“As long as I fight, I am moved by hope; and if I fight with hope, then I can wait.” —Paulo Freire
Step, punch, block, jump, kick.
Jen stopped and rubbed her hands together. They were getting numb already, and she had only been outside for ten minutes. Still too cold, she said to herself, pulling the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head.
There had still been snow on the ground when she returned to Michigan a week ago, but the weather had been unseasonably warm for January since then, above freezing, and the melted snow had made its way down to the lake in little streams. This morning the sky was a bright, enticing blue through the kitchen window, and it had lured Jen out to practice her forms and kicks in the yard.
She wrapped her arms around herself and stared across the lake, which was still covered with a thin layer of floating ice. The houses on the other side had been difficult to see through the thick layers of snow that covered their roofs and balconies and clung to the evergreens surrounding them. Now their full array of earth-tones was visible again: dark, muddy browns, stony tans and grays, a brick red. And there, off to the right, like moss clinging to the rocks, the old grass-green house that had comforted her back during the summer, when she first moved to Michigan and had felt so entirely alone.
Jen was happy now to see it emerge, like the patchy grass of the lake house lawn appearing from beneath the snow. The cheerful color matched the blue sky, and Jen felt suddenly optimistic that life in North Middleton would be tolerable, even without Shane to train with. Look at this beautiful lake, this house, she told herself. And all I have to do is hang around and read and study taekwondo and learn to really play chess; this is a good life.
She had said these words to herself each day since she returned to Michigan, but today, she actually believed them, at least for this moment.
As she looked at the green house, she began to get the feeling that someone was looking back at her. She looked harder, and yes, there it was: at the edge of the balcony, crouched on a short chair or perhaps a stool, was the distant figure she remembered from the summer, staring at her from far across the lake.
She continued staring for a moment, wondering if the person could see her. He moved a little, tightening his arms around his body, she thought, but his gaze did not waver. She realized how uneven their staring contest was; he was barely visible between the sweeping pine branches, while she was unobscured on a flat lawn. She wondered how long he had been watching, whether he had seen her doing such a horrible job on her forms, her feet numb and unstable on the cold earth, her hands too frozen to make proper fists. Embarrassed, she turned and walked back into the house, making a point of not looking behind her as she stepped through the door.
But once she was inside, she still had the feeling that she was being watched. She finished her forms in the living room, imagining what Master Park would say about her cramped movements as she worked within the limitations of the enclosed space, trying not to kick the sofa or the end table. As she ate her usual lunch of toast and peanut butter, she almost went back to make a second helping, but something stopped her, and she decided that one serving was enough.
She was antsy all afternoon, counting the hours until she could train again, even though she had been at the school only fifteen hours before. She had felt this way all week since returning to Michigan; it was like her body was trying to make up all of the exercise she had missed during her nine days in Los Angeles. She wanted to pull on her sneakers and go for a run, but she knew that was a silly idea; it would be better to save her energy for class. She forced herself to sit still and read the final chapters of The Meaningful Endgame.
When she finally arrived early for the intermediate/advanced class that night, she felt like skipping through the front door. Instead she calmly placed her bag and shoes in a cubby by the front window and made her way to the side of the room to stretch. She had half an hour until the class started, plenty of time for a nice, long warm-up.
As she lowered herself into a forward split, she heard Master Park call her name. She looked up, and saw him standing just in front of the screen in the back. He folded his hand twice, beckoning her to follow, then disappeared behind the screen.
“What now?” Jen whispered to herself, although no one had asked anything of her all day. She didn’t want to be interrupted from her stretching; she had just been thinking how wonderful the position felt, how eager she was to use all that range from her stretched-out hamstrings to kick high in the air. She sighed, lifted herself from the floor, and followed Master Park into the back room.
“Hi,” she said as she walked through the door to the living room in back of the school. Master Park was sitting at the table, staring at the bookshelf.
“I need you to do something,” he said, without looking up at her.
“Okay,” said Jen, trying not to get frustrated by his complete lack of urgency. Time to warm up for class, she thought, trying to project this idea into his mind.
He continued to survey the bookshelf with the passive calm of somebody browsing a bookstore for a fun summer read. Finally he reached into the middle shelf. “You should read this book,” he said, handing her a small red paperback. The New Aggressive Male. She remembered the title. It was the book Rob had been reading, the one that was encouraging him to want to win his fights more, but was also making him cheat on his girlfriend.
Was this what Master Park had called her back here for? Couldn’t this have waited until their post-class chess lesson? She held the book disdainfully in two hands, between her thumbs and index fingers.
“You think this will improve my taekwondo?” she asked.
“Hm, I don’t know,” said Master Park, as though this thought had not occurred to him. “Maybe.”
Jen looked at him expectantly, waiting for further explanation.
“I think it will improve your chess,” he said.
“Chess?” Jen repeatedly dumbly. She knew that Master Park wanted her to be more aggressive in her chess playing—but she had assumed that this was supposed to translate into her taekwondo. It hadn’t ever occurred to her that might be teaching her chess as an ends in itself.
“I think you should start playing chess at the Snail Plant,” Master Park said. “I go Saturday afternoons, in the courtyard. But you’ll need to improve your game a little first. The guys over there are pretty competitive.”
The courtyard, she thought, forgetting her hurry for a moment. She remembered the taekwondo class she had spied on there, how she had brought Rob to watch, how he had introduced her to Master Park. She thought about what the Snail Plant had symbolized to her then—the intrigue of a strange new town that was a cipher to her, a puzzle to solve. She hadn’t been back there since, called off the investigation as soon as she found something better to occupy her time. That place was too unreal, Jen thought, with that fortress-like exterior, those high, pink walls, the men with funny names that seemed to proliferate around it: Nicolai Snail, Ozzy Osterberg, even Vanto Hatch.
She suddenly felt a strong wave of dread at the thought of going back there. After all, hadn’t she left Los Angeles to get away from that sort of unreality, to find something more substantial, tangible, something that meant exactly what it seemed to mean and nothing more? And hadn’t she found it?
Calm down, she told herself; it’s just a place. A place to play chess. She shook her head and looked down at the book in her hands.
“Okay, I’ll read it,” said Jen, turning towards the door. “I just finished the endgame book, so it’s good timing.”
“Wait,” said Master Park, as she tried to leave. She stopped and turned around.
“I still need you to do something,” he said.
“Oh, right,” she said. She had assumed that reading the book and going to the Snail Plant were the somethings he had been referring to when he had called her into the back room.
“I need you to train the new girl.”
Jen tried not show her surprise, but she could feel her eyebrows rise. Only the top students trained the new people—usually Shane and Rob. Jen was still only a green belt. Of course, Shane was gone now, off to Ann Arbor with Brittany in time for their new semester to start at Eastern Michigan University. So maybe Master Park just needed a replacement, a new female trainer to set the female students at ease. Jen was now the most advanced woman in the school, she realized. Shane was gone—and wouldn’t be a woman for much longer at any rate. There were a handful of white and yellow-belted girls, most of whom had been there when Jen started training, but they barely ever came to class, and she had shot quickly past them.
“Okay,” said Jen. “When, tomorrow?” She was feeling anxious to wrap up this conversation so she could get back to her warm-up. She could hear Rob leading the beginners through their final set of push-ups and sit-ups out in the training room, and the advanced class would begin in less than ten minutes.
“No, now,” said Master Park. “She’s waiting by the front desk.”
“But the beginner’s class is almost over,” Jen said. “Do you want me to train her for ten minutes?”
“You can work with her during advanced class. She got confused and came at the wrong time; she got here right before you did. Just give her a first lesson, the beginning of the first form, roundhouse kick.”
“But I’ll have to miss class,” she said. She knew she shouldn’t complain, but she couldn’t help herself.
She knew as soon as she said it that she had made a grave mistake. Master Park looked straight at her, the edges of his mouth drooping grimly. “Some things are more important than class,” he said.
“Yes, I know,” said Jen, believing it in principle.
Out in the classroom, Jen scanned the room for the girl, looking for a college student. Instead she saw a woman close to her own age, perhaps in her early thirties, sitting in one of the folding chairs by the window.
Right, we’re all girls here, Jen thought, remembering how Master Park had so often referred to her and Shane as “you girls,” how Shane had talked about “that girl who knocked you out” to Jen.
Jen walked towards the woman, who rose to her feet. Jen sized her up quickly, comparing her to some of the other new woman she had seen at the school, most of whom had not stayed for more than a few weeks. The woman looked to be in decent if not exceptional shape, with some muscle tone visible in her arms and shoulders. She’s got to be doing some kind of exercise already, Jen said to herself. The woman’s skin shone with the healthy glow of someone well-nourished and hydrated; that was a good sign. Her hair was thick and dark, and Jen noted with approval that the woman had secured it into a plain, practical ponytail; that meant she wasn’t at the school just to meet a boyfriend, like some of the women who had come to class with their hair hanging unbound and well-combed, their faces full of makeup.
“Hi,” said the woman, beaming a large, familiar smile at Jen as she approached. “I’m Olivia.”
“I’m Jen.”
“I know,” said the woman, still smiling as she placed her hand in Jen’s and shook it firmly.
I guess she recognizes me, Jen thought, feeling startled; she hadn’t met any new people in a while, and she had gotten used to feeling anonymous in North Middleton.
But looking into the woman’s eyes, Jen had the feeling that she also recognized the woman, that they had met somewhere, not so long ago. Perhaps she had seen her around town; maybe she worked in the supermarket where Jen had been buying her food ever since she had stopped going to the co-op. She tried to imagine the woman working behind the cashier’s counter; the image didn’t seem to fit. But that’s was the only place she ever went in North Middleton—to the store and the academy. She scanned her memory—could she know the woman from Los Angeles?
She considered asking the woman if they had met before, but, thinking of how she had already gotten in trouble for not wanting to teach the student, she decided it was better to restrain herself from extraneous conversation that would distract from the lesson she was about to give.
Over by the mirrors where Shane—then Brittany—had given Jen her first lessons, Jen led Olivia through the opening of the first form.
“Good,” said Jen, meaning it, as Olivia confidently repeated her movements back to her. Watching her stomp and block and punch, Jen was impressed; there was no way Jen had looked half that good during her first lesson.
Likewise, Olivia’s first roundhouse kick felt surprisingly powerful on the pad that Jen held for her. Her hips pivoted well and her leg snapped out with a nice whipping motion.
“Have you done martial arts before?” Jen asked, realizing she should have asked this at the beginning of the lesson. I bet she did taekwondo as a kid, Jen told herself, or maybe kungfu or something. It was probably one of those things that never left your muscle memory, like running after a cab in high heels, which Jen had been pleased to discover she could still do during her visit to Los Angeles.
“No, never,” said the woman.
“You’re getting it very quickly,” said Jen. “Your form looks good and your kick is strong.”
“Well, I used to be a dancer when I was a teenager,” the woman said, slurring her words and looking towards the ground as she said it, as though wanting to avoid talking about herself. “So I guess it’s not too hard for me to copy your movements.”
Jen wanted to laugh from her surprise. It had never occurred to her that a dancer would have an advantage in learning to throw a roundhouse kick. The two arts seem diametrically opposed: dance was all about appearance and superficial things, whereas taekwondo was about power and fighting, and it didn’t matter how one looked.
But in the end, I suppose it’s all just movements, Jen thought. If you can do the movements, then you can throw a good kick. She imagined an army of ballerinas throwing round after round of perfect, pirouette-like roundhouse kicks.
“That’s amazing,” said Jen. “And you haven’t danced since you were a teenager?
“No, not at all,” said Olivia. “I’ve been too busy with,” she paused, interrupting herself. “Well, a lot of stupid things, really.”
“You look like you’re in good shape,” said Jen, noting again the definition of Olivia’s upper arms, more noticeable now that her muscles had been working. We should stop chatting, Jen thought, cursing herself for starting and continuing this conversation. She glanced around the room, hoping Master Park wasn’t watching them.
“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of yoga just recently,” Olivia said. “For the last couple of months.”
“Yoga?” Jen repeated, forgetting all about ending the conversation. “Where?”
“Pomegranate Yoga Studio,” said Olivia. “Have you heard of it?”
“No, I don’t know any yoga schools around here,” Jen said, a little embarrassed that she had given up her search so quickly after meeting Rob and Master Park. After that first taekwondo class, she had never bothered to even find out the names of any local schools. She marveled to think of her earlier yoga practice, how she used to go every day, even twice a day. She hadn’t done so much as a single sun salutation since she had arrived in North Middleton.
“So, let’s see that roundhouse kick again,” said Jen.
As the advanced students finished the isometric stretches that signaled the end of the class, Jen walked Olivia to the door. Seeing her in street clothes, a sweatshirt and puffy jacket, Jen was struck once again with how familiar she looked.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Jen finally asked.
“Yeah, we’ve met a few times,” Olivia said, looking down at her feet again, as she had done when she talked about dancing.
How could that be, Jen thought? She hadn’t met anyone in Michigan, at least not any women. The only people she had met were taekwondo students and people who worked in stores, and none of them had been named Olivia—she would remember a name like that.
“In Los Angeles?” Jen asked. That would make sense. It seemed like she had been introduced to thousands of people there, more of them forgotten than remembered.
“No,” said Olivia. “In Michigan.” She was still looking shyly at the floor.
“I’m sorry,” said Jen. “I don’t remember meeting an Olivia here.”
“Well, I don’t think we were formally introduced,” she woman said. “And Olivia is actually my middle name.”
“But where did we meet?” Jen asked, puzzled. The more Olivia talked, the more Jen was certain that they had met before, many times, that this woman had played some significant role in her life.
“At the food co-op,” said Olivia. “And then I saw you again at your tournament.”
“At the food co-op,” Jen repeated, the center of her consciousness now racing to catch up to something lingering around the edges.
A voice rang in her head, and it wasn’t Olivia’s. It was a man’s voice, a man with a funny accent, Australian, perhaps, or maybe from some very isolated part of the Bronx. And the voice was saying, “Bradley’s baby.” Yes, she could hear it clearly now: “Do you have any comment on Bradley’s baby?”
Jen gasped.
“Um…um…” Jen stuttered, dredging for the woman’s name. That reporter, the one who wrote that horrible tabloid article about her. What was her name?
“Lorna O. Lee?” she finally sputtered, unable to hide the disgust in her voice.
“Yes!” said Olivia, smiling in pleasant surprise. “I didn’t know you knew my name.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” said Jen, confused now. Why was this woman beaming at her, this woman who had written all manner of ridiculous lies about her, who was making her own wealth by slandering Jen’s name? Here she was, allowing Jen to make a fool of herself, showing her the opening of the first form, teaching her to throw a roundhouse kick. Here was this woman pretending to be a student, accepting this precious knowledge from Jen, the most important things that Jen knew. And for what—another story? Another insider exposé of Jen’s secret life?
The woman fell to the floor, and Jen looked down at her fist. It stung a little. She had just punched the reporter in the face.
Never hit a reporter, Jen thought dully, watching her clutch both hands over her right eye.
Chapter 34
Friday, March 5, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
32. The Intent to Be Lost
“The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”
—Elizabeth Bishop
“Oh my God,” Becky exclaimed, as Paula handed her the book across the table. “I didn’t know this was out yet.”
They were out at brunch a few days after the baby shower—Becky, Jen, Paula, and Paula’s mysterious new non-sexual romantic partner, whose name was Ex. Chase and Eduardo were supposed to be there, too, but Eduardo had caught a cold at the last minute and needed Chase to stay home and nurse him: “He hates being sick. He gets too lonely in bed all day by himself,” Chase had said to Jen on the phone as he apologized for missing brunch.
“It’s not out,” said Paula. “Ex had some connections so we got an advanced copy.”
“Thanks so much,” said Becky, a little more reserved as she addressed Paula’s androgynous lover. Ex nodded politely; so far, he or she didn’t seem to be much of a talker. Jen had met Ex briefly at the shower and now again today, but she still had no idea whether Ex was a man or a woman. Becky didn’t know, either: “When I asked Paula, she just said, ‘Ex doesn’t have a gender,’” Becky had said. “I tried to bug her about it, but she wouldn’t tell me anything more.”
Becky held the book up for Jen to see. Jen read the title as it floated between Becky’s bulging stomach and her beaming face.
The Deliberate Family.
“What is it?” Jen asked.
“It’s the new Groundbreakers book on parenting,” Becky said, with an enthusiasm that she hadn’t shown for any of the organic cotton blankets, designer baby clothes and fancy diapering gadgets she had received at the shower. “It’s supposed to be all about making conscious choices about your interaction with your child, instead of just doing whatever comes into your head.”
“So they think you should avoid being relaxed and acting naturally?” Jen asked. Becky scrunched her face up in rejection of this critique, then put the book down on the table so she could focus her attention back on the enormous plate of scrambled eggs in front of her.
“You might actually like this one,” Paula said to Jen. “It uses a lot of chess metaphors.”
“Chess?” Jen asked. “I thought Groundbreakers was all about construction and mining.”
“They’ve been switching up a lot lately,” Becky said. “They’ve been emphasizing competition as a theme.”
“Yeah, actually I had trouble understanding all the chess stuff,” Paula said, picking up the book and handing it to Jen. “I mean, I only skimmed through it; it probably explains more if you read the whole thing.”
Jen let the book fall open to a page in the middle. Her eyes landed on a familiar word, and she read aloud: “Zwischenzug.”
“What?” said Becky.
“It’s a chess strategy,” said Jen, trying to remember when she had seen it used. “I can’t exactly remember what the strategy is, though.”
“Does the book explain it?” Paula asked.
Jen scanned the page until she found a definition. She read the passage aloud. “In a zwischenzug, a player is in the position to capture a piece, but he delays capturing it. Instead, he makes other moves that strengthen his position and require his opponent’s immediate attention. He then goes on to capture the piece.”
Jen stopped, puzzled. She had seen that kind of strategy a number of times, but she couldn’t remember Master Park using that word; he never taught her technical chess terms. “When did I hear that?” she asked herself aloud. She remembered somebody inflecting it with the nasal diphthongs of the Midwest.
“I do something like that in tic-tac-toe,” Becky said. “No, I really do,” she added, when everyone ignored her comment except Paula, who laughed dismissively.
Jen shook her head, looked down at the page, and continued reading. “Psychologically, this maneuver is a show of force meant to frustrate and intimidate one’s opponent. It is like punching a man in the face, and then, as he lifts his arms to defend against further punches, kneeing him in the stomach. Then, as he doubles over, you punch him in the face once more.”
Jen looked up from the book again. “I’m curious how this will relate to parenting,” she said skeptically.
“Me too,” said Becky, her eyes widening with excitement. “This is great.”
“Experiment with this strategy in your own household,” Jen read. “When your child has violated your rules, do not punish him right away. Use the leverage of the situation to get him to do things that you want him to do.
“For example, imagine your child breaks something in the house—perhaps a lamp. You find the broken pieces that he has hidden in his room. Don’t play your move right away; hold on to the evidence for later. Now, you can begin to make suggestions: Why don’t you clean the bathroom? How about you take your little sister to the park? I think if we sold your video game consul, you could get a lot more homework done, don’t you?”
“Wow,” said Becky, clearly impressed. She had put down her fork so she could give her full attention to the passage Jen was reading.
“You can deploy these intermediate moves for several days, potentially up to a week,” Jen read. “When you sense that your child’s feelings of guilt and fear are beginning to subside, that is the moment to produce your evidence: show him the broken lamp, tell him that he will need to do chores to earn the money to buy a new lamp, along with extra chores as an interest payment for all the days that he did not tell you about his crime.”
“Brilliant,” said Becky.
