Billy called first thing the next morning, before six. Erika wondered if he was going to yell at her for leaving him frustrated. All things being equal, it was a lousy thing to do. “Hey, I—”
“I know it’s early. Booger said you were up.”
Haya-oki wa sanmon no toku. The early bird gets the worm. Nobuo Tsuchino had bandied that phrase about quite often as well.
“For quite a while, actually.” Erika had dreamt of her late father just before dawn. It felt like something meaningful. “You talked to Milo already?”
“I did.”
“To complain about last night, or is that what this is for?” Erika asked, voice softening. “Because I really could have handled that better.”
“No. This is serious.”
“Oh.” She sat on the foot of the bed and braced herself. “You okay? Your parents? Your brothers and—”
“Yes, Rika. Everyone’s okay. Well, not everyone. I got here first thing this morning—cleaning day.”
Billy had to be at The Mischen Rink before sunrise a couple days a week. He traded labor for rental fees, so his hockey teams could practice for free. “I got out of my truck and found Jesse sleeping right outside. She’s run away from home.”
“Dang.”
“Dang?”
“I don’t curse anymore.” Erika pulled a yellow tank top over her sports bra. “Is she okay?”
“She’s not saying much.”
There was a knock then. “Kiki? You decent?”
“Yeah. Come in.”
Tom Alan opened the door. “Didn’t want to catch you in your undies.”
After what she’d watched just hours ago, Erika was pummeled by shame, as Tom Alan stood before her in his boxers, smelling all musky and manly.
“Milo gone?”
“Yup.” Tom Alan frowned.
Milo was taking a couple of morning classes a week to complete his degree.
“Billy says Jesse ran away. He found her at the rink.”
“Crud. I just got another text from Kensuke. Number eight.” Tom Alan still had his phone in his hand. “He’s kind of freaking out ‘cause she won’t answer his calls.”
“I doubt he’s that upset, considering how he’s glommed onto you.”
Tom Alan frowned again, but didn’t reply.
“Jesse claims they split—and it’s all Tom Alan’s fault. That much she did say,” Billy reported.
“Oh no.”
“What?” Tom Alan asked.
“Nothing. Well…something.”
“What do I do, Rika? I don’t even know how to parent a one-and-a-half-year-old, let alone a teenager.”
“Because we’re not much older…as I recall you saying.”
“True. Right now, she’s in the locker room taking a nice, hot shower. We’re gonna hit Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast, then maybe you can talk to her…ya know, woman to woman…unless that’s sexist.”
Erika allowed a brief smile.
“Let her know breaking up with a gay guy isn’t the end of the world.”
“I’ll give it a shot.” She realized she might have to lie.
* * * *
Billy and Jesse were back from Dunkin’ Donuts by the time Tom Alan and Erika arrived for training. Kensuke had sent a million texts in the meantime, including a dick pic, as the devil side had once more taken charge.
“Whatever you do, don’t scroll down,” Erika had said, taking in a smirk, a bare chest, and a belly button.
“Don’t plan on it.”
Tom Alan scolded Kensuke vigorously from the driver’s seat, his fingers moving fast, his nostrils flaring. Kensuke apologized then, but also begged to come by the rink, claiming to be upset by Jesse’s actions. “I told him you and I were too busy practicing.” Tom Alan smiled at Kyoko as she gently danced side to side with Etsuko in her arms in the parking lot. “And that our coach is a tyrant.”
“I do not usually allow spectators when we have the ice, especially this time of year. The season starts soon. Fifteen minutes!” Her words to her team were no less strict before handing off Etsuko and making her exit. “Your transitions still need a great deal of work. And whatever is going on with the jump, it needs to be fixed.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Jesse sipped from her paper cup. “What are transitions?”
Kyoko explained the nuances of choreography and figure skating as Jesse’s green eyes bore a hole through Tom Alan. “The moves between the jumps and the spins that add to the artistry.”
“Oh.”
“Etsuko and Dada gotta get on the road.” Billy reached for her, then turned her toward the door. “Dada? Dada?”
