“How was work?” my Jada asked when her other self got in the back.
“Don’t rub it in,” other-Jada said. “Please tell me I get to have some nice memories to cancel the last eight hours out with.”
After a couple more episodes of Ms. Vampire, not long before Britt’s family ate supper, Jada and I said goodbye and she drove us to the Ramseys’ house. I called Mrs. Ramsey to let her know we were on the way.
Jada parked on the street and we walked up to the door. I let us in with my key, and Mrs. Ramsey and my other self met us at the door. (Meredith and Sophia were still at work.)
“Did y’all have fun?” other-me asked.
“Yeah,” I said, sharing a conspiratorial glance with Jada. “We went for a walk at the river park, then we hung out with Britt for a few hours after she got done with work.”
“You’ll have to tell me more about this split consciousness thing later,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “It sounds intriguing.”
“We’ll tell you about it after we merge back,” I said.
“You’ll be coming right back afterward?”
“Yeah,” Jada said. “We’ve gotta pick the other me up when she gets off work first, though, and there could be a line for the Venn machine at this time of day.”
“Let us know if you’re going to be more than half an hour,” Mrs. Ramsey said, “and I’ll hold supper for you. Meredith should be home from work by then.”
So Jada and both of me got back in the car and we went to Food Lion. Other-Jada was apparently watching for us, because she came out of the store right as we pulled into a parking space.
“How was work?” my Jada asked when her other self got in the back.
“Don’t rub it in,” other-Jada said. “Please tell me I get to have some nice memories to cancel the last eight hours out with.”
“You could say that,” Jada said, throwing a grin at me. “No spoilers.”
I realized that the other versions of us didn’t know we were dating now. They’d had hopes, but they didn’t know yet, and apparently Jada didn’t want to tell them, but let them find out by merging with us.
“To the library, and step on it, then,” backseat Jada said. Other-me giggled.
“Actually...” my Jada said, making no move to back out of the parking space. “Wouldn’t it be better if you drove, since you look more like our driver’s license photo?”
“Neither of us has the same eyes or hair we had then,” she said. “You’re dragging your feet, aren’t you.”
“Guilty as charged,” my Jada said, and got out. The other Jada hopped out and switched places with her, and we got to the library in record time. As she stopped at a light, she glanced suspiciously over at me. I mimed zipping my lips, but couldn’t help grinning at her.
Wouldn’t you know it, there were twelve people in line to use the Venn machine. The other version of Jada kept trying to get us to tell her what had happened, but we wouldn’t tell, and the other me (I later realized) wanted to know just as badly, but was laughing too hard to ask.
Fortunately, there were only five pairs of people who actually wanted to use the Venn machine. The other two were there to watch their friends’ stuff while they venned. That was the first time I’d seen someone venn into a small sheet of paper to let their friend mail them to another friend’s house, though I later found out that people had been doing that for years. Most of the people ahead of us weren’t doing anything too complicated and didn’t take too long, but the two people immediately in front of us must have spent at least ten minutes in the machine. We were all getting pretty impatient — Jada’s other self most of all — when the doors finally opened and two furries came out. One was a ferret-girl, and the other a guy of some cervine type, with twisty horns or antlers and mottled fur. They wore extremely elaborate clothes, something like Regency or Victorian formal wear, but with a lot of anomalous features like the glossy, transparent ribbons dangling from their cuffs and hems.
“Finally,” other-Jada huffed. She stuck a scrap of paper in the slot and set the timer for three years.
I took the hand of my other self and went in one side, and the two Jadas did the same on the other side. The moment the doors closed, I was holding nobody’s hand, and I suddenly remembered the last eight hours from two different perspectives.
I’d gone back to the Ramseys’ house, did some job hunting online, did some laundry, took out the trash, scrubbed the toilet and sink in the hall bathroom, ate lunch (leftover chicken and rice soup that Mrs. Ramsey and I had made the night before), and done some more reading for school.
And I’d also gone on a date with Jada... and Britt. A real date! I had a girlfriend! Two girlfriends! I laughed and hugged myself, remembering Jada’s arms around me.
Jada’s voice brought me back to the present. “Hey, could you bring up my history and give me the body I was wearing at school all week?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. And the same for me.”
Less than a minute later, we were back in our everyday bodies and the doors opened.
As we walked back to the car, Jada said: “I can’t believe I haven’t kissed you in almost two hours. Let’s fix that before I take you home.”
