Masks Chapter 33

Chapter 33

*Before…

I’m scared.

Today was supposed to be stress free Me-day.

But…but if I’m ever to be with my friends and stuff shouldn’t their families get to know me? Used to me at least some before I come out?

Maybe see I’m just me before one of those other opinions goes around.

Deep breath…several.

Screw up my courage.

I’m going to go.

I need to take my own steps and be brave…brave enough to start being the real me.

I head downstairs. “Mom…Dad…?”

*And Now…

I look around and find them in the back kitchen.

Yeah we have a back kitchen even if it’s just a really big workbench in the back porch it’s got an bunch of hot plates and outlets and the pack porch smells of pumpkin and herbs.

Mom has bags of herbs that are like oregano and dill and summer savory on the bush but covered with brown paper bags tied upside down with white string and hanging up to dry.

It’s something her grand mum used to do back east and she is doing now.

They’re canning stuff, mostly pumpkin preserves and stuff like pumpkin chunks with cumin and brown sugar that he roasted on the grill being stuffed in jars with grilled sweet red bell pepper chunks and some dried chilies and then pickle brine.

Actually really good.

And then there’s the puree that’s sort of like pumpkin pie filing but instead of all the sweet stuff they put whole mustard seeds and dry mustard and other things to make pumpkin mustard.

It sounds strange but it’s really good with a cold cut sammy with tomatoes or like a spicy bratwurst.

It’s not just like a food thing it’s just we really barely ever throw stuff out and we really buy very few pre-made grocery things.

Dad looks at me. “Hey honey what’s going on?”

“Uhm…can you drive me over to Rachel’s?”

Mom looks at me. “Dressed like that?”

I nod.

Dad cocks an eyebrow. “That’s a big step.”

“I gotta take a step sometime right dad?”

He nods. “But before Halloween?”

I look at them both. “I have to do this with my friends at least…like before it goes and explodes all over the place.”

Mom… “I get it, you want some support before it all hits home with them.”

I nod.

She’s taking some bottles out of the boiling water already done and filled with pumpkin spears and full length carrots. “Are you sure you want to go this route honey, some people might not react like your friends and they can’t stop what their family feels or says?”

I nod…oh wow my mouth’s gone dry.

So much I never thought of…such big stuff really.

“I gotta mom…I just, it’s me…they’re my friends.” (Sniffle.) Dammit I didn’t want to get this worked up over it.

Dad wipes his hands off. “Sure, you go get ready and I’ll drive you over.”

Mom looks at dad. “Yeah we’ll both go.”

“You guys….what?”

Mom looks at me. “Parents meet each other kiddo and maybe us running interference a little will have her parents look at us as a family rather than them just judging you right off the bat and stuff.”

I think about it a little and it kind of makes sense. I mean it’s not like I’m going to say no to something…anything that might help me along through this stuff.

“Okay…Thanks you guys.” I hug them both and go upstairs and grab my book bag and my laptop and then recheck my make-up…it’s not that much just a little concealer liquid powder and lip gloss.

Deep breath.

I head downstairs and Mom and Dad are ready and I get in the van and there’s a basket of stuff there. Mom and Dad do that a lot actually with people they’re going to visit. Some baked stuff and some preserves and a bottle or three of u-vint wine.

Yeah they do that too. Dad actually is into both and while I’m too young to drink I guess brew your own costs less and stuff plus dad likes to play around.

Like the six pack he’s bringing of hard apple-pumpkin cider.

“Uhm we’re not going to a party guys.”

Mom’s like… “Well it never hurts honey, besides they’re your friend’s parents.”

“But what if they don’t drink?”

Dad’s like… “Then they can save it for company or re-gift them.”

I shake my head and just get a bit more nervous as we get there.

I gave directions and I know where Rachel’s place is from the bus and it’s just down from her stop and there’s one of those long lanes with spruce and pines on either side that actually cut it off from the street.

It’s actually a really nice yard or it is to me. The trees are all like that and they frame in the whole property and Rachel’s house is sort of in the middle with this log cabin design with a whole lot of nice windows and stuff.

It’s a sprawling sort of bungalow thing or a ranch house maybe?

I love the wrap around deck thing with the roof. We have sort of like that in the front porch home and dad converted the old car-port we had into a stone patio and grill station and the main doors for the house. But this, this goes all around their house.

It’d be really sheltered here in the winter from like the wind and stuff.

Rachel comes out to meet me and she’s just in a tee-shirt and zip front sweat shirt and track pants but her hair is still up in the quick bun.

I get out and give her a shy smile and a cheesy shrug. “Ta…dah… here I am.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, yes you are c’mon.”

“Uhm my folks want to meet yours Rach.”