“She’ll think the door is ‘dada.’” Tom Alan was a wise guy.
“Go with Dada?” Billy pointed at himself. “Dada?”
Etsuko said nothing.
“She’s been a little grouchy…not sleeping well…the teeth.”
“We’ll deal. We have a big day ahead of us, huh, Sweet-ums? The park, the zoo, my parents’ to see Brianna, Benny and all four mutts. That’ll put you in a good mood.”
Erika laughed. “That might be a lot for one day.”
“I love spending time with my baby girl. Thanks for including me in your plans for a change…the trip…so I could.” The jab was intentional and it hurt, just like he’d planned. Then Billy let her have it again. “Now that we’re back, I’ll be sure to stay in my place.” Yeah, that was definitely about the night before.
“Billy…”
“I’ll catch up with you later.” He offered a kiss on the cheek. Erika put her hand there. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
“Wait.” She took his arm. “Just for a second.” Turning to her mother, she asked if it was okay if Jesse spent the day.
Kyoko looked to her daughter, and then to the upset younger girl with her head down, staring at her phone, which hadn’t made a peep. “If she’d like. You are familiar with the ice?”
“I, um, play hockey,” Jesse said softly.
“Maybe we’ll get you in a pair of figure skates. You’re a pretty girl. You’d make a beautiful flower.”
Jesse pursed her lips. “Pass.”
“No,” Kyoko said. “You will not pass. You are here on a work day and will do as I say.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Tukina.” The name was a tough one.
“You may call me Kyoko.” She held out her hand, and once the two were off to the back room for skates, Erika tried again with Billy, still mouthing “dada” to his daughter.
“Did you talk to Jesse’s parents?”
“Grandmother,” Billy said. “Jesse had told her she was spending the night with a friend. And get this, the mother’s in jail and the father is out of the picture. The grandmother sounded nice, but exhausted. She made a point to tell me she was nearly in her seventies, like keeping up with a teenager was something long past her capabilities now, ya know.”
“Dang!”
“‘Dang.’” Billy snorted. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that.
Erika smiled. Billy didn’t return it.
“Anyway, I wish I woulda known some of this before. I maybe coulda…I don’t know.”
“Did she open up at all about the walking sack of hormones in a hoodie?”
“Not much. She put in her ear buds and ignored me most of the time, which was perfectly fine. I’m not as good with women as I thought, I guess.” Billy smiled then—or was it a sneer? “I better get,” he said, all movie western cowboy. “Jesse’s grandmother said she can hang here as long as she wants, not in those words, but I got the feeling she could use the break.”
“That’s sad.” Tom Alan joined them. “Kind of reminds me of how we met.” His hand was on Erika’s elbow. “‘Don’t bother bringing him back,’ remember?”
Erika took his other hand in hers. The scars were still present—many of them literal. Erika could tell he was back there off and on throughout the whole day. Kyoko snapped a few times, but kept most of her attention on Jesse, who actually came out of her shell a bit, even giggling a couple of times as Kyoko raised and lowered her arms with the grace of a ballerina. Jesse’s style—if she even had any—was more athletic. She tried a couple of jumps once training was over, and laughed hard when she fell, dangling like a puppet from the jumping harness Tom Alan manned. The cables and pulleys tugged at Erika’s heartstrings. The safety device used to assist novice skaters, or seasoned ones when trying something new like a quadruple flip, played a large part in Billy and Erika’s first meeting. Tom Alan and Milo’s, too.
“Again?” Tom Alan asked.
Jesse had even forgiven him. She was having a blast—until Kensuke showed up toward dusk.
“I told you not to come,” Tom Alan snapped.
“I know, dude, but I had to see you.”
“You need to cut the crap,” Tom Alan told him. “Not only am I as good as married, I could also go to jail for possessing that picture you sent.”
“You’re not going to jail,” Kensuke said smugly. “And I know you looked.”
“You sent him a dick pic?” Jesse was in front of them in a flash. She shoved Kensuke hard, and since he was standing on ice in sneakers, he went down. “Asshole—which would have been the next one, right? I know the order.”
