8

I walk into homeroom on three hours of sleep and short about three hundred hairs. My scalp is sore. My brain is the closet of the room you were told to clean, the closet you crammed everything into. I’m cranky. I lean on my palm and stretch out my legs across Blanca’s chair. I’m about to catch a cat nap when the phone lights up with the homeroom group message:

@ShutupU2: No Danny this morning. The pool is over 200 dollahs!

@macncheesedaddy: Wow. I could buy a third of a smartphone with that.

@blerdsneedsluv2: How many people are swimming in this pool?

@shutupU2: Well. About 200.

@frodown: But wait. This is a 50/50 bet. So let’s use a random number and say 100 kids think Danny is a guy and 100 a girl. Then half of us win—

@blerdsneedluv2: 2 dollars LOLLOLOLOL

@XoXo: He can pee next to me. #loveislove

White Girl 3 out loud: “That’s a T-shirt. A slogan. Not reality. Your dad would pitch a fit. Assuming he has a penis, I don’t want it in my bathroom, okay. Bathrooms should be based on biology, not on personal preference.”

My eyes pop all the way open at the sound of her voice. What the hell is that puta doing here? I straighten up and scope out the situation. White Girls 1 and 4 are back too. Nelly still isn’t here.

White Girl 2 aka @XoXo, chipping the pink polish of her nails: “I don’t think gender is a preference. I’m sure everybody would prefer that they were born in the right body.”

White Girl 3, who’s now wearing cornrows(?): “The right body is the body you have, not the body you have to surgically alter.”

@blerdsneedsluv2 aka Black Guy 2: “Why can’t they just have their own damn bathroom?”

@frodown aka Frida: “Really, Alphonse? Their own water fountain too?”

@blerdsneedsluv2 aka Black Guy 2 aka Alphonse I guess: “That ain’t the same thing.”

White Girl 3: “I don’t want to worry about getting raped in the bathroom. How am I supposed to know if a guy is in there because he thinks he’s a girl or a guy is in there because he’s a sicko?”

Frida: “So you’re saying that rapists would dress up as a woman and attack you in the restroom stall?”

White Girl 3: “Tell me your father is okay with guys being in the bathroom.”

Frida: “Why wouldn’t rapists have dressed up as women to attack women in stalls before?”

White Girl 3: “I’m waiting.”

Frida, fiddling with the flower in her hair: “Okay. No. My father would not be down with brothas in the restroom.”

@Rican_Havok: “Forget my dad. My sister goes here. If that dude steps into the bathroom, I will kick his ass.”

Boricua 2 aka Penelope: “Excuse me. Sorry I’m late to the convo. But what if he has she parts? Then can they use the girl’s bathroom?”

@Rican_Havok: “No. A fictional penis is still a penis.”

Frida: “So you’re good with him using the boys’ bathroom?”

@Rican_Havok: “I’ll kick his ass.”

……

Danny doesn’t show all morning. I head to the bathroom before lunch. I’ve brought my nail clippers today because that is more civilized than using my teeth. To make up for the three hundred hairs I pulled out, I’ll snip three hundred split ends. I sit on the toilet tank and find my rhythm.

Knock knock knock. “I could just slip it under the door.”

“Danny?” I jump off the toilet tank so fast, I almost step into the bowl. “Slip what under the door?”

A banana clutched by a dry, cracked hand waves back and forth.

I drop my nail clipper, I’m laughing so hard. Grab the banana. Gather my things: hair, backpack, nail clipper. Danny glances at all this but doesn’t question it, my sanity, etc.

“Okay. Office hours are over.” I push open the door and grab Danny’s hand. Thank God @Rican_Havok’s sister isn’t in here. “Come with me if you want to live.”

By the time we find the most isolated stairwell, I have inhaled the banana and am trying to figure out what to do with the peel. So Danny and I think we’re hilarious and set it on the stairs.

“So where were you this morning? Your ears are pierced.” I estimate 120 dollars’ worth of piercings from a homie who may have raided the janitors’ closet. Blanca and I did the research.

“Yeah.” He has wooden plates inserted into his ear holes. “Buddy of mine owed me a favor. Did it for free. But I had to do it this a.m.”

“Free? Except for the cultural appropriation, I like them.”

Danny blinks in surprise.

“So a buddy, huh? You and Blanca. She tried to DIY a tattoo once by reading a prison blog.” Ms. Trial-and-Error was planning on piercing her nose by hand and I was like hell to the no.

“Blanca?”

I said her name. Out LOUD.

“Is she in homeroom?”

Yeah. No. Yeah. “She’s not here.” Not on the stairwell. At the moment. Mostly. “Anyway, tats and piercings were her thing.” Gonna be her thing. “She was into fashion. Costumes, actually. Girl loved petticoats. Other girls walked around in shorties and tank tops. She walked around in the summer with a parasol. She always said she didn’t belong—” to this time.

“What’s your thing?”

“I love the suspenders. And the hats: bowler, Panama, fedoras. I could tie a Windsor knot like nobody’s business. Britches are badass.” Wait. The correct answer was I build sets.

“I can just see the two of you.”

“Actually, you couldn’t. Because Blanca had the cojones to walk through the barrio with a Victorian touring hat. She wore her personality on her sleeve. My personality . . . is kind of stitched into a secret pocket.”

“I love secrets. And pockets. But especially secret pockets.”

I snort again. It’s on. “So do you have a secret pocket?” And are there janitor’s supplies stuffed inside?

A bunch of gossip-girling sophomores jogging up the stairs fall dead quiet at the sight of Danny and me. One of them makes a big show of squinting at Danny like she’s trying to identify a bacterial strain. They get all whispery and then back away like they verified leprosy. Frida comes up from behind and stares them down.

“Sorry for staring, ladies. My bad.” Frida squints. “But only two layers of makeup? I couldn’t tell who you was.”

They suck their teeth and strut off.

“Yeah!” I shout to their backpacks. I get a middle finger.

I’m embarrassed and grateful all at once, thinking back to that guy shoulder-bumping Danny and me not saying a word in their defense. I SUCK. Frida didn’t flinch. The right words came out of her mouth at the right time.

“PS, you two know there is a cafeteria, right?” Frida says.

Danny laughs. His/their front tooth is chipped. He/they stops smiling when he/they catches me looking.

“Speaking of the cafeteria, do you think tomorrow, I could offer you a seat? One that doesn’t have a lid. At the table?”

Snort. “I’d—like that. But first”—deep breath—“Danny. I swear I’m not placing any bets with Rudy, but . . . pronouns, please for the love of God.”

Danny nods. “Thank you for actually asking.” Now I feel even worse. That was all I had to do? Maybe it’s something I should do all the time. With everyone. “He/him will work.You?”

“Me?”

“That’s a new one. Would me come a little closer?”

“No! I meant . . .”

“I’m just messing with me.” He looks into my eyes and laughs.

I laugh too.