Almost Perfect

  Sage was no longer looking at me. She was staring off into the distance, kicking her feet against the column, looking bored.

  “Let me drive you home,” she said, sounding disappointed. Maybe she’d been hoping I’d say something more.

  “Sage, listen. I was really messed up over Brenda. Ask Jack. All I wanted to do was sit around and feel sorry for myself. And then you came along, and I started getting over her, and suddenly, I’m gay!”

  “You’re not gay, Logan,” she chastised.

  “I know that now. I’d never have kissed a guy on purpose.”

  Sage frowned. “I’m not a guy,” she whispered.

  For the first time since New Year’s, I looked at the tall person next to me without prejudice, without fear. The long-legged, long-haired, defeated, lonely person on the base of the column next to me. This was not a guy. Not a girl, maybe, but certainly not a guy.

  “Sage?”

  She turned and looked at me, sad and a little tired. “Yes, Logan?”

  How in the hell could I tell her what I was feeling when I didn’t even know? “You … want to get some food or something?”

  Sage stared at me blankly. Then the faintest trace of her old smile crept across her face. I’d spent the past couple of months trying to destroy that grin. I was happy that I’d failed.

  “I’m starved.”

  We hopped down from the columns and walked toward town. It took us about ten minutes to get back to Sage’s truck, the old monster I jump-started on New Year’s. When we were seated in the cab, we turned to each other and opened our mouths to say something. Then we sat there gaping like a couple of drooling mental patients. Sometimes there just aren’t words. Eventually, Sage started the truck and we drove away.

  We were friends again. Sort of. Which meant I’d have to face the consequences if her secret got out. But Sage was hurting. Her family was ashamed of her. I was the only other person she’d been honest with. She’d opened up to me in a way that Brenda never had. The least I could do was have a burger with her.

  And maybe I didn’t want to do just the least I could do.

  chapter sixteen

  I GUESS it was about midnight when we got back to Boyer. Sage and I had stopped at the Columbia Steak ’n Shake for some burgers and malts. Like any place that sells greasy food at night, the restaurant was loaded with college students in various states of sobriety. The more I thought about it, the more I was looking forward to going off to school.

  Sage and I didn’t talk about anything important. We sat in a corner booth drinking milk shakes and laughing behind our hands at the drunks. I managed to go nearly ten minutes without thinking about Sage’s sex. It was a start. By the time we left for college, maybe I could think of Sage simply as my friend. Just like Jack or Tim. Sage would just be one of the guys.

  What an amazingly bad analogy.

  By the time we returned to Boyer, the town was almost totally dark. Only a couple of bars cast illumination onto the silent streets.

  “Hey, I still don’t know where you live,” said Sage, slowing down as we pulled into town.

  “Yeah.” Now that Sage had told me her secret, it seemed kind of silly that I’d been ashamed of living in a trailer. “You know, you still have my car battery.” Mom had asked about it a few days earlier.

  “That’s right. Okay, we’ll stop by my house and pick it up. It’s in the garage, so we won’t wake my parents.”

  Agreeing to this was one of the stupider things I’d ever done.

  He was standing in the garage when Sage hit the automatic opener. I don’t know how long he’d been waiting. He just stood there in the glow of the headlights like some demon from a slasher movie. Indestructible and immortal.

  Sage’s father.

  Even if I hadn’t recognized him from that photo in Sage’s living room, I would have from the striking family resemblance. This was where Sage got her height, her big hands, her Y chromosome.

  He was not pleased to see us.

  Sage gripped the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were white. I waited for her to say something, to show me the situation was not as bad as it appeared.

  “I wasn’t supposed to be out tonight. Especially not with a guy.” Her hand lingered over the gearshift like she was contemplating throwing the truck into reverse.

  So much for that hope. Without looking in my direction, she exited the vehicle. I contemplated locking the doors and starting a new life as a hermit inside the truck, but I decided it wasn’t feasible. I followed Sage.