“It’s good stuff, isn’t it?” Paula asked, pleased that her present was being received so well. Even Ex was smiling in peaceful approval as he or she nibbled his or her toast.
“I’ve been doing these Groundbreakers parenting meetings,” said Becky to Jen. “They’ve been talking about this kind of stuff, but no one can get the book yet.”
Jen closed the book and put it down on the table. Something had been bothering her about the analogy of chess to parenting. It had taken her a moment to figure out what it was; suddenly, it came to her. “Isn’t it kind of weird to think of your child as an opponent?” she asked.
“No, it’s not,” said Becky, her tone conveying that she had anticipated this counterargument, or, more probably, that her Groundbreakers advisors had. “But that’s what we’re taught to think as mothers, that it’s weird. That our child’s interests are identical to our own. It’s not true. Groundbreakers has been teaching me to recognize that I will have needs and desires that run counter to those of my child, and that our interaction will always be a negotiation of needs, goals, and interests.”
Jen had already tuned Becky out, as she always had whenever the Groundbreakers rhetoric got too heavy. She tried again to remember where she had heard the term “zwischenzug.”
“Oh, I remember who taught me that word,” said Jen. “It was Brittany.” She remembered the first time she had met Shane’s girlfriend, how she had seen the intermediate move that Jen had missed, the move that, it turned out, would force Master Park to move his pawn, creating an opening to set up a game-ending attack. Master Park had explained it to her later, and they had reviewed the strategy a number of times, though never again using that funny name.
“That’s the woman who was teaching you taekwondo, right?” asked Becky. “She plays chess, too?”
“No,” said Jen. “Actually it was her girlfriend.”
“They’re both named Brittany?” Becky asked. “Brittany and Brittany?”
“Well, they would have been,” Jen said, wondering how much to explain. “The first Brittany changed her name to Shane. I mean, his name.” The moment she corrected herself, she had the urge to cover her mouth with her hand, but it was too late; it was out. Jen had been working on referring to Shane by masculine pronouns during the last few weeks since she—he—had told Jen of his plan to change his gender. But she wished she had restrained her self-editing right now, so she wouldn’t have to explain.
“His name?” Becky asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Yeah, she’s going to become a guy,” Jen said, trying to sound nonchalant about it. She had remembered, mid-sentence, that she still had no idea of Ex’s gender status.
“Seriously?” asked Becky, her unconcealed surprise making Jen cringe as she thought of what Ex’s reaction might be. “She’s switching from a woman to a man? Why would you ever want to do that? I’ve never met anyone who went that direction before.”
“You’ve met people who went the other direction?” Jen asked. Until recently, she had been pretty familiar with all of Becky’s friends and acquaintances, at least by description. She hadn’t heard anything about a transgendered woman; it was the sort of thing she thought Becky would have mentioned.
“No,” Becky said. “I guess I haven’t.”
Jen tried to find Ex in her peripheral vision, hoping to gage his or her reaction to this line of conversation. As far as Jen could tell from this sidelong glance, Ex’s face appeared as calm and removed as ever, without any sign of tension in the pointed chin, large dark eyes, or prominent cheekbones.
“At least I’d heard of men becoming women, though,” Becky continued, apparently oblivious or unconcerned about Ex’s presence. “You always hear about men who used to be women; they’re all over the talk shows. I haven’t heard too much about the other way around. Well, unless,” she said, turning to look at Ex.
Oh, don’t ask him, or her, Jen commanded silently. Just let it go.
“Did you used to be…” Becky continued, waiting for Ex to finish the question for her.
Ex just looked at her expectantly, a small, polite smile on his or her face.
“I mean, are you…”
“Are you asking about Ex’s gender?” Paula asked, grabbing her lover’s arm protectively. “Ex doesn’t have a gender.”
“I have been both genders,” Ex said, in a voice that was both melodious and gruff. Jen could imagine it belonging to a surprisingly sensitive truck driver, or the singer in an all-female punk band, or a teenaged boy trying to sound older than he was. “I spent many years projected into the world through the prisms of both ‘male’ and ‘female.’”
Now Paula was surprised. “Really?” she asked. That’s love, Jen thought. Up until now, Jen had found it a bit annoying that Paula refused to explain Ex’s gender. But suddenly it seemed charming that Paula had taken Ex’s explanation at face value. Paula really believed that Ex was neither male nor female, without any further questioning of this impossible proposition, Jen realized.
“Of course,” said Ex. “I wasn’t always this neutral figure you see before you. In fact, if you had met me then, back in the days when I was a man or when I was a woman, you never would have recognized me as the person you see today.”
Looking at Ex, Jen believed this; she could not quite imagine the face as belonging to either a woman or a man. It blended both elements so perfectly that when Jen tried to imagine it as one gender, contradictory features popped up that made it appear more strongly the other. But if she imagined it as the other gender, then suddenly it reverted to the first one. It was like one of those drawings in which it is impossible to tell if a box is facing up or down, projecting out at the viewer or retreating backwards into the world of the drawing.
“I was very, very good at each gender,” said Ex. “Too good. People expected things of me, certain behaviors, attitudes. I felt that I was not fully myself; yet people were completely fooled. They used to fall in love with me, throw themselves at me, take off their clothes. People like when you are the paragon of what they expect you to be; it attracts them.”
Jen looked across the table to see how Becky was reacting to this arrogance; she appeared to be completely engrossed in Ex’s narrative and not at all resistant or skeptical. Remembering Becky’s friendly façade around Eduardo, Jen wondered if Becky liked Ex or simply tolerated him or her because of Paula.
“When I was a man, I was a brick wall,” Ex said. “People expected me to be rigid, unbending. Men puffed themselves up for battle when I stated a simple viewpoint or observation; women deferred to me, deftly reorganizing their opinions to mirror mine. It was disgusting to me, this unearned power. It made me nauseated.”
As Ex spoke about being a man, he seemed to grow into one before Jen’s eyes. The jaw solidified into squareness, the voice hit deep notes that were definitely more tenor than alto.
“The worst part of it was my job,” Ex said. “I worked in commodities trading.”
Paula looked over at him in surprise. “You never told me you knew about finance,” she said.
“I didn’t,” Ex said. “I still don’t, really.”
“But don’t you need to go to school for that kind of thing?” Becky asked. She herself had gotten a business degree in hopes, at the time, of getting a fancy financial job, though things hadn’t worked out that way.
“You would think so,” said Ex. “But no, I didn’t need to. I was living in Chicago, and I got a job filing papers in an office. All the traders liked me, thought I was ‘one of the guys.’ They were always inviting me out to drinks, complaining about their jobs, and I would chime in with my thoughts and ideas. And when one of them had a nervous breakdown and quit—they were always having nervous breakdowns at that office—they offered me his job.”
“That’s horrible!” Becky exclaimed. She had worked as an administrative assistant for several years after she completed her business degree, hoping to move up in the company, and though they interviewed her for several openings, she always lost out to someone with more experience, or a more advanced degree—and always a man.
“No offense,” she added. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”
“No, you’re right. It was horrible,” Ex said. “And yet, part of me liked it, craved the approval, puffing itself up to become all that people saw me as. My body was rigid, and my shoulders stiff in their broadness. I grew strong as an oak and stiff as one. I grew to see why the men at the office were so psychologically fragile. I felt that if I were pushed too hard, I would crack through my very core.”
A look of suffering crossed Ex’s face, as though something was piercing his stomach. He frowned for a moment, pushed his shaggy hair back from his forehead, his mouth conveying strength and anger and pain all at once.
If Jen had doubted Ex’s claim about attracting people, taken it as boastful pride, she believed it now. Even as Ex spoke about his discomfort with his masculinity, Jen felt the overwhelming desire to embrace him, to throw herself against his chest and be wrapped in his arms, to offer herself as a comfort in the face of the pain he described. She had to remind herself that this was Paula’s lover, and a person that Jen barely knew, to restrain herself from leaning in to kiss his unhappy mouth.
Then his face softened, so abruptly that Jen couldn’t place when it changed, though it had changed radically. She looked at Ex’s eyes; they appeared now to be clearly women’s eyes, Jen thought, shy and dark and secretive. Ex’s brow was too delicate, her eyelashes too graceful to belong to a man, it seemed now. So odd, Jen thought, when a moment ago she was a man, and I was so attracted to him.
“When I was a woman, I was soft like butter,” Ex said. “I was tasteful. I was polite. Nothing made me so uncomfortable as someone else’s discomfort, so I did all I could to comfort and appease those around me. I felt that I was melting, changing my shape all the time, molding myself to the expectations of other people.”
Ex cleared her throat and looked around the table, checking to see that everyone was still paying attention. Becky nodded encouragingly at her. “Go on,” she said.
“Men were always asking me on dates,” she said. “And I wasn’t interested in them, but I would go, because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. I sat through endless insufferable dinners, picking at my food because I didn’t like for the men to see me eating. I stopped answering my phone so that I wouldn’t have to refuse a second date.”
“What was your job when you were a woman?” Paula asked.
“Oh, nothing too notable,” said Ex. “I worked at a day care for a bit, and at an after-school program. Those jobs were only part-time; I did a little modeling, too, when I could get work. I lived in L.A. then. I never had any money. I bought everything with coupons, like an old lady, and I sometimes let men buy me clothes, but I hated doing that.”
Ex seemed to fold into herself as she recalled these difficult times; she pulled her knees up to her chest and shivered, despite the warm temperature in the restaurant. Her long bangs fell over her forehead, shading one eye, which only enhanced the brilliant green of the other eye, which Jen could swear was bordered in dark eyeliner.
Again, Jen felt the powerful desire to embrace Ex—to pull her close, to touch her hair, her face, to rip open the buttons of her shirt so she could touch the soft skin below them. A confusing set of conflicting emotions tore at her chest; she wanted to protect this fragile woman—but also to devour her.
What is wrong with me? Jen asked herself, rubbing her eyes to try to straighten out her vision. Paula’s lover, Jen said to herself, several times over, as a mantra, her eyes closed against the apparition.
“Did that explain everything?” Ex asked. Jen opened her eyes, and Ex had returned to his or her previous state of optical illusion; the man and the woman were both gone.
“I have a question!” exclaimed Jen, with the poor manners of one who has just awakened from a trance. Then, realizing that the question she wanted to ask might very likely be perceived as rude, she added, “I mean, if you don’t mind.”
A look of fatigue, or annoyance even, passed over Ex’s eyes, and he sounded irritated when he spoke. “No, go ahead,” he said.
Oh no, Jen thought, horrified that she might have broken the fragile spell, that Ex would be angry with her. “Oh,” said Jen, feeling her face grow warm with embarrassment, “it was nothing.”
Ex’s face softened, and her voice grew softer, more patient. “No, it’s okay,” she said. “Really, that’s why I asked.”
“Oh, well,” said Jen, stumbling over her words in embarrassment. “Were you…I mean, which were you first, a man or a woman? I mean, a boy or a girl? Which one were you born as?”
She heard Paula breathe in sharply. Jen knew it was rude to ask, but she felt that she needed to know, that it would help her understand who this mysterious person sitting in front of her was.
“That is an interesting question,” Ex said.
“Really?” Jen asked, surprised. “I would think people asked you that all the time.”
“They do,” said Ex. “That’s what is interesting about it. I suppose people think that it means something.”
Now Jen really wished she hadn’t asked the question. But since she had, she decided to commit to it; after all, there was nothing wrong with being curious. Ex had told her a story, and she wanted more information about it.
“Well, doesn’t it mean something?” Jen asked.
“What do you think it means?” Ex replied.
Jen wanted to say, It means who you really are. But she knew that was the wrong answer. Growing up, her next-door-neighbors had been Mormons. The children, who were born into Mormonism, weren’t any more Mormon than their parents, who had converted. In fact, some might say that the parents were all the more Mormon because they had made a conscious choice to be so.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Jen. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I didn’t say that,” said Ex. “I just asked a question.” It was true, Jen thought; she had just assumed, for some reason.
“Which do you think I was born as?” Ex asked Jen.
Jen studied the lines of Ex’s face, the sharpness of the chin and soft curve of the cheekbones, the glowing brown skin showing no sign of an evening shadow.
“I have no idea,” Jen said.
“I sometimes forget, myself,” said Ex. “A girly boy, a boyish girl. Years pass, and it all begins to run together.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Paula, grabbing Ex’s arm and twining her own around it. “I bet you were adorable, either way.”
“I have a question,” said Becky. “Which way is sex better? As a man or a woman?”
“Becky!” said Paula sharply. Jen looked over at Becky, who, unlike herself, did not seem the least bit self-conscious about asking personal questions. It wasn’t in Becky’s nature to be shy, Jen thought, but this was pushing the boundaries of politeness even for her. It’s the pregnant-lady prerogative, Jen thought—they are allowed to be brutally honest, what with their own private business so publically on display for all to see.
Still, Jen thought, it seemed a particularly inappropriate question to ask an avowed celibate.
Ex didn’t seem annoyed at the question. “I didn’t like it either way,” Ex said. “It never made any sense to me.”
“You didn’t like sex?” Becky asked, incredulous. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
“Of course I didn’t like it,” Ex replied. “Why do you think I gave it up?”
“I thought it was some kind of spiritual thing,” said Becky.
“It is,” said Ex. “You know, perhaps I enjoyed sex at the time. All I remember now is that it made me crazy. It made me have connections to other people that were…” Ex paused to choose a word: “unhealthy.”
Becky nodded. “That makes sense,” she said. Jen noticed her absently rubbing her hand across her belly as she spoke.
“When I was unhappy with my gender, I thought another gender would make me happier, would be truer to myself,” Ex continued. “I was wrong.”
Ex turned and looked straight at Jen across the table.
“Remember that,” said Ex. “Tell your friend: if you don’t like your car, you could get a different one, but someday you will not like that one either. It is an endless cycle of neediness. I think you are better off to get rid of your car and just walk on your own plain feet.”
Chapter 33
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”
—Elizabeth Bishop
“Oh my God,” Becky exclaimed, as Paula handed her the book across the table. “I didn’t know this was out yet.”
They were out at brunch a few days after the baby shower—Becky, Jen, Paula, and Paula’s mysterious new non-sexual romantic partner, whose name was Ex. Chase and Eduardo were supposed to be there, too, but Eduardo had caught a cold at the last minute and needed Chase to stay home and nurse him: “He hates being sick. He gets too lonely in bed all day by himself,” Chase had said to Jen on the phone as he apologized for missing brunch.
“It’s not out,” said Paula. “Ex had some connections so we got an advanced copy.”
“Thanks so much,” said Becky, a little more reserved as she addressed Paula’s androgynous lover. Ex nodded politely; so far, he or she didn’t seem to be much of a talker. Jen had met Ex briefly at the shower and now again today, but she still had no idea whether Ex was a man or a woman. Becky didn’t know, either: “When I asked Paula, she just said, ‘Ex doesn’t have a gender,’” Becky had said. “I tried to bug her about it, but she wouldn’t tell me anything more.”
Becky held the book up for Jen to see. Jen read the title as it floated between Becky’s bulging stomach and her beaming face.
The Deliberate Family.
“What is it?” Jen asked.
“It’s the new Groundbreakers book on parenting,” Becky said, with an enthusiasm that she hadn’t shown for any of the organic cotton blankets, designer baby clothes and fancy diapering gadgets she had received at the shower. “It’s supposed to be all about making conscious choices about your interaction with your child, instead of just doing whatever comes into your head.”
“So they think you should avoid being relaxed and acting naturally?” Jen asked. Becky scrunched her face up in rejection of this critique, then put the book down on the table so she could focus her attention back on the enormous plate of scrambled eggs in front of her.
“You might actually like this one,” Paula said to Jen. “It uses a lot of chess metaphors.”
“Chess?” Jen asked. “I thought Groundbreakers was all about construction and mining.”
“They’ve been switching up a lot lately,” Becky said. “They’ve been emphasizing competition as a theme.”
“Yeah, actually I had trouble understanding all the chess stuff,” Paula said, picking up the book and handing it to Jen. “I mean, I only skimmed through it; it probably explains more if you read the whole thing.”
Jen let the book fall open to a page in the middle. Her eyes landed on a familiar word, and she read aloud: “Zwischenzug.”
“What?” said Becky.
“It’s a chess strategy,” said Jen, trying to remember when she had seen it used. “I can’t exactly remember what the strategy is, though.”
“Does the book explain it?” Paula asked.
Jen scanned the page until she found a definition. She read the passage aloud. “In a zwischenzug, a player is in the position to capture a piece, but he delays capturing it. Instead, he makes other moves that strengthen his position and require his opponent’s immediate attention. He then goes on to capture the piece.”
Jen stopped, puzzled. She had seen that kind of strategy a number of times, but she couldn’t remember Master Park using that word; he never taught her technical chess terms. “When did I hear that?” she asked herself aloud. She remembered somebody inflecting it with the nasal diphthongs of the Midwest.
“I do something like that in tic-tac-toe,” Becky said. “No, I really do,” she added, when everyone ignored her comment except Paula, who laughed dismissively.
Jen shook her head, looked down at the page, and continued reading. “Psychologically, this maneuver is a show of force meant to frustrate and intimidate one’s opponent. It is like punching a man in the face, and then, as he lifts his arms to defend against further punches, kneeing him in the stomach. Then, as he doubles over, you punch him in the face once more.”
Jen looked up from the book again. “I’m curious how this will relate to parenting,” she said skeptically.
“Me too,” said Becky, her eyes widening with excitement. “This is great.”
“Experiment with this strategy in your own household,” Jen read. “When your child has violated your rules, do not punish him right away. Use the leverage of the situation to get him to do things that you want him to do.
“For example, imagine your child breaks something in the house—perhaps a lamp. You find the broken pieces that he has hidden in his room. Don’t play your move right away; hold on to the evidence for later. Now, you can begin to make suggestions: Why don’t you clean the bathroom? How about you take your little sister to the park? I think if we sold your video game consul, you could get a lot more homework done, don’t you?”
“Wow,” said Becky, clearly impressed. She had put down her fork so she could give her full attention to the passage Jen was reading.
“You can deploy these intermediate moves for several days, potentially up to a week,” Jen read. “When you sense that your child’s feelings of guilt and fear are beginning to subside, that is the moment to produce your evidence: show him the broken lamp, tell him that he will need to do chores to earn the money to buy a new lamp, along with extra chores as an interest payment for all the days that he did not tell you about his crime.”
“Brilliant,” said Becky.
“It’s good stuff, isn’t it?” Paula asked, pleased that her present was being received so well. Even Ex was smiling in peaceful approval as he or she nibbled his or her toast.
“I’ve been doing these Groundbreakers parenting meetings,” said Becky to Jen. “They’ve been talking about this kind of stuff, but no one can get the book yet.”
Jen closed the book and put it down on the table. Something had been bothering her about the analogy of chess to parenting. It had taken her a moment to figure out what it was; suddenly, it came to her. “Isn’t it kind of weird to think of your child as an opponent?” she asked.
“No, it’s not,” said Becky, her tone conveying that she had anticipated this counterargument, or, more probably, that her Groundbreakers advisors had. “But that’s what we’re taught to think as mothers, that it’s weird. That our child’s interests are identical to our own. It’s not true. Groundbreakers has been teaching me to recognize that I will have needs and desires that run counter to those of my child, and that our interaction will always be a negotiation of needs, goals, and interests.”
Jen had already tuned Becky out, as she always had whenever the Groundbreakers rhetoric got too heavy. She tried again to remember where she had heard the term “zwischenzug.”
“Oh, I remember who taught me that word,” said Jen. “It was Brittany.” She remembered the first time she had met Shane’s girlfriend, how she had seen the intermediate move that Jen had missed, the move that, it turned out, would force Master Park to move his pawn, creating an opening to set up a game-ending attack. Master Park had explained it to her later, and they had reviewed the strategy a number of times, though never again using that funny name.