“Young lady!” Jesse flinched at Kyoko’s raised voice. “We do not tolerate violence in this arena.”
Jesse stared a moment, up into Kyoko’s stern face. Then she broke down sobbing, and skated toward the back of the rink.
“This building and what it represents is precious to all of us,” Kyoko said to Kensuke. “I will not put up with your nonsense for a second. Not one. Is that understood?”
Kensuke nodded, for once short on words. Tom Alan made it even clearer. “Behave or leave.”
“Alright. I…” Kensuke’s voice may have cracked. “I’ll be good.”
Kyoko headed in Jesse’s direction.
“But chill on the schlong shot,” Kensuke said. “I’m over eighteen. It’s not felonious.”
“Just stupid, insensitive, and not something I’m interested in. Can you get that?”
“Alright, man.”
“Do it again and I’ll block you.” Tom Alan turned his back.
“You’re eighteen? For real?” Erika offered a hand.
“Hundred percent.” Kensuke glanced at the ice, then back up with a look that might have been contrition. “I wouldn’t get no one in trouble like that, especially Tom Alan.” When he fished out his I.D., the bravado returned. “See? Dude’s getting all attitudinal over nothing.”
“Speaking of attitude, lose yours.” Erika took the license once Kensuke was steady on his feet. If it wasn’t fake, he was of legal age, close to nineteen, in fact, even if he would be heading back to high school in a week or so.
“I flunked a couple times.” He stared ahead, to the door Jesse had gone through. “I coulda gone to summer school or really just taken the final until I passed it, but I want to…I don’t want to…”
“Leave Jesse?”
“Maybe. And I lied to coach Gingerlicious because I was scared I’d age out of hockey. What’s the big? ‘Cept for my c—?”
“Shut it!” Tom Alan hadn’t gone far.
“Don’t tell her.” Kensuke suddenly seemed almost scared.
“If you care so much about Jesse, why’d you break up with her?”
“I didn’t. She dumped me.”
“Because you cheated on her?”
“You don’t know shit,” Kensuke told Tom Alan.
“Hey! You don’t come onto our ice and talk to me like that!”
“Sorry,” Kensuke replied, first with petulance and then more sincerely. “Really. I am. Man, it’s so messed up.”
“What is?” Erika asked.
“It’s not really cheating—what we did.”
“We didn’t do anything!” Tom Alan insisted.
“Right. We didn’t,” Kensuke said to Erika. Then he smacked himself in the head with both hands. “Fuck!”
“No cursing either,” Erika told him.
“Sorry.” There were things about him reminiscent of Tom Alan as well, who also once apologized for everything. “I love her, ya know? But there’s some really complicated sh—stuff going on.”
“Because you’re gay?”
“I don’t have to be,” Kensuke said softly.
Tom Alan disagreed. “If you are,” he said, showing his usual gentle side “I think you kind of do.”
“Yeah. I guess. But I can still love Jesse. Everything ain’t about sex.”
“Plus, you figure you can get that somewhere else. That about right?”
Kensuke sighed loudly, while Erika awaited a response to Tom Alan’s question. “Jess is down with that, actually.” Erika challenged the statement with a look. “She is. I swear. And don’t all gay dudes, like, step out on the side?”
“Not all of them,” Tom Alan said. “If that’s the information you’re getting, you need to do better research.”
“Jess proposed this sort of a deal, yo, where me and her are a couple, but we both can, like, do whatever we want. Like an open relationship kinda thing. Not with a bunch of people, maybe, but like a third one. That could work, don’t ya think?”
“Not really,” Erika and Tom Alan answered in unison.
“Well, it doesn’t even matter anymore,” Kensuke said. “‘Cause whatever her problem is now, she all of a sudden said we’re done and won’t say nothing else about why.”
“We may as well call it a day,” Kyoko announced, coming down the steps from the balcony above the ice. It was a welcome distraction, because Erika had no idea what else to say to the kid, and Tom Alan was about to chew his bottom lip off. “Jesse will join us. Young man, I’m afraid you’ll have to go.”