She sticks her head inside. “Mom! Dad! Steph’s folks want to come in and play!”

I uhm…

Her mom comes into the main hall and she’s carrying a basket of laundry oh she looks like Rachel...long dark hair and faun brown eyes.

She looks me. “You’re the girl from the other night at the dance?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Okay then, I think meeting your folks is a good idea. Rachel how about you go and politely as them in?”

Rachel looks and me and she nods and heads down to the car in her bare feet.

I’m biting my lip because Rachel’s mom is still looking at me.

“You look nice today…”

“Thank you Ma’am it’s not much…and you can call me Stephanie.”

She’s looking at me again.

“Okay, fair enough…are your folks good with you doing this?”

Gulp.

Breathe and look her in the eyes. “Yes Ma’am.”

“Okay then.”

Rachel comes back and looks at me and then at her mom who sets down the laundry to go over and meet my folks.

“C’mon Steph, let’s go to my room.”

Her mother says. “Leave the door open.”

“Yes mom…” Rachel says plaintively.

I take my shoes off at the door before going anywhere further into the house and her mom sort of gives me a nod for that and stared at my socks I think. I mentally cringe but follow Rachel down the hall to her room and I look at her. “She doesn’t trust me?”

Rachel shakes her head. “No, just policy with all company my brothers too. Besides the one time I did close it I got into serious trouble.”

“What’d you do?”

“Toni had a lez-porno.”

“What?” I didn’t know she was.

She waves me off. “No, nothing like that but one of those super dirty girl on girl animes.”

“Where’d she get it?”

Rachel shrugged. “HellifIknow? It's Toni." Actually that kinda explains it.

She has an awesome room.

I mean really to me most girls rooms are going to be awesome but Rachel has bookshelves with like lots of hardcover and stuff and she has shelves with like all this Native American stuff on there and some stuffies and such and there’s a real like sport version bow and arrow set and lots of arrows too.

“I know this is really insensitive Rach but you’re First Nations?”

“Yeah kind of a giveaway. I’m Ardoch Band Algonquin and part Metis.”

I look at her. “I don’t know what that means.”

Rachel shrugs. “Mom’s from western Quebec and she really didn’t grow up on the Rez but it’s like our band.”

“Band?”

“Yeah there’s different bands that make up each tribe and the different tribes are part of the first nations. But It still like kinda once removed for me and all."

“Oh…so you’re not all that connected?”

“Well sort of like grand-parents and a bunch of cousins and Aunts and Uncles and stuff.”

“Cool.”

She looks at me. “Yeah kinda until I cross someone.”

I blush. “Oh…”

“Yeah there’s not a whole lot of native families around here or rather there’s not a lot of them that live in town or close to it.”

“So you get bashed on.”

Rachel nods. “Oh yeah it’s funny how one minute people are all… oh my gawd you’re like native and that’s so cool an I so get it I’m lie a wolf and stuff…” She’s tossing her head from side to side like a preppy bobble head and I kind of get it people appropriate cultural stuff because it’s “cool” all the time.

“I’ve seen that, actually I’m scared of that with me.”

“With you?”

“I do a lot of reading online and stuff.”

“So?”

“So there’s a lot of women and girls and stuff that think that I’m fake. That people like me are fake and that we’re co-opting women’s places in the world and worse…”

Rachel looks at me. “Pure spiteful bullshit. Look Steph we’re born the way we are and if that means that there’s a small bit of the population that’s sexually constructed different out of like what six billion…then odds are that’s what’s going to happen every single time. I get that all the time with people saying people like me get jobs so the place doesn't seem racist...trans, normal it all should just be like...merit."

I smile a little. “I thought that you were going to talk about all the two spirited people and stuff.”

“Nope, though I know there’s like tons of stuff on that it’s just not something that I’m into.”

“Oh…sorry, so you’re into?”

“Books and stuff I like archeological fiction and stuff like that but I like some stuff from first nationsey sort of stuff.”

“Like what?”

“The art, I love totem prints and carvings and stuff and buckskin work and native music.”

“Oh like the chanting and stuff?”

“No kinda like Redbone and Blackfoot and Aaron Peter’s stuff like that.”

I give her a helpless look. “I have no clue, I listen to girly music.”

“So do I but I’m more of a rock and metal head but I have some other stuff too.”

She actually looks through a pile of CD’s in a milk crate and puts one on and okay…it’s Avril and her Best Damn Thing album and it takes about all of three or four seconds of both of us listening to the beats before Rach takes her hair down and my back pack and tosses it on her bed and we both start dancing and girrrl rocking out and singing along to *Hot* it’s a girl head banger song sung by a girl and now that’s why she sells so much music.

And we’re just two teenaged girls hanging out and dancing and jumping around likely too hard and sing screaming along and well it’s *Hot* so at one point I’m air drumming along.

