Kim

Change 3–Day 348

Herewith: the sum of my summer, conveniently bullet-pointed for (my own) future reference . . .

 

• Working six days a week at ReRunz, sometimes seven when this skuzzy yet still appealing Changer guy named Tiq bails on account of staying out too late drinking and smoking with his equally skuzzy (less appealing) buddies, then calls me last minute to fill in for him because he’s “way too hungover to fold clothes.”

• Paying for gas, insurance, and significant mechanical and cosmetic repairs on my Vespa, in preparation for all the places I plan to take Audrey with me once school starts.

• Walking Andy through Destiny’s decision not to be Destiny, at least once and sometimes twice a day.

• Balancing on the friendship tightrope with Kris, who I want to confide in, but thanks to then-Destiny’s lecture about burdening your loved ones with the truth, I have decided I probably can’t. So trying to enjoy what little time I have left with him as Kim and hoping he gets sidetracked by his own mini-dramas, of which there are plenty.

• Going vegetarian (in Audrey’s honor), then going back to eating turkey and chicken, then going vegetarian again—before finally going back to eating everything because at the end of every shift at Sweet Melissa’s Chicken Shack where Andy works, we can cop as much free food as we can stuff our faces with.

• Seeing Tracy for an awkward afternoon tea, during which she apologized for letting me down by seemingly giving up on me after the RaChas march, and insisting that no matter what I do, or how frustrated she gets, she will never actually give up on me. And let’s not forget her making me promise not to tell Audrey who I am next year, so that it limits the exposure I brought on ALL OF US by participating in the RaChas action and tipping off Audrey to the fact that Changers might exist (if she only knew half of what I actually shared with Audrey).

• Going on a quick beach weekend in Florida with my mom, dad, and Andy, during which it rained the whole time, and some kid got a superficial shark bite on the shin where we were staying, so rain or shine you were not going to find my chubby butt bobbing out in that water like so much Jaws bait. We did connect with one of Nana’s friends from her old apartment complex, who gave me a box of Nana’s things that had been left behind when Mom and Dad moved her in with us earlier this year. They still smelled like Nana.

• Awaiting a much-anticipated yet ultimately aborted Facetime from Audrey, who texted in the middle of the night on July 4 that she was going to be able to escape her camp for an hour and wanted to connect, but then her call never came.

• DJ rolling by ReRunz to say goodbye to me before his mom drove him up to Connecticut for school, where he was enrolled in a special pre-college program and had a part-time campus job waiting for him. He was still sort of smarting from never getting to actually lay eyes on Destiny again, but I’m not worried about DJ—he’s going to thrive in the Ivy League. And Yale’s going to be better for having him there. Way better.

• Setting aside especially fly wardrobe selections that come through ReRunz for my future self, even though I have no idea what size, color, style, or vibe that might need to be. Much less gender. But then, I’ve kind of let go of the whole dressing-for-your-gender thing. What a racket that is.

• Stopping by the jewelry store to keep an eye on the charms they have available. It appears they have run out of the letters T, L, and X, so here’s to praying my new name isn’t going to be Tiger, Lola, or Xander.

• And finally, only last week, another peculiar tea with Tracy, and this time Mr. Crowell too, during which they announced they were going to have a baby, and before I could even have a reaction, Tracy immediately set in, assuring me (even though I didn’t need it) that newborn or no, she would never be distracted from her duties as my Touchstone, and that yes, technically Touchstones are supposed to hold off on reproducing until after their Changer charges have completed their Cycle, but that things went super-duper fast and they were so excited to get their lives started that they decided they could handle it, no problem. “So it was an accident?” I asked, while Tracy was horrified that I even knew how babies were made, and Mr. Crowell said, “Basically, yes.”