Wings

Less than five minutes later, we were in the library parking lot. Nathan was there slightly ahead of us, and there seemed to be only one person in line ahead of him, a pretty black woman in her twenties; she held a small pet carrier in one hand, presumably containing her friend or significant other she was about to restore to human form. In the couple of minutes we stood there waiting for whoever was inside the machine to finish up, Nathan kind of shuffled his feet, looked this way and that, and said:

“Meredith, I apologized to Lauren earlier, but I should apologize to you too. I don’t know if any of it was in front of your face, but back when you came out I said some stupid, ignorant things about it. I’ve learned better since then, and I’m sorry.”

Meredith looked surprised, but in a good way, and after standing there speechless for a moment, she said, “Thank you. I forgive you. I’m glad you and Lauren can be brother and sister now.”

He smiled nervously, and about then, the doors opened. A purple-haired catgirl wearing goggles and a labcoat came out of one booth, then reached into the other one and picked up something large and slightly unwieldy that I couldn’t see until she brought it out. It looked like some kind of power tool, like a weed eater or leaf blower, but with a lot more attachments — like if you jammed several power tools together, and maybe a tricorder and a sonic screwdriver for good measure. There were glowing buttons and knobs on the haft, and when she pressed one of them experimentally, one of the extensions whirled around and made a chiming sound. She raised it above her head like Luke’s lightsaber in the original Star Wars poster and laughed theatrically, “Muahahaha!”, before clearing her throat and returning to her car. The woman with the pet carrier, Nathan, Meredith and I all stared at her until she got in her car and drove away.

Then the woman with the pet carrier shrugged, set up the machine, and opened up the pet carrier to let the creature inside into the booth. I only got a brief glimpse of it before the door closed. It looked furry, but not like any specific mammal I was familiar with; I thought I’d seen six or eight legs, but I wasn’t sure. The woman went in the other booth a moment later, and it seemed she was restoring the creature to his baseline form or a form from his history, because it didn’t take more than a minute. She came out not visibly changed, and the creature became a lighter-skinned black guy slightly shorter than she was; they held hands as they walked toward their car, the guy carrying the empty pet carrier.

“Okay then,” Nathan said. “You wanna remind me how this works?”

“We touch the Venn diagram, then put something in the slot,” I said, fishing around in my purse. “It doesn’t have to be money, like we thought when we used it a few years ago.” I found some strips of paper torn off of one of Sophia’s old test papers which she’d given me before one of our trips to Reidsville or Danville, and stuck one of them in the slot. “Then we pick the duration. If you trust me to just change you a smidgen like we talked about, there’s no reason you shouldn’t pick three years, but I wouldn’t blame you if you want to pick something shorter the first time.”

“Sure,” he said. “Push the earth-orbiting-the-sun icon three times, right?”

“Yeah.” He did, and three copies of the icon appeared; I touched them and the doors opened.

“Okay,” I said. “Now you’d better let Meredith hold your wallet, keys, and phone — anything you’re carrying that’s got writing or pictures. They can get garbled even with a slight change.”

He nodded and did so, and I gave Meredith my purse — just in case, though I was pretty confident I could trust Nathan not to change me. Then Nathan and I were inside the machine together for the first time in two and a half years. I was presented with an array of variations on Nathan, some minor and some major but all of them noticeable for someone who knew him.

I’d suggested adding a mole or making his earlobes slightly shorter, but on the way over, I’d thought of something simpler. “Same body, slightly longer hair,” I said, and the images vanished, replaced by versions of Nathan which mostly looked the same except for the hair: it was anywhere from knee-length to barely longer than before, and styled in a bunch of different ways. There were also a few outlying images where his body wasn’t the same, despite my request, and a fair number had different clothes. I searched for a minute until I found one with the same hairstyle and only slightly longer hair. The shirt was yellow rather than blue, but the pants looked pretty much the same.

I touched that and got another array of variations. I searched but didn’t find one with a blue shirt, except one outlying one where he was wearing a skirt or kilt as well and looked a bit heavier-set.

“Okay,” I said. “I think this is good. Your clothes are gonna be a little different, but not too different. I hope that wasn’t your favorite shirt — if it is, you can get it back by getting a friend who’s not venned to go in the machine with it by themselves and push the red button.”

He shrugged. “It’s a nice shirt, but not that important. I’m gonna look basically the same but with slightly longer hair?”

“Yeah.”

“Not so long it’s gonna be obvious to my professors that I got venned?”

“I don’t think so. It’s probably less than an inch longer?”

“Okay, I’ll get a haircut after class Monday. Go for it.”