* * *
Sunday after church, the Ramseys and I went out to eat at a Thai restaurant over in Catesville. I’d never eaten at a Thai place before; Meredith helped me pick something I might like, and it was a bit odd but really tasty. Later in the afternoon, I checked my email and saw a message from Jada with attachments. I clicked on it and saw a series of photos. One of my tiny quadrupedal dragon form crawling on the sidewalk near Jada’s shoe, then several blurrier photos of me flying, or perching on a branch.
“What are you grinning at?” Meredith asked, looking up from her book.
“Look,” I said. “This is the first time I ever venned.”
She came over and leaned close to the laptop screen. “Oh, wow. Whose shoe is that?”
“Jada’s.”
“She was there the first time you and Nathan used the Venn machine?”
“Yeah...” I told her about it in more detail than I’d ever gone into before.
“And now you’re dating her. Wow.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.”
That evening, Mrs. Ramsey reminded me that I’d agreed to get counseling or therapy when we talked about me living with them.
“Yeah, I want to do that. You said you’d pay for it until I get a job?”
“Yes, we can afford to pay for a few sessions at least. Have you started looking for a therapist yet?”
“Uh, no, I’m not sure where to start. And I’ve been kind of busy getting my driver’s license updated and getting back into school and all. Could you help me with that?”
“Of course. I’ll look things up and make some phone calls tomorrow and we can go over what I found out after school, okay? The only counselor I’m really familiar with is the one we saw after Meredith came out, but in hindsight she’s not as good about gender issues as we could have wished.”
“Yeah... I think I’m pretty okay with my gender now, honestly? Now that I can just be a girl and most people don’t question it. What I want a therapist for is to help with my anxiety... and I guess my feelings about Mom and Dad. But that doesn’t mean a transphobic therapist would be okay.”
Jada and I talked on the phone a little later, after she got off work, and again during homeroom and lunch the next day, and on the phone again after we got done with homework in the evening, and at every chance we got for the next few days. We even figured out that our class schedules allowed us to meet up in the halls for a couple of minutes between second and third period, if we each took a slight detour. We were usually sitting with Britt at lunch, and Jada had a class with her.
Monday right after school, I went over a list of therapists Mrs. Ramsey had researched with her and picked one, then called and made an appointment. I was dismayed to find that the earliest available was in June.
Monday evening after she got off work, Mom called and we talked some more about gender issues and how I’d figured myself out. She told me that she’d talked to Dad about my bank account and he’d said he would talk to me, but he hadn’t done so yet.
Wednesday evening just before six, Mom called and said that Dad had called to say he’d be working late. So Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and I all got in the van and went over to Mom and Dad’s house to get my stuff.
Mom wasn’t home yet when we got there, but she drove up a minute later and, after hugging all of us, she let us in. We went straight to my bedroom. She opened the door and revealed several cardboard boxes containing all my books, school supplies, and personal belongings other than clothes. The posters were gone from the walls, the shelves were empty, and the sheets had been stripped off the bed.
“This is more than I thought,” Mr. Ramsey said, and I added,
“You didn’t have to pack all of this... that’s a lot more than I asked for.”
Mom wrung her hands. “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone... but we’re moving.”
“What? Where?”
“Closer to your father’s job. I don’t know when; we just started looking at house listings online this past weekend. We’ll probably go over to Durham and Hillsborough to look at some houses next weekend. We talked about it back when your father got this job, but I talked him into waiting until after you turned eighteen... since you’d promised to contact us then, and I thought we should keep the same address as long as we could. And then... well, he brought the idea up again recently. The long commute has been really bad for him.”
“I’ll miss you, Mom.” I hugged her, then turned to the Ramseys. “Do you think we can take all of this? I don’t want my stuff to fill up your house or anything...”
“I think we can find places to put it,” Mr. Ramsey said. “At least until you have time to sort through it and figure out what’s important.”
So we started hauling boxes out to the van. My books had filled up three bookshelves before Mom packed them up. That many books (plus some old toys, framed photos, school supplies and miscellaneous stuff) filled up a lot of boxes, and if Meredith or Sophia had been with us, we wouldn’t have had room for everybody to sit once the van was loaded.
While Mom, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey were hauling the first set of boxes to the car, I went through the drawers and closet to see if there were any clothes I particularly wanted to take. I grabbed a few things the Venn machine couldn’t replace — T-shirts with witty quotes on them by W.C. Fields and Dorothy Parker, for instance — but left the rest.
Then I pitched in on carrying boxes to the car. Some were too heavy for me, but Mom had used boxes of a bunch of different sizes and I could carry the smaller ones, or Mom and I together could carry a larger one. We got done in time to chat for a while; Mom had gotten another text from Dad while we were working, saying he was finally leaving work — which meant he wouldn’t be home in less than an hour and twenty minutes, probably a bit longer.