Kensuke looked about to argue, but then thought better of it. “Yes, ma’am. But the train doesn’t head back for an hour, so…”
“You can sit outside.”
And that was where they left him.
Once home, Tom Alan and Erika chatted in the modern Japanese-style living room, all cream, dark brown, and gray. Billy stood with Etsuko, there to drop her off. He wouldn’t sit, nor would he commit to staying for dinner, but he hadn’t yet left either. Milo offered Tom Alan a half-hearted kiss as he entered, obviously worn out from his day downstate. Then he plopped down on the floor with him, while Kyoko was in the kitchen with her sous-chef, Jesse. Dinner was held up for Milo, so Billy filled everyone in on Etsuko’s day. “We saw a giraffe, and a monkey, and a penguin, and a flamingo…” Afterward, Tom Alan filled Milo in on his and Erika’s, as the house started to fill up with the smell of beef stew.
“Big day for monkeys,” Milo said, “zoo monkeys and butt monkeys. Glad the kid came out, but that ‘All gay guys mess around’ stuff…? It sounds like a philosophy I once lived by, doesn’t it?” He blew Etsuko kisses as she reached out for his untamed coppery mane.
“‘Out of sight out of mind, out of his pants, Booger,’” Tom Alan said.
“I still can’t believe you ever called me that!” Milo took Etsuko, who insisted on joining him down on the floor.
“Someone else did.” Tom Alan gave them each a nuzzle. “I just agreed with them.”
“And it was accurate.” Billy tapped Milo’s knee playfully with the toe of his sneaker. “Once upon a time, you were quite the man whore.”
“Shh. Little ears are listening,” Erika said.
“Peanut’s first word was f-u-c-k.” Peanut was Billy’s baby brother, Burgess. “I taught it to him.” He seemed so proud. “Dad thought it was hilarious. Mom, not so much.”
“That’s a different story,” Erika said. “People might giggle if a toddler curses. No one’s going to laugh if she calls someone…” Erika lowered her voice. “A butt monkey or a man whore.”
“Got it. No naughty words in front of the princess.” Milo loudly smooched Etsuko on both cheeks and her forehead then took Tom Alan’s hand.
“Get a room.”
“Got one,” Tom Alan said.
“And speaking of…”
Kyoko and Jesse’s entrance meant Erika’s confession and warning would have to wait. “Jesse’s staying the night. I’m going to put her in the guest room. Dinner’s in fifteen minutes.” They breezed through the room with barely a pause.
“Um…What now?” Milo asked. “How’d we end up with a boarder?”
“You’re a boarder.” Erika offered another jab.
“Tell your mommy if it wasn’t for me, you’d have been born on the front portico instead of in a hospital.”
“And I woulda still been the last one called.” Billy was holding a grudge.
“We are sorry about that, Hockey Puck, but you made it on time.”
“Thanks to you. No one else even bothered to think of me.”
“I never stopped thinking of you, Billy. I was also a little bit busy,” Erika said.
“Don’t look at me.” Tom Alan put up both hands. “I was at an airport.”
The tension broke over dinner. Billy stayed, and though he didn’t say much while chowing down on Kyoko’s meal, he did goof off with Milo and Tom Alan while helping with the dishes. They formed a little assembly line. Tom Alan washed, Billy dried, and Milo put the dishes away.
“Top shelf, Hockey Puck.” Slightly lacking in the height department, whenever Milo needed a boost, he’d give a shout, then hold out his arms, like Etsuko when she wanted out of her crib in the morning.
“Going up.” Billy would hoist him into the air so he could put the glasses up high, “Going down,” and then set him back on his feet, like Tom Alan did with Erika when they skated.
“I’ll have to ask Skater Boy’s permission on that one,” Milo said.
“Eh. Some people don’t even consider it sex.”
“Things are backing up here, Bill.” Tom Alan got three plates ahead while Milo was in the air. “You’re slacking off.”