I pushed the green button. “Now just wait for your button to phase out,” I said.

“Okay.”

As we came out, Meredith eyed him critically for a moment. “Is his hair a little longer?”

“Yeah,” Nathan said, self-consciously combing his fingers through it. “Is it too much?”

“I think I only noticed because I was looking for a difference. Nobody’s gonna notice otherwise.”

“Cool. Well, it was good to see you, Lauren. You too, Meredith. Let’s meet up again next time I’m home.”

We hugged, and he got in his car and set off. He’d be almost midnight getting back unless he went way over the speed limit. Meredith and I returned to her house, and I told her and Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and Sophia the basics of how my meeting with Nathan had gone.

“That sounds wonderful,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “Well, except for the part about your mom. I’ll try to talk to her tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I want to help her, but I don’t know how.”

“I don’t either, not yet. Let’s think about it.”

 

* * *

 

Monday morning, I got up at the same time as Meredith and showered right after her. Sophia drove us to school; Meredith and Sophia usually drove to school together when neither of them had work or an extracurricular activity afterward. When we got to the school, we went our separate ways. I went to the office and picked up my textbooks, then hauled most of them to my locker and went to homeroom.

My homeroom teacher didn’t tell anyone anything about my situation, if she even knew the details herself; she just briefly introduced me as “Lauren Wallace, a new student.” I looked around, not recognizing anyone at first, then smiling as I recognized Jada, who was waving at me. I recognized her from her face, though her eyes were no longer super big, her curly hair was orange with a crimson streak down the middle and her arms were longer than a normal human’s, with two elbows. There was an empty seat near her, and I headed toward it. I reminded myself that though I’d met Jada, she just had Meredith’s text message introduction to go on. Should I tell her I was the little dragon that she’d squeed over a couple of years ago? Would that be weird? It would probably be weird.

“Hi,” I said nervously. “I’m Lauren.”

“Hey,” Jada said. “Meredith asked me to look out for you, but she didn’t tell me much about you. Where’d you move here from? How do you know Meredith?” A few other girls and guys sitting next to us were looking at me and listening for my answer, and my nervousness increased, but I focused on Jada and said:

“I’m from right here in Brocksboro. I used to go to the Everett Academy, but... well, I had some trouble with my family and I’m living with Meredith and her family now.” (I knew Jada was cool with trans people because she was friends with Meredith, but I didn’t know about any of the other people listening in, so I didn’t go into detail about what my “trouble with my family” was about.)

“Oh, I’m sorry. But it’s cool Meredith’s family took you in. They’re good people. How about we eat lunch together? I can introduce you to some other friends.”

She introduced me to some of the other girls sitting around us in homeroom, but my anxiety was spiking and their names whooshed past me without sticking. After a couple of minutes, she went back to the conversation she’d apparently been having with another girl before I came in, and made some effort to include me, but I was too anxious to participate much. I felt like I’d almost used up my daily allotment of courage by introducing myself to Jada at all, and I kept overanalyzing our brief exchange for the next twenty minutes or more until I got engrossed in my first period Biology class. Was it disinterest or politeness that had led her to not ask me about the trouble with my family that led to me living with the Ramseys?

After Biology, I had a free period, which I spent exploring the school and making sure I knew where everything was. Once I had done that, I spent the next fifteen minutes browsing in the library, taking note of what looked interesting and checking out a book that I’d heard Bailey recommend.

At lunch, I served a tray and then looked around for Jada. It took a few minutes, but I found her with a couple of other girls I recognized: Lily, who’d come over to Meredith’s house to study one time, and Cristina, the Hispanic girl who’d been with Jada the day I’d first seen her, when Nathan had venned me into a cute little dragon. There were other people I didn’t recognize — it wasn’t easy to tell where their group of friends left off and the next group of people crowded around the table began.

“Hey, Lauren!” Jada said, waving to me as I got close. “Hey, this is the new girl in my homeroom I told you about, Meredith’s friend that used to go to Everett. How about make some room?”

They scooted chairs around and one of the guys, who I learned a bit later was Lily’s boyfriend Chase, grabbed a chair from a less-crowded table and stuck it in between Jada and Lily. I squeezed in and sat down.

“Thanks for letting me sit with y’all,” I said.

“So where do you know Meredith from?” Lily asked.

“We used to go to the same church,” I said. “And our parents used to be friends, so we hung out together when they’d get together.”

“Used to be friends?” Lily asked, pouncing on the salient detail.

“Don’t pry,” Cristina quietly admonished when she saw me hesitating to answer.