“Can I get y’all anything to drink?” she asked as Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and I all sat down in the living room.
“Sweet tea or water, if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Ramsey said, and Mr. Ramsey and I said the same. When Mom came back with our drinks, she sat down next to me on the smaller sofa — Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey had taken the larger one. (We had an L-shaped double sofa.)
“I also wanted to give you this,” she said. She handed me a flash drive. “I copied as many of our family photos onto it as it had room for, plus Aunt Patricia’s family history.” My mom’s aunt had done a lot of research on our family tree, and written a history (it was a typewritten document, which I’d seen passed around at a family get-together when I was a kid); her daughter had digitized and updated it a few years ago.
“Thanks,” I said. “That means a lot.” I wondered how many of the people mentioned in the history or depicted in those photos would understand what I was doing or approve of it. Not many, maybe.
“How have you been doing at school?” she asked.
I told her about the grades I’d gotten for the previous Friday’s quizzes and tests, and a little more about getting to know some people and making new friends. I didn’t exactly tell her Jada, Britt and I were dating; I wanted to lead up to that gradually, but I told her I’d hung out with them on Saturday.
“How have you been feeling, Mom?”
“Better since we’ve been talking regularly. I wish we could all be together as a family... but even this is a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, compared to the last year or so.”
I felt guilty, and I also felt a little resentment at her guilt-tripping me, but I decided she probably hadn’t meant to do that. “I’m glad to be able to see you again.”
“Have you given any more thought to letting me venn you into a younger body, Kathy?” Mrs. Ramsey asked. I’d been meaning to talk to Mom about that myself, but we’d spent so much time talking about transgender issues, and school, and so forth... I was glad Mrs. Ramsey had brought it up.
Mom furrowed her brow. “I’d like to. The idea of getting rid of all these little aches and pains... but Peter is so down on the idea of those machines these days. Back when they first appeared, he was cautiously in favor of using them to heal and rejuvenate people, but since — since Lauren left, and we found out why — well, he’s decided they’re no good. And I’d like to be younger and healthier, but I don’t want to risk my marriage over it.”
“You could venn just a little,” I said. “Let me or Mrs. Ramsey make you young and healthy inside, but pretty much the same on the outside.”
“Can you do that?” Mom asked.
“It’s always a trial and error process,” Mrs. Ramsey said, “but if you decide your new body looks too different, you can change back in less than a minute.”
“I changed Nathan just by making his hair slightly longer,” I contributed. If Mom was avoiding venning only to placate Dad, Nathan wouldn’t get in trouble if I mentioned that, and it might help nudge Mom in the right direction.
Mom was quiet for a moment. “Let’s do that. Some afternoon after work when it’s convenient for one of you to meet me at the library.”
We talked for a while longer; Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey asked after some people at our old church, and told Mom some more about their new church (Mrs. Ramsey had evidently already told her some in their phone conversations in the last week or two). I got distracted thinking about how to tell Mom I was dating a girl and sort of dating another one, and missed some of what they said.
Finally, I noticed we’d need to leave soon. Dad could be home in as little as fifteen minutes. I decided to bite the bullet; I still hadn’t figured out a good way to gently lead up to the subject.
“Mom,” I said, “we’ve got to go pretty soon, but I wanted to tell you before I leave...”
“Yes...?”
“I had my first date this past weekend. I told you I hung out with my friends Jada and Britt on Saturday? The first part of that, where Jada and I went to the river park... that turned out to be a date.”
“What?”
“We didn’t plan it that way; originally we were going to hang out with our other friends, but Meredith and Britt had to work, and since we were by ourselves, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew we were holding hands and talking about dating. I reckon we’ll do a more formal date in a week or two — we’ve been hashing out plans, but we’ll have to wait and see what Jada’s work schedule is next week and all.”
Mom was still staring at me as I babbled. Mr. Ramsey glanced at his phone and said, “Yeah, I expect we’d better go pretty soon here.” He glanced at me.
Mom finally asked, “You’re dating a girl?”
“Yes, Jada Plinkett, the girl I told you about earlier. She’s a friend of Meredith and she’s in my homeroom and we usually eat lunch together... she’s really nice. I think you’d like her.”
Mom was still staring, wringing her hands. “Just when I think I’m starting to get used to the idea of you being a girl, you spring this on me,” she said. “I’m not sure what to think.”
“I’m still me, Mom.” I made a tentative gesture toward hugging her, and she hugged me back, hard and strong. Then we really did have to leave.
My new novel, The Translator in Spite of Themself, is available in epub format from Smashwords and in epub, mobi, and pdf formats from itch.io.
