Both Sides Now Page 6

  So I’ve fashioned a shield out of my textbook. Protecting my phone from his prying eyes, you know. Not that he’d be wrong to pry, since I’m openly checking texts during his class. I’ve gotten three silent, buzzing false alarms now: an invite from Jasmyne to play Words With Friends, a new episode of Pod Save America, and a missive from Lucy in exuberant, misspelled all caps: OMFGGGGGG LINSAY ELLFIS JUST DMED ME BACK ON TWITTER! GONNA TRY TO INTERVIEW HER FRO MY CHANNEL WSISHE ME LUCK!!!!!!!!

  I’m about to do exactly that—tap Lucy’s message, wish her luck, and ask her who this Linsay Ellfis person is—when I feel a fourth buzz.

  ADWOA DOUNA: guess who got the nats topic (it’s me) (i got it)

  I lift my head and flash Mr. Mah an I’m-definitely-listening smile. He smiles back. Perfect. I’ve just bought myself five minutes of suspicion-free screen time.

  ADWOA DOUNA: lemme just copypaste the email i got from NADA

  ADWOA DOUNA: Kylie Jenner Hosted a Handmaid’s Tale Themed Birthday Party and It Was Everything

  ADWOA DOUNA: omg sorry wrong thing

  JONAH CABRERA: wait did she actually? the handmaids tale???

  FINCH KELLY: Is Kylie the one who did the pepsi ad with the riot police or is that a different one

  JONAH CABRERA: finch i know how much time u spend reading thinkpieces abt the kardashians being the downfall of civilization

  JONAH CABRERA: there is no. way. u don’t know kendall from kylie

  ADWOA DOUNA: okay sorry copypaste take 2

  I wait. I watch the gray bubble. Those three little dots grow darker, darker. This is it: the gun going off at the starting line. Whatever Adwoa types next, it will rule the next month of my life. I will spend every kernel of spare time I’ve got plugging these words into Google. I will devour every article I can read for free, and, with Roo’s assistance, hack around the paywalls barring me from the ones I can’t.

  ADWOA DOUNA: The National Championships of the North American Debate Association will be held at the Gray School, in Washington, D.C., from March 29 to March 31.

  The topic for this year’s championship is:

  This House would allow transgender students in public schools to use the bathroom facilities of their choice.

  No. No, no, no. I’m not breathing. My vision is blurring. The breakfast I ate on the bus is leaping up into my throat. Of all the things we could argue about, all the culture wars in all the towns in all the world, they walked right into mine.

  “Finch?” Mr. Mah slices through my stupor. “I’ll be taking that phone now.”

  He reaches out a hand, beckons for the phone buzzing busily behind the lousy makeshift barricade I’d erected. I am so, so nauseous; it takes real, conscious effort to open my mouth and dispense words, not bile.

  “Family emergency,” I tell him, not convincingly. “I need . . . need to . . .”

  He shakes his head, bifocals glinting in the halogen light. “Give it here, Finch. You can have it back after class.”

  I don’t know how I muster the strength to drop the phone into his hand, but I do, and then I’m alone at the island of my desk. It’s hard work to breathe in and out. Even harder work not to be horribly, vividly sick all over the sixtieth and sixty-first pages of Calculus: Concepts and Contexts. I cannot believe this is happening to me.

  You’re never just for or against at Nationals, is the thing. You take turns. In the first round, you’re yes; in the second, you’re no. Both sides. No getting around it.

  If I go to this tournament, I will have to stand behind a podium and argue against my own right to take a shit.

  I’ll have to argue against people who’ve never met a trans person. Who don’t know the first thing about who I am. Who believe everything J. K. Rowling posts on Twitter. I do daily backflips not to engage with these people. Almost no one at this school knows I’m trans, and for good goddamn reason: I wouldn’t be a person anymore. I’d be a political issue.

  I spend the rest of calculus in queasy rumination. What the hell am I going to do? I can’t just boycott this tournament; this is Nationals, for Christ’s sake. I have to go. If I want any chance at Georgetown, I have to win. Stand behind a podium, deliver a speech about why I don’t deserve to pee, and win.