“That’s the woman who was teaching you taekwondo, right?” asked Becky. “She plays chess, too?”
“No,” said Jen. “Actually it was her girlfriend.”
“They’re both named Brittany?” Becky asked. “Brittany and Brittany?”
“Well, they would have been,” Jen said, wondering how much to explain. “The first Brittany changed her name to Shane. I mean, his name.” The moment she corrected herself, she had the urge to cover her mouth with her hand, but it was too late; it was out. Jen had been working on referring to Shane by masculine pronouns during the last few weeks since she—he—had told Jen of his plan to change his gender. But she wished she had restrained her self-editing right now, so she wouldn’t have to explain.
“His name?” Becky asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Yeah, she’s going to become a guy,” Jen said, trying to sound nonchalant about it. She had remembered, mid-sentence, that she still had no idea of Ex’s gender status.
“Seriously?” asked Becky, her unconcealed surprise making Jen cringe as she thought of what Ex’s reaction might be. “She’s switching from a woman to a man? Why would you ever want to do that? I’ve never met anyone who went that direction before.”
“You’ve met people who went the other direction?” Jen asked. Until recently, she had been pretty familiar with all of Becky’s friends and acquaintances, at least by description. She hadn’t heard anything about a transgendered woman; it was the sort of thing she thought Becky would have mentioned.
“No,” Becky said. “I guess I haven’t.”
Jen tried to find Ex in her peripheral vision, hoping to gage his or her reaction to this line of conversation. As far as Jen could tell from this sidelong glance, Ex’s face appeared as calm and removed as ever, without any sign of tension in the pointed chin, large dark eyes, or prominent cheekbones.
“At least I’d heard of men becoming women, though,” Becky continued, apparently oblivious or unconcerned about Ex’s presence. “You always hear about men who used to be women; they’re all over the talk shows. I haven’t heard too much about the other way around. Well, unless,” she said, turning to look at Ex.
Oh, don’t ask him, or her, Jen commanded silently. Just let it go.
“Did you used to be…” Becky continued, waiting for Ex to finish the question for her.
Ex just looked at her expectantly, a small, polite smile on his or her face.
“I mean, are you…”
“Are you asking about Ex’s gender?” Paula asked, grabbing her lover’s arm protectively. “Ex doesn’t have a gender.”
“I have been both genders,” Ex said, in a voice that was both melodious and gruff. Jen could imagine it belonging to a surprisingly sensitive truck driver, or the singer in an all-female punk band, or a teenaged boy trying to sound older than he was. “I spent many years projected into the world through the prisms of both ‘male’ and ‘female.’”
Now Paula was surprised. “Really?” she asked. That’s love, Jen thought. Up until now, Jen had found it a bit annoying that Paula refused to explain Ex’s gender. But suddenly it seemed charming that Paula had taken Ex’s explanation at face value. Paula really believed that Ex was neither male nor female, without any further questioning of this impossible proposition, Jen realized.
“Of course,” said Ex. “I wasn’t always this neutral figure you see before you. In fact, if you had met me then, back in the days when I was a man or when I was a woman, you never would have recognized me as the person you see today.”
Looking at Ex, Jen believed this; she could not quite imagine the face as belonging to either a woman or a man. It blended both elements so perfectly that when Jen tried to imagine it as one gender, contradictory features popped up that made it appear more strongly the other. But if she imagined it as the other gender, then suddenly it reverted to the first one. It was like one of those drawings in which it is impossible to tell if a box is facing up or down, projecting out at the viewer or retreating backwards into the world of the drawing.
“I was very, very good at each gender,” said Ex. “Too good. People expected things of me, certain behaviors, attitudes. I felt that I was not fully myself; yet people were completely fooled. They used to fall in love with me, throw themselves at me, take off their clothes. People like when you are the paragon of what they expect you to be; it attracts them.”
Jen looked across the table to see how Becky was reacting to this arrogance; she appeared to be completely engrossed in Ex’s narrative and not at all resistant or skeptical. Remembering Becky’s friendly façade around Eduardo, Jen wondered if Becky liked Ex or simply tolerated him or her because of Paula.
“When I was a man, I was a brick wall,” Ex said. “People expected me to be rigid, unbending. Men puffed themselves up for battle when I stated a simple viewpoint or observation; women deferred to me, deftly reorganizing their opinions to mirror mine. It was disgusting to me, this unearned power. It made me nauseated.”
As Ex spoke about being a man, he seemed to grow into one before Jen’s eyes. The jaw solidified into squareness, the voice hit deep notes that were definitely more tenor than alto.
“The worst part of it was my job,” Ex said. “I worked in commodities trading.”
Paula looked over at him in surprise. “You never told me you knew about finance,” she said.
“I didn’t,” Ex said. “I still don’t, really.”
“But don’t you need to go to school for that kind of thing?” Becky asked. She herself had gotten a business degree in hopes, at the time, of getting a fancy financial job, though things hadn’t worked out that way.
“You would think so,” said Ex. “But no, I didn’t need to. I was living in Chicago, and I got a job filing papers in an office. All the traders liked me, thought I was ‘one of the guys.’ They were always inviting me out to drinks, complaining about their jobs, and I would chime in with my thoughts and ideas. And when one of them had a nervous breakdown and quit—they were always having nervous breakdowns at that office—they offered me his job.”
“That’s horrible!” Becky exclaimed. She had worked as an administrative assistant for several years after she completed her business degree, hoping to move up in the company, and though they interviewed her for several openings, she always lost out to someone with more experience, or a more advanced degree—and always a man.
“No offense,” she added. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”
“No, you’re right. It was horrible,” Ex said. “And yet, part of me liked it, craved the approval, puffing itself up to become all that people saw me as. My body was rigid, and my shoulders stiff in their broadness. I grew strong as an oak and stiff as one. I grew to see why the men at the office were so psychologically fragile. I felt that if I were pushed too hard, I would crack through my very core.”
A look of suffering crossed Ex’s face, as though something was piercing his stomach. He frowned for a moment, pushed his shaggy hair back from his forehead, his mouth conveying strength and anger and pain all at once.
If Jen had doubted Ex’s claim about attracting people, taken it as boastful pride, she believed it now. Even as Ex spoke about his discomfort with his masculinity, Jen felt the overwhelming desire to embrace him, to throw herself against his chest and be wrapped in his arms, to offer herself as a comfort in the face of the pain he described. She had to remind herself that this was Paula’s lover, and a person that Jen barely knew, to restrain herself from leaning in to kiss his unhappy mouth.
Then his face softened, so abruptly that Jen couldn’t place when it changed, though it had changed radically. She looked at Ex’s eyes; they appeared now to be clearly women’s eyes, Jen thought, shy and dark and secretive. Ex’s brow was too delicate, her eyelashes too graceful to belong to a man, it seemed now. So odd, Jen thought, when a moment ago she was a man, and I was so attracted to him.
“When I was a woman, I was soft like butter,” Ex said. “I was tasteful. I was polite. Nothing made me so uncomfortable as someone else’s discomfort, so I did all I could to comfort and appease those around me. I felt that I was melting, changing my shape all the time, molding myself to the expectations of other people.”
Ex cleared her throat and looked around the table, checking to see that everyone was still paying attention. Becky nodded encouragingly at her. “Go on,” she said.
“Men were always asking me on dates,” she said. “And I wasn’t interested in them, but I would go, because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. I sat through endless insufferable dinners, picking at my food because I didn’t like for the men to see me eating. I stopped answering my phone so that I wouldn’t have to refuse a second date.”
“What was your job when you were a woman?” Paula asked.
“Oh, nothing too notable,” said Ex. “I worked at a day care for a bit, and at an after-school program. Those jobs were only part-time; I did a little modeling, too, when I could get work. I lived in L.A. then. I never had any money. I bought everything with coupons, like an old lady, and I sometimes let men buy me clothes, but I hated doing that.”
Ex seemed to fold into herself as she recalled these difficult times; she pulled her knees up to her chest and shivered, despite the warm temperature in the restaurant. Her long bangs fell over her forehead, shading one eye, which only enhanced the brilliant green of the other eye, which Jen could swear was bordered in dark eyeliner.
Again, Jen felt the powerful desire to embrace Ex—to pull her close, to touch her hair, her face, to rip open the buttons of her shirt so she could touch the soft skin below them. A confusing set of conflicting emotions tore at her chest; she wanted to protect this fragile woman—but also to devour her.
What is wrong with me? Jen asked herself, rubbing her eyes to try to straighten out her vision. Paula’s lover, Jen said to herself, several times over, as a mantra, her eyes closed against the apparition.
“Did that explain everything?” Ex asked. Jen opened her eyes, and Ex had returned to his or her previous state of optical illusion; the man and the woman were both gone.
“I have a question!” exclaimed Jen, with the poor manners of one who has just awakened from a trance. Then, realizing that the question she wanted to ask might very likely be perceived as rude, she added, “I mean, if you don’t mind.”
A look of fatigue, or annoyance even, passed over Ex’s eyes, and he sounded irritated when he spoke. “No, go ahead,” he said.
Oh no, Jen thought, horrified that she might have broken the fragile spell, that Ex would be angry with her. “Oh,” said Jen, feeling her face grow warm with embarrassment, “it was nothing.”
Ex’s face softened, and her voice grew softer, more patient. “No, it’s okay,” she said. “Really, that’s why I asked.”
“Oh, well,” said Jen, stumbling over her words in embarrassment. “Were you…I mean, which were you first, a man or a woman? I mean, a boy or a girl? Which one were you born as?”
She heard Paula breathe in sharply. Jen knew it was rude to ask, but she felt that she needed to know, that it would help her understand who this mysterious person sitting in front of her was.
“That is an interesting question,” Ex said.
“Really?” Jen asked, surprised. “I would think people asked you that all the time.”
“They do,” said Ex. “That’s what is interesting about it. I suppose people think that it means something.”
Now Jen really wished she hadn’t asked the question. But since she had, she decided to commit to it; after all, there was nothing wrong with being curious. Ex had told her a story, and she wanted more information about it.
“Well, doesn’t it mean something?” Jen asked.
“What do you think it means?” Ex replied.
Jen wanted to say, It means who you really are. But she knew that was the wrong answer. Growing up, her next-door-neighbors had been Mormons. The children, who were born into Mormonism, weren’t any more Mormon than their parents, who had converted. In fact, some might say that the parents were all the more Mormon because they had made a conscious choice to be so.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Jen. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I didn’t say that,” said Ex. “I just asked a question.” It was true, Jen thought; she had just assumed, for some reason.
“Which do you think I was born as?” Ex asked Jen.
Jen studied the lines of Ex’s face, the sharpness of the chin and soft curve of the cheekbones, the glowing brown skin showing no sign of an evening shadow.
“I have no idea,” Jen said.
“I sometimes forget, myself,” said Ex. “A girly boy, a boyish girl. Years pass, and it all begins to run together.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Paula, grabbing Ex’s arm and twining her own around it. “I bet you were adorable, either way.”
“I have a question,” said Becky. “Which way is sex better? As a man or a woman?”
“Becky!” said Paula sharply. Jen looked over at Becky, who, unlike herself, did not seem the least bit self-conscious about asking personal questions. It wasn’t in Becky’s nature to be shy, Jen thought, but this was pushing the boundaries of politeness even for her. It’s the pregnant-lady prerogative, Jen thought—they are allowed to be brutally honest, what with their own private business so publically on display for all to see.
Still, Jen thought, it seemed a particularly inappropriate question to ask an avowed celibate.
Ex didn’t seem annoyed at the question. “I didn’t like it either way,” Ex said. “It never made any sense to me.”
“You didn’t like sex?” Becky asked, incredulous. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
“Of course I didn’t like it,” Ex replied. “Why do you think I gave it up?”
“I thought it was some kind of spiritual thing,” said Becky.
“It is,” said Ex. “You know, perhaps I enjoyed sex at the time. All I remember now is that it made me crazy. It made me have connections to other people that were…” Ex paused to choose a word: “unhealthy.”
Becky nodded. “That makes sense,” she said. Jen noticed her absently rubbing her hand across her belly as she spoke.
“When I was unhappy with my gender, I thought another gender would make me happier, would be truer to myself,” Ex continued. “I was wrong.”
Ex turned and looked straight at Jen across the table.
“Remember that,” said Ex. “Tell your friend: if you don’t like your car, you could get a different one, but someday you will not like that one either. It is an endless cycle of neediness. I think you are better off to get rid of your car and just walk on your own plain feet.”
Chapter 33
Thursday, December 31, 2009
31. The Agent of Defeat
“It is important to understand that only rarely does the volume of stress defeat us; far more often the agent of defeat is insufficient capacity for recovery after the stress. Great stress simply requires great recovery.” —James E. Loehr
It was snowing in Michigan. Through the window of the airplane, Jen could see the white specks cutting a diagonal path across the dark pre-dawn sky as she arranged her books and carry-on bag for easy accessibility during the flight. The woman sitting in the window seat had boarded the plane already dressed for Los Angeles in a short skirt, her bare legs tightly crossed to protect her modesty. The cabin was chilly, and the woman hugged herself, rubbing her upper arms through her thin sweater.
Jen, who was always cold on airplanes, looked down at her own outfit: thick sweatpants that would serve as her pajamas in California, an old t-shirt, a giant, hooded sweatshirt. Even at the height of her fashion-consciousness, she had never dressed sexy when she traveled. She liked her airplane clothes to double as a blanket; once she got settled in, she would pull her hood up over her head, pull her arms inside the body of the sweatshirt, and try to sleep. Still, in years past, the sweatshirt would have been something more stylish: the top half of a matching designer terrycloth track suit, or perhaps a fashionably large cowl-necked sweater that she could sink her head down into while she slept and ignored the other passengers.
Usually flight attendants showered her with special attention, knowing that a complaint from her could get them fired. It had been years since she had flown without multiple inquiries as to her comfort: was she too warm, too cold, would she like more blankets, was she hungry, thirsty, did she need pills to sleep?
The male attendant on this flight seemed more interested in Jen’s short-skirted neighbor. “We have warm cookies,” he said to her, winking, looking right past Jen even as he handed her the warm face cloth that always marked the beginning of a flight in business class. “Let me know if you get hungry.”
Jen studied herself in the bathroom mirror as soon as she was allowed to rise from her seat. The flight attendant had looked right past her as though she were any one of the hundred anonymous passengers on the plane. Was she really so changed as to be unrecognizable? The dim, yellow light showed an athletic young woman whose muscular shoulders were apparent even under the bulk of sweatshirt. Her hair was still short; she had taken to cutting it herself, which she turned out to be reasonably skilled at. But this morning she hadn’t brushed it, so it clung to the side of her had in some places and stuck out at startling angles in others. She hadn’t bothered with dying it black after the first time. Without any coloring or highlights, it was the indistinctive color of dead leaves, a few shades darker than her face, which was still tawny from all the time she had spent practicing her forms outdoors before the weather had gotten too cold. Her jaw looked broad and strong, her eyes bright and focused below her messy hair.
She tried to remember what she had looked like before. It wasn’t so long ago—six months, she thought in awe, although it seemed like years—but she couldn’t get a clear image of herself with her long hair, her blonde highlights, her skinny limbs. All that came to mind were photographs from magazines, stylized images of exaggerated emotion: Jen looking sweet, looking angry, looking perturbed. Jen at her wedding, looking glamorous and happy. Jen after the divorce, tears streaming down her face, juxtaposed against a photo of Bradley rolling his eyes in exasperation.
No wonder the flight attendant didn’t recognize me, she thought, remembering the soft, sheltered look of her cheeks and neck in those photos, the frail femininity of her face. That sweet princess look was all gone now. It had been beaten out of her by six months of grueling workouts, of repeated blows to her face and body. And perhaps even more, by six months of life in a place where people didn’t care how she looked, where she hadn’t heard one comment, positive or negative, about her appearance, after so many years of constant scrutiny, cattiness, unsolicited opinions.
I look tough, she decided, pulling her sweatshirt hood up over her head and practicing mean fighter faces in the mirror until she remembered that there was a line of people waiting to use the restroom. It had been a relief not to always care about being pretty, about looking hot at this premier or that party, to know that her body was okay not because of how it appeared, but because of how hard and fast it could fly in and throw a kick at her opponent.
Back in her seat, though, doubt began to creep over her. She imagined how she would appear to her friends in Los Angeles, with her newly boyish physique, unkempt hair, and new secondhand wardrobe that had replaced her original clothing, which was not warm enough for winter and was all too small now at any rate. Her old shirts strained over her shoulders and biceps; her short skirts had gone from flirty to scandalous now that they barely covered her newly muscular behind.
Shane had taken her to the giant secondhand store where the college students shopped. There Jen had found plenty of cute and practical things to fit her new climate, physique, and lifestyle: multiple pairs of running pants with stripes down their legs, thick long-sleeve t-shirts that could be worn on sunny autumn days, warm hooded sweatshirts, a puffy vest that she loved because it fit so neatly over a sweatshirt for extra warmth. And just as it had gotten too cold for the vest, and she had begun to pile two and even three sweatshirts under it along with a scarf and hat and gloves, she had found a perfect winter coat, long, puffy, filled with down, and in a style that seemed to be fashionable amongst the college-student crowd; “Score!” Shane’s girlfriend Brittany had cooed after Jen found it hanging alongside rows of pilled pea coats and boldly-colored ski jackets.
They are going to laugh at me in Los Angeles, she realized, imagining her appearance from Becky, Paula, and Chase’s perspective. Was she going to attend Becky’s shower in secondhand sweatpants? Even her “nice” outfit, which she had remembered to stuff into her suitcase the moment before she left the lake house, the stretchy black pants and tailored tank top with a pretty Asian design on it, would appear to her friends as hardly more than a glorified sweat suit. Yet in Michigan, this was as fancy as anyone she knew ever dressed. Of course, she still had several closets full of her old clothes at the house, she reminded herself, although they would be too small. Worse, she realized, they were over six months old, which meant that they would be laughably out of style.
Don’t think about it, she told herself, pulling her newest chess book from the seat-back pocket in front of her. It was the last in a series of three by Thomas Fo; The Meaningful Endgame, it was called.
By the time the flight arrived in Los Angeles, Jen was dreading the reaction she would receive from her friends when she met them in the airport. She could just imagine Chase eyeing her hair skeptically, telling her not to worry, that something could be done to salvage it.
But as she passed the security gate, only Becky was waiting for her. Jen could see her from a distance, staring into the crowd of arriving passengers. She looked remarkably unchanged for a woman who was eight months pregnant. Her trim figure was barely altered, except for the large, round belly filling out her stretchy tunic. As Jen walked up to her, she saw that her face still bore the same combination of girlishness and shrewdness that it always had, except with a bit of added rosiness in the cheeks, and tired-looking crinkles around the eyes that Jen did not remember having seen before.
Becky looked at her blankly for a moment before her face lit up with recognition. “Oh, hi!” she said, reaching out to enclose Jen in a warm, tight hug. Jen hugged her back, marveling that this pregnant lady who she could barely fit her arms around was her best friend of so many years.
“I can’t believe you’re pregnant,” Jen said. “You look just the same.” She realized too late that her statement invited commentary about her own changed appearance.
“So do you,” said Becky, automatically, before determining that her statement was too obviously false to stand unedited. “I mean, you look different, actually.”
“I’ve been working out a lot,” said Jen, trying to smooth over the awkwardness she had caused by bringing up this topic.
“Yeah, I can tell,” Becky said. “You look…” She paused to find a word. “Strong,” she decided.