“Yeah, I’d rather not go into detail. They had a big argument and Meredith’s family stopped going to our church. Then I had problems with my family and eventually wound up living with the Ramseys. I just did placement tests last week and they’re letting me finish my senior year here.”

“Cool,” Jada said. “So how about I introduce you to everybody?”

I tried to take in the barrage of names, but most of them went in one ear and out the other, and I never managed to get them all straight in the few months left in the school year. That was a much larger social group than I was comfortable with. Only a couple besides Jada were visibly venned, a boy and a girl with matching light blue skin and dark blue hair, but everyone was so good-looking that I figured they were probably all venned.

After lunch, I shared fifth period Civics with Meredith, though we didn’t have a chance to talk before class and only had a few minutes afterward.

“How’s your day been going?” she asked.

“Pretty okay,” I said. “I’ve gotten to know some people. Your friends Jada and Lily and some of their friends.”

“Oh, cool. Maybe you can join us next time I go over to Lily’s house for study group.”

“That’d be cool.”

“How about your classes?”

“I’m doing okay in most of them,” I said. “Most of what the teachers covered I’ve already read about. The only exception was in American Literature where they were talking about a Hemingway story I haven’t read. I guess I can catch up with that soon enough.”

“Hemingway,” she said, making a face. “I’m glad to have that behind me. I love reading, but in college I’m going to try to stay away from courses where you have to memorize the teacher’s interpretation of boring stories by old white guys.”

I started to say that I’d read another story by Hemingway in one of the literature anthologies I’d devoured during my fourteen months of self-study, and enjoyed it pretty well even if he wasn’t going to top my favorite author list, but I didn’t have time; we both needed to get to our next classes.

My last couple of classes didn’t give me any more trouble than the earlier ones, at least mentally. But my thrift store backpack betrayed me on the way from Civics to Trigonometry, the left shoulder strap giving way suddenly; I felt the weight suddenly swing to the right, causing me to stumble into a taller girl, who swore at me and shoved me back. I managed to keep my footing, but I was flustered and had to cram myself up against the wall and let the foot traffic flow past me for a minute while I calmed myself down and figured out what had gone wrong. The strap wasn’t broken, it had just slipped free of the carabiner or buckle or whatever you call that thing. I carried the backpack awkwardly to my last class, arriving a minute late and apologizing to the teacher, and re-threaded the strap while listening to the lecture.

I met up with Sophia and Meredith at the car, and Sophia drove us home. “So how was your day?” Sophia asked, and I told her what I’d told Meredith, plus a little more detail since Meredith and I had been in a hurry earlier.

“We can probably fix that strap so it won’t come loose again,” Sophia said. “With glue or duct tape if necessary.”

“Or go in the Venn machine wearing it and we can venn you into the same body but with a better backpack,” Meredith suggested.

“Thanks.”

When we got home, Mrs. Ramsey asked me how my day had gone, and then told me that my mom had called.

“She said to call her back between six-ten and six-thirty,” she said. “After she gets home from work but before your dad gets home.”

“Okay,” I said. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me and did the little bit of homework I had, then read the Hemingway story and started the Faulkner story that we were going to be talking about next in that class.

When my alarm went off, I asked Sophia if I could borrow her phone and called Mom.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi, Mom, this is Lauren. I’m calling from Sophia’s phone.”

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I think — I hope your father will come around, but — I don’t know... he’s been so angry again these last few days.” I heard a muffled sob, like she’d pulled the phone away from her mouth for a few moments.

“You there, Mom?”

She didn’t answer right away, but after a few more moments, she said, “You started school again today, didn’t you? How did it go?”

“Really well, Mom. I made some new friends and I think I can keep up with all my classes. Can we get together sometime soon? Like after you get off work tomorrow or Wednesday?”

“Yes, let’s do that. Could I come to visit you there at the Ramseys’ house, or would they rather give you a ride to somewhere nearby? I don’t think I can arrange a room at the church without —” She broke off, and I completed the sentence mentally: without Dad finding out.

“Hey, Mrs. Ramsey,” I said, walking into the living room, “would it be okay if my mom came over to visit for a little while tomorrow?”

“It’s fine with me. Tell her I’d love to have her over for supper. You said your dad has a long commute home these days, right?”

I said into the phone, “Yeah, Mrs. Ramsey says it’s fine. You can join us for supper.”

“I shouldn’t stay that long — I ought to be home when your father gets home. But I’ll get off work a little early if I can, so I can stay longer. They still live in the same house, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow around six-ten, maybe a little earlier. I love you, Lauren.”

“I love you, Mom. See you then.”