Girl Meets Boy (15 page)
Authors: Kelly Milner Halls
Supposedly, animals gnaw their own legs off to escape from traps.
When I got my license, Dad bought me a brand-new flashy little white convertible. After a decent interval had passed, I traded it for a truck that was a few years old and got the difference in cash. Then I went on my first road trip.
I didn’t start out with a firm plan. All I knew was that I wanted to escape. But before long, I knew exactly where I was
going. It kind of surprised me that I was able to find it again so easily, but I’ve always been a good navigator.
I didn’t want to stay in the lodge itself, figuring it would probably be full of people who would remind me of Dad and his colleagues, but I remembered that you could set up camp in the woods. So I drove up to the ranger station. It was a sunny day. I was wearing sunglasses and a cap to cut the glare.
“Hey, buddy,” the ranger said. “Need a camping permit?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah,” I said, deepening my voice.
“Six bucks.”
I gave him six bucks.
“Enjoy your weekend, buddy.”
Did I tip my cap in acknowledgment? Or did I just nod? I don’t know.
Anyway, it was right where I remembered: the small clearing, surrounded by trees, sheltered from the wind. I didn’t bother with a tent, just unrolled my sleeping bag on the ground.
When I’d told Gavin I wanted to see into myself, it was sort of a lie. I knew who I was. I’d always known. What I wanted was to see if there was some way I could reconcile the person I knew I was with the person I was expected to be.
I didn’t see any animals that night. I heard leaves rustling, branches snapping. And a couple of times, I thought I glimpsed shining eyes.
I did see the stars. They were so bright they seemed harsh, as though I could have gone blind from looking at them, like staring at the sun during an eclipse.
So many more stars than you can see in the city. So clear.
It was clear, too, what I had to do when I left. Not easy. God, the furthest from easy. But clear.
I moved out before I could get kicked out, drained my college fund, and paid exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege of having endless, exhausting conversations with well-meaning professionals who wanted to ascertain the nature of my disorder, which I didn’t consider a disorder. It was just that sense of wrongness, that feeling of being stuck between lanes, that was always there. I wanted to address it in a way that seemed logical to me.
I prefer understatement to hyperbole, so I’ll just say that it’s all been a hassle. Peter will send the occasional e-mail—he likes political forwards—and Kaylie chats with me online sometimes, late at night after all her friends have gone to sleep. But Mom and Dad? No, they don’t talk to me. Ever. Kaylie says they pretend I don’t exist, and really, the person they wanted me to be doesn’t anymore, so maybe they’re right.
G.
I push the door open, making sure it’s the one with the roos-ter on it.
She … he … is still standing by the sink. He looks at me.
“Sorry I shocked you, Gavin.”
“You didn’t shock me. So, what’s new? What have you been up to anyway? Played any miniature golf lately?”
She laughs and shakes her head.
“How about that collection of yours?” I ask. “You still have your collection?”
“What collection?”
“Uh, it was a bunch of washed-up beach stuff. You kept it in your playhouse in the backyard. Do you still have the collection? Do you still have the playhouse?”
“No,” Stephanie says.
In this restroom, leaning against the sink with his legs stretched out in front of him, he seems to have achieved a level of casualness and calmness that is far superior to mine.
I force myself to look at her face.
I say, “D-did you—ah—”
“Hm?” She is looking at me attentively, waiting.
“Did you … get some kind of, ahhh, sex … alteration … ?”
She chews on her upper lip, just like always.
“I go by Stephen now.”
“Stephen?”
“Yeah.”
“I suppose you”—I swallow—”have some reason for … ?”
He leans toward me, as if he’s going to make a move on me. “Reason?”
“Hey, listen,” I say, putting up my hands, “I just want to say … I’m sorry about what happened in the—”
The door opens, and a middle-aged man comes walking in. He gives us a glance and goes over to the urinal and starts doing his thing.
“What happened in the what?” Stephen says.
I lower my voice. “Hot tub.”
Stephen looks at me for a moment. “You mean when you started—”
“Yeah,” I interrupt.
The guy at the urinal starts whistling quietly.
“You didn’t do anything bad,” Stephen says. “You just—you just started kissing me, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting it—it took me by surprise. How come you ignored me after that? I figured you hated me.”
“I was pretty embarrassed about it,” I say. “I thought you hated me.”
After the guy finally flushes and walks out, giving us another glance and not stopping to wash his hands, I say to Stephen, “The last time I saw you, when I just ignored you … that’s been driving me crazy.”
“When you rode past me, I kept thinking you’d turn around and come back,” Stephen says. “I waited. Same as tonight.”