Jen wasn’t sure if this was a compliment, directed at a woman in Los Angeles, but she decided to take it as one. “Thanks,” she said.
“So it’s just you?” Jen asked, as they walked towards the luggage claim.
“What do you mean?” said Becky.
“I thought Paula and Chase would be with you,” Jen said.
“We’re going to meet Chase for dinner,” Becky said. “Paula won’t be back for a few days, though. She’s on a retreat.”
“What kind of retreat?” Jen asked.
“I don’t know, some kind of sex cult,” Becky said.
“I thought she was celibate.”
“Oh, she’s celibate,” said Becky, her tone indicating that this had been a frequent topic of conversation. “But she’s into this tantric thing now. She’s got this new partner and I guess they’re into this tantric non-penetrative intercourse thing.”
“Partner?” Jen asked. “Is it a guy or a girl?”
“Well,” said Becky, “That’s kind of complicated.”
Normally, Jen would have found this response mysterious, but now that she had been hearing all about Shane’s intended transition from female to male, she understood the general idea without further questioning. She could find out the specifics from Paula when she returned.
Back at the house, Becky helped Jen find a suitable outfit for dinner. “I think this shirt will fit,” she said, pulling a sheer striped blouse from the closet. “It was a little big on you before.”
Jen tried it on and shrugged; “It’s fine,” she said, but Becky wrinkled her nose and began fussing with the sleeves, which were bunching awkwardly over her upper arms.
It was nice to spend time with Becky in the house like this, Jen thought. Despite her initial hesitance to break from her training schedule, once the trip was arranged, she had actually been looking forward to it. Shane had stopped training altogether while she got ready for her move to Ann Arbor, and the school was lonely without her. Jen realized that what had felt like a rich social life in North Middleton actually mainly consisted of her training sessions, plus an occasional evening at Shane’s apartment with her friends. Without Shane, Jen was only training with Master Park, either alone or in the advanced class, which consisted solely of college-aged men and Rob. Now, it was the thought of returning to Michigan, rather than the thought of leaving it, that was filling her with anxiety.
Once Jen had tried on half a dozen outfits and Becky had finally deemed one of them acceptable, Becky drove them to meet Chase for dinner. The restaurant used to be one of Jen’s favorites. It had everything she used to enjoy: tiny portions, fussy ingredients, minimalist-chic décor. It’s pretty, Jen thought, eyeing the concrete tables and pale blue glass lamps as she and Becky waited to be seated. But all the careful thought that had gone into the decorations seemed to her now like a waste of effort and resources. Why spend so much energy on all of these hand-made tables and bars and lamps? She knew this was a silly train of thought, that decorating was not a waste of energy any more than taekwondo or yoga or brushing one’s teeth. But she couldn’t stop thinking of all the more valuable things that could be accomplished rather than getting these decorations just right; that kind of attention to detail could lead someone to throw a perfect roundhouse kick, she thought, or open a homeless shelter, or find a cure for a horrible disease. Even the people in the restaurant seemed excessively thought-out in their casual-but-stylish clothing that clung to their bodies just so, as though they had all come directly from a photo shoot for a yoga supply catalogue.
“For four,” said Becky to the hostess, who took them to a concrete table in the corner, lit by a steel lamp hanging overhead like some kind of Spartan boom mike.
“Who’s the fourth?” Jen asked, as she sat down across from Becky.
“Chase’s boyfriend,” Becky said. “Eduardo.”
“Oh,” said Jen, surprised. She hadn’t heard anything about Chase having a boyfriend. She wondered how this detail would affect her vision of Becky and Chase’s perfect co-parenting situation.
“What’s he like?” Jen asked. She had no idea what sort of men Chase was attracted to. She envisioned him towering over a petite, feminine hairdresser, then dwarfed by a strapping leather daddy.
Before Becky could respond, Chase was walking towards the table, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man in a stylish olive suit. The man had the self-important air of an investment banking executive or advertising mogul. As they navigated between the tables she saw the man discreetly place his hand on Chase’s hip; if not for this small gesture, Jen would have assumed that this was not the boyfriend but some stranger on his way to the bathroom, the sort of stranger who had a trophy wife at home and a couple of buxom administrative assistant mistresses at work.
Becky and Jen stood to great them as they reached the table. Chase leaned in to give Jen a hug. He looked the same as ever, beaming handsomely in his casual-but-expensive designer sweater.
“Jen, this is Eduardo,” said Chase as he released her, smiling proudly as he looked his boyfriend up and down. The guy was pretty good-looking, Jen thought, in a kind of overly-put-together way that matched her feelings about the restaurant.
Eduardo leaned in and kissed her on one cheek and then the other before sitting on the seat next to her. “So nice to finally meet you,” he said. “I’ve heard so much.”
“Likewise,” said Jen, hoping her expression wouldn’t belie the fact that she hadn’t known of his existence until two minutes ago.
Eduardo reached across the table to Becky and laid his hand over her round stomach. “How’s our little mama?” he asked, giving her belly a rub.
Jen winced, expecting Becky to shake his hand off and offer some withering comment in reply, but she just smiled politely. “Pretty good,” she said. “Ready for baby to make her grand debut.”
“It’s a girl?” Jen asked. She hadn’t even thought to ask about the baby’s gender. That shows how disconnected I’ve been, she chastised herself.
“Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you?” Becky said. “I guess we really haven’t talked much.”
Jen wanted to ask more—what names was Becky thinking of? Had she been hoping for a girl or a boy? Was she going to dress the baby in pink or in more unconventional, unisex clothes? But Eduardo spoke first.
“Chase and I are so excited about the baby,” Eduardo said, as he pulled out the chair next to Jen, waited for Chase to sit, and then seated himself next to Becky. “I keep telling him how lucky we are that Becky is having a daughter for us. So many men have to adopt or get a woman to have a baby for them, and here we just stumbled into it. It’s a perfect way to get a baby, without any of the work.”
“I did some of the work,” Chase said.
“Oh, I forgot,” said Eduardo, patting Chase’s hand over the cold concrete table. “You are very manly.”
Jen looked over at Becky to see if she was troubled by this line of conversation, but Becky’s face was impassive as she studied the menu.
“Champagne!” said Eduardo, as the waitress appeared to take their drink order. “Something mid-priced, not too dry. We need to celebrate.”
“Should I bring four glasses?” the waitress asked.
“Three please,” said Eduardo. “None for mommy.”
“I’ll have a glass,” Becky interrupted. “One drink is okay.”
“And I don’t need one,” Jen added. “I haven’t been drinking.”
“Oh, champagne doesn’t count,” said Eduardo. “We’ll take three glasses.”
“I guess it counts for me,” Becky said in a quiet voice that it seemed only Jen, sitting directly across the table from her, could hear.
“You can have mine,” Jen mouthed to Becky as the waitress left.
His order completed, Eduardo turned sideways to face Jen. “So great to see you in person,” Eduardo said. “Chase and I just watched Love at Dawn.”
“Oh?” said Jen, not really wanting to talk about it. It was a big-budget tearjerker drama and it hadn’t received great reviews. She had played the lead’s troubled-but-insightful best friend. She had only done it for the money; it was right before the divorce, and she had felt worried about her finances.
“Not great casting,” he said. “I liked you better in Meeting Elizabeth. You’re not really cut out for dramatic roles.”
Jen wasn’t sure how to respond. Everyone agreed she was best suited for romantic comedies, from her old acting coaches to her former agent to Becky—but they didn’t usually tell her so bluntly, especially when she had just met them.
“Eduardo is a casting director,” said Chase. “He’s a total rock star, very in-demand. I need to book weeks in advance to get a date with him.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Eduardo, waving his hands to erase Chase’s words, as though they were floating in the middle of the table.
“Didn’t I schedule this dinner with your secretary?” Chase asked.
“Stop it,” said Eduardo, giving Chase’s hand a little slap.
“I want to hear about Jen’s fight,” Becky said. She turned to Eduardo and said, “Jen’s been in Michigan studying taekwondo.”
“That’s right, you told me that,” said Eduardo to Chase.
“She’s really good,” said Becky, despite the fact that she had never seen Jen fight or even train. “She practices every single day.”
“That’s fascinating,” said Eduardo. “So that was to study for a role?”
“No,” said Jen, annoyed to be returning to the subject of her movie career after Becky had so skillfully steered them away from it. “I’m taking a break right now.”
“The new look is interesting,” Eduardo continued, without seeming to have heard her response. “Different, but I’m into it. Kind of butch. I could see you playing something like a gym teacher. Or something military, like a chick in the army or something.”
“Oh, that would be so bad-ass,” said Chase. “Could you get her something like that?”
“Thanks, but I’m actually not looking for work,” Jen said.
“You know I can’t just ‘get’ people roles,” Eduardo said to Chase. “I mean, I could keep an eye out in case anything comes up.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Jen.
“Don’t mention it,” said Eduardo, giving her a little squeeze around her shoulders.
As they ate their healthy meals of sashimi and kale and frisée, Jen asked Chase and Eduardo where they had met.
“I had heard of Chase, of course, but we had never met in person. I called him in for the lead in this movie called For Better or For Hearse, and the first thing I thought when I saw him was that he was perfect.”
“So you’re doing a film?” Jen asked Chase. She knew he had been struggling for roles and hadn’t had work in a year or so. She was excited for him, though it seemed odd that Becky wouldn’t have mentioned it.
“No,” said Chase, shaking his head.
“Well, ultimately the director and I decided he wasn’t perfect for the role,” said Eduardo.
“Too old,” Chase said.
Jen expected Eduardo to contradict him, but instead he said, “Well, we did go with somebody a little younger and fresher.”
Jen turned to see Becky’s reaction, but Becky was still smiling pleasantly.
“But,” said Eduardo, “I mean I thought he was perfect in general. Perfect for me.”
“What did you like about him?” Jen asked, hoping to elicit some compliments to counteract Eduardo’s harsh words about Chase’s lack of youth and “freshness.”
“He’s so masculine, you know. So discreet. Just very typically male. I hadn’t met any guys in Hollywood like that.”
Jen was incredulous. Was he saying that the main thing he liked about Chase was that he didn’t seem gay? Jen turned to Becky, waiting for her to come to Chase’s defense, but she was smiling politely as she chewed her frisée. She looked at Chase; he was looking down at his sashimi as though it wasn’t him who was being talked about.
“And he has such a nice, dominant energy about him,” Eduardo continued. “The broad shoulders, the deep voice, the messy hair.” Eduardo reached across the table and cupped Chase’s chin in his hand. “That strong jaw.”
“You’re embarrassing me,” said Chase, blushing.
“It’s all true,” said Eduardo.
“So, Becky,” said Jen, unable to take any more of this. “Have you thought about names for the baby?”
“I like Tamlyn,” said Eduardo. “Very hip.”
For the rest of the meal, they discussed baby business: the shower, the ultrasounds, the due-date, Becky’s heartburn and sciatica. Eduardo offered his viewpoints liberally, while Chase quietly munched his dinner. Jen thought Eduardo’s involvement in the baby planning seemed awfully presumptuous, given that he couldn’t have been dating Chase for more than six months. But Becky seemed untroubled by his invasiveness, smiling at his suggestions, pleasantly answering his bold questions. As they parted ways in the parking lot, Becky gave Eduardo a hug goodbye before he climbed into the driver’s seat of Chase’s S.U.V. and drove them away. If Becky likes him, Jen thought, that’s what matters. Oh, and also if Chase likes him, she reminded herself.
When Jen lay down in her room that night, her bed felt like every bit of the several thousand dollars she had spent on it. She lay on top of the covers with the lights on, still in her dinner outfit, staring up at the tastefully painted ceiling. But as her back sank into the thick mattress, every inch cushioned yet supported, she found herself missing the ascetic plainness of the rickety single bed that she had been occupying for the last seven months. This feels like a hotel, she thought, stretching her arms above her head and wondering if she should read a bit more of her chess book or just get undressed and go to bed.
She heard footsteps in the hall, a knock at her door. “Hey, Jen,” Becky said, opening the door before Jen could respond.
“Come in,” said Jen, sitting up, but Becky had already entered the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. In her oversized pajamas, she looked more like a little girl than a grown, pregnant woman. She stared past Jen at the wall, chewing anxiously on her lip. She looks sad, Jen thought. She wondered if she was jealous of Chase’s relationship.
“You know what I was thinking of on the flight over here?” said Jen, hoping she could cheer Becky up. “That time we got caught shoplifting. Do you remember? We had to wait in that security office, and we were banned from the mall for life.”
Becky was still looking at the wall, unsmiling. Then she looked straight at Jen. “You need to move back,” she said.
“What?” Jen asked, startled.
“It’s time for you to move back,” Becky said. “You’ve been in Michigan for more than twice as long as you were supposed to. You were only supposed to go for the summer.”
“I know,” said Jen. She had hoped that no one had noticed her extended absence; she had been choosing to imagine that life in Los Angeles had been progressing smoothly without her. The revelation of Becky’s pregnancy had only confirmed her belief that Becky and Chase were getting along just fine without her, setting up an idyllic little life in which Jen would be nothing but a disruption.
“I’ll come back soon,” she said, and then, feeling bad about lying, added, “eventually.”
“It’s so lonely by myself here in the house,” Becky said. “This house is really huge for one person.”
“What about Chase?” Jen asked. “Doesn’t he keep you company?”
“Chase,” Becky repeated, spitting his name scornfully through her teeth. “I don’t get any time with Chase. He’s always with Eduardo.”
“You don’t hang out with both of them together?” Jen asked. “Eduardo made it sound like you were all one big happy family.”
“We are not one big happy family,” said Becky. “I can’t stand that guy.”
“Really?” Jen asked. “Why were you so nice to him at the restaurant?”
“I have to be nice to him,” Becky said, her voice pained. “Otherwise I’d never see Chase again.”
“Oh,” said Jen, relieved. “I am so glad you don’t like him! The way he was rubbing your stomach, it was just…” She paused to find the right words.
“Completely inappropriate,” Becky said.
Now Jen felt free to air all of the complaints she had suppressed during dinner. She shifted up on to her knees and began to laugh at the absurdity of their dinner conversation.
“I can’t believe he was trying to pick your baby’s name,” Jen said, laying her hand on Becky’s knee. It was hard to speak through her flood of relieved laughter. “Like it’s his baby. How long has he been dating Chase, a few months?”
“Five,” said Becky.
“And that thing with the champagne,” Jen said, catching her breath. “He acted like he was your doctor or something.”
“You need to move back,” Becky said, her solemn tone interrupting Jen’s waning hilarity. “You can do taekwondo here. There are schools in Los Angeles. I looked them up. There are at least thirty of them.”
Thinking of how her life in North Middleton was about to change, how lonely the academy would be without Shane, seeing how lonely and sad Becky was, Jen felt a strong wave of desire to say yes, to make Becky happy, to help raise the baby, to be with her friends. Moving back would fix everybody’s troubles all at once.
But she also knew that moving back would leave too much business unfinished. She hadn’t mastered anything she was working on: winning a fight, learning chess, even living in the Midwest.
Becky must have sensed her moment of weakness. “You’ll think about it?” she asked.
“I’ll think about it,” Jen said, and she wasn’t lying. She would think about it. She was pretty sure she would think about it all week, all through Becky’s baby shower, through evenings with Chase and Eduardo and Paula, and even as she packed her things again, drove to the airport, and got on the plane back to Michigan to resume what was now her life.
Chapter 32
It was snowing in Michigan. Through the window of the airplane, Jen could see the white specks cutting a diagonal path across the dark pre-dawn sky as she arranged her books and carry-on bag for easy accessibility during the flight. The woman sitting in the window seat had boarded the plane already dressed for Los Angeles in a short skirt, her bare legs tightly crossed to protect her modesty. The cabin was chilly, and the woman hugged herself, rubbing her upper arms through her thin sweater.
Jen, who was always cold on airplanes, looked down at her own outfit: thick sweatpants that would serve as her pajamas in California, an old t-shirt, a giant, hooded sweatshirt. Even at the height of her fashion-consciousness, she had never dressed sexy when she traveled. She liked her airplane clothes to double as a blanket; once she got settled in, she would pull her hood up over her head, pull her arms inside the body of the sweatshirt, and try to sleep. Still, in years past, the sweatshirt would have been something more stylish: the top half of a matching designer terrycloth track suit, or perhaps a fashionably large cowl-necked sweater that she could sink her head down into while she slept and ignored the other passengers.
Usually flight attendants showered her with special attention, knowing that a complaint from her could get them fired. It had been years since she had flown without multiple inquiries as to her comfort: was she too warm, too cold, would she like more blankets, was she hungry, thirsty, did she need pills to sleep?
The male attendant on this flight seemed more interested in Jen’s short-skirted neighbor. “We have warm cookies,” he said to her, winking, looking right past Jen even as he handed her the warm face cloth that always marked the beginning of a flight in business class. “Let me know if you get hungry.”
Jen studied herself in the bathroom mirror as soon as she was allowed to rise from her seat. The flight attendant had looked right past her as though she were any one of the hundred anonymous passengers on the plane. Was she really so changed as to be unrecognizable? The dim, yellow light showed an athletic young woman whose muscular shoulders were apparent even under the bulk of sweatshirt. Her hair was still short; she had taken to cutting it herself, which she turned out to be reasonably skilled at. But this morning she hadn’t brushed it, so it clung to the side of her had in some places and stuck out at startling angles in others. She hadn’t bothered with dying it black after the first time. Without any coloring or highlights, it was the indistinctive color of dead leaves, a few shades darker than her face, which was still tawny from all the time she had spent practicing her forms outdoors before the weather had gotten too cold. Her jaw looked broad and strong, her eyes bright and focused below her messy hair.
She tried to remember what she had looked like before. It wasn’t so long ago—six months, she thought in awe, although it seemed like years—but she couldn’t get a clear image of herself with her long hair, her blonde highlights, her skinny limbs. All that came to mind were photographs from magazines, stylized images of exaggerated emotion: Jen looking sweet, looking angry, looking perturbed. Jen at her wedding, looking glamorous and happy. Jen after the divorce, tears streaming down her face, juxtaposed against a photo of Bradley rolling his eyes in exasperation.
No wonder the flight attendant didn’t recognize me, she thought, remembering the soft, sheltered look of her cheeks and neck in those photos, the frail femininity of her face. That sweet princess look was all gone now. It had been beaten out of her by six months of grueling workouts, of repeated blows to her face and body. And perhaps even more, by six months of life in a place where people didn’t care how she looked, where she hadn’t heard one comment, positive or negative, about her appearance, after so many years of constant scrutiny, cattiness, unsolicited opinions.
I look tough, she decided, pulling her sweatshirt hood up over her head and practicing mean fighter faces in the mirror until she remembered that there was a line of people waiting to use the restroom. It had been a relief not to always care about being pretty, about looking hot at this premier or that party, to know that her body was okay not because of how it appeared, but because of how hard and fast it could fly in and throw a kick at her opponent.
Back in her seat, though, doubt began to creep over her. She imagined how she would appear to her friends in Los Angeles, with her newly boyish physique, unkempt hair, and new secondhand wardrobe that had replaced her original clothing, which was not warm enough for winter and was all too small now at any rate. Her old shirts strained over her shoulders and biceps; her short skirts had gone from flirty to scandalous now that they barely covered her newly muscular behind.
Shane had taken her to the giant secondhand store where the college students shopped. There Jen had found plenty of cute and practical things to fit her new climate, physique, and lifestyle: multiple pairs of running pants with stripes down their legs, thick long-sleeve t-shirts that could be worn on sunny autumn days, warm hooded sweatshirts, a puffy vest that she loved because it fit so neatly over a sweatshirt for extra warmth. And just as it had gotten too cold for the vest, and she had begun to pile two and even three sweatshirts under it along with a scarf and hat and gloves, she had found a perfect winter coat, long, puffy, filled with down, and in a style that seemed to be fashionable amongst the college-student crowd; “Score!” Shane’s girlfriend Brittany had cooed after Jen found it hanging alongside rows of pilled pea coats and boldly-colored ski jackets.