  God knows my calculus grade isn’t going to clinch Georgetown. I barely absorb the stern warning Mr. Mah gives me on my way out of the classroom, stumbling into the hall and stabbing frantically at my cell phone. I’ve missed upwards of a dozen texts. The most recent one—the first one I see—is:

  JONAH CABRERA: well still finch u must be excited

  . . . What is he talking about? Jonah is among the very few at Johnson who I’ve told I’m trans. Shouldn’t he know that I’m less than thrilled about the prospect of a weekend spent hearing—no, repeating—the case for my own personal banning from every bathroom in the United States of America? I text him back with shaky thumbs:

  FINCH KELLY: Why would I be excited haha

  JONAH CABRERA: uhhhhhh maybe because washington??

  JONAH CABRERA: district????

  JONAH CABRERA: of columbia??????????

  Wait. Pause. Is he . . . are we really . . .

  I scroll up, and I see it: The National Championships of the North American Debate Association will be held at the Gray School, in Washington, D.C.

  I am going to Washington, D.C. I am going to Washington, D.C.

  The nauseous wave breaks over me. I don’t feel dizzy. Not anymore. I feel awake, suddenly. I feel better. So what if every round is a transphobic dumpster fire? Who cares? We’re talking about dumpsters full of world-historical trash, glowing bright and defiant against white-brick monuments.

  Jonah’s words are like sunlight piercing fog. I can see the resolution for what it is: a test. If I win this tournament, I’ll transform my wildest dream into reality. I will go to Washington, D.C., and I will make history there. Years down the line, I’ll be debating trans rights on the House floor, and I’ll look back on today’s little flutter of fear and I’ll laugh and laugh and laugh.

  I bring my thumbs to the keyboard once more. I grin.

  FINCH KELLY: Bring

  FINCH KELLY: It

  FINCH KELLY: On

  * * *

  —

  There’s a corner booth at Viva Vegan that Lucy’s claimed as our personal property. Woe to anyone who settles into this booth for a smoothie, sweet potato fries, or spaghetti squash lasagna while we’re around. We can get—have gotten—physical with would-be usurpers.

  Today, an after-school snack awaits us there, courtesy of Mom Newsome: pita chips, bean dip fragrant with garlic and lemon, and two darkly purple drinks, almost black, brewed with some exotic berry I couldn’t even guess how to pronounce.

  When Lucy and I go out to eat, especially at Viva, we observe a strict ban on cell phone usage—enforced by Lucy, inherited from her mom, and shared, apparently, with Mr. Mah. Be present with one another, say the placards, in a trembling font, taped up all over the dining room. Mindful eating makes for mindful conversation. It sounds like woo-woo to me, but there must be some truth to it. Lucy’s so mindful that when I glance down at my lap for a second, a split second, she catches me, and pounces.

  “For those of you just tuning in,” she says, a finger to her ear, like she’s speaking into a headset, “we’re getting word that area teen Finch Kelly is sexting—yes, Tom, that’s right, sexting, in public, in broad daylight . . .”

  “I am not sexting!” I cry out. “That’s not even a real word!”

  “Though Mr. Kelly denies the accusation,” Lucy goes on, “and also denies that sexting is a totally valid step in the natural evolution of the English language . . .”

  “You mean the degradation of the English language.”

  “. . . One thing remains clear,” she continues, and flips me a deeply un-newscasterly middle finger. �
�Mr. Kelly is staring at his cell phone while sitting in the corner booth at Viva Vegan with his best friend, Lucy Newsome, in violation of a longstanding agreement to refrain from texting while eating.” She pauses, and then, solemnly: “Back to you, Tom.”

  I take a sip of my smoothie. “Who’s Tom?”

  “Uh, Brokaw?” she says, like I just asked if the sky’s green. “Who were you texting, anyway?”

  “The debate club group chat.” I drop my phone into my backpack, then lift my hands, displaying my empty, innocent palms. “We got the topic for Nationals this morning.”

  “Oh, God. What is it this time?” She reaches for her smoothie, eyes rolling. “Pouring trash into the oceans? Arming kindergarteners with assault rifles?”

  Lucy is not a fan of debate club.