“I just have to ask you something,” I say. “Does this—does your
change
—it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened in the hot tub, does it?”
Stephen stares at me. He blinks. His face looks like it’s about to break into a smile. “Now, let me get this straight. You’re asking me if I did a complete change of identity, including changing my name and taking hormone shots for the last six months, all because of your kissing me three years ago in a hot tub?”
“Well, it did seem like you were pretty grossed out at the time.”
S.
“Not
that
grossed out.”
“That’s a relief,” Gavin says. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible.”
Mentioning the hormones, that was like jumping off a cliff—or taking off from that launchpad to Neptune. I find myself smiling, saying, “I didn’t say you weren’t responsible.”
“Now, wait a minute here—”
“I just said it didn’t have anything to do with the hot tub.”
Gavin looks ill. “I’m not following you.”
“Yeah, well,”—I continue my launch—”I’ve been following you, in a way. I’ve been watching you all my life. Studying you.”
Gavin’s face is breaking out into a sweat. “Why would you do that?”
It’s funny how the words come, so easily. I’m not just explaining to him, I’m explaining to myself. Telling the truth again, but one I’ve never discussed, not even with the well-meaning professionals, because I’ve only just now figured it out.
“Because, you dope, I’ve always admired you. You’re the one person in the world I always wanted to be like. So I watched everything: the way you walked, the way you acted. Yeah, even the way you peed. And somehow when I did, I started to catch little glimpses of myself. You were really kind of like my guide. And I’m glad I finally have a chance to tell you that.”
Glad, I say, and I am, but also terrified. This beats out the facial hair for bizarre, I’m certain, and maybe in another minute he’ll bolt again, or hit me, or worse, but I stand, or rather lean, my ground.
G.
I am holding on to the sink—holding on as my shithouse universe swirls and tilts, as if I am the cigarette butt in the toilet bowl and somebody has flushed the toilet and launched me spinning and spinning on my way down. I need to sit. I need to sit and think about what Stephen has just told me. When I do sit down on the floor next to the sink, I notice my fly is still open. I reach down and zip it up.
Chris Crutcher
, a former family therapist and mental health consultant in the Pacific Northwest, brings humor and unflinching realism to his coming-of-age fiction. That combination of comedy and tragedy has made his work a staple in the world of young adult literature, with an adult following nearly as strong as his teen base. “It’s universal,” he says. “It’s about human connection, and it’s about telling the truth.” In eleven novels, including
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Whale Talk,
and
Deadline;
two short story collections; and
King of the Mild Frontier: An Ill-Advised Autobiography,
Crutcher’s devotion to honesty has raised the hackles of censors across the United States—but he is never fearful of controversy. Being named the 1998 recipient of the NCTE’s National Intellectual Freedom Award is among his proudest achievements. “Intellectual freedom is not something we should need awards for,” he says. “It is simply the freedom to hold and express our ideas; the freedom to stand for who we are and what we believe. It is a birthright.”
CRUTCHER’S INSPIRATION
Most teenagers claim not to ”get” what makes the other person tick in a relationship. What most don’t “get” is what makes them tick. The history one brings into a relationship—the personality structure—may be the single most important factor in predicting the outcome.
Kelly Milner Halls
has been a freelance journalist and children’s author for nearly twenty years, with twenty books for young readers (including
Albino Animals, Tales of the Cryptids, Saving the Baghdad Zoo, and In Search of Sasquatch),
and more than 1,600 articles and book reviews published in magazines and newspapers, including
Teen People, VOYA, Book Links, Booklist, Guidepost for Teens, Parenting Teens, Writer’s Digest,
the
Chicago Tribune,
the
Washington Post,
the
Denver Post,
and dozens of others. After more than a decade of writing about literature, she moved to Spokane, Washington, and is studying with Spokane residents Chris Crutcher, Terry Davis, and Terry Trueman to learn the craft of fiction. This is her debut YA effort, but she hopes others will soon follow. She’s raised two young adults—Kerry, 28, and Vanessa, 21—on her own as a single parent.
MILNER HALLS’S INSPIRATION
Like all good students, I followed the lead of my mentor when it came to the core direction of the stories we wrote. But once introduced to the spirit of Wanda Wickham, she took on a literary life of her own. Her pathos belongs to Chris; her voice was a joy all my own. It was an honor to team with the Stotan, and a learning experience I wouldn’t trade.