They are going to laugh at me in Los Angeles, she realized, imagining her appearance from Becky, Paula, and Chase’s perspective. Was she going to attend Becky’s shower in secondhand sweatpants? Even her “nice” outfit, which she had remembered to stuff into her suitcase the moment before she left the lake house, the stretchy black pants and tailored tank top with a pretty Asian design on it, would appear to her friends as hardly more than a glorified sweat suit. Yet in Michigan, this was as fancy as anyone she knew ever dressed. Of course, she still had several closets full of her old clothes at the house, she reminded herself, although they would be too small. Worse, she realized, they were over six months old, which meant that they would be laughably out of style.
Don’t think about it, she told herself, pulling her newest chess book from the seat-back pocket in front of her. It was the last in a series of three by Thomas Fo; The Meaningful Endgame, it was called.
By the time the flight arrived in Los Angeles, Jen was dreading the reaction she would receive from her friends when she met them in the airport. She could just imagine Chase eyeing her hair skeptically, telling her not to worry, that something could be done to salvage it.
But as she passed the security gate, only Becky was waiting for her. Jen could see her from a distance, staring into the crowd of arriving passengers. She looked remarkably unchanged for a woman who was eight months pregnant. Her trim figure was barely altered, except for the large, round belly filling out her stretchy tunic. As Jen walked up to her, she saw that her face still bore the same combination of girlishness and shrewdness that it always had, except with a bit of added rosiness in the cheeks, and tired-looking crinkles around the eyes that Jen did not remember having seen before.
Becky looked at her blankly for a moment before her face lit up with recognition. “Oh, hi!” she said, reaching out to enclose Jen in a warm, tight hug. Jen hugged her back, marveling that this pregnant lady who she could barely fit her arms around was her best friend of so many years.
“I can’t believe you’re pregnant,” Jen said. “You look just the same.” She realized too late that her statement invited commentary about her own changed appearance.
“So do you,” said Becky, automatically, before determining that her statement was too obviously false to stand unedited. “I mean, you look different, actually.”
“I’ve been working out a lot,” said Jen, trying to smooth over the awkwardness she had caused by bringing up this topic.
“Yeah, I can tell,” Becky said. “You look…” She paused to find a word. “Strong,” she decided.
Jen wasn’t sure if this was a compliment, directed at a woman in Los Angeles, but she decided to take it as one. “Thanks,” she said.
“So it’s just you?” Jen asked, as they walked towards the luggage claim.
“What do you mean?” said Becky.
“I thought Paula and Chase would be with you,” Jen said.
“We’re going to meet Chase for dinner,” Becky said. “Paula won’t be back for a few days, though. She’s on a retreat.”
“What kind of retreat?” Jen asked.
“I don’t know, some kind of sex cult,” Becky said.
“I thought she was celibate.”
“Oh, she’s celibate,” said Becky, her tone indicating that this had been a frequent topic of conversation. “But she’s into this tantric thing now. She’s got this new partner and I guess they’re into this tantric non-penetrative intercourse thing.”
“Partner?” Jen asked. “Is it a guy or a girl?”
“Well,” said Becky, “That’s kind of complicated.”
Normally, Jen would have found this response mysterious, but now that she had been hearing all about Shane’s intended transition from female to male, she understood the general idea without further questioning. She could find out the specifics from Paula when she returned.
Back at the house, Becky helped Jen find a suitable outfit for dinner. “I think this shirt will fit,” she said, pulling a sheer striped blouse from the closet. “It was a little big on you before.”
Jen tried it on and shrugged; “It’s fine,” she said, but Becky wrinkled her nose and began fussing with the sleeves, which were bunching awkwardly over her upper arms.
It was nice to spend time with Becky in the house like this, Jen thought. Despite her initial hesitance to break from her training schedule, once the trip was arranged, she had actually been looking forward to it. Shane had stopped training altogether while she got ready for her move to Ann Arbor, and the school was lonely without her. Jen realized that what had felt like a rich social life in North Middleton actually mainly consisted of her training sessions, plus an occasional evening at Shane’s apartment with her friends. Without Shane, Jen was only training with Master Park, either alone or in the advanced class, which consisted solely of college-aged men and Rob. Now, it was the thought of returning to Michigan, rather than the thought of leaving it, that was filling her with anxiety.
Once Jen had tried on half a dozen outfits and Becky had finally deemed one of them acceptable, Becky drove them to meet Chase for dinner. The restaurant used to be one of Jen’s favorites. It had everything she used to enjoy: tiny portions, fussy ingredients, minimalist-chic décor. It’s pretty, Jen thought, eyeing the concrete tables and pale blue glass lamps as she and Becky waited to be seated. But all the careful thought that had gone into the decorations seemed to her now like a waste of effort and resources. Why spend so much energy on all of these hand-made tables and bars and lamps? She knew this was a silly train of thought, that decorating was not a waste of energy any more than taekwondo or yoga or brushing one’s teeth. But she couldn’t stop thinking of all the more valuable things that could be accomplished rather than getting these decorations just right; that kind of attention to detail could lead someone to throw a perfect roundhouse kick, she thought, or open a homeless shelter, or find a cure for a horrible disease. Even the people in the restaurant seemed excessively thought-out in their casual-but-stylish clothing that clung to their bodies just so, as though they had all come directly from a photo shoot for a yoga supply catalogue.
“For four,” said Becky to the hostess, who took them to a concrete table in the corner, lit by a steel lamp hanging overhead like some kind of Spartan boom mike.
“Who’s the fourth?” Jen asked, as she sat down across from Becky.
“Chase’s boyfriend,” Becky said. “Eduardo.”
“Oh,” said Jen, surprised. She hadn’t heard anything about Chase having a boyfriend. She wondered how this detail would affect her vision of Becky and Chase’s perfect co-parenting situation.
“What’s he like?” Jen asked. She had no idea what sort of men Chase was attracted to. She envisioned him towering over a petite, feminine hairdresser, then dwarfed by a strapping leather daddy.
Before Becky could respond, Chase was walking towards the table, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man in a stylish olive suit. The man had the self-important air of an investment banking executive or advertising mogul. As they navigated between the tables she saw the man discreetly place his hand on Chase’s hip; if not for this small gesture, Jen would have assumed that this was not the boyfriend but some stranger on his way to the bathroom, the sort of stranger who had a trophy wife at home and a couple of buxom administrative assistant mistresses at work.
Becky and Jen stood to great them as they reached the table. Chase leaned in to give Jen a hug. He looked the same as ever, beaming handsomely in his casual-but-expensive designer sweater.
“Jen, this is Eduardo,” said Chase as he released her, smiling proudly as he looked his boyfriend up and down. The guy was pretty good-looking, Jen thought, in a kind of overly-put-together way that matched her feelings about the restaurant.
Eduardo leaned in and kissed her on one cheek and then the other before sitting on the seat next to her. “So nice to finally meet you,” he said. “I’ve heard so much.”
“Likewise,” said Jen, hoping her expression wouldn’t belie the fact that she hadn’t known of his existence until two minutes ago.
Eduardo reached across the table to Becky and laid his hand over her round stomach. “How’s our little mama?” he asked, giving her belly a rub.
Jen winced, expecting Becky to shake his hand off and offer some withering comment in reply, but she just smiled politely. “Pretty good,” she said. “Ready for baby to make her grand debut.”
“It’s a girl?” Jen asked. She hadn’t even thought to ask about the baby’s gender. That shows how disconnected I’ve been, she chastised herself.
“Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you?” Becky said. “I guess we really haven’t talked much.”
Jen wanted to ask more—what names was Becky thinking of? Had she been hoping for a girl or a boy? Was she going to dress the baby in pink or in more unconventional, unisex clothes? But Eduardo spoke first.
“Chase and I are so excited about the baby,” Eduardo said, as he pulled out the chair next to Jen, waited for Chase to sit, and then seated himself next to Becky. “I keep telling him how lucky we are that Becky is having a daughter for us. So many men have to adopt or get a woman to have a baby for them, and here we just stumbled into it. It’s a perfect way to get a baby, without any of the work.”
“I did some of the work,” Chase said.
“Oh, I forgot,” said Eduardo, patting Chase’s hand over the cold concrete table. “You are very manly.”
Jen looked over at Becky to see if she was troubled by this line of conversation, but Becky’s face was impassive as she studied the menu.
“Champagne!” said Eduardo, as the waitress appeared to take their drink order. “Something mid-priced, not too dry. We need to celebrate.”
“Should I bring four glasses?” the waitress asked.
“Three please,” said Eduardo. “None for mommy.”
“I’ll have a glass,” Becky interrupted. “One drink is okay.”
“And I don’t need one,” Jen added. “I haven’t been drinking.”
“Oh, champagne doesn’t count,” said Eduardo. “We’ll take three glasses.”
“I guess it counts for me,” Becky said in a quiet voice that it seemed only Jen, sitting directly across the table from her, could hear.
“You can have mine,” Jen mouthed to Becky as the waitress left.
His order completed, Eduardo turned sideways to face Jen. “So great to see you in person,” Eduardo said. “Chase and I just watched Love at Dawn.”
“Oh?” said Jen, not really wanting to talk about it. It was a big-budget tearjerker drama and it hadn’t received great reviews. She had played the lead’s troubled-but-insightful best friend. She had only done it for the money; it was right before the divorce, and she had felt worried about her finances.
“Not great casting,” he said. “I liked you better in Meeting Elizabeth. You’re not really cut out for dramatic roles.”
Jen wasn’t sure how to respond. Everyone agreed she was best suited for romantic comedies, from her old acting coaches to her former agent to Becky—but they didn’t usually tell her so bluntly, especially when she had just met them.
“Eduardo is a casting director,” said Chase. “He’s a total rock star, very in-demand. I need to book weeks in advance to get a date with him.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Eduardo, waving his hands to erase Chase’s words, as though they were floating in the middle of the table.
“Didn’t I schedule this dinner with your secretary?” Chase asked.
“Stop it,” said Eduardo, giving Chase’s hand a little slap.
“I want to hear about Jen’s fight,” Becky said. She turned to Eduardo and said, “Jen’s been in Michigan studying taekwondo.”
“That’s right, you told me that,” said Eduardo to Chase.
“She’s really good,” said Becky, despite the fact that she had never seen Jen fight or even train. “She practices every single day.”
“That’s fascinating,” said Eduardo. “So that was to study for a role?”
“No,” said Jen, annoyed to be returning to the subject of her movie career after Becky had so skillfully steered them away from it. “I’m taking a break right now.”
“The new look is interesting,” Eduardo continued, without seeming to have heard her response. “Different, but I’m into it. Kind of butch. I could see you playing something like a gym teacher. Or something military, like a chick in the army or something.”
“Oh, that would be so bad-ass,” said Chase. “Could you get her something like that?”
“Thanks, but I’m actually not looking for work,” Jen said.
“You know I can’t just ‘get’ people roles,” Eduardo said to Chase. “I mean, I could keep an eye out in case anything comes up.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Jen.
“Don’t mention it,” said Eduardo, giving her a little squeeze around her shoulders.
As they ate their healthy meals of sashimi and kale and frisée, Jen asked Chase and Eduardo where they had met.
“I had heard of Chase, of course, but we had never met in person. I called him in for the lead in this movie called For Better or For Hearse, and the first thing I thought when I saw him was that he was perfect.”
“So you’re doing a film?” Jen asked Chase. She knew he had been struggling for roles and hadn’t had work in a year or so. She was excited for him, though it seemed odd that Becky wouldn’t have mentioned it.
“No,” said Chase, shaking his head.
“Well, ultimately the director and I decided he wasn’t perfect for the role,” said Eduardo.
“Too old,” Chase said.
Jen expected Eduardo to contradict him, but instead he said, “Well, we did go with somebody a little younger and fresher.”
Jen turned to see Becky’s reaction, but Becky was still smiling pleasantly.
“But,” said Eduardo, “I mean I thought he was perfect in general. Perfect for me.”
“What did you like about him?” Jen asked, hoping to elicit some compliments to counteract Eduardo’s harsh words about Chase’s lack of youth and “freshness.”
“He’s so masculine, you know. So discreet. Just very typically male. I hadn’t met any guys in Hollywood like that.”
Jen was incredulous. Was he saying that the main thing he liked about Chase was that he didn’t seem gay? Jen turned to Becky, waiting for her to come to Chase’s defense, but she was smiling politely as she chewed her frisée. She looked at Chase; he was looking down at his sashimi as though it wasn’t him who was being talked about.
“And he has such a nice, dominant energy about him,” Eduardo continued. “The broad shoulders, the deep voice, the messy hair.” Eduardo reached across the table and cupped Chase’s chin in his hand. “That strong jaw.”
“You’re embarrassing me,” said Chase, blushing.
“It’s all true,” said Eduardo.
“So, Becky,” said Jen, unable to take any more of this. “Have you thought about names for the baby?”
“I like Tamlyn,” said Eduardo. “Very hip.”
For the rest of the meal, they discussed baby business: the shower, the ultrasounds, the due-date, Becky’s heartburn and sciatica. Eduardo offered his viewpoints liberally, while Chase quietly munched his dinner. Jen thought Eduardo’s involvement in the baby planning seemed awfully presumptuous, given that he couldn’t have been dating Chase for more than six months. But Becky seemed untroubled by his invasiveness, smiling at his suggestions, pleasantly answering his bold questions. As they parted ways in the parking lot, Becky gave Eduardo a hug goodbye before he climbed into the driver’s seat of Chase’s S.U.V. and drove them away. If Becky likes him, Jen thought, that’s what matters. Oh, and also if Chase likes him, she reminded herself.
When Jen lay down in her room that night, her bed felt like every bit of the several thousand dollars she had spent on it. She lay on top of the covers with the lights on, still in her dinner outfit, staring up at the tastefully painted ceiling. But as her back sank into the thick mattress, every inch cushioned yet supported, she found herself missing the ascetic plainness of the rickety single bed that she had been occupying for the last seven months. This feels like a hotel, she thought, stretching her arms above her head and wondering if she should read a bit more of her chess book or just get undressed and go to bed.
She heard footsteps in the hall, a knock at her door. “Hey, Jen,” Becky said, opening the door before Jen could respond.
“Come in,” said Jen, sitting up, but Becky had already entered the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. In her oversized pajamas, she looked more like a little girl than a grown, pregnant woman. She stared past Jen at the wall, chewing anxiously on her lip. She looks sad, Jen thought. She wondered if she was jealous of Chase’s relationship.
“You know what I was thinking of on the flight over here?” said Jen, hoping she could cheer Becky up. “That time we got caught shoplifting. Do you remember? We had to wait in that security office, and we were banned from the mall for life.”
Becky was still looking at the wall, unsmiling. Then she looked straight at Jen. “You need to move back,” she said.
“What?” Jen asked, startled.
“It’s time for you to move back,” Becky said. “You’ve been in Michigan for more than twice as long as you were supposed to. You were only supposed to go for the summer.”
“I know,” said Jen. She had hoped that no one had noticed her extended absence; she had been choosing to imagine that life in Los Angeles had been progressing smoothly without her. The revelation of Becky’s pregnancy had only confirmed her belief that Becky and Chase were getting along just fine without her, setting up an idyllic little life in which Jen would be nothing but a disruption.
“I’ll come back soon,” she said, and then, feeling bad about lying, added, “eventually.”
“It’s so lonely by myself here in the house,” Becky said. “This house is really huge for one person.”
“What about Chase?” Jen asked. “Doesn’t he keep you company?”
“Chase,” Becky repeated, spitting his name scornfully through her teeth. “I don’t get any time with Chase. He’s always with Eduardo.”
“You don’t hang out with both of them together?” Jen asked. “Eduardo made it sound like you were all one big happy family.”
“We are not one big happy family,” said Becky. “I can’t stand that guy.”
“Really?” Jen asked. “Why were you so nice to him at the restaurant?”
“I have to be nice to him,” Becky said, her voice pained. “Otherwise I’d never see Chase again.”
“Oh,” said Jen, relieved. “I am so glad you don’t like him! The way he was rubbing your stomach, it was just…” She paused to find the right words.
“Completely inappropriate,” Becky said.
Now Jen felt free to air all of the complaints she had suppressed during dinner. She shifted up on to her knees and began to laugh at the absurdity of their dinner conversation.
“I can’t believe he was trying to pick your baby’s name,” Jen said, laying her hand on Becky’s knee. It was hard to speak through her flood of relieved laughter. “Like it’s his baby. How long has he been dating Chase, a few months?”
“Five,” said Becky.
“And that thing with the champagne,” Jen said, catching her breath. “He acted like he was your doctor or something.”
“You need to move back,” Becky said, her solemn tone interrupting Jen’s waning hilarity. “You can do taekwondo here. There are schools in Los Angeles. I looked them up. There are at least thirty of them.”
Thinking of how her life in North Middleton was about to change, how lonely the academy would be without Shane, seeing how lonely and sad Becky was, Jen felt a strong wave of desire to say yes, to make Becky happy, to help raise the baby, to be with her friends. Moving back would fix everybody’s troubles all at once.
But she also knew that moving back would leave too much business unfinished. She hadn’t mastered anything she was working on: winning a fight, learning chess, even living in the Midwest.
Becky must have sensed her moment of weakness. “You’ll think about it?” she asked.
“I’ll think about it,” Jen said, and she wasn’t lying. She would think about it. She was pretty sure she would think about it all week, all through Becky’s baby shower, through evenings with Chase and Eduardo and Paula, and even as she packed her things again, drove to the airport, and got on the plane back to Michigan to resume what was now her life.
Chapter 32
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Please Note...
I normally post chapters every two or three weeks, with my longest interval being a month. I have had a lot going on this past month, and have needed a break. I will be back soon with the next chapter, sometime in the next two weeks.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
30. Feelings of Insecurity
“We were taught to channel anger, rage, feelings of insecurity—to channel what would be negative energy masochistically. We were taught not to do it directly—not to go out and hit someone, for example—but to do it so we’d hurt ourselves.” —Kathy Acker
The summer after sophomore year, Becky and Jenny spent almost every Saturday at the mall.
When they got off the bus, they would start at the store that sold lotions and strong-smelling candles. Then they would shop for clothes, first at the store with the cool clothes, then at the store with the ugly but cheap clothes where you could sometimes find a good deal.
After lunch—croissants and coffee at the bakery—they would go to the discount store that had cheap makeup.
The hulking, cranky security guard would eye them suspiciously as they entered the store, and Jenny could imagine how they looked to him: two teenagers, one with crazy purple hair and petticoats, the other seeming by contrast a typical Westchester County girl, tame and appropriate, a follower. Becky never seemed to notice, but Jenny always felt horrible under his disdainful gaze.
Jenny had wanted a new lipstick all summer, and one Saturday she found the right one on a display that had samples of lipstick and eye shadow in sparkly, pastel tones. The display’s cardboard backing was decorated with a photograph of a bride, her luminous skin painted in the subtlest imaginable shades of peach and baby blue under her graceful veil.
“Why are you looking at bride makeup?” Becky asked.
“I’m just looking for light colors,” said Jenny.
“I hate light colors,” said Becky. “They’re so non-committal.” She was holding a bright magenta lipstick up to her cheek, the color glowing assertively even through the layers of plastic packaging. “What do you think of this one?”
“It’s cool,” said Jenny, and she wasn’t lying, even though she would never wear such a startling color. It would look probably good on Becky; Becky could pull off crazy stuff like that.