  Mr. Hendricks was not more attractive close-up. He had lost most of his hair, but his baldness somehow made him look manlier. His hands were hairy and his teeth were crooked and yellow. He was looking at me like I was a neighbor’s dog who’d just crapped on his lawn.

  “Dad,” began Sage.

  “Get in the house, Sage.” His one eyebrow crinkled over his misshapen nose.

  “But, Dad …”

  “Now.” He didn’t raise his voice, but he was not to be argued with. With a sad backward glance, Sage went inside.

  It occurred to me that if I put my head down and ran, he wouldn’t be able to catch me. I was a sprinter; I’d be down the street before Sage’s father realized what was happening. But then Sage would be screwed. I had to stick around for damage control. Act like for all I knew, Sage was just a normal girl and we’d just been out eating, nothing more. Then I’d stand there and take my lumps. I just hoped the lumps would be metaphorical.

  Mr. Hendricks spit on the oily floor. Then, to my horror, he hit the garage door button, sealing me in. This was bad. Maybe he wanted to punctuate his displeasure with a couple of punches to my gut and didn’t want the neighbors to hear.

  Sage’s father pulled up a bench and did not invite me to sit on a nearby lawn chair. Instead, I stood at rigid attention while he picked up a lawn mower blade and began to methodically sharpen it.

  “So you’re Logan,” he said eventually. He said it like being Logan was some sort of dark perversion.

  “Yes, sir.” So he knew I existed. At the moment, I kind of wished I didn’t.

  The blade rhythmically scraped on the stone, its shadow dancing in the harsh glow of the garage light. This was worse than the time Jack and I had to return his father’s car minus the passenger door.

  Mr. Hendricks raised the blade and stared at it with a critical eye. “Sage isn’t allowed to date.”

  “This wasn’t a date!” I babbled. “We just went out for some food, that’s all.”

  “Sounds like a date to me.” I didn’t dare argue. He was still armed.

  “Logan, Sage tells me he let you in on a very private secret. He told you something you have no right to know.”

  Oh, crap. Sage had left out this little detail! Why the hell had she told her father? What if he knew how I’d threatened her?

  “Mr. Hendricks …” That was as far as I got. Good thing, since I had no clue what I was going to say next.

  “Logan.” His voice was louder, angry. “Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to see my own son going to school in a goddamn dress?”

  “No, sir.” Probably as hard as finding out the girl you were hot for is actually someone’s son.

  Mr. Hendricks stood and began to pace. “He acts like this is the only way he can be happy. Says he wants to be a girl. That he wants … to have one of those operations.”

  He picked up a wrench and began toying with it. I think now he was just talking to talk. “Every day I hope he’ll stop. Every day I pray he’ll go back to being my son. And every day that I see him prancing around in a skirt and giving Tammi advice about boys, I feel like I failed. Like I’m a bad father.”

  He violently threw the tool down on the bench. He stood there gripping the table, facing the wall.

  “Sir?”

  Sage’s father turned and glowered at me, as if Sage’s lifestyle was my fault. “Sage says you two are just friends. Just a couple of buddies. Is that true?” Obviously, he did
n’t buy it.

  “Mr. Hendricks, I know what this looks like, but …”

  “That’s not answering my question.”

  “I’m not interested in Sage like that, I swear.” I said this as forcefully as I dared. I wasn’t sure if I was more worried about Sage getting in trouble or her father thinking we were more than friends.

  Mr. Hendricks looked at me for a long time. Perhaps he was deciding if he should just yell at me or beat me unconscious.

  “Logan, when Sage started acting like this, we pulled him out of school. He wouldn’t have lasted a day. He didn’t argue. But now he’s insisting on taking his last semester at your school. I didn’t want to let him, but it was important to him. But the rules were that he couldn’t date and he couldn’t tell anyone he’s really a boy. Sage promised, and now he’s broken that promise. I should pull him out of school for that.”

  That would break Sage’s heart. “Sir, I don’t think—”

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion. Logan, do you know what happens to guys who go to school dressed like girls? Do you know what happens when people think the guy’s really a woman and then they find out the truth?”