Joseph Bruchac
lives with his wife in the New York Adirondack foothills in the house where his grandparents raised him. Heralded for his moving, lyrical fiction, including
Dawn Land, Skeleton Man,
and
Wabi: A Hero’s Tale,
he is often inspired by his Abenaki tribal ancestry and regularly performs traditional Abenaki music to help keep that ancient energy alive. With more than seventy published books to his credit, Bruchac has been awarded dozens of literary honors, including a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship for Poetry, and the Cherokee Nation Prose Award.
BRUCHAC’S INSPIRATION
I should mention a couple of things that inspired my storytelling. One, which is more background than main story, is my own involvement over the last thirty years in the martial arts. Another is the importance of recognizing we can never fully know who someone is just by their outward appearance. The third is Indian basketball. Most non-Indians have no idea how important it is to Native people. The young men and women who play basketball are the warriors of today in many of our communities.
Cynthia Leitich Smith
, a proud member of the Muscogee (Creek) Tribe, spins her artful tales, often with a Native American flavor, from the warm expanses of the Lone Star State, in Austin, Texas. From picture books like
Jingle Dancer,
to middle-grade fiction including
Indian Shoes,
to young adult literature like Tantalize, her signature approach assures thoughtful, heartfelt storytelling, regardless of her target age group. Each of her books has been critically acclaimed, and her short stories have appeared in
several other anthologies. Paired with her idol, Joseph Bruchac, Smith helped create strong, modern characters unquestionably proud of their ancestral past.
SMITH’S INSPIRATION
I’d never write “big strapping hero meets petite, helpless princess.” I mean, really … yawn. So what a treat it was to read Joe’s tale of two heroes—Bobby and Nancy—whose looks and attitude flip outdated gender stereotypes. It made me wonder about these outward opposites, inner soul mates. What could they become to each other? So that’s the story I wrote.
James Howe
may be best known for rabbit vampires—the famed Bunnicula—but his expertise extends far beyond chapter-book fame. He’s been an actor and a model. He’s written picture books and young adult novels, many, including
The Misfits, The Watcher,
and
Totally Joe,
critically acclaimed for their courageous portrayals of outsiders drawn together by their humanity and their will to survive. From his home just outside of New York City, Howe has gathered awards as a writer, an educator, and a public speaker. His Internet inspired submission in this anthology is deserving of a few more. But he has yet to create his own cyber presence—he has no website.
HOW’S INSPIRATION
The Internet is one of the most common places people meet these days, yet it is not even a place. It is a zone of mystery, possibility, and danger, which at its best offers the chance to find oneself by finding kindred souls. For some people, especially
those who, in Thoreau’s words, “live lives of quiet desperation,” it can be a lifeline.
I live just north of New York City and often travel on a road that winds north and west upstate. It is a road dotted with small towns in isolated, rural areas. I stop along the way to eat in diners much like the one in this story. I’ve often wondered about the lives of the people in these towns. What would it be like, I asked myself as this story began to take shape in my head, to be a gay teenage boy growing up in one of these towns, where most men and boys hunt and fish and the culture is predominantly macho? How would someone so different survive? The Internet was the lifeline I threw to one such boy to find out what one answer might be.
Ellen Wittlinger
was a librarian in another life—no, make that another phase of this action-filled lifetime. Offering books and young readers safe harbor, she learned firsthand about the magical ability of literature to change already transitional teen lives. So perhaps it was fated that she win one of the American Library Association’s Printz Honor designations in the year 2000 for her very first young adult book,
Hard Love.
Although other books came before, including
Lombardo’s Law,
and have come after, including
ZigZag
and
Parrotfish,
the tenderness and warmth of Wittlinger’s fiction has remained consistent. It flashes with brilliance in the unforgettable story pair created with Jim Howe.
WITTLINGER’S INSPIRATION
I had the easy part of the assignment: Jim Howe wrote a wonderful first story, and my job was to tell the flip side. Jim’s characters
were my inspiration; they were already very complete, but I knew we needed to see Alex’s family in my story. Because Sally, the pregnant girl, is a rather mysterious presence in Jim’s story—and I liked her a lot—I wanted to give her a bigger role in my story as Alex’s brother’s girlfriend. Playing off Jim’s story was so much fun—like putting together a puzzle long-distance!
Rita Williams-Garcia
has been a groundbreaking young adult author since the late 1980s. Her characters have sass and inner yearnings, and her writer’s voice allows them exceptional reach. She never cowers from saying exactly what her stories drive her to say. In novels like
Every Time a Rainbow Dies, Jumped,
and
No Laughter Here,
her courageous voice is unwavering. She has been challenged in many states, acclaimed in many more; she was awarded the PEN/Norma Klein Citation for Children’s Literature in 1991 and again in 1997. Her book
One Crazy Summer
was a National Book Award Finalist, a 2011 Coretta Scott King Award Winner, a 2011 Newbery Honor Book, and won the 2011 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Williams-Garcia continues to break stereotypical mindsets through talent and courage. Her story about interracial dating, paired with Printz Honor author Terry Trueman’s story, continues in that proud, lyrical tradition.
