Alex as Well (12 page)

I SHUFFLE INSIDE the door, hoping to be able to get to my room undetected. My dad is standing in the hallway.

‘Alex,’ he begins.

I hold my hand up. ‘Don’t even speak to me! I don’t want to hear it! You know, I’m tired…’

‘Alex!’ he says sharply, and there is something weird and desperate about his face.

‘What do you want from me?’ I shout back.

Sierra and Julia step out from the lounge room behind him. Sierra gives me a tiny wave. She is blushing.

I’m going to throw up. I put my hand over my mouth, but it’s ok.

‘What are you doing here?’ I blurt.

I hope they stayed downstairs. All I can think about is the disgusting upturned plate of French toast outside my bedroom door that I step over twice a day, because, actually, no, I don’t think I should be the one who cleans it up.

Sierra and Julia look at each other. ‘Maybe we should go,’ Julia says with an arched eyebrow.

She thinks she has me pegged. She thinks I am rude and bratty, and that I’m embarrassed because I’ve been caught being rude and bratty to my dad who has played at being a nice man for the last however long they have been here.

This is the price I pay for being normal. It started with singing ‘Roxanne’ in class, but I didn’t see it then. I have no excuse to behave badly in front of other people now.
You
know it’s warranted, because you have all the information, but Julia will never know what I have to put up with. If I want Julia’s respect, I have to rise above it. I have to be nicer—more gracious even than a normal person.

‘No, no, no, I was just…How did you know where I live?’

‘My mum. It’s on your enrolment form,’ Sierra explains.

That’s kind of creepy, I tell Alex, but he doesn’t care. He’s taking it as further evidence that she has the hots for us. I don’t really get why that makes him happy. I remember her telling me that her mother stalked her. It was one of the first things she said to me. And now she thinks it’s ok to snoop into my documents.

‘We were going to get our nails done and wondered if you wanted to come too, since it’s just down the road,’ she says. She’s still flushed, and her eyes are bright.

Look at her face! She is so in love with me.

‘With Amina?’ I ask.

Sierra frowns. ‘No.’

‘It’s just she texted me before,’ I say, indicating my pocket where the phone is.

‘Just us,’ Julia says.

‘I can drive you,’ my dad says.

‘No, we can walk,’ I reply quickly.

We’re all standing in the hallway and it’s awkward. Julia doesn’t really want me to go and get my nails done with them. She wanted to see if I was telling the truth.

‘Did you see the turret?’ I ask her.

‘Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s cold in here.’ She rubs her arms. ‘Shall we go? Nice to meet you, Mr Stringfellow.’

Dad scrambles for his wallet and hands me a fifty.

Outside, I shut the door. ‘I’m sorry about before,’ I say to Julia. ‘My dad and I had a fight before, and I just needed some space.’

‘What did you fight about?’ Sierra asked.

‘Oh, dumb stuff.’ I wave my hand. ‘He was being a bastard and I didn’t appreciate it.’

‘Like what?’ she presses. ‘You can tell us stuff like that.’

‘Thanks. I’m over it,’ I say.

‘You didn’t look very over it,’ Julia observes.

I could make something up. Or I could actually tell them.

It takes me a while to figure out what I want to say.
We walk along the street. I take long strides avoiding the cracks in the footpath, but I’m taller than them, and Sierra is almost running to keep up, so I slow down and wait for her to fall into step with me.

‘He wants me to be different. He tries to accept me for who I am, but sometimes he slips and says things that make it really clear how much he wishes I was someone else entirely. It hurts my feelings, that’s all.’

‘What did he say?’ Sierra asks.

‘He was trying to be supportive. He said he knows of other weirdos who have normal lives.’

Julia gives me a look. It’s ever so slightly softer. ‘You’re not weird. It’s quite common really, isn’t it? What you are.’

‘I haven’t met any,’ I say grinning. We’re crossing the street now, and heading through the car park, into the shopping centre.

Julia’s eyes flick to Sierra and back again.

She’s picked it like a nose, Alex says.

There’s a nail place just inside the front door. I’ve never been inside. There are rows of tables. The nail artist sits on one side and the nail owner sits opposite. There seem to be a lot of implements under bright lights. The nail artists all have masks and gloves on. It looks like surgery. I wonder if it’s going to be painful.

We get three places in a row. I surreptitiously consult the menu and pick the one that is twenty-five dollars. Apparently my hands are going to have a therapeutic
exfoliation in botanicals. What the hell is that?

The girl cleans my nails. That doesn’t hurt, but then she starts cutting bits of skin off around my nails, and then she scrubs them with a rock. WTF?

‘Your hands are quite hairy,’ my nail artist says. ‘Would you like to wax them?’

‘Um, how much is that?’

‘Half-arm, twenty-five dollars.’

‘Sure, why not?’

‘I’ll have that too,’ says Julia.

The nail artist then rubs hot wax on my skin, lays a piece of fabric over the top and then pulls it off quickly. There’s no ‘this is going to hurt like a mofo,’ no, just straight off. Bam!