“Now there’s something we could all do together.”
“No more of that. Tom’s getting mad. On it, Tom!” A hard snap of the dishtowel against Tom Alan’s ass rang out. Retaliation was a white foam facial flung off his fingertips aimed at both Billy and Milo. Sitting there watching it all, Erika was also getting wet.
Billy departed for the night offering two kisses at the door, one to Etsuko and one to Milo—right on the lips. Perhaps it was a not-so-subtle hint concerning an upcoming announcement. Perhaps it was a dig at Erika, who’d been tempted to ask him to stay over, but hadn’t. An hour later, Tom Alan and Milo were at it again. Erika had needed the AC, so she’d moved the chair from in front of the vent. Then it went off. She should have set the thermostat lower. “Can’t they skip a couple of nights until they get back to their own apartment?” she asked Flip—maybe Twizzle? “Are they ever going back to their own apartment?” Erika would miss them, but maybe out of sight out of mind would work for her, too.
“I love you,” she heard, and her heart filled with emotion.
“Probably not. Fine.” She got up. “If you gotta, you gotta.” Back to the bed in the nursery it was.
“Milo…?” Tom Alan spoke as she reached for her robe.
“Yes, love?”
“I’m not listening,” Erika whispered.
“When you…when you flirt with Billy…”
Uh oh. Now she was.
“Flirt? Is that what I’m doing?” Milo asked. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
When Erika heard a ribald slap against bare flesh, she got a pang somewhere else and figured everything was fine.
“Does it bother you?” Milo asked in the other room.
Did it?
“A little,” Tom Alan said.
“Aww, Skater Boy. You’re my one and only.”
“I know.”
“And I’m yours, now, aren’t I?”
“Of course.”
“There we go, then.”
Was that it? Erika waited for more talking. All she heard was heavy breathing. “Guess so.” She picked up her phone off the dresser.
“I’ve been horny all day…especially since washing dishes,” Tom Alan said.
Every line can’t be poetry, Erika figured. She swiped for Billy’s photos from the other night. They brought a smile and a twinge.
Erika: Hey you.
Billy: Hey.
Erika: Tonight was nice…all of us together.
Billy: Yeah?
Erika: I hate for it to end. Feel like some company?
Billy: Seriously?
A groan and a grunt said things were moving quickly upstairs. Creaking box springs and a tap against the wall came next—the headboard or maybe an elbow.
Erika: Yeah. We start late tomorrow and Mother will watch Etsuko.
Billy: Then cum on over.
Erika smiled.
Billy: I mean come.
Erika: Put your wet Rangers t-shirt back on. The one you wore doing dishes.
Billy: It’s not wet anymore.
Erika: I am.
Billy: Damn!
Erika: :) We should talk first.
She had the whole speech worked out in her head. “I care about you too much just to be exes with benefits, but my infatuation…” She’d agonized over the one word. “My infatuation with Tom Alan doesn’t seem to want to go away. If you can handle that, maybe we can agree to be exclusive and see where things go?”
Billy: “Talk” Uh oh. “First” I like the sound of.
Erika stood at the dresser, trying to decide what to put on—something quick and comfortable, or something sexy.
Erika: Not talking was a problem in the past. You said that. Remember?
Billy: I do. We’ll talk.
Erika: I’ll be there within the hour.
On her way to the door, she listened for additional sex noises at the foot of the stairs, more because of the houseguest than to fulfill her fantasies. “He’s taken,” she whispered, “and you love Billy…too.” With her hand on the handle, Erika thought of something else. “Crap!” The roll of self-adhesive frosted window covering she’d bought was still jammed under the guest bathroom sink, because Erika had been far too busy to remember to stick it up.
Back in her bedroom, practically hanging out the one there, she tried to look up toward Tom Alan’s atrium door. Maybe they pulled the drapes, she thought. The flexibility she’d developed from skating came in handy, except she still couldn’t see a thing, except the bottom of the room, which made a roof over the herringbone brick patio below it. Turning slightly, she could make out a light in Jesse’s window, though, and a shadow heading toward the bathroom.
