“Just get me in the door. We can do the rest.” Harper nodded at Bec and Fletch, then gave me a smile of approval.
Fletch said, “That it? I’ve gotta run. Text me when you’ve got a plan.” And in my direction, “If you ever go out for any sport, I’ll bet on you. Just kidding, just kidding,” he said, holding up his hands as he grinned at Harper.
Everybody split up then. I walked to my bike, and got out my phone to lead me back home. I saw Mercy a little ways ahead, also on a bike. When she looked back, I waved my hand for her to wait, and she did.
“What’s Bec’s issue?” I asked. “I mean, is it me, or does she always give people the silent treatment?”
Mercy said, “She and Fletcher go to other schools, so I don’t really know them. She told us that she’s in a foster home. Her talent helped her keep away from her abusive dad, until Child Protective Services got in the case.”
What would have happened if she hadn’t had her talent? I got that crawly feeling in my neck, and felt sorry for the girl. No wonder she bit her fingers raw. “You guys say ‘talent.’ I’ve been calling mine the zap. I think I always had it, but I discovered it this summer. How about you?”
“Same deal,” Mercy said as we pedaled out of the park and onto the street. “I guess I always had it, but I didn’t like getting ahead of my twin sister, Dom—”
“You’ve got a twin sister?” I interrupted, and couldn’t help exclaiming, “I always wanted a twin sister. Does she have a talent, too?”
“Nope.”
“Does she know about yours?”
“Nope.” Mercy looked away, her fingers tightening on the bike handles, and I realized belatedly how many times she’d probably heard that same stupid thing about twins.
I said quickly, “Sorry I cut in like that.”
Mercy turned my way, her smile flaring, then she said, “Well, anyway, I kept pushing at Dom when we were really little, especially when the parents got us started in sports. We used to play in this park below our house, just the two of us. She tried to keep up. Really hard. Maybe that’s why she’s a soccer star now.” Mercy’s grin went crooked. “When I figured out she couldn’t spring like me, and it was making her feel bad, I hid it. Except…” She looked away again. “When I’m running alone. Hey,” she interrupted herself, noticing me trying to steer the bike, look at her, and at my phone map. “I can give you directions.”
“Thanks.” I threw my phone in my backpack, then said, “So how did you guys all find each other? I take it there was no Facebook invite for people with mysterious powers.”
“So far, all by accident. Fletch met Bec at a church thing. Harper found Fletch through her brother a few months ago, when Fletch won some award at a sports camp they both were sent to. She found a way to get close enough to touch him. Saw his memory using his talent. She found out my talent the same way. Totally by accident.” She made a face, then looked away.
Then she went on. “Harper is trying to figure out how to use social networks to find others, and to learn what might be out there. Causes, ways to train. Her mom is a software engineer.”
I thought about all the fundraisers for good causes, marches, dances, and other stuff Harper was doing with the Alliance. If anyone could figure out how to find secret superheroes, she could.
But that reminded me of Kyle and Michael. “I’m afraid it was my fault. Michael, I mean. If I hadn’t done that with the pencil…”
“Kyle says he didn’t do it,” Mercy reminded me. “He can be a real jerk, but he’s always been the loud, shoving kind. Spitting on your stuff, not spilling your blood. Until now.” She shrugged sharply. “Look, there’s no use guessing. If Michael saw his attacker, Harper will see the memory. She can’t see everything, only stuff that really stands out. Recent memories, especially adrenaline ones.”
“That would definitely be an adrenaline memory,” I said, still with that sick sense of guilt boiling in my stomach.
“When she finds out who did it, we’ll figure out what to do. So, have you always lived in Hawai’i? What was it like?”
“No, I was born there, and we went back two years ago. Before that we were in Texas, and before that, West Virginia. Hawai’i is awesome…”
The rest of our conversation started with the typical, boring just-met-you stuff. Mostly about traveling and never knowing anyone (me) versus living in one place so you go to school forever with people you’d love to get away from (her).
But from there we got into anime, and how much we both loved Miyazaki films. After we argued about which was the best, we went on to name our top favorite anime, and from there, favorite shows—turned out her mom loves Buffy as much as Mom Tate. I stumbled, mentioning both moms, but she didn’t ask any of the usual stupid questions. Not one.