There’s a grin between us as the song fades and Rachel comes over and she gives me a hug. “Boy my ass, you wanna go out back and shoot some arrows?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, c’mon Everdeen.”

I blush and smile. “Not likely she’s amazing looking.”

“She’s not a teenager so yeah she has some puberty ahead of us and not to mention like trainers and a staff of make me pretties.”

“Okay true, so how’d you get into the bow?”

“It was a re-gift. My cousin Shane lived with us awhile and he couldn’t take it with him when he went into the forces so he gave it to me. I goofed around with it and dad said I was good so he started me in competition shooting.”

“I was gonna say we don’t do that in school.”

“Nope, it’s really rare and like only a few schools even do it and stuff so it’s all sort of individual stuff.”

“So do you hunt with it?”

“Not here but I’ve got a hunting bow at my grandfathers and we sometimes go out when we go and visit.”

“Oh you get anything?”

“Nope, I almost got a deer a few years back but I was too small to get a really steady grip on the bow and stuff. But I’m a pretty good fisherman.”

“Really, I’ve never hunted or fished. Dad doesn’t go that much.”

“Really your dad builds boats?”

I nod. “Likely why. I think he actually did like on the fishing boat fishing as a kids and stuff he’s from down east.”

She nods and she shows me how to put on the arm guard and the grip and then how to sling the bandolier with the hip quiver. It’s…I’ll never really look the same way at the fantasy stuff again.

Wow…oh wow is it ever fun and boy oh boy do I ever suck.

Which is another cool thing about being me is the fact I don’t have to bravado myself through things.

But shooting a bow is all awesomely cool and stuff.

I mean I’m Katness, Merida, Artemis and Kagome…I get to make believe a little and it’s cool as hell.

Okay we get to make believe a bit too as we kinda just role-play and talk ourselves through scenes for these characters and stuff. Hey we're thirteen and it's fun.

Rachel even admits to playing Moonstar the x-men girl with the bow and even Turok who is a native guy but he uses a bow and stuff to hunt dinosaurs.

A girl playing and pretending to be a male character is….

Rachel’s looking at me. “Do girls do that a lot?”

“What?”

“Play and pretend that they’re like male characters?”

“No, not really but I’m more into the heroes are people thing and stuff more that this hero or heroine is for this gender or that gender besides there’s not a whole lot of female heroes that I’m into and stuff outside of like books and novels.”

“Yeah if it’s not in heavy print you don’t really see them unless they’re babed over in like comics and movies and videogames.”

Rachel looks at me. “You too huh, I guess you really don’t identify with the whole male heroes and stuff.”

“Some…just because I’m a geekette and stuff but I’ve never really been able to just close my eyes and pretend and stuff.”

“So get that. But I could never be a Barbie-girl.”

I look at her. “I kinda like Barbie I mean I’ve never really played with them so it’s been one of those things that’s always been a from afar kind of thing for me...y'know guyboden."

Rachel nods but makes a face as she squares up to shoot again. “If they made an Ellen Ripley Barbie then yeah maybe.”

“Ellen Ripley?”

“Alien…Aliens…y’know Ripley.”

I shrug and I have no idea what she’s taking about.

“You’ve never seen…”

She grabs my hand and she hauls me inside and we quickly put her archery stuff away and she grins at me. “I can’t believe you’ve never seem it.”

“It’s scary right…” I almost cringe. “I kind of have heard about it but I just kind of figured it was like one of those guy things like Starship Troopers that the twins were into.”

She’s actually excited. “No, no, no, no…it’s so much more than that.”

…………………………… The first one was okay…really old and the effects were cheesy but the story was okay and yes it was scary. The android and the alien and just…oh wow.

Mom and her mom and the two dad’s come and join us for the second one and apparently we’re staying for supper and I eat friend chicken with an apple cider drink to go with it and sweet potato fries.

Okay the fries are good and Rach’s right they’re really good dipped in a mayo and stone ground mustard mix.

We’re likely stealing that it’s actually so good and the cider’s hot and a good change from pop.

And then there’s the second movie.

I’m so invested right from the start and the clean and real sci-fi way that it starts regardless of it being so old is just.

Bishop gave me goosebumps of creepy sorta…I got android off him just as much as Data from Star Trek.

And Omigod Hicks…and that kinda sort of flirting…yay?

But Ripley…Oh my goddess she kicks butt…and then it’s getting more and more intense and then there’s this whole thing when she’s on the ship and the queen’s on the ship and the walking forklift thing and I’m with Mom and Rachel and her mom as all the women are yelling out along with her at the screen.

“Get away from her, you BITCH!”

Best Movie Heroine EVER!!!