  I shook my head. The year before, I didn’t think people like that really existed.

  “They get killed, Logan. I’m not kidding. I’ve done my research. This happens more often than you think.”

  “Mr. Hendricks, no one is going to find out. She only has a few more months.”

  He hocked up a wad of phlegm, thought for a moment, and then spit it on the floor instead of in my face.

  “I know he only has a couple of months. But Sage told you his secret. How do I know I can trust you?”

  “I swear, I won’t tell.”

  Mr. Hendricks’s hostile face softened for a moment. “I know you think you won’t tell anyone, but that’s not good enough. You have to swear to me, if you care about Sage, you won’t let anyone know. Someone might hurt him. Would you want that, Logan? See someone take a baseball bat to Sage’s head?”

  I’d never really thought about the serious trouble Sage could get into. I remembered how I’d flown off the handle. Someone else might have really hit her. Or done something much worse.

  “I won’t tell,” I repeated.

  He towered over me. I only came up to his neck. “Not even if you fight. Not even if you get mad. The second I doubt you, Logan, Sage is gone from school.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We didn’t shake hands. He just hit the garage door button and walked into the house. I ran nearly the whole way home.

  chapter seventeen

  THE COLD WEATHER BROKE that Sunday, and for the first time in months I could believe that spring might come back to Missouri. Mom was working the breakfast shift. Unable to think of anything else to do, I spent the morning cleaning out the shed.

  The shed wasn’t huge, but we’d managed to cram ten years’ worth of junk inside: my lawn care stuff, old clothes of Laura’s, cartons of Mom’s old possessions. It took me nearly three hours, but I managed to pull everything out, sweep, and restack all the boxes. By the time I was done, the outbuilding was even more of a mess than before.

  I hadn’t spoken to Sage since my Friday night confrontation with her father. He’d rattled me. Not just because of the insults and threats. It was the way he’d talked about Sage. He’d acted like she was making pipe bombs in the basement or something. I guess I didn’t expect him to understand Sage’s motivation. But that shame he felt, how could Sage deal with that?

  Around noon, I was trying to get my lawn mower started in preparation for spring business. I’d mown most of the lawns in this neighborhood for the past five seasons. The next year, someone else would take over. Yesterday I’d received my official letter of acceptance from MU. I’d be in Columbia, pushing a mop or stacking boxes for a lot more than I made now. And when I graduated … I tried to imagine myself renting an apartment, driving my own car, filling out a tax return … When did I suddenly grow up?

  I’d nearly thrown out my back trying to tug the mower to life when I heard a car barrel down our road. It was followed by an ominous thud and a crunching noise from the vicinity of our front yard. When I ran around the trailer to investigate, I found Rob trying to remove one of our garbage cans from under his front bumper. He smiled the apologetic smile of the perpetual screwup.

  Sage leapt from the rear seat, either excited to see me or relieved to be out of Rob’s car. Maybe both.

  Sage had on jeans, a tight sweater, and a denim jacket. In one hand she held the jump start battery, and in the other she clutched a purse the size of a briefcase.

  “I snuck out,” she announced proudly. “My parents think we’re picking up Tammi from her piano lesson.”

  “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” said Rob. He shot me a conspiring wink, tripped over the trash can lid, and fell into the ditch. I led Sage behind the trailer as Rob was still trying to back out of the driveway.

  Sage strutted across the yard as if she’d been to my home a dozen times already. She didn’t seem to notice that I lived in a glorified RV. Or maybe she didn’t care.

  I could tell her to leave, tell her she shouldn’t be here. It’s not my job to deal with Sage’s hostile father. I don’t want to have to question my own sexuality every time she smiles at me. But I won’t ask her to leave because I don’t want her to.

  “Here!” Sage suddenly barked, thrusting the car battery into my chest. The thing must have weighed forty pounds, and I nearly staggered over backward. I chuckled internally as I put it down. Sage made a believable girl, but she definitely had a guy’s stamina.