Jenny rubbed her finger along her favorite lipstick in the bride display. It was lavender, with a metallic, iridescent sheen. She lifted her finger to smear the pigment across her lips.
“Do you want to get married?” Becky asked her.
Jenny rubbed her lips against each other to distribute the color. “I don’t know,” she said. “Do you?”
Becky blew out air from between her teeth to indicate that this was a stupid idea.
“Hey, that’s kinda pretty,” said Becky, pointing at Jenny’s face.
“You think so?” asked Jenny. Becky almost never approved of her relatively pedestrian choices in cosmetics or clothes.
Becky nodded, but her attention had already shifted to a bottle of acid green nail polish, which she held up, raising her eyebrows to show her pleasure at this unusual find.
“Well,” Becky said, “Maybe I would get married just to have the wedding.”
Jenny was surprised. “You want a wedding?” The thought of Becky in a white dress, her face painted in these gentle peachy colors that she so despised, made Jenny laugh out loud.
“Yeah, totally,” said Becky. “Not with my parents or anything,” she added, scoffing. “Just my friends.”
“What about the guy’s friends?” Jenny asked.
“What guy?” Becky asked. “Oh, right, you mean my fiancé? Sure, he can bring his friends, too, I guess.”
Jenny studied the lavender lipstick in the thin strip of mirror at the side of the display, pursing her lips and moving her head around to see her face from different angles.
“I’m going to decorate everything in black and purple,” Becky said. “At the wedding. The tables will be covered in black lace. And there will be giant purple candles everywhere.”
“Wow,” said Jenny, as she traced her finger over the rows of lipsticks under the display, like looking up a book in a card catalogue, until she found the lavender one.
“Wouldn’t that be pretty?” Becky asked.
“Sure,” said Jenny, pulling the lipstick out of its little cubby.
“You don’t sound like you really think so,” said Becky.
“No, it sounds pretty,” said Jenny, making an effort to sound interested and sincere. She felt guilty that she had only been half-listening to Becky, even though Becky did the same thing to her all the time. “It's just, maybe you won’t be into purple and black lace when you’re, you know, grown up,” said Jenny.
“I’ll be like twenty-two,” Becky retorted, quickly. “That’s only seven years from now. Anyway I’m always going to be into purple and black. Are you going to change when you get old?"
“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “Maybe.”
“I hate that,” said Becky. “I’m not going to get all normal and respectable just because I’m old. I’m going to stay just like I am forever.”
Jenny nodded. “I think I’m going to buy it,” she said, holding up the tube of lipstick. “It’s pretty, right?” She smiled and turned her head to show off the dazzle of her iridescent lips.
Becky grabbed it from her hand and scrutinized the packaging. “It’s twelve dollars,” she said. “That’s way too much.”
“It’s okay, I have it,” said Jenny, grabbing it back. Her mother had given her a hundred dollars to spend this weekend. Becky’s parents didn’t have that kind of money, so Becky had only come with twenty dollars for the day.
“Yeah, but it’s the principle,” Becky said. “That stuff probably costs like twenty cents to make. I can’t believe they’re charging twelve dollars.”
“Isn’t twenty-two kind of young to get married?” Jenny asked.
“I’m not going to stay married,” Becky said. “It’s cooler to do it young, before everybody starts doing it. I want to be the first one.”
“So will you just get a divorce right after the wedding?” Jenny asked.
Becky thought about it for a moment.
“We’ll stay married for a little while so I can get to say ‘my husband.’ But then we’ll get divorced. I could never be satisfied with just one man.”
“How long will you stay married?” Jenny was still looking at the lipstick, turning it over, trying to decide whether the metallic sheen was pretty or cheesy.
“I don't know, a while,” Becky said. “Three months? I’ve never dated anybody longer than three months.”
She leaned over, pulled the lipstick out of Jenny’s hand, and dropped it into Jenny’s open purse.
“Hey!” said Jenny.
“Chill out,” said Becky, through her teeth, without moving her lips. She turned her back and started walking towards the cassette tapes. Jenny followed her, rummaging in her purse to find the lipstick amongst her tangle of other makeup and assorted junk.
Someone bumped against her, and she looked up to see one of the store employees, wearing a red vest and holding a clipboard. Jenny’s heart raced. It was her! she wanted to yell, pointing at Becky. I was trying to take it back out!
But she wouldn’t do that, and anyway, there was no need.
“Sorry,” mumbled the employee, hurrying past Jenny and looking down at his clipboard.
Jenny met Becky over at the tapes, still feeling shaken about the lipstick. I guess they don’t know about it, she told herself, deciding not to look for it in her bag anymore.
Becky was rifling through a bin of cassette tapes encased in large plastic security devices.
“You’re totally going to get married,” Becky said, nonchalantly continuing their earlier conversation. “Like in the normal way. You’re kind of normal.”
“No, I’m not!” Jenny said. But yes, she thought to herself. She did want to get married, and maybe even have a real wedding. Not a huge one or anything, but with a white dress and a cake and flowers. Maybe everything would be all light blue and gray and lavender; that would be so pretty.
She began to thumb through the cassettes, looking for something to buy so she wouldn’t feel so guilty. She found one she wanted, by a band whose lead singer she found extremely attractive, although his heavy use of makeup and falsetto made her pretty sure he was gay.
And she wanted to have a husband, she thought. And live with him in a nice house, and have children and a backyard and a dog. And it didn’t matter if that made her normal, because it would be sweet and cute and make her happy.
But she wasn’t going to tell Becky that.
“Get these, too,” Becky said, handing her a stack of blank cassette tapes. “I’ll copy some stuff for you.”
“Cool,” said Jenny.
The cashier, when they went to check out, was a middle-aged lady with helmet hair who beamed at Jenny and Becky as though they were her favorite nieces.
“Did you girls find everything okay?” she asked, smiling.
“Oh, yeah,” said Becky, as Jenny nodded.
The woman took Jenny’s cassette tapes, the album and the blank ones, ran them across the scanner, and dropped them into a plastic bag. “Are you having fun at the mall?” she asked.
“Lots of fun,” said Becky, cheerfully.
“That will be fourteen dollars,” said the cashier. Jenny reached into her purse and saw the lipstick, in its plastic wrapping, poking out of the top of her jumbled clutter. She gasped and placed her hand on top of it, blocking the view as she rummaged around until she pulled her wallet from the bottom.
“I used to love going shopping with my friends,” the cashier said. “You don’t get to do that as much when you get old like me.”
“You’re not so old,” said Jenny, embarrassed to be telling such an unconvincing lie. She handed the woman a twenty dollar bill.
She wanted to rush out of the store as soon as she got her change, but she forced herself to wait calmly for Becky to buy her green nail polish.
“I’ve never seen a color like that,” said the cashier, holding it up to the light. “It would be fun on Halloween.” She brought it down to the counter and held it against her own hand. “Think I could pull it off?” she asked.
“She was so nice,” said Jenny, when it was finally time to walk towards the exit. She looked at Becky, who grimaced a little, as though acknowledging the thing Jenny was thinking.
“I know,” Becky said.
Just then, Jenny felt a hand on her shoulder and heard the voice from above her head.
“Miss,” it said.
She turned to face the security guard, who was towering over her, his hand extended as though he was expecting to have to grab her by the collar as she ran.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice shaking despite all her efforts to steady it.
“You put something in your bag,” he said, pointing at her purse.
She looked over at Becky, unsure of how to respond. Becky shook her head.
“No I didn’t,” said Jenny. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Someone saw it on the camera,” said the man, impatiently, as though he was expecting her to deny it. “You put a lipstick into your bag.” He grabbed Jenny’s arm and started to pull her towards the doorway.
Jenny began to get that spinning feeling that meant she was panicking. Where was he taking her? Was he going to arrest her? Call her parents?
He’d better call my mom, she thought, trying to strategize quickly. She probably won’t care. Jenny could never be sure about her mother’s reactions; she would be nonchalant about something scandalous like finding a little bag of Becky’s cocaine hidden in Jenny’s room. But then the most seemingly insignificant thing would send her into a fury, like when Jenny’s English teacher wanted her to stay after class to write poetry and her mother was sure he was hitting on her, which, even if he was, didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would upset her.
Maybe she thinks shoplifting is cool, Jenny thought hopefully. Maybe it’s like sticking it to the man.
“I’m taking you to mall security,” he said. “That’s where we handle shoplifters.”
“Wait,” said Becky. “Wait, I put it in her bag. You need to arrest me!”
Jenny felt the wave of relief—she would not have to go to security alone. She hadn’t expected Becky to speak up, and wouldn’t have been angry at her for staying silent. Unlike Jenny's own mother, Becky’s parents were predictable. They would scream at her for a week and ground her for a month; there was no doubt about it.
The guard turned to look at Becky as though he hadn’t noticed her until just then. Without saying anything, he surveyed her, his eyes lingering on her purple hair and painted combat boots.
“Yeah, you better come, too,” he said finally.
At the security office, an actual police officer searched Jenny’s purse, found the lipstick, and then asked for phone numbers to call the girls’ parents. He lectured them about how they could have gone to jail for their offense. They were banned from the mall, and if he ever saw them here again, he would arrest them for real.
He went into an adjacent office, separated by a large window, to call their parents. Jenny could see him cringe as though someone was shouting at him on the phone; that must be Becky’s father, she thought.
Neither of their parents arrived for half an hour. Jenny and Becky sat silently on stiff chairs as they waited, Jenny’s sweaty hand folded tightly in Becky’s.
Chapter 31:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2009/12/31-agent-of-defeat.html
The summer after sophomore year, Becky and Jenny spent almost every Saturday at the mall.
When they got off the bus, they would start at the store that sold lotions and strong-smelling candles. Then they would shop for clothes, first at the store with the cool clothes, then at the store with the ugly but cheap clothes where you could sometimes find a good deal.
After lunch—croissants and coffee at the bakery—they would go to the discount store that had cheap makeup.
The hulking, cranky security guard would eye them suspiciously as they entered the store, and Jenny could imagine how they looked to him: two teenagers, one with crazy purple hair and petticoats, the other seeming by contrast a typical Westchester County girl, tame and appropriate, a follower. Becky never seemed to notice, but Jenny always felt horrible under his disdainful gaze.
Jenny had wanted a new lipstick all summer, and one Saturday she found the right one on a display that had samples of lipstick and eye shadow in sparkly, pastel tones. The display’s cardboard backing was decorated with a photograph of a bride, her luminous skin painted in the subtlest imaginable shades of peach and baby blue under her graceful veil.
“Why are you looking at bride makeup?” Becky asked.
“I’m just looking for light colors,” said Jenny.
“I hate light colors,” said Becky. “They’re so non-committal.” She was holding a bright magenta lipstick up to her cheek, the color glowing assertively even through the layers of plastic packaging. “What do you think of this one?”
“It’s cool,” said Jenny, and she wasn’t lying, even though she would never wear such a startling color. It would look probably good on Becky; Becky could pull off crazy stuff like that.
Jenny rubbed her finger along her favorite lipstick in the bride display. It was lavender, with a metallic, iridescent sheen. She lifted her finger to smear the pigment across her lips.
“Do you want to get married?” Becky asked her.
Jenny rubbed her lips against each other to distribute the color. “I don’t know,” she said. “Do you?”
Becky blew out air from between her teeth to indicate that this was a stupid idea.
“Hey, that’s kinda pretty,” said Becky, pointing at Jenny’s face.
“You think so?” asked Jenny. Becky almost never approved of her relatively pedestrian choices in cosmetics or clothes.
Becky nodded, but her attention had already shifted to a bottle of acid green nail polish, which she held up, raising her eyebrows to show her pleasure at this unusual find.
“Well,” Becky said, “Maybe I would get married just to have the wedding.”
Jenny was surprised. “You want a wedding?” The thought of Becky in a white dress, her face painted in these gentle peachy colors that she so despised, made Jenny laugh out loud.
“Yeah, totally,” said Becky. “Not with my parents or anything,” she added, scoffing. “Just my friends.”
“What about the guy’s friends?” Jenny asked.
“What guy?” Becky asked. “Oh, right, you mean my fiancé? Sure, he can bring his friends, too, I guess.”
Jenny studied the lavender lipstick in the thin strip of mirror at the side of the display, pursing her lips and moving her head around to see her face from different angles.
“I’m going to decorate everything in black and purple,” Becky said. “At the wedding. The tables will be covered in black lace. And there will be giant purple candles everywhere.”
“Wow,” said Jenny, as she traced her finger over the rows of lipsticks under the display, like looking up a book in a card catalogue, until she found the lavender one.
“Wouldn’t that be pretty?” Becky asked.
“Sure,” said Jenny, pulling the lipstick out of its little cubby.
“You don’t sound like you really think so,” said Becky.
“No, it sounds pretty,” said Jenny, making an effort to sound interested and sincere. She felt guilty that she had only been half-listening to Becky, even though Becky did the same thing to her all the time. “It's just, maybe you won’t be into purple and black lace when you’re, you know, grown up,” said Jenny.
“I’ll be like twenty-two,” Becky retorted, quickly. “That’s only seven years from now. Anyway I’m always going to be into purple and black. Are you going to change when you get old?"
“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “Maybe.”
“I hate that,” said Becky. “I’m not going to get all normal and respectable just because I’m old. I’m going to stay just like I am forever.”
Jenny nodded. “I think I’m going to buy it,” she said, holding up the tube of lipstick. “It’s pretty, right?” She smiled and turned her head to show off the dazzle of her iridescent lips.
Becky grabbed it from her hand and scrutinized the packaging. “It’s twelve dollars,” she said. “That’s way too much.”
“It’s okay, I have it,” said Jenny, grabbing it back. Her mother had given her a hundred dollars to spend this weekend. Becky’s parents didn’t have that kind of money, so Becky had only come with twenty dollars for the day.
“Yeah, but it’s the principle,” Becky said. “That stuff probably costs like twenty cents to make. I can’t believe they’re charging twelve dollars.”
“Isn’t twenty-two kind of young to get married?” Jenny asked.
“I’m not going to stay married,” Becky said. “It’s cooler to do it young, before everybody starts doing it. I want to be the first one.”
“So will you just get a divorce right after the wedding?” Jenny asked.
Becky thought about it for a moment.
“We’ll stay married for a little while so I can get to say ‘my husband.’ But then we’ll get divorced. I could never be satisfied with just one man.”
“How long will you stay married?” Jenny was still looking at the lipstick, turning it over, trying to decide whether the metallic sheen was pretty or cheesy.
“I don't know, a while,” Becky said. “Three months? I’ve never dated anybody longer than three months.”
She leaned over, pulled the lipstick out of Jenny’s hand, and dropped it into Jenny’s open purse.
“Hey!” said Jenny.
“Chill out,” said Becky, through her teeth, without moving her lips. She turned her back and started walking towards the cassette tapes. Jenny followed her, rummaging in her purse to find the lipstick amongst her tangle of other makeup and assorted junk.
Someone bumped against her, and she looked up to see one of the store employees, wearing a red vest and holding a clipboard. Jenny’s heart raced. It was her! she wanted to yell, pointing at Becky. I was trying to take it back out!
But she wouldn’t do that, and anyway, there was no need.
“Sorry,” mumbled the employee, hurrying past Jenny and looking down at his clipboard.
Jenny met Becky over at the tapes, still feeling shaken about the lipstick. I guess they don’t know about it, she told herself, deciding not to look for it in her bag anymore.
Becky was rifling through a bin of cassette tapes encased in large plastic security devices.
“You’re totally going to get married,” Becky said, nonchalantly continuing their earlier conversation. “Like in the normal way. You’re kind of normal.”
“No, I’m not!” Jenny said. But yes, she thought to herself. She did want to get married, and maybe even have a real wedding. Not a huge one or anything, but with a white dress and a cake and flowers. Maybe everything would be all light blue and gray and lavender; that would be so pretty.
She began to thumb through the cassettes, looking for something to buy so she wouldn’t feel so guilty. She found one she wanted, by a band whose lead singer she found extremely attractive, although his heavy use of makeup and falsetto made her pretty sure he was gay.
And she wanted to have a husband, she thought. And live with him in a nice house, and have children and a backyard and a dog. And it didn’t matter if that made her normal, because it would be sweet and cute and make her happy.
But she wasn’t going to tell Becky that.
“Get these, too,” Becky said, handing her a stack of blank cassette tapes. “I’ll copy some stuff for you.”
“Cool,” said Jenny.
The cashier, when they went to check out, was a middle-aged lady with helmet hair who beamed at Jenny and Becky as though they were her favorite nieces.
“Did you girls find everything okay?” she asked, smiling.
“Oh, yeah,” said Becky, as Jenny nodded.
The woman took Jenny’s cassette tapes, the album and the blank ones, ran them across the scanner, and dropped them into a plastic bag. “Are you having fun at the mall?” she asked.
“Lots of fun,” said Becky, cheerfully.
“That will be fourteen dollars,” said the cashier. Jenny reached into her purse and saw the lipstick, in its plastic wrapping, poking out of the top of her jumbled clutter. She gasped and placed her hand on top of it, blocking the view as she rummaged around until she pulled her wallet from the bottom.
“I used to love going shopping with my friends,” the cashier said. “You don’t get to do that as much when you get old like me.”
“You’re not so old,” said Jenny, embarrassed to be telling such an unconvincing lie. She handed the woman a twenty dollar bill.
She wanted to rush out of the store as soon as she got her change, but she forced herself to wait calmly for Becky to buy her green nail polish.
“I’ve never seen a color like that,” said the cashier, holding it up to the light. “It would be fun on Halloween.” She brought it down to the counter and held it against her own hand. “Think I could pull it off?” she asked.
“She was so nice,” said Jenny, when it was finally time to walk towards the exit. She looked at Becky, who grimaced a little, as though acknowledging the thing Jenny was thinking.
“I know,” Becky said.
Just then, Jenny felt a hand on her shoulder and heard the voice from above her head.
“Miss,” it said.
She turned to face the security guard, who was towering over her, his hand extended as though he was expecting to have to grab her by the collar as she ran.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice shaking despite all her efforts to steady it.
“You put something in your bag,” he said, pointing at her purse.
She looked over at Becky, unsure of how to respond. Becky shook her head.
“No I didn’t,” said Jenny. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Someone saw it on the camera,” said the man, impatiently, as though he was expecting her to deny it. “You put a lipstick into your bag.” He grabbed Jenny’s arm and started to pull her towards the doorway.
Jenny began to get that spinning feeling that meant she was panicking. Where was he taking her? Was he going to arrest her? Call her parents?
He’d better call my mom, she thought, trying to strategize quickly. She probably won’t care. Jenny could never be sure about her mother’s reactions; she would be nonchalant about something scandalous like finding a little bag of Becky’s cocaine hidden in Jenny’s room. But then the most seemingly insignificant thing would send her into a fury, like when Jenny’s English teacher wanted her to stay after class to write poetry and her mother was sure he was hitting on her, which, even if he was, didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would upset her.
Maybe she thinks shoplifting is cool, Jenny thought hopefully. Maybe it’s like sticking it to the man.
“I’m taking you to mall security,” he said. “That’s where we handle shoplifters.”
“Wait,” said Becky. “Wait, I put it in her bag. You need to arrest me!”
Jenny felt the wave of relief—she would not have to go to security alone. She hadn’t expected Becky to speak up, and wouldn’t have been angry at her for staying silent. Unlike Jenny's own mother, Becky’s parents were predictable. They would scream at her for a week and ground her for a month; there was no doubt about it.
The guard turned to look at Becky as though he hadn’t noticed her until just then. Without saying anything, he surveyed her, his eyes lingering on her purple hair and painted combat boots.
