised way.

“Where’d you come up with that?”

“Internets, I’m very good at the internets.”

“You’re thirteen…”

“Going on thirty. If it’s any help mum he might have hated it.”

“Hated what?”

“The Guybodeness, but the rules are the rules and people don’t like people that don’t play buy the rules.”

She nods then sort of frowns. “Yeah…I can see him sort of trying back then.”

“But he just wasn’t allowed to…it’s something they didn’t do back then.”

“Yeah…It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with your dad y’know. He’s been that guy, the one that isn’t afraid to love. He never gave up either, we got into trouble and I was young and pregnant with your older brother and home…well home being a pregnant teen meant you were pretty much going to be that all your life. We got that from both sides and we left home to come out here and put ourselves through school…but honestly we had to really fight to get out of that.”
Now she’s sniffling a little.

This is mother daughter talking…I’ve wanted this for so long.

But doing something for Halloween and helping family is a whole, hugely different thing than finding out your trophy winning boy-jock of a son is really not.

I’ll take this though.

I have to take this choice before I get hairy, and my voice cracks and things get worse. This will either make it my way to survive that or it’ll hurt even worse.

I step over to her and one armed hug her. She looks surprised. “Thanks honey.”

“You’re welcome it felt like a girl talk thing to do.”

She gets that look it her eyes sort of like M.J. had when I offered the girlfriends bit up to her. Aunt Els just got here and Mom’s not close to her side of the family and they’re back east so she’s been the sole woman of the house for a long time.

She hugs me back.

“This is actually kid of cool y’know?”

“It is and there’s a bonus.”

“Oh?”

“I get to learn other stuff from you too like this.”

“You want to learn this stuff?”

“Heck yeah, I really like the stuff you come up with.”

“You do?”

“Yeah I do mom it’s always cool when you do this stuff and it’s a lot of work with the things you make and it strikes me over and over that this stuff’s all kinds of amazing and not just oh mom made it because that’s what girls do.”

She’s staring at me. “Really?”

“Yeah, I can see all the stuff in the kitchen here mom this is a production.”

She hugs me. (Sniffle) “You’re a good kid.”

“Thanks mom.”

Call me Steph again, please call me Steph again…please.

We hug awhile and I tear off some paper towel and give it to her to dry her eyes with. She shyly looks at me while drying her eyes.

“Okay, lets get this done and then we can get ready for bed.”

“Cool what’s next?”

The steam cooked pumpkin has cooled and dried and we make her candies with them. It’s basically making syrups and soaking them in it so they draw some of it in and we put the cooked coated bits on parchment paper sprayed with some cooking spray and into the oven on it’s warm/lowest setting but turning the convection on they’ll go all night and candy like in a dehydrator.

One is pumpkin with brown sugar and pumpkin pie spices.

Another is brown sugar, butte and pecans like a pumpkin praline.

Pineapple syrup with some orange zest.

Maple syrup with salt and crushed pepper corns and that Italian ham for like melon’s.

“These for your party?”

“Both if you think the kids will eat them.”

“Maybe can I take some to school, get kids drooling over them.”

“Sure.”

We make the brittle because that’ll get handed out too every year and that’s juiced pumpkin liquid and sugar and pumpkin pie spices but with the toasted pumpkin seeds and some sunflower seeds and some chili flakes. That’ll just go in the freezer on a cookie sheet too until it’s ready to be shattered.

“Hey mom?”

“Yes honey?”

“We can grate this stuff and powder it and use it to dust popcorn too right?”

“Oh good idea, we’ll have to try that too.”

I help her wash the dishes and put everything away and then it’s like ten thirty.

“Time for bed kiddo.”

“Okay Mom. Thanks for not freaking out about this stuff with me and M.J.”

“It’s okay honey, I’m so proud of you it’s really brave for you to do this.”

We hug again and I head upstairs to my room.

Brave…?

No Mum If I was really brave I could tell you all who I really am.

And it feels like Stephanie’s little candle was guttering in the dark right now.

I get dressed without looking at myself and slip into bed and pull one of my pillows down from my head like a reflex.

I hug it tight because It hurts.

I just can’t bring myself to turn off the light at my bedside.

Just can’t.