Terry Trueman
was a poet and teacher in Seattle and Spokane, Washington, before he became a young adult novelist—a dyed-in-the-wool bohemian like his idol Charles Bukowski before him. He fell in love and married the mother of his son Sheehan, who was born—due to medical error—with cerebral palsy and the physical and mental incapacities that sometimes go with it, and still, he
wrote heartbreaking poetry. But when he transformed his son’s story into
Stuck in Neutral,
a Printz Honor–winning young adult concept novel, his career paths shifted, and he became a fiction writer full-time.
Inside Out, No Right Turn, Hurricane,
and other novels soon followed. His short story for this collection is one more step down that winding professional road. Today he lives with his wife, Patty, and her sister Donna in Spokane. He hears regularly from his second son, Jesse, now living and working in Los Angeles.
TRUEMAN’S INSPIRATION
As the parent of an adopted Hispanic son and because I actually was born in Birmingham, Alabama—I’ve always had strong feelings about race and diversity in American culture. I grew up in Seattle, but in a part of the city—the northern suburbs—with virtually NO ethnic diversity. The chance to work with Rita, a writer I admire greatly and who also happens to be black, inspired my story—an interracial dating piece without enormous tension or drama, because it’s set in what I hope is an ever-improving and more tolerant world.
Terry Davis
grew up in Spokane, Washington, a sturdy, solid athlete of good nature—a wrestler of heart and determination who prized his balance as much as he did his skill with thoughts and words. After he studied under John Irving at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop and completed a Wallace Stegner Literary Fellowship at Stanford, he taught other eager students and began to write
Vision Quest,
an American Book Award Nominee that launched his career. He has since written two other novels,
If
Rock and Roll Were a Machine and Mysterious Ways,
along with many acclaimed short stories, including his contribution to this anthology with his former wife, Rebecca Fjelland Davis. He took an early retirement from the MFA program at Minnesota State University at Mankato and now lives in a cabin on the banks of Loon Lake, near Spokane, where he feels endlessly inspired.
DAVIS’S INSPIRATION
Each pair of stories in this anthology is about bridging the gap of gender-based misunderstanding with the most reliable of human structures—the truth. Each team of writers deftly illustrates the courage required to ask, “What is really happening here?” and, more important, to ask why.
Rebecca Fjelland Davis
spent a lifetime as an avid but critical reader, student, and teacher. Besides her family, her loves are stories, cycling, animals, and the family farm. When she wrote
Jake Riley: Irreparably Damaged,
her first young adult novel in 2003, and a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book in Fiction, she drew from her combined experiential base to secure a voice that was seasoned and convincing. She brings that same library of sensibilities to
Chasing AllieCat,
her 2011 novel, a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Loft-McKnight Children’s Honor book, as well as to her contribution to this anthology—a new voice with a knowledge tried and true.
FJELLAND DAVIS’S INSPIRATION
I wanted to write a story that protested the government’s lifting of restrictions on hog factories—in such a way that we might care
about a character involved and then perhaps care about the issue. Kerry was a natural character, and lo and behold, she was in love with a beautiful Muslim boy who can’t eat pork. The result was that their relationship became the pivotal point for the story.
Sara Ryan
, like Ellen Wittlinger, was a librarian before she was a published writer. Tagged to participate in gifted educational programs most of her life, Ryan was raised a prodigy, with good cause. Her first novel,
Empress of the World
exploded into the young adult literary community as the new voice, giving hope to lesbian teens across the country. She lives and creates with her comic book illustrator/graphic novelist husband, Steve Lieber, in Portland, Oregon. And she remains a librarian—one who writes award-winning fiction, including the Flytrap comic book series, on the side. Her partner in this anthology, Randy Powell, is her longstanding mentor and friend.
Randy Powell
has lived on “the coast,” also known as Seattle, Washington, since 1956, also known as his entire life. As a kid, he was a sports fan, playing football and tennis. As an adult, he became a writer of fiction heralded for his firm grip on humor and the true voice of America’s family life in such works as
Tribute to Another Dead Rock Star, Is Kissing a Girl Who Smokes Like Licking an Ashtray?
and
Run If You Dare.
Because he and his wife are raising two sons in the rain forests of Washington State, his life is an authentic research base. But he admits he’s happy his family is a little less troubled than some of the characters he’s so deftly penned.