“Yeah, you better come, too,” he said finally.
At the security office, an actual police officer searched Jenny’s purse, found the lipstick, and then asked for phone numbers to call the girls’ parents. He lectured them about how they could have gone to jail for their offense. They were banned from the mall, and if he ever saw them here again, he would arrest them for real.
He went into an adjacent office, separated by a large window, to call their parents. Jenny could see him cringe as though someone was shouting at him on the phone; that must be Becky’s father, she thought.
Neither of their parents arrived for half an hour. Jenny and Becky sat silently on stiff chairs as they waited, Jenny’s sweaty hand folded tightly in Becky’s.
Chapter 31:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2009/12/31-agent-of-defeat.html
Sunday, September 20, 2009
29. A Mean Story
“Beauty is a hard thing. Beauty is a mean story. Beauty is slender girls who die young, fine-featured delicate creatures about whom men write poems.” —Dorothy Allison
The student of chess will benefit in all areas of life, for chess represents the quintessence of competition. The pieces take on both offensive and defensive roles, yet these two roles merge into one another. The strongest offensive pieces are also the ones that must act most defensively, because their power makes them vulnerable. The queen is so powerful that novice players are frightened to use her, and the king is so powerful that he is prohibited from being put into danger, as though he requires a curfew for his protection. The pawn is less powerful offensively, yet his expendable nature makes him at times the most dangerous piece on the board, like a man who is not afraid to die.
“What did you learn?” Master Park asked her, slamming the door. Jen looked up from the book. Her teacher’s abrupt entrances no longer startled Jen; he always entered the back living room this way.
“The strongest pieces are also the most vulnerable,” Jen recited.
“Right,” said Master Park, looking pleased. “That’s an excellent point.” He paused and smiled to himself. “A very good point,” he said. “See, I told you that’s a great book.”
He sat down across from her, as he did three nights a week at nine o’clock, after the intermediate-advanced class ended, and held out two pieces hidden in his hands. She wasn’t allowed to attend class on these nights; instead, she sat in the back, studying Thomas Fo’s book about chess. Then, after class, she and Master Park would play. Never just one game; always at least two. Jen usually stumbled home around midnight, more tired than if she had spent those three hours training at taekwondo.
She pointed at Master Park’s left fist. He opened it, revealing a white pawn. It seemed that she drew white more than probability would predict; at least three out of four times, she estimated.
“Start,” he said, nodding at the board.
Chess is an ancient art developed over thousands of years. It cannot be mastered through cramming or quick study, just as a rich broth cannot be developed by through fast, furious boiling.
There is no point chastising yourself if you are not succeeding at the level you desire. You need to practice more. When you have played a thousand games, then you have played one.
Two nights a week, Jen kept her old training schedule with Shane. She had finally gotten used to her partner’s new name, which helped distinguish her from her girlfriend, Brittany.
“I can see that kick coming,” Shane said, frowning at Jen from across the kicking pad. “Disguise it more.”
Jen took a deep breath and tried to relax her entire body. Then she jerked, in what she hoped was one sudden, unexpected movement, and snapped her leg up at the pad.
“Nope,” Shane was saying before Jen’s foot could reach its target. “I can still see it.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” said Jen. She spoke in a quiet, subdued voice that she hoped would disguise her frustration.
“Don’t get frustrated,” said Shane, demonstrating that Jen couldn’t even disguise her emotions, much less her front kick. “You just need to practice it more.”
“I practice it all the time,” said Jen. “I practiced this kick for three hours in my back yard, every day this week. And then I practiced it here in the mirror. I don’t think it’s possible to practice it any more.”
Shane raised her hand to her face and stroked her chin, as though scratching an absent beard. Jen thought the gesture looked somehow artificial, as though Shane had been practicing it in front of a mirror. It looked odd and unfamiliar. But perhaps Shane had always done that, and Jen was only just noticing it now that she did not see her every day.
“You know, it’s cool how much you train,” said Shane.
“But?” said Jen, prompted by Shane’s tone of voice.
“You learned this all too quickly,” said Shane. “It’s not exactly the right way to learn it. Most people train a few hours a week and it takes them a few years until they compete. You’ve been training five hours a day on average, I’d say. Thirty-five hours per week—that’s ten times as much as most people. So since you’ve been training for four months, that’s like forty months.” She paused, and Jen could read on her lips that she was doing long division in her head, a skill that Jen found as maddening as her spinning side kick. “That’s over three years of work in four months,” she concluded.
“But why should that matter?” Jen asked. “I mean, hours are hours, right?”
“In some ways,” said Shane. “But there are things that can only be learned over time. That’s why masters are masters, because they’ve studied for so long that they have all this nuance to their movement and strategy.”
“Wow,” said Jen, impressed with her partner’s sustained progression of philosophical thought. Shane was smart, but she usually only used her intelligence in brief, explosive bursts that mirrored her kicks.
Shane looked like she about to say something else, something important. She scrunched up her forehead, then opened her mouth and released not a profound insight, but a loud burp. She wiped her mouth crudely with the back of her hand, dragging her jacket cuffs across her face with studied crudeness. Another weird gesture, Jen noted to herself.
“Isn’t acting like that?” Shane asked. “Aren’t there people who are so good at acting that you feel like you could never get to their level? And it’s because they have been doing it for so long that they understand it in a way that you can’t comprehend?”
“I guess,” said Jen. She vaguely remembered having had that feeling once or twice, maybe, of being awed by the skills of an older actor, but she couldn’t remember any details. She wondered whether it was just too long ago, or whether it had never really happened, just one of the many things she had pretended to do in a movie but had never done in real life.
The novice in chess thinks only of not having pieces captured, and moves in reaction to his opponent’s moves. The sign of proficiency in chess is thinking at least ten moves ahead. Great masters have plans that span to the end of the game; if the game does not follow their plan, they readjust and shift to a new plan.
One Sunday, as Jen sat at the side of the mats, watching two yellow-belts spar, Master Park appeared in the chair next to her.
“You’re going in next round,” he said. “You’re going to spar Rob.”
“What?” said Jen, unable to keep the indignance out of her voice. In all her months at the academy, Jen hadn’t sparred him yet. Lately he had only been training with purple-belts and above. She knew he was going easy on them, but it never looked like it. He sparred Shane almost every Sunday, sending her flying backwards across the mats no less than twice each round, and that was when Shane was sparring at her best. Jen had seen him render three different male students fully unconscious with spinning kicks to the head.
“I can’t,” she said, helplessly, beginning to panic. He wasn’t really going to make her, was he? Because if he did, she knew exactly what would happen. She was going to get knocked out, just like her fight, knocked out cold on the floor in front of everybody. She couldn’t imagine any way that this was not going to happen.
“Calm down,” said Master Park. “Here’s what I want you to do. What’s his scariest move?”
“Spinning wheel kick,” said Jen, without needing to think about it.
“What’s the counter to that move?”
Jen knew it, had practiced it over and over. “Low sweep,” she said, impatiently. “But it’s not going to work. I’m not fast enough.” The thought that she could see one of those furious whirling kicks coming, see it soon enough, remain poised enough to drop to the ground and sweep out his standing leg—it was laughable.
“Shh,” said Master Park. She realized her voice had become loud and hysterical. One of the male blue-belts was staring at her.
“You need to bait him to throw the kick,” he continued. “It’s one of his favorite techniques. If you throw one, he will throw one back at you.”
“I don’t want him to throw it back at me,” she said, annoyed that he was missing the entire point of what she was saying.
“If you know when it’s coming, you should be able to counter it with the sweep,” said Master Park. “Now stop complaining,” he added.
A few minutes later, there she was, staring at Rob as he towered over her. Wheel kick, Jen said to herself. It was a difficult, risky kick and she did not usually use it in sparring, especially not against an opponent with six inches of reach and twenty years of experience on her. She moved in to throw it, nerved herself up—wheel kick, wheel kick—and then saw her leg extend out into a roundhouse kick instead, impervious to her brain’s commands.
As though he could read her thoughts and was trying to annoy her on purpose, Rob responded to her roundhouse with a wheel kick. She ducked just in time to feel the edge of his heel graze the top of her head.
She stood up, relieved that she had successfully avoided danger, and as she regained her fighting stance, he threw the wheel kick again, this time hitting her squarely in the temple.
It wasn’t hard enough to knock her down, but it did send a brief wave of nausea down to her stomach.
She looked into his eyes, which were shadowed and impassive under his head gear. Wheel kick, she said to herself, more forcefully now. Three other kicks to distract him, then wheel kick.
This time, her body followed her plan to the letter. Kick, kick, kick, spin. He backed up, but the kick flew past his face, missing him by inches. She thought she saw the slightest flash of annoyance, or even anger, rush across his eyes.
Now sweep, she told herself, waiting for him to kick. She dropped, but not fast enough; on her way down, her chin ran into the side of his foot on its way up to where her head had just been. The blow knocked her onto her back. Then the timer rang, and the round was over. At least I didn’t get knocked out, she told herself with a sigh, rubbing her bruised chin.
Master Park was still sitting in the same chair, watching Shane, who was the next to spar Rob. It annoyed Jen to see Shane doing better, being braver, recovering faster than Jen could against him. Master Park nodded his head as Shane’s side kick connected with Rob’s muscular stomach, even though it sent Shane flying backwards instead of Rob.
Jen sat down next to Master Park, fuming silently, wanting to say, See, I told you it wouldn’t work.
“Next time,” he said, without turning his head to look at her.
Don’t get fixated on what you think is happening. The novice player becomes so rigid in his expectations that he cannot see the board ahead of him. Make sure to see what is really there.
On Shane’s twenty-first birthday, she appeared in the door of the back living room, interrupting Jen’s chess game with Master Park.
“Ah, the chess,” she said. They only played on Shane’s nights off, but Jen had been telling her all about it, how ruthless their teacher was, how he would let her pieces advance just long enough to give her a bit of experience, then mercilessly kill them off one by one, like a child smashing a row of ants.
“White is the aggressor!” he would yell, as she began to pull her pieces back in response to his attack. “You are one move ahead of me. Stop acting defensively.”
So she would attempt bolder, more fearless moves, only to send her bishop or knight right into one of the five or six traps Master Park had laid out for them.
Just like taekwondo, she thought; you have to get hurt to get better. But at least in chess, the pain wasn’t real.
Shane was dressed in her cutest outfit for a night of celebration, which meant pinstriped pants, a white wife-beater tank top and a thick hooded sweatshirt. It was a chilly November night, but Shane had tied the sweatshirt around her waist, perhaps for the purpose of displaying her impressive upper-arm muscles.
One of those arms was wrapped around the waist of a girl who was filling up the other half of the doorway, a girl who Jen recognized as Brittany, even though they had never met. She looked just like she had in Jen’s imagination: tall and curvy with long, stylishly-messy hair, lots of makeup, tight jeans and an even tighter blouse.
“Sorry to interrupt. We just came by to say hi on the way out for my birthday,” Shane said.
“It’s okay. We can use a little break,” said Master Park. He means that I can use one, Jen thought, bitterly. She was, as usual, in a horrible position. Master Park had just captured her knight. She could now recapture his bishop; she worried that this was a trap, however. She could see three other places where the black pieces were poised and ready, waiting to capture their white opponents if she happened to place them on the wrong square. She needed to figure out how to avoid those traps without seeming defensive, lest she get yelled at, which was worse than losing pieces.
“Master Park, this is my girlfriend,” said Shane, as the two women came over to stand over the table, giving Jen a perfect eye-level view of Brittany’s bosom as it tried to escape from her shirt. “Brittany,” she added.
“Very nice to meet you,” he said, rising to shake her hand. Jen wasn’t sure whether she should stand as well; she opted to stay seated.
“And this is Jen,” said Shane.
“Oh, I’ve heard so much about you,” Brittany exclaimed, smiling warmly and leaning down to hug her. Jen hugged her back awkwardly, this woman she had never met before and who was towering above her as she sat on the chair. She did smell excellent, Jen noted.
Power is divided between the masculine and feminine aspects. The king is the seat of power, but, accordingly, the queen bears more practical, useable power, because she can move longer distances but also because she can be placed into danger.
Brittany looked down at the chess board, wrinkling her painted nose.
“Do you play?” asked Master Park.
“A little,” said Brittany.
“Oh no,” said Shane, dropping down onto the couch. “I knew we couldn’t get out of here quickly.”
“Where should she move?” Master Park asked Brittany. Jen felt indignant; why was he asking this party girl to weigh in on her game? Anyway, this was the easy move. She needed to capture the bishop; pawn to E4. What would happen after that was the confusing part.
“Queen to H4,” said Brittany, quickly. Jen was surprised to hear her using the algebraic notation to describe the moves; she had expected her to point and say, Move your pawn there. She would have scoffed at the move Brittany suggested—presumably she didn’t see that Jen could capture the bishop. But Brittany’s confident tone made Jen wonder whether Brittany could actually see something that Jen herself was missing.
“Interesting,” said Master Park. “Why?”
“It’s a zwischenzug,” said Brittany. “Now you’ll have to weaken your pawn structure. She can take the bishop later.”
“See that?” Master Park said, turning to Jen. “That’s what I mean by being aggressive. She’s not just thinking, ‘take his piece,’ ‘save my piece.’ She’s trying to mess me up down the road.”
“Wow, where’d you learn all that?” Shane asked, sitting up high on the couch now so she could see the board.
“We play at the sorority,” Brittany said. “We’re the best house. We totally kicked ass on Alpha Phi last weekend—they’re like our nemesis.”
While Brittany and Master Park discussed a few chess problems on a second board, Jen and Shane walked down to the bathroom at the far end of the strip mall.
“I guess she’s pretty smart,” said Jen, patting her friend on the arm. “Nice work.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Shane, shrugging. “I mean, it’s not like that’s why I like her. I’ve never talked to her about chess or anything.”
Jen laughed. “Sorry, I wouldn’t want to suggest that you valued her for anything but her looks,” she said. She reached out and put her arm on Shane’s shoulder. “Happy birthday,” she said.
Shane stopped walking, and since Jen was still touching her shoulder, she stopped, too.
“You know, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” said Shane, her face losing all trace of the smirk that she usually wore in conversation. Jen was startled. She never saw Shane looking serious like that, except when she was sparring.
“What is it?” Jen asked.
“I’m thinking about becoming a guy,” Shane said.
Jen was silent for a moment as she tried to understand what Shane had meant.
“Do you mean, like, surgically?” she asked, finally.
“Yeah, and with hormones,” said Shane.
Jen had known a few women who used to be men, but she realized she had never met anyone who had changed their gender in the other direction.
“They can do that?” Jen asked.
“Oh yeah,” said Shane. “Well, they don’t really do a great job with—you know—the bottom half.” Shane dipped her chin to indicate the direction she was talking about. “Most people just do the top part. That’s what I would do. They do a great job with that part.”
“Wow,” said Jen, dumbstruck. It seemed like it should be a small alteration—Shane was so much like a boy, anyway—but Jen knew it would change things. For one, Shane was her only real friend in Michigan. Jen couldn’t imagine being close friends with a twenty-one year old boy. She could barely tolerate them back when she herself was that age. But would Shane still be the same person, herself, or an adolescent boy?
And if Shane were a boy, would they still be training partners? Jen gasped as she realized that Shane would need to take time off training, perhaps a lot of time, to undergo this process, or procedure, or whatever it was.
“I just think it would be easier,” Shane said. “I mean, everyone already thinks I’m a guy.”
“But you’re not,” said Jen, thinking that this wasn’t a very good reason for undergoing a surgical procedure. “You don’t need to change yourself because of what other people think.”
“No, I know,” said Shane. “I mean, I think it would be easier for me. To understand who I am.”
Now Jen felt horrible. How could Shane not understand who she was? Jen understood perfectly who Shane was: a tough woman, strong, brave, her role model. She wanted to tell Shane those things, tell her that she needed to stay just as she was. But she couldn’t think of a way to say that without it sounding selfish, like she needed Shane to stay a woman for her own reasons, to keep her as a teammate, a sister. Maybe it is selfish, Jen thought; it was too complicated to figure out so quickly.
“There’s a really good clinic down in Ann Arbor,” Shane said. “I might need to move down there for a while. I could transfer to Eastern Michigan University for a semester. Brittany said she’d come with me.”
Jen’s stomach sunk.
You can’t go, she wanted to shout, to beg. You’re my only friend. You’re the only person here that matters to me.
But she knew she would not say that. “Of course I’ll support you in any way I can,” Jen said. “Just let me know what I can do.”
Shane reached in and gave Jen a long, hard hug, pressing her wet cheek into Jen’s neck. “That means so much to me,” said Shane, quietly, near Jen’s ear.
The blending of attacking and defending suggests the idea of balance. You must balance your aggressive energy with your sense of caution and introspection. You must never become so focused on your goal that you lose awareness of what is going on in the periphery of your vision. Becoming overly fixated on one aspect of life will cause other areas of your life to atrophy like withered limbs.
“Jen? Is that you?”
Jen recognized the voice on the other end of the lake house phone. She had been nervous to answer the phone; it almost never rang, and Jen only used it to make her weekly calls to Becky. If Jen answered and the phone call wasn’t for her, she needed to explain that Paula’s mother and her husband were in Toledo (they had returned in September from their summer vacation) and take a message, a complicated process since she then needed to call Paula’s mother, who she had never met, and relay the message.
It was easier just to let the phone ring. But this was Tuesday morning, which was one of the times that she and Becky often talked, though usually Jen called Becky and then Becky called her back to avoid running up a bill on Paula’s mother’s phone.
This person wasn’t Becky, though. Who else would be calling here for me, Jen wondered?
“I was meaning to call sooner,” the voice continued, “I mean, I had the phone number and everything.”
“Paula,” said Jen, relieved to have identified the caller without having to ask. She hadn’t spoken to Paula since she and Becky had left Jen in Michigan five months ago.
“How is everything?” Paula said. “I mean, Becky’s been keeping me posted on the basic news, and I read that horrible article about how you’re on steroids and a lesbian.”
“Yeah,” said Jen.
“I mean, you’re not, right?” said Paula, her tone conveying a slight hope that the article might have been correct.
“Right. Sorry,” said Jen.
They talked for a bit, catching up on Jen’s news—yes, she really had done a fight, yes, she had really gotten knocked out—and Paula’s news—“Same old stuff, yoga, celibacy, hanging around with Becky and Chase.”
Then Paula got to the reason for her call. “We’re having a shower for Becky. It’s at your house, not this Sunday but the next one. Sorry, I know it’s last minute; we just decided to do it.”
That was soon, Jen thought, less than two weeks. Too soon. Her taekwondo schedule felt like a speeding train that needed a great distance to stop. She was planning to do two upcoming competitions, one in December. There was no way she could take a break right now, even for a few days.
“You’re going to come, right?” said Paula, who apparently had been waiting for Jen’s response.
“Well,” said Jen, trying to figure out how to explain her hesitation. “It’s short notice, and I have this fight coming up.”
“Jen!” Paula yelled sharply, like a nursery-school teacher scolding a toddler who was just about to bite his playmate. “You haven’t been out to visit the entire time Becky’s been pregnant. She won’t tell you, but she misses you.” Paula cleared her throat. “You have to come when the baby is born next month, and you have to come to the shower.”
Now Jen felt horrible. Paula was right; how could she even consider missing her best friend’s baby shower just because it would throw off her training schedule? As though a few days of taekwondo and chess were more important than the friend who had supported her since they were twelve years old. Something must be going really wrong with my values, she told herself.
“Of course I’ll come,” said Jen, as though this had been her intention all along. “I was just saying it will be hard. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Great,” said Paula. “I’ll buy your plane ticket; I know you don’t have internet access out there.”