I curse.

Loudly.

And all the North Shore ladies turn in their seats to glare at me. Julia starts to giggle, and then Sierra.

‘This is insanity!’ I hiss.

She tears off another strip and my eyes water. ‘Goddamn!’ I slap the table. Then I start to laugh too. Julia hoots. Sierra leans into me.

RRRip!

‘Stop it, or I’m going to pee!’ I screech.

WHEN I WAKE up I lie in bed for a while staring at the ceiling. I’m going to Crockett’s today and I’m feeling great. Sore but great. I can still feel the burn on my arms, but I love the way they are silky smooth. My hair is getting a bit dready underneath where the extensions are coming loose, but I kind of like it. Like Avril Lavigne dragged backwards though a bush.

That’s ok, I can twirl it into a big bun on the top of my head. I wear my cute butterfly T-shirt, some of my ugly old cargoes and stripy socks. You’ll be able to see my belly button, but I have a nice flat stomach. I tie the sleeves of an old flannie around my waist—something for me to paint in.

After that I’m going to take my thousand dollars and go shopping. I want shoes with a peep toe and a giant, spiky heel. I want a short, sleeveless dress that flows from the waist down. I want a handbag—mint-green leather,
all big straps and buckles that interweave with each other. Big enough to sling over my body. I want black wideleg pants, and skinny jeans. I want a scarf that I can wear wrapped around my head and then in two long tresses down my back. I want some bright-coloured, chunky rings and bangles that will go
chingaling
.

My moby is on the bedside table, I’m thinking who I’ll invite to come with me. Julia and Sierra, but what about Amina? We could all go as a group, and then sit in the food court after, have a smoothie and talk about girl stuff. Or wander around window shopping, like we did last night.

I’m excited about the day ahead, and I’m also calmer than I have felt for ages.

I might even be happy. Alex must still be asleep. I wiggle my toes under my quilt cover, enjoying this moment where the day is full of things to look forward to instead of things to dread.

Like my mother.

Am I too hard on her?

I know teenagers are bratty and rude.

Is my mother the reasonable one? Because I genuinely believe that I am right and she is wrong. She seems so totally scattered to me.

The only way I can think to end this war with my mother is to give in, and say, ‘Yes, you’re right, I’m wrong, I am a boy after all, and yes, I will make myself eat French toast, even though I don’t want it, just because you made it.’

Would that make her happy, or would she just find a new thing to get angry about?

When I look over these past few weeks, I can’t see one thing I have done wrong. What’s so bad that she needed to leave the country?

Argh! It’s driving me crazy, and spoiling my good day!

Eventually I throw the covers back.

The upturned plate is gone from the doorway. I feel the carpet and it’s damp. My dad is snoring in his room. He must have scrubbed the carpet while I was asleep.

The house is a bit of a mess. There are dishes piled in the sink.

After my cereal, I stack the dishwasher and put on a load of washing. I leave a note on the bench for my dad to hang it out and thank him for cleaning up the French toast.

I’m really glad because Mum and I would have fought to the death over that stupid toast, and now we don’t have to.

Then I’m striding down the street in my steel-caps, with my bag slung over my shoulder, and my thousand dollars in my sock. It’s going to be a great day. I skip for three steps.

I look in the windows of the shops in the little strip where Crockett’s business is. There’s a newsagent, a café and a bus stop. At the end is a second-hand bookshop. They have clothes out the front that smell like incense.

I can imagine Natalie and I sitting there, each reading a magazine, in companionable silence, and eating fruit toast. Like proper grown-ups. I hope she is a tour guide somewhere cool, like South America. We can decorate the flat with fabrics from Guatemala and Mayan pottery. I imagine her pretty and smart. We won’t be besties, though. Sometimes we’ll argue over whose turn it is to take the rubbish out. She will be like a big sister.

Crockett’s almost doing a jig when he sees me, he’s so agitated. He’s pulled the curtain back from the window and the colour looks good in natural light. It’s much fresher.

‘What’s up with you?’ I ask, smiling.

‘I have news!’ He rubs his hands together, sitting on the edge of his desk. ‘I did some searches, and your current birth certificate was applied for when you were six months old, but guess what? Before that you had a birth certificate that says you are a girl.’

It feels like someone has punched me. I’m getting pins and needles in my fingers, and I can hear a ringing sound in my ears. I’m pressing my lips together, but I can’t feel them.

Crockett goes on. ‘It was applied for when you were two weeks old, and then annulled when you were six months and replaced with the other one that identified you as male.’ He stops. ‘Alex, are you all right?’

‘They knew.’ I croak. ‘They acted so surprised, but
they’ve known this whole time. They
made
me a boy.’

Crockett nods. ‘It looks that way.’

‘What is wrong with them? There is something wrong with them. It’s not just me.’

Crockett opens up his arms and I lean into him. He has a big furry woollen vest on.

‘You were right, kiddo,’ he says, patting my back. ‘You know who you are.’