“Come on! Don’t go in there.” What to do? Erika was back in the living room. Should she head upstairs to Jesse, or tell Bangers and Mash to close the drapes? Opting for the first, “Jesse,” she quietly knocked. “You awake?” The door was slightly open. When Erika touched it, it swung in even further. The light in the bedroom was on, but Jesse wasn’t in there. Her silhouette was clear in the bathroom, however, perched up upon the vanity, stretching to see out the window.
Erika tiptoed down toward the living room. She grabbed her phone and dialed Jesse’s number, hoping to tear her away. The voyeuristic teen didn’t answer. “Shoot.” A text to Tom Alan was her next best alternative.
Erika: Close the curtain on the door to the deck. You have an audience.
Tom Alan: Huh?
She knew he would answer—always. They had that kind of relationship. Even in the middle of sex, if he heard her ringtone, “Bells of Moscow”, he’d stop and check his phone.
Erika: You can see right into your sexatorium from the guest room bath.
Erika: Jesse is probably peeping as you read this.
Milo: And you know this how?
Tom Alan, meanwhile, sent the angriest emoticon Erika had ever seen.
Erika: I ACCIDENTALLY caught the show last night.
It was the coward’s way to do it, but at least it was done.
Milo: And watched for forty minutes?
Erika: You wish.
Milo: Open invite. :p
Tom Alan found an even angrier face to send.
Erika: I repeat. Close the curtains!
Erika: I’m off to Billy’s.
Erika: C ya in the morning. Bye-e.
Her phone buzzed one last time as she listened to Jesse cross back to her room. It was a jpeg Erika studied closely, a selfie of Milo sticking his tongue against a part of Tom Alan’s anatomy. She rubbed the seam down the front of her yoga pants, all the way from where it started below the waist to where it curved to start up the split of her rear end. Billy’s early interjection came to mind. “Damn!”
“Erika?”
She jumped at the sound of her name.
“Can we talk a few minutes?”
“I was just…” She couldn’t ignore the sadness in Jesse’s eyes when she turned around. “Sure. Let’s sit at the kitchen island. I know where my mother hides the cookies.”
Jesse was on her third, snuggling up to one of the cats when she finally spoke again. “What’s his name?”
“Flip or Twizzle…I can never tell them apart.” Whichever one Jesse wasn’t holding amused herself circling the rungs of the stool like a stripper pole. “Tom Alan gave them to Milo for their second year of Christmas. They’re tortoiseshell kittens, like two turtle doves, from the song. ‘What the heck would we do with birds?’ he’d said.” Erika was hoping for a smile. “He’s planned out the next twelve years’ gifts already.” She suddenly remembered many of them were sexual. Six geese a-laying and drummers drumming were going to be awfully loud through the heat vent. Wait. Would they all still be living together in ten more years? “Tom Alan gave Milo a perpetual digital clock and calendar. The battery is supposed to last forever—just like their relationship. Sweet, huh?”
Jesse just stroked the cat. A girl going through a breakup probably didn’t want to hear about the great love story of Tom Alan and Milo. Erika stopped rambling then, and just waited her out.
“Your mother’s tight.”
“She is. Yes.”
“And Milo is really hot.”
“Yeah.” Jesus! Not another crush!
“I know you know I was just watching them.”
Erika nearly did a spit-take with her sparkling water. “That’s really not something you should do.”
“I didn’t mean to at first. I just looked out the window…and then I saw.”
Erika could believe that.
“I swear.”
Some of Jesse’s words had an extra syllable, an ah on the end, like “swear-ah”.
“Just for a second,” Jesse said. “How did you know I was doing it?”
“Woman’s intuition.” Erika smiled.
“I don’t have that.” Jesse finished her milk. “Did you know, like, as recent as the eighties, if a guy had a crush on another guy, people would try to convince him it meant he wanted to be like him, not be with him.”
“That was a thing?”
“I read about it online,” Jesse said.
