Mrs. Fletcher(47)

“I’m not that much younger than you,” Dr. Fairchild pointed out. “I guess I’m trying to make up for lost time. I missed out on my best years.”

In the bright public sphere of the classroom, Eve never had a problem accepting Dr. Fairchild as a woman. In that context—a teacher interacting with students, deconstructing outmoded concepts of masculinity and femininity—she seemed like an embodiment of the curriculum, her theory and practice a continuous whole. In a minivan outside a sports bar, however, the professor’s gender identity seemed a little more precarious, as much wish as reality. It was partly the timbre of her voice in the darkness, and partly just the size of her body in the passenger seat, the way she filled the available space.

I can see who you were, Eve thought. One self on top of the other.

As soon as this uncharitable image occurred to her, she did her best to erase it from her mind. She wasn’t the gender police. Her job—her responsibility—was to be kind and supportive, and not to judge the success or failure of somebody else’s transformation.

“You look really pretty,” she said.

“I’m trying.” Dr. Fairchild’s chuckle was tinged with anxiety. “Every day’s an adventure, right?”

“I wish.”

“At least that’s what my therapist tells me. I think she’s just trying to cheer me up.”

“Is everything okay?”

Dr. Fairchild stared out the windshield while she considered the question. The only thing in front of them was a brick wall.

“It was my daughter’s birthday last weekend,” she said. “Her name is Millicent. She just turned eight.”

“That’s a sweet age.”

“We threw her a party, my ex-wife and I. And some of the other parents came by at the end, and it wasn’t like they were mean to me or anything. But I could see I made them uncomfortable, and my daughter saw it, too. They stood as far away from me as possible. Like whatever I had might be contagious.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mean anything by it,” Eve said. “It just takes people time, you know?”

Dr. Fairchild examined her manicure. “If it wasn’t for Millie, I’d probably just move to New York or L.A. Just get far away from all this suburban bullshit.”

“If that’s what you want to do, you should do it. New York’s not that far.”

“It’s too expensive,” Dr. Fairchild said. “And it’s not like it’s gonna make any difference. Doesn’t matter where you live. You’re always just kind of alone with your shit, you know?”

“It’s the human condition,” Eve told her.

Dr. Fairchild turned away from the wall.

“You’re as bad as my therapist,” she said, but it sounded like a compliment.

*

Julian Spitzer wasn’t old enough to drink legally—not even close—but none of the adults objected when he poured himself a glass of beer from the communal pitcher, and then another one after that. That was the upside of going out to a bar on a Tuesday night with a bunch of middle-aged people. You just sort of slipped in under the radar. Nobody bothered to check your fake ID or otherwise give you a second glance, especially if you happened to be sitting with the owner of the bar, which, he had to admit, was pretty fucking cool.

The downside of this situation was that he was stuck at a dump called PLAY BALL!, surrounded by people twice his age who were talking among themselves about the kind of unbelievably boring crap people that age liked to talk about—dental benefits, kale, lower back pain. He might as well have been hanging out with his parents, except that his parents never would have seated him directly in front of a pitcher of Bud Light or whatever weak-ass beer this was and then pretended not to notice while he imbibed to his heart’s content.

This wasn’t the kind of news you could ethically keep to yourself, so he snapped a pic of the half-empty pitcher and shot it off to his friend Ethan, who was having a blast at UVM.

Dude I’m getting WASTED with a bunch of old farts from my Gender and Society class! How fucked up is that?

Until he typed this message, Julian was unaware of the fact that he was in the process of getting WASTED. But once he saw the word WASTED throbbing like a prophecy inside the green text balloon, it struck him with the force of undeniable truth. Because, really, why shouldn’t he get WASTED? He’d been in college for almost two months and this was the first time he’d partied with his fellow students, or with anyone else, for that matter. It had not been a very exciting fall.

His phone pinged right away: That’s what you get for going to community college, asshole!

Dumell, one of two black guys in the class—he was the African-American, not the Nigerian—heard the chime and elbowed him in the arm.

“Message from your girlfriend?”

“One of ’em,” Julian replied.

Dumell chuckled. “How many you got?”

“Hard to keep count.”

“Listen to you, player. I bet they love it when you roll up on your skateboard.”

“What can I say?” Julian told him. “I’m a fuel-efficient lover.”

Dumell considered the metaphor.

“Guess that makes me a gas-guzzler,” he said. “Old-school Detroit. Ten miles to the gallon highway. But it’s a smooth ride, if you know what I’m saying.”