So when I found out that she and her sister collect manga, I said, “Wow, am I jealous. We move a lot. Don’t have a lot of books, and some libraries are better than others.”
She said, “If you want to borrow any, feel free.”
“Really?”
“Sure. If you want to come over after school and take a look…” She stopped there.
“Yes!” I was thrilled. Then I recognized the boulevard we were riding down, and said, “Hey, I know where I am! My house is three blocks that way.”
“I’m five blocks down here, and two over. I can text you tomorrow.”
“Or tell me at lunch?” I got a brilliant idea. “I always eat at the Alliance.”
“The what?”
“Alliance, oh, Harper called it the Rainbow.”
And Mercy’s face closed over. “I don’t belong. See you tomorrow.”
She rode off, leaving me with such a sharp sense of disappointment, it was like she’d kicked me. Mercy, the first friend I’d made in San Diego, a bigot?
As I turned the bike toward home, I had to remind myself of what Grandma Trish always says, “Judge not lest you be judged,” and Mom Tate always says, “Give people a chance.” But all the fun had gone out of the prospective visit to Mercy’s house.
* * *
I found out that Mom Gwen would be doing her rounds on Thursday, and when I asked if I could bring a friend from school who was planning to become a doctor, she looked surprised but pleased, and agreed.
I was in a great mood when I reported that to Harper the next day at Alliance. She pulled me out into the hall so we could talk alone. She listened, nodded, and in a lower voice, “Michael woke up. Avery’s cousin’s mom is a nurse there. They’ve got him sedated because they had to wire his jaw shut. But he acted like he doesn’t remember what happened. I definitely need to get there.” She gave me a big smile. “I’m so glad you came to this school, Laurel,” she said as we went back inside, where her equally cool girlfriend Avery, with bright red hair, was leading a team in designing Pride posters.
So that was lunch, leaving me the rest of the afternoon to dread Mercy’s house. I remembered that look Harper had given her in the park, when she mentioned Avery. Add that to Mercy not belonging to Alliance, and, well, by the time I was biking to Mercy’s, I was half expecting her house to have Hitler posters all over, and her parents to be file-toothed skinheads.
I found an ordinary house with ordinary people. The kids even had their own den. A little brother lay on the floor watching cartoons on TV, with headphones, so the noise didn’t disturb Mercy’s twin, who was busy at a big-screened computer in one corner. The entire wall opposite the TV was floor to ceiling bookshelves, and in the corner was a martial arts kick post with a costume on it. It had to be Mercy’s costume for the winter talent show. It had long floaty streamers tie-dyed in scarlet and gold, with long pointed sleeves that looked kind of like wings.
The only bad moment was one I caused myself, after Dom put down her headphones, and got up. She looked a lot like Mercy, with her frizzy pale hair skinned back into a ponytail. They seemed to dress to emphasize differences. Or maybe it was just that Dom was totally into the sports look, from her soccer clothes to her
high-endurance glasses.
Mercy said, “Laurel, this is Dom.”
“I love your name,” I said.
“Short for Dominika.” Dom’s voice was clear, not as soft as Mercy’s.
They’d worked so hard on their differences that I felt the impulse to display my new high school social skills with a compliment. “I bet you’re glad you didn’t get those twin names, you know, like Julian and Jordan, or Emily and Eleanor.” I named two sets of twins I’d gone to school with, and was going to go on about twin clothes when I noticed a weird look pass between the sisters, and I got that feeling like I’d stepped in it.
Dom flipped her floaty blond ponytail back and said, “Off to practice. Bye.” She picked up a gear bag and left. Relief.
Mercy indicated the bookshelf. “Here’s Subaru Sumaraji, and over here is Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou…”
I looked the manga over, spotting at least a dozen yaoi. I thought, how could anyone love these and be anti-gay? Something else had to be going on—a conviction that became certainty when I left, and in getting my bike, noticed a car in the garage with a weather-worn Marriage Equality bumper sticker.
* * *
At lunch time the next day, I was heading for Alliance like usual, but impulse made me veer. By this time I knew where most of Mercy’s classes were, besides math and Japanese. Where did she go at lunch? Surely she didn’t hang out in the usual lunch area, where all the cliques existed like islands, or