  Sage sat down on one of our ancient lawn chairs. I sat opposite on the warm concrete plug of the septic tank.

  “I was worried about you, Sage.” It hadn’t occurred to me until I said it, but I really had been concerned. Had her father yelled at her after I’d left? Reminded her that she wasn’t a girl? Maybe I should have stood up to him more, though that probably wouldn’t have helped.

  Sage giggled. She had a powerful laugh. Not masculine, but it certainly was in keeping with her height. “I was worried about you, too, Logan. I hated to leave you with my dad. But I knew he only wanted to yell at you for a while. If I’d stayed, he would have gotten a lot angrier.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Dad’s all talk. He …” Sage suddenly glanced around the yard, gripping her purse, as if fearful she’d be overheard.

  “Logan, can we go in your house?”

  “No, sorry. Mom would kill me if she knew I had a girl in there when she was gone.”

  Sage shot me her full-force wiry smile. I think she was as touched that I’d called her a girl as I was that she’d called my trailer a house.

  “Then can we go in there?” She pointed to the shed.

  The outbuilding was wooden, and not too cold inside. I sat on an oil drum. Sage perched on my weight bench. She removed her jacket, revealing her bare, freckled arms. I’d never noticed how well defined her biceps were. Did they look like a man’s arms, or the arms of a girl who was in excellent shape? It was the same with the bulges in the front of her tight sweater. They looked real but must have been a padded bra or something.

  “Sage, when did you tell your dad that I was ‘in the know’?” Even after our heart-to-heart, I still couldn’t come right out and say you’re secretly a boy.

  “Right after the basketball game. Rob accidentally let it slip that I’d been out with a guy. Dad was all ready to yank me out of school, so I lied and told him that you knew. That we were just friends.”

  “But I didn’t know!” I sniped. “And your dad thinks we were doing more than hanging out.”

  Sage glowered, and for a second I thought she was irritated with me. Then she spoke.

  “Dad always tries to think the worst about me whenever possible. Tammi spent New Year’s Eve alone with Rob, and that was okay. But I go for a ride with you, and he calls me a …” She didn’t speak for a while. “It’s always be
en like that. For the past four years, it’s like everything I do is about gender issues. When I first told him—” She suddenly stopped. “Sorry. Let’s talk about something else.”

  I could have changed the subject. Told Sage about the time Laura had locked me in this shed when I was eight. Or speculated about what Tim and Dawn had been doing after the comedy show. But that would have been kind of chickenshit of me. Sage wanted to talk about her family problems. Either I could let her know I didn’t want to hear about them, or I could listen.

  “No, you can tell me.” I almost sounded totally sincere.

  Sage braced her elbows on her knees and placed her chin in her hands. “Seriously? I don’t want to freak you out.”

  “Way too late for that.” I shrugged. “Look, you told me earlier that you hoped I’d understand. Well, I’m trying.”

  Sage didn’t smile, but she had such a warm look in her eyes, I had to remind myself that she was a boy. How come real girls never looked at me like that?

  “You’ve never met a transgendered person, have you?”

  “No.” Growing up in Boyer, I’d also never met a homosexual, a Muslim, a Jew, a Communist, or a New Yorker. Up until this year, people like Sage were just perverts who appeared on talk shows. And now I was friends with one, and she wasn’t even as perverted as Jack.

  “I guess it started when Tammi was born. I had just turned three. I was so excited about having a little sister. She was so cute. Mom dressed her up like a little baby doll, in these little pink dresses, and bows, and the most adorable—”

  “This is thrilling, Sage, but we’re not talking infant fashion here.”

  “Right. So it wasn’t long before I started asking Mom and Dad why I couldn’t wear dresses and be pretty. They thought I was jealous, so they bought me new toys, new clothes. Mostly sports stuff.” She gagged. “But I wasn’t jealous of Tammi. I just wanted to be beautiful like her.” She looked at me. “I didn’t think you’d be so shocked already.”

  I realized how surprised I was. “Sorry. I guess I assumed you were a lot older when you decided you wanted to be a girl.”