“Is this about Kensuke?” Erika cautiously asked.
“Sort of.”
“You think he’s maybe not gay, but just admires guys like Tom Alan or Milo.”
“Oh, no. Kensuke is definitely gay. He wants to fuck Tom Alan.” She scrunched up her face. “Sorry.”
“But you love him anyway, even if he is?”
“Sometimes I love him. Sometimes he’s an assho—a jerk.”
“Sounds like every man I’ve ever met.” Erika smiled again. It was hard to see in the dim light of the room, lowered so as not to wake anyone sleeping, but Jesse frowned.
“Kensuke and me have sex, but only one way. I figured the only way to keep him was to let him cheat, because I don’t have a dick he can suck.”
Erika had no idea how to respond to that.
“That doesn’t mean our feelings aren’t real.”
“I know.”
“Some kids in school call me a dyke.” Jesse stared into her empty glass. “Because I dress like I do and I’m not into supposedly girly things like cheerleading and homecoming queen.”
“I heard that a few times, too, because I’m an athlete. There were a lot of mean girls in my school.”
“That’s so dumb.”
“I know. Sorry. There were mean boys, too.”
“No. I meant, figure skating isn’t even a lesbian sport.”
There was a tone there Erika couldn’t decipher.
“You wear pretty dresses and dance like a ballerina,” Jesse said sarcastically. “This one girl, Leah, she’s in dance, choir, Honor Society, drama, every club there is, and every girls’ sport. No one calls her names. I guess you can play basketball as long as you also sing soprano. I sit behind Kensuke and sing first tenor.”
“What does Kensuke sing?”
Jesse looked up and smiled. “Badly.”
Erika chuckled.
“He takes crap, too. He plays the flute.” Jesse brushed some crumbs from the counter, swiveled on her stool, then climbed down and walked to the trashcan. “He’s really good. Gets mad respect for it, actually, from some people, but others…I like the way you say his name. Your dialect, or whatever, makes him sound even hotter.”
That probably wasn’t what Erika should be going for. “How long have you known him?”
“Not long. Forever.” The look on Jesse’s face was as dreamy as her voice. “I only moved here last January, when my mom…when I came to live with my grandmother. It was so awful when I was younger.”
“What was awful?”
“I don’t know.” Jesse sat back on the stool and picked apart a cookie she’d want to clean up afterwards. “Kensuke…he came right up to me in the cafeteria that first day. I was sitting with strangers, my head hung, and he said, ‘I bet I can make you smile.’ I looked up and he asked…Never mind. I can’t make Kensuke happy.”
“This isn’t a you problem, Jesse. It’s not your fault you and Kensuke aren’t as compatible as—”
“You don’t get it either.” Jesse stood. “I’m going to bed.” She started through the living room, seemingly more upset than when the conversation started.
“I want to get it, though.” Erika was right behind her and reached for her wrist.
“I should just kill myself.”
“My God, Jesse!” Erika grabbed her by both arms. “No!”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“Because there will be other boys!” Erika remembered to lower her voice then. “It may not feel like it now, but not being with Kensuke is not the end of the world.”
“No.” Jesse agreed. She was crying, and swiped the cuff of her long-sleeved denim shirt across her nose. “But no other guy is ever going to want me like he does. I hate my body.”
“We all do sometimes,” Erika said.
Jesse sputtered at the inane platitude. “I’m going to end up alone,” she said. “Because I’m not attracted to straight guys.”
Erika fought back a laugh, and also the lump in her throat. She was exactly like the girl standing in front of her. “You are going to meet so many men—”
“It doesn’t matter how many I meet,” Jesse shouted, partway up the stairs. “I didn’t look at Tom Alan and Milo because I want to be with them, you know. I looked because…I want to be like them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want to be…I’m a boy, Erika,” Jesse loudly declared. “I always have been, even if no one else can see it.”
The slam of Jesse’s door was the last thing Erika heard from her, right before Etsuko started wailing. Erika went up to her mother’s room, wondering, as the two consoled her baby girl, what she could do for Jesse.