I cry for a bit, but then eventually I stop, and I’m exhausted. I lie on my belly on Crockett’s carpet and he returns to his desk. He’s tapping away on his keyboard.

It makes all my soul-searching this morning about my mother seem so raw. So naïve.

At any point in time between me being an infant and now they could have said, ‘Oh, by the way when you were born we thought you were a girl.’

The other night, for example, springs to mind. When I said that I felt like a girl, that was an opportunity to say that this was on the cards, rather than rolling on the floor and screaming, ‘You’re killing me, you little pervert.’

I ask, ‘Can I divorce them? Like, can I be emancipated, or whatever it’s called? Can I never see them again? That’s what I want. I don’t even want anything from the house. I never want to go there again. I want it to be as though we’ve never even met.’

CROCKETT SAYS I don’t have to paint, but I do anyway. It gives me something to do. He spends the morning on the phone, finding me a temporary foster placement. He eventually finds a place for me. It’s a lady on her own—not a family. It’s only for a few days until they figure out what to do with me.

I want to ask him if I can move in upstairs, but he must have thought of that and dismissed it. If I ask and he says no, then I think I will cry, and he will be embarrassed and it will be really awkward.

Crockett thinks we need to go back to my house and at least collect my school things. He wants to talk to my father, and explain that I will be safe.

I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to have that conversation. What’s the point? What they’ve done to me is unforgivable. Ever. There’s no discussion that’s going to change that.

But apparently I have to have my parents’ consent to emancipate myself. Isn’t that crazy?

I take a really long time to clean the brushes, watching the water, burning orange, fade to clear under my fingers as I knead the bristles. Crockett leans against the door frame. ‘It’s time to go,’ he says.

Crockett drives a van. It’s column shift and it’s full of crap—papers everywhere and what appear to be the ghosts of meals he’s had in here. I push some of the debris over with my foot as I climb in.

He hands me some business cards. ‘In case you need to ring me.’

‘Ta,’ I say.

‘How do you think this is going to go?’ he asks, rubbing his stubble as we stop at some traffic lights.

I don’t really know what my father will do. I’m glad my mother is not home. Let my dad tell her. Maybe she will literally explode and then I can get on with my life.

‘I’m scared,’ I confess.

‘Me too,’ Crockett says, and I laugh.

We drive for a while in silence.

‘I’m picking up Natalie from the airport later,’ he tells me.

I imagine she is brunette, and fit, but small. Nuggetty. She might have dreads. She intersperses words of Spanish into the conversation.
Fuego!

Crockett stops the car in front of our house. I am hiding behind him as he knocks on the door.

My dad answers and he looks perplexed when he sees me, then concerned.

Crockett shakes my father’s hand. ‘Alex has engaged me as her solicitor.’

‘Sorry, he, her what?’

‘You might like to go and fetch your things now, Alex.’ He steps back and steers me towards the door.

As I walked down the hallway I could hear Crockett speaking in lawyer behind me. ‘Initially Alex engaged me in reference to some documents she wished to procure with which to process her enrolment—to wit, one birth certificate identifying her gender as female—but upon submitting applications, it became apparent that one such document had previously been rendered, and then annulled as of the fifth day of May 1998. As a consequence…’ I’m not able to hear the rest of what he says as I head up the stairs, although I do hear my father curse.

What do you pack when you are leaving forever? I stand frozen in the middle of the room, because I’ve never lived anywhere else. I’m suddenly sure that it’s the wrong thing to do. I should just suck it up for a few more years and save my money from my modelling jobs.

But then Crockett would have said, wouldn’t he? When I asked if he could emancipate me, he didn’t say, ‘You should go home and work it out with your folks.’ He didn’t say that at all. He got on with the business of getting me the hell out of here. If he thought it was a bad idea, I’m sure he would have said. Wouldn’t he?

Then I remember my mother throwing the French toast on the floor and blaming me, and hitting me with the phone over ordering the wrong pizza, and my dad saying I should be nicer to her, and calling me a weirdo. Strangers are going to treat me better than that. Especially if they don’t know about the noodle. If I front up as a normal girl.

I grab my school bag and all my books. I shove my uniform in. My phone charger. The only clothes I’m interested in are still in a pile on my chair from where I sorted them the other day, so I shove them in a garbage bag.

There’s nothing else I want from here. I stand there again for a minute, trying to remember everything exactly how it is today. One day I’ll have to describe it to a therapist.

At the last minute I grab my pillow.

When I go back downstairs my dad is bawling his eyes out.

He’s saying, ‘Don’t take my baby away,’ over and over. He is clinging to Crockett’s shirtsleeve.

Crockett looks terrible.

‘I’m ready,’ I say.

‘Alex!’ my dad calls out. His face is all twisted and red.

Crockett is shaking him off.

I get in the car and look out the window. My dad is kneeling on the footpath. He has his hands over his face. He is weeping. He looks as though he’s praying.

‘Oh God. Please! Please don’t take my baby away.’