  “I don’t remember the exact wording.” I’m lying. Of course I remember the wording. I’ve been repeating the sentence to myself all day. But I want to avoid a fight with Lucy, who remains skeptical about the ethics of arguing for, like, the U.S.S.R.’s right to unlimited nuclear bombs. “But it’s something about, um . . . trans people. And bathrooms.”

  “Oh, Finch.” The snark melts right off her face. “I knew it’d be bad, but I didn’t realize it’d be, like, personally bad.” She takes a deep breath, scans my somber face. “Shit. You’re not actually going to do it, are you? Go up there and say you don’t deserve rights?”

  “This is Nationals,” I say. I hope that’s enough for her.

  It’s not. “So?”

  “So you can’t pass on a topic if it’s about you.”

  Lucy makes that face she makes—lips pursed, nose wrinkled—when she smells something gross, or accidentally eats meat, or lays eyes on a really Republican Republican.

  “This is why I never joined debate,” she says, voice brittle and hard. “I could never get behind a podium and pretend to be Satan.”

  “That is not the point of debate.” My turn to make a face at her. “It’s about understanding an issue from every angle. I’m not talking about right or left. Not even right or wrong. I mean, to really dig into tough issues, get at the nuance, the really complicated—”

  “No thanks,” she interrupts, picks up a pita chip, and brings her teeth down: crunch. “Don’t need to walk a mile in a Proud Boy’s polo to know he sucks.”

  “Oh, well,” I mumble, eager to end this conversation before she gets really heated and calls me a Proud Boy, “at least the tournament’s in D.C.”

  “Oh my God, Finch, why are you so obsessed with D.C.?” She brings her drink down, hard; a splash of smoothie leaps out, paints the tabletop purple. “There are people right here who need your help.”

  “Like who?”

  “Uh, like the homeless people camping in Sylvester Park?”

  “Oh, totally. Forget D.C.” I know I sound like a brat. I don’t care. “I’ll just stay here and end homelessness all by myself.”

  “Who said anything about doing it yourself?” She rises from the table and snatches a postcard from her mom’s corkboard. “Alice Brady for Congress,” she says, and hands it to me, her face smug.

  I take in the postcard: a young, redheaded woman, dressed in bright blue, pledging Medicare for All, Bold Climate Action, and Housing as a Human Right.

  “Is this the lady you were telling me about?” I ask her. “The trans woman who’s running to replace Denny Heck?”

  Lucy nods. “If you want to devote your life to helping trans people, give her a call.” She taps the number on the postcard. “Don’t fly to D.C. and argue you shouldn’t be allowed to piss.”

  I set the postcard on the table. Alice Brady smiles back at me, upside down, unfazed.

  “You’re very persuasive,” I tell her, sipping my smoothie. “You would’ve made a great debate partner.”

  “Yeah, right. We both know I can’t hold a candle to Jonah. He’s your debate soul mate.” She pauses, laughs: “Your debate mate.”

  “Oh, shoot.” I look up, frantic, to the clock on the wall. “I have to meet Jonah in fifteen.”

  I’d asked him if we could prep after school—at his place, preferably, so I could gorge myself on his mom’s peanuts. But he was already booked: Bailey had roped him into attending this afternoon’s Billie rehearsal. Adwoa told Jonah that a date was not a valid reason to skimp on prep—not with Nationals only a few weeks away, no sir. I offered a compromise: We’d meet after Bailey’s rehearsal. This way, Jonah could honor both of his commitments: to his boyfriend, and to us. It worked. Peace reigned. Be the change you want to see in your group chat.

  “Well, you’d better get going, then,” says Lucy. “Gonna take ages to crowbar Jonah out of Bailey’s arms.” She must realize she’s being a little mean; I barely have to side-eye her before she walks it back. “I don’t blame him, though. I mean, have you seen Bailey?”

  “I have seen Bailey, yes.” I stand up, sling my backpack over my shoulders. “And honestly? Of the two? Jonah’s way more conventionally attractive.”

  I say this flatly, like it’s the plain, unremarkable truth—because it is—but Lucy leaps on it anyway, grinning like the devil. “Is he, now?”

