None of the Above(41)

I blinked at her, not understanding.

“I’ve got to get going!” Aunt Carla said brightly. “It’s book club night, and I’ve got to bring the chips and dip!”

“Sure. Have fun,” I said. Aunt Carla packed up her knitting, and I decided that I had officially hit rock bottom: my divorced, fifty-year-old aunt had hotter plans for Friday night than I did. I couldn’t remember the last weekend night when I didn’t have a date, or a party, or some sort of track thing to go to. Being friends with Vee meant you never had to fill your calendar.

Before Aunt Carla left, she gave me a little hug, and whispered, “Maybe tonight you guys can have some father-daughter bonding time!”


That’s when I knew I had to get out of the house. After Aunt Carla left, I went up to my room. Sitting on my bed, dreading the sound of my dad’s car pulling into the driveway, I realized I couldn’t stand the thought of him having to come up with some awkward, public thing we could do together, like playing miniature golf, or ice-skating.

So I steeled my shoulders, opened my closet, and chose a skirt and top fit for a Homecoming Queen.

My dad must have expected to find me moping around when he came home; he did a double take when he walked in at eight and saw me glammed up and ready to go.

“Faith and I are going out tonight,” I lied.

“Oh, okay.” I could see the relief in his eyes. “Do you need some money for gas?” It was his favorite way to be a good dad, so I took the twenty that he waved at me.

Walking out of my house into the cold felt amazing, like getting freed from a straitjacket. Never mind that I was freezing my ass off in my miniskirt. I thought about how weird it was that, before, I would never in a million years have gone out alone on a weekend night. It just wasn’t something you did when you were popular. You ran with the herd, even if it meant having to argue for an hour about where you were going to go, or who got to ride shotgun, or who was designated driver for the evening.

When you were going out by yourself, you didn’t have to deal with all that crap. You made your own decisions, and lived with the consequences. You had to be strong in ways that I’d never thought of back when I believed that not being surrounded by a bunch of friends meant that you were weak.

Instead of turning east out of our development toward Utica, I headed west to Whitesboro, where the restaurants were a little older and the bars not as trendy. Where no one, I hoped, knew about the intersex girl next door.

My heart pounding, I circled around the main strip three or four times before I parked in front of a pub that didn’t have a bouncer outside. Sam had gotten me a passable fake ID last summer, but when I saw my reflection in my rearview mirror I worried that I didn’t look enough like my picture. Instead of my normal pastels or earth tones, I’d put on the Red Vixen lipstick that I bought for a Halloween costume. I’d deliberately overdone my eyeliner, and had curled my hair instead of putting it in my usual ponytail, praying that even if I did run into someone from my school, they wouldn’t recognize me.

After I turned off my engine, I sat in my creaking car as the cold settled in, gathering my nerve. The initial excitement of going it alone had worn off, and I felt suddenly vulnerable. Afraid. For a split second I considered restarting my car and heading home; then I thought about sitting at home with my dad, watching Classic Sports Network while he did sudoku and nursed a Heineken.

I opened my door.

The bar was perfect—cozy and dark, and busy enough that you could pretend that you were with any one of a number of groups. Noisy enough that if someone wanted to talk to you they had to get so close you could smell the beer on their breath.

I scoped out the crowd. There seemed to be a lot of people who were on their second or third drinks already. Some guys who looked like they were there after work. A bunch of college students watching the game on the flat-screen TV. Not very many couples. More men than women. The odds were in my favor.

When I got up to the bartender I ordered myself an appletini and he barely glanced at my fake ID. While he fixed my drink, I smiled at the boy waiting behind me, a twentysomething guy with a buzz cut. He was wearing a blue pinstripe shirt with the sleeves rolled up like he was getting ready to change the oil in his car or something. He was around my height, but stocky, and built like a wrestler. You could tell he went to the gym. I paid for my drink and I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was checking me out.

Back when I was with Sam, I used to hate the meat-market looks I would get at clubs. Strange, that I had been so ungrateful when guys thought I was sexy.

This time, when I turned to Pinstripe Shirt and saw his gaze slide down my body, I felt a surge of pleasure headier than any booze.

I still had the power.

Leaning just the slightest bit toward Pinstripe Shirt, I sucked on the tiny straw in my appletini, pursing my lips the way I’d practiced when I was twelve and learning how to flirt from TV shows. A little voice in my head whispered, What if he finds out that you’re a boy?

I’m a girl, I shouted back. I’m a girl.

I didn’t have to wait long for his pickup line. “Haven’t seen you around here before. You here with those guys?” he said, pointing toward the college kids.

“No,” I said, laughing like I was insulted. “I’m out of school.” It was easier to lie when you were wearing makeup. Like you were in costume or something.