“Thanks,” said Jen.
Before they got off the phone, Paula remembered one other detail she had forgotten to tell Jen.
“Oh, and it’s a co-ed shower,” she said. “You can bring a guy, if you want. Or a woman, of course,” she added, in a tone of magnanimous non-judgment.
“No, it’ll just be me,” said Jen. “I’m not seeing anybody.”
“That a girl,” Paula said, before hanging up the phone.
Chapter 30
The student of chess will benefit in all areas of life, for chess represents the quintessence of competition. The pieces take on both offensive and defensive roles, yet these two roles merge into one another. The strongest offensive pieces are also the ones that must act most defensively, because their power makes them vulnerable. The queen is so powerful that novice players are frightened to use her, and the king is so powerful that he is prohibited from being put into danger, as though he requires a curfew for his protection. The pawn is less powerful offensively, yet his expendable nature makes him at times the most dangerous piece on the board, like a man who is not afraid to die.
“What did you learn?” Master Park asked her, slamming the door. Jen looked up from the book. Her teacher’s abrupt entrances no longer startled Jen; he always entered the back living room this way.
“The strongest pieces are also the most vulnerable,” Jen recited.
“Right,” said Master Park, looking pleased. “That’s an excellent point.” He paused and smiled to himself. “A very good point,” he said. “See, I told you that’s a great book.”
He sat down across from her, as he did three nights a week at nine o’clock, after the intermediate-advanced class ended, and held out two pieces hidden in his hands. She wasn’t allowed to attend class on these nights; instead, she sat in the back, studying Thomas Fo’s book about chess. Then, after class, she and Master Park would play. Never just one game; always at least two. Jen usually stumbled home around midnight, more tired than if she had spent those three hours training at taekwondo.
She pointed at Master Park’s left fist. He opened it, revealing a white pawn. It seemed that she drew white more than probability would predict; at least three out of four times, she estimated.
“Start,” he said, nodding at the board.
Chess is an ancient art developed over thousands of years. It cannot be mastered through cramming or quick study, just as a rich broth cannot be developed by through fast, furious boiling.
There is no point chastising yourself if you are not succeeding at the level you desire. You need to practice more. When you have played a thousand games, then you have played one.
Two nights a week, Jen kept her old training schedule with Shane. She had finally gotten used to her partner’s new name, which helped distinguish her from her girlfriend, Brittany.
“I can see that kick coming,” Shane said, frowning at Jen from across the kicking pad. “Disguise it more.”
Jen took a deep breath and tried to relax her entire body. Then she jerked, in what she hoped was one sudden, unexpected movement, and snapped her leg up at the pad.
“Nope,” Shane was saying before Jen’s foot could reach its target. “I can still see it.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” said Jen. She spoke in a quiet, subdued voice that she hoped would disguise her frustration.
“Don’t get frustrated,” said Shane, demonstrating that Jen couldn’t even disguise her emotions, much less her front kick. “You just need to practice it more.”
“I practice it all the time,” said Jen. “I practiced this kick for three hours in my back yard, every day this week. And then I practiced it here in the mirror. I don’t think it’s possible to practice it any more.”
Shane raised her hand to her face and stroked her chin, as though scratching an absent beard. Jen thought the gesture looked somehow artificial, as though Shane had been practicing it in front of a mirror. It looked odd and unfamiliar. But perhaps Shane had always done that, and Jen was only just noticing it now that she did not see her every day.
“You know, it’s cool how much you train,” said Shane.
“But?” said Jen, prompted by Shane’s tone of voice.
“You learned this all too quickly,” said Shane. “It’s not exactly the right way to learn it. Most people train a few hours a week and it takes them a few years until they compete. You’ve been training five hours a day on average, I’d say. Thirty-five hours per week—that’s ten times as much as most people. So since you’ve been training for four months, that’s like forty months.” She paused, and Jen could read on her lips that she was doing long division in her head, a skill that Jen found as maddening as her spinning side kick. “That’s over three years of work in four months,” she concluded.
“But why should that matter?” Jen asked. “I mean, hours are hours, right?”
“In some ways,” said Shane. “But there are things that can only be learned over time. That’s why masters are masters, because they’ve studied for so long that they have all this nuance to their movement and strategy.”
“Wow,” said Jen, impressed with her partner’s sustained progression of philosophical thought. Shane was smart, but she usually only used her intelligence in brief, explosive bursts that mirrored her kicks.
Shane looked like she about to say something else, something important. She scrunched up her forehead, then opened her mouth and released not a profound insight, but a loud burp. She wiped her mouth crudely with the back of her hand, dragging her jacket cuffs across her face with studied crudeness. Another weird gesture, Jen noted to herself.
“Isn’t acting like that?” Shane asked. “Aren’t there people who are so good at acting that you feel like you could never get to their level? And it’s because they have been doing it for so long that they understand it in a way that you can’t comprehend?”
“I guess,” said Jen. She vaguely remembered having had that feeling once or twice, maybe, of being awed by the skills of an older actor, but she couldn’t remember any details. She wondered whether it was just too long ago, or whether it had never really happened, just one of the many things she had pretended to do in a movie but had never done in real life.
The novice in chess thinks only of not having pieces captured, and moves in reaction to his opponent’s moves. The sign of proficiency in chess is thinking at least ten moves ahead. Great masters have plans that span to the end of the game; if the game does not follow their plan, they readjust and shift to a new plan.
One Sunday, as Jen sat at the side of the mats, watching two yellow-belts spar, Master Park appeared in the chair next to her.
“You’re going in next round,” he said. “You’re going to spar Rob.”
“What?” said Jen, unable to keep the indignance out of her voice. In all her months at the academy, Jen hadn’t sparred him yet. Lately he had only been training with purple-belts and above. She knew he was going easy on them, but it never looked like it. He sparred Shane almost every Sunday, sending her flying backwards across the mats no less than twice each round, and that was when Shane was sparring at her best. Jen had seen him render three different male students fully unconscious with spinning kicks to the head.
“I can’t,” she said, helplessly, beginning to panic. He wasn’t really going to make her, was he? Because if he did, she knew exactly what would happen. She was going to get knocked out, just like her fight, knocked out cold on the floor in front of everybody. She couldn’t imagine any way that this was not going to happen.
“Calm down,” said Master Park. “Here’s what I want you to do. What’s his scariest move?”
“Spinning wheel kick,” said Jen, without needing to think about it.
“What’s the counter to that move?”
Jen knew it, had practiced it over and over. “Low sweep,” she said, impatiently. “But it’s not going to work. I’m not fast enough.” The thought that she could see one of those furious whirling kicks coming, see it soon enough, remain poised enough to drop to the ground and sweep out his standing leg—it was laughable.
“Shh,” said Master Park. She realized her voice had become loud and hysterical. One of the male blue-belts was staring at her.
“You need to bait him to throw the kick,” he continued. “It’s one of his favorite techniques. If you throw one, he will throw one back at you.”
“I don’t want him to throw it back at me,” she said, annoyed that he was missing the entire point of what she was saying.
“If you know when it’s coming, you should be able to counter it with the sweep,” said Master Park. “Now stop complaining,” he added.
A few minutes later, there she was, staring at Rob as he towered over her. Wheel kick, Jen said to herself. It was a difficult, risky kick and she did not usually use it in sparring, especially not against an opponent with six inches of reach and twenty years of experience on her. She moved in to throw it, nerved herself up—wheel kick, wheel kick—and then saw her leg extend out into a roundhouse kick instead, impervious to her brain’s commands.
As though he could read her thoughts and was trying to annoy her on purpose, Rob responded to her roundhouse with a wheel kick. She ducked just in time to feel the edge of his heel graze the top of her head.
She stood up, relieved that she had successfully avoided danger, and as she regained her fighting stance, he threw the wheel kick again, this time hitting her squarely in the temple.
It wasn’t hard enough to knock her down, but it did send a brief wave of nausea down to her stomach.
She looked into his eyes, which were shadowed and impassive under his head gear. Wheel kick, she said to herself, more forcefully now. Three other kicks to distract him, then wheel kick.
This time, her body followed her plan to the letter. Kick, kick, kick, spin. He backed up, but the kick flew past his face, missing him by inches. She thought she saw the slightest flash of annoyance, or even anger, rush across his eyes.
Now sweep, she told herself, waiting for him to kick. She dropped, but not fast enough; on her way down, her chin ran into the side of his foot on its way up to where her head had just been. The blow knocked her onto her back. Then the timer rang, and the round was over. At least I didn’t get knocked out, she told herself with a sigh, rubbing her bruised chin.
Master Park was still sitting in the same chair, watching Shane, who was the next to spar Rob. It annoyed Jen to see Shane doing better, being braver, recovering faster than Jen could against him. Master Park nodded his head as Shane’s side kick connected with Rob’s muscular stomach, even though it sent Shane flying backwards instead of Rob.
Jen sat down next to Master Park, fuming silently, wanting to say, See, I told you it wouldn’t work.
“Next time,” he said, without turning his head to look at her.
Don’t get fixated on what you think is happening. The novice player becomes so rigid in his expectations that he cannot see the board ahead of him. Make sure to see what is really there.
On Shane’s twenty-first birthday, she appeared in the door of the back living room, interrupting Jen’s chess game with Master Park.
“Ah, the chess,” she said. They only played on Shane’s nights off, but Jen had been telling her all about it, how ruthless their teacher was, how he would let her pieces advance just long enough to give her a bit of experience, then mercilessly kill them off one by one, like a child smashing a row of ants.
“White is the aggressor!” he would yell, as she began to pull her pieces back in response to his attack. “You are one move ahead of me. Stop acting defensively.”
So she would attempt bolder, more fearless moves, only to send her bishop or knight right into one of the five or six traps Master Park had laid out for them.
Just like taekwondo, she thought; you have to get hurt to get better. But at least in chess, the pain wasn’t real.
Shane was dressed in her cutest outfit for a night of celebration, which meant pinstriped pants, a white wife-beater tank top and a thick hooded sweatshirt. It was a chilly November night, but Shane had tied the sweatshirt around her waist, perhaps for the purpose of displaying her impressive upper-arm muscles.
One of those arms was wrapped around the waist of a girl who was filling up the other half of the doorway, a girl who Jen recognized as Brittany, even though they had never met. She looked just like she had in Jen’s imagination: tall and curvy with long, stylishly-messy hair, lots of makeup, tight jeans and an even tighter blouse.
“Sorry to interrupt. We just came by to say hi on the way out for my birthday,” Shane said.
“It’s okay. We can use a little break,” said Master Park. He means that I can use one, Jen thought, bitterly. She was, as usual, in a horrible position. Master Park had just captured her knight. She could now recapture his bishop; she worried that this was a trap, however. She could see three other places where the black pieces were poised and ready, waiting to capture their white opponents if she happened to place them on the wrong square. She needed to figure out how to avoid those traps without seeming defensive, lest she get yelled at, which was worse than losing pieces.
“Master Park, this is my girlfriend,” said Shane, as the two women came over to stand over the table, giving Jen a perfect eye-level view of Brittany’s bosom as it tried to escape from her shirt. “Brittany,” she added.
“Very nice to meet you,” he said, rising to shake her hand. Jen wasn’t sure whether she should stand as well; she opted to stay seated.
“And this is Jen,” said Shane.
“Oh, I’ve heard so much about you,” Brittany exclaimed, smiling warmly and leaning down to hug her. Jen hugged her back awkwardly, this woman she had never met before and who was towering above her as she sat on the chair. She did smell excellent, Jen noted.
Power is divided between the masculine and feminine aspects. The king is the seat of power, but, accordingly, the queen bears more practical, useable power, because she can move longer distances but also because she can be placed into danger.
Brittany looked down at the chess board, wrinkling her painted nose.
“Do you play?” asked Master Park.
“A little,” said Brittany.
“Oh no,” said Shane, dropping down onto the couch. “I knew we couldn’t get out of here quickly.”
“Where should she move?” Master Park asked Brittany. Jen felt indignant; why was he asking this party girl to weigh in on her game? Anyway, this was the easy move. She needed to capture the bishop; pawn to E4. What would happen after that was the confusing part.
“Queen to H4,” said Brittany, quickly. Jen was surprised to hear her using the algebraic notation to describe the moves; she had expected her to point and say, Move your pawn there. She would have scoffed at the move Brittany suggested—presumably she didn’t see that Jen could capture the bishop. But Brittany’s confident tone made Jen wonder whether Brittany could actually see something that Jen herself was missing.
“Interesting,” said Master Park. “Why?”
“It’s a zwischenzug,” said Brittany. “Now you’ll have to weaken your pawn structure. She can take the bishop later.”
“See that?” Master Park said, turning to Jen. “That’s what I mean by being aggressive. She’s not just thinking, ‘take his piece,’ ‘save my piece.’ She’s trying to mess me up down the road.”
“Wow, where’d you learn all that?” Shane asked, sitting up high on the couch now so she could see the board.
“We play at the sorority,” Brittany said. “We’re the best house. We totally kicked ass on Alpha Phi last weekend—they’re like our nemesis.”
While Brittany and Master Park discussed a few chess problems on a second board, Jen and Shane walked down to the bathroom at the far end of the strip mall.
“I guess she’s pretty smart,” said Jen, patting her friend on the arm. “Nice work.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Shane, shrugging. “I mean, it’s not like that’s why I like her. I’ve never talked to her about chess or anything.”
Jen laughed. “Sorry, I wouldn’t want to suggest that you valued her for anything but her looks,” she said. She reached out and put her arm on Shane’s shoulder. “Happy birthday,” she said.
Shane stopped walking, and since Jen was still touching her shoulder, she stopped, too.
“You know, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” said Shane, her face losing all trace of the smirk that she usually wore in conversation. Jen was startled. She never saw Shane looking serious like that, except when she was sparring.
“What is it?” Jen asked.
“I’m thinking about becoming a guy,” Shane said.
Jen was silent for a moment as she tried to understand what Shane had meant.
“Do you mean, like, surgically?” she asked, finally.
“Yeah, and with hormones,” said Shane.
Jen had known a few women who used to be men, but she realized she had never met anyone who had changed their gender in the other direction.
“They can do that?” Jen asked.
“Oh yeah,” said Shane. “Well, they don’t really do a great job with—you know—the bottom half.” Shane dipped her chin to indicate the direction she was talking about. “Most people just do the top part. That’s what I would do. They do a great job with that part.”
“Wow,” said Jen, dumbstruck. It seemed like it should be a small alteration—Shane was so much like a boy, anyway—but Jen knew it would change things. For one, Shane was her only real friend in Michigan. Jen couldn’t imagine being close friends with a twenty-one year old boy. She could barely tolerate them back when she herself was that age. But would Shane still be the same person, herself, or an adolescent boy?
And if Shane were a boy, would they still be training partners? Jen gasped as she realized that Shane would need to take time off training, perhaps a lot of time, to undergo this process, or procedure, or whatever it was.
“I just think it would be easier,” Shane said. “I mean, everyone already thinks I’m a guy.”
“But you’re not,” said Jen, thinking that this wasn’t a very good reason for undergoing a surgical procedure. “You don’t need to change yourself because of what other people think.”
“No, I know,” said Shane. “I mean, I think it would be easier for me. To understand who I am.”
Now Jen felt horrible. How could Shane not understand who she was? Jen understood perfectly who Shane was: a tough woman, strong, brave, her role model. She wanted to tell Shane those things, tell her that she needed to stay just as she was. But she couldn’t think of a way to say that without it sounding selfish, like she needed Shane to stay a woman for her own reasons, to keep her as a teammate, a sister. Maybe it is selfish, Jen thought; it was too complicated to figure out so quickly.
“There’s a really good clinic down in Ann Arbor,” Shane said. “I might need to move down there for a while. I could transfer to Eastern Michigan University for a semester. Brittany said she’d come with me.”
Jen’s stomach sunk.
You can’t go, she wanted to shout, to beg. You’re my only friend. You’re the only person here that matters to me.
But she knew she would not say that. “Of course I’ll support you in any way I can,” Jen said. “Just let me know what I can do.”
Shane reached in and gave Jen a long, hard hug, pressing her wet cheek into Jen’s neck. “That means so much to me,” said Shane, quietly, near Jen’s ear.
The blending of attacking and defending suggests the idea of balance. You must balance your aggressive energy with your sense of caution and introspection. You must never become so focused on your goal that you lose awareness of what is going on in the periphery of your vision. Becoming overly fixated on one aspect of life will cause other areas of your life to atrophy like withered limbs.
“Jen? Is that you?”
Jen recognized the voice on the other end of the lake house phone. She had been nervous to answer the phone; it almost never rang, and Jen only used it to make her weekly calls to Becky. If Jen answered and the phone call wasn’t for her, she needed to explain that Paula’s mother and her husband were in Toledo (they had returned in September from their summer vacation) and take a message, a complicated process since she then needed to call Paula’s mother, who she had never met, and relay the message.
It was easier just to let the phone ring. But this was Tuesday morning, which was one of the times that she and Becky often talked, though usually Jen called Becky and then Becky called her back to avoid running up a bill on Paula’s mother’s phone.
This person wasn’t Becky, though. Who else would be calling here for me, Jen wondered?
“I was meaning to call sooner,” the voice continued, “I mean, I had the phone number and everything.”
“Paula,” said Jen, relieved to have identified the caller without having to ask. She hadn’t spoken to Paula since she and Becky had left Jen in Michigan five months ago.
“How is everything?” Paula said. “I mean, Becky’s been keeping me posted on the basic news, and I read that horrible article about how you’re on steroids and a lesbian.”
“Yeah,” said Jen.
“I mean, you’re not, right?” said Paula, her tone conveying a slight hope that the article might have been correct.
“Right. Sorry,” said Jen.
They talked for a bit, catching up on Jen’s news—yes, she really had done a fight, yes, she had really gotten knocked out—and Paula’s news—“Same old stuff, yoga, celibacy, hanging around with Becky and Chase.”
Then Paula got to the reason for her call. “We’re having a shower for Becky. It’s at your house, not this Sunday but the next one. Sorry, I know it’s last minute; we just decided to do it.”
That was soon, Jen thought, less than two weeks. Too soon. Her taekwondo schedule felt like a speeding train that needed a great distance to stop. She was planning to do two upcoming competitions, one in December. There was no way she could take a break right now, even for a few days.
“You’re going to come, right?” said Paula, who apparently had been waiting for Jen’s response.
“Well,” said Jen, trying to figure out how to explain her hesitation. “It’s short notice, and I have this fight coming up.”
“Jen!” Paula yelled sharply, like a nursery-school teacher scolding a toddler who was just about to bite his playmate. “You haven’t been out to visit the entire time Becky’s been pregnant. She won’t tell you, but she misses you.” Paula cleared her throat. “You have to come when the baby is born next month, and you have to come to the shower.”
Now Jen felt horrible. Paula was right; how could she even consider missing her best friend’s baby shower just because it would throw off her training schedule? As though a few days of taekwondo and chess were more important than the friend who had supported her since they were twelve years old. Something must be going really wrong with my values, she told herself.
“Of course I’ll come,” said Jen, as though this had been her intention all along. “I was just saying it will be hard. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Great,” said Paula. “I’ll buy your plane ticket; I know you don’t have internet access out there.”
“Thanks,” said Jen.
Before they got off the phone, Paula remembered one other detail she had forgotten to tell Jen.
“Oh, and it’s a co-ed shower,” she said. “You can bring a guy, if you want. Or a woman, of course,” she added, in a tone of magnanimous non-judgment.
“No, it’ll just be me,” said Jen. “I’m not seeing anybody.”
“That a girl,” Paula said, before hanging up the phone.
Chapter 30
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