  “I don’t mean it like that,” I huff. “And I’m not even saying Bailey isn’t good-looking. Just that Jonah’s more . . .” I search for a way to say this, one that won’t, like, implicate me: “He’s like a man you’d see in . . . in a black-and-white movie. Or, uh . . . an ad for trench coats.” My stammering isn’t helping. Lucy’s still grinning. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “I’m not looking at you like anything.” She lifts her hands, feigning innocence. “And you definitely don’t like boys.”

  “You’re right! I don’t!” I bring a palm down on the tabletop, insisting: “I pay attention to the way boys look because I am a boy, and I want to look more like one.”

  “Whatever you say, bud.” She laughs, slurping up the final dregs of her smoothie. “Text me later, okay? Tell me how ‘conventionally attractive’ Jonah’s looking these days.”

  “Will do,” I say, giving her the finger. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” she says, her middle finger just as high in the air as mine.

  * * *

  —

  Because I haven’t suffered enough today, I push open the door to the auditorium just in time to hear the very last words I wanted to hear: “Okay, everyone! From the top!”

  The swell of the orchestra helps to drown my groan of despair. The loud clatter of the dancers’ tap-shoed feet helps, too. They move into the wings and leave Bailey alone, center stage, in a tiny pool of light. I watch for a moment—mesmerized and envious—as his Adam’s apple rises and falls in the snowy expanse of his throat.

  Jonah’s seated center orchestra, right beneath the tech booth—best view in the house. “Hey, Jonah.” I slide into the plush chair next to him. “How’s the rehearsal going?”

  “Great!” He sounds awfully upbeat for this late in the afternoon. “They’re really getting the hang of these big dance numbers.”

  I eye him, suspicious. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  He hesitates for a second. “Honestly, this musical is kind of . . .” But then the lights are going out, and the music’s starting up, and Bailey’s opening his mouth.

  His voice. Holy shit. No wonder Jonah’s in love.

  There’s something impossible about Bailey’s singing: innate, practiced, magical? I’ve heard it before, but never in a space this empty. Without so much as a microphone, his voice finds us in this cavern and holds us captive.

  He’s all alone up there, just him and his light. I lean close to Jonah. “Is this a one-man show?”

  “No, no,” Jonah whispers back. “Bailey opens it solo, but then . . .”

  But then! The music explodes, the stage erupts in color, and every dancer in the drama club bursts forth and swirls a
round Bailey. They crowd him in careful formation. I lose sight of him, almost, his duck-fluffy blond head disappearing behind arms, elbows, fluttering hands.

  “Guy? Hey, guys?” Bailey is barely audible above the storm of tap shoes. “I’m gonna need a little more space for the quick change! Tiffany, can you back up?” Tiffany, I guess, ignores him, because Bailey laughs—not happily. “Don’t make me shout, okay? I can’t strain my vocal cords, or—Tiff, seriously?”

  It startles me, this little wave of attitude rippling through his voice, cresting at seriously? I’ve never seen this side of Bailey before. If I didn’t know any better—didn’t ride the bus with him, didn’t know he treats Jonah like a prince—I might think he was a diva.

  Is he? Have I missed something? I look at him now, back in his spotlight, with two whole rows of dancers swaying at his back, and I can’t recall him ever once being humble. At the song’s end, when he throws his hands up and bellows the highest note, he is, literally, shining. With sweat. But still.

  I look to my left: Jonah is shining, too. In the places where his dark brown eyes are darkest, I can see the reflection of the stage lights. It’s striking, seeing him like this: genuinely starry-eyed. But I don’t get to look for long. He’s on his feet in an instant, bringing his hands together, whooping, cheering: “Bailey! Bailey! Bailey!” It’s funny, hearing an ovation this vigorous in a space this empty. Does anyone else think it’s weird? The cast, the drama teacher? Whoever? It’s like the rest of us aren’t even here. Like nothing matters but Bailey’s excellence, Jonah’s admiration.

  I can appreciate Bailey’s talent, of course. I can even clap for it. But I’m not in love with it. Not the way Jonah clearly is. When the teacher frees the cast to go, he bounds down the stairs to the stage, two or three at a time. I trail after him, the sluggish senior dog to his hyperactive puppy. He hits the stage first and lifts his boyfriend high in the air, swinging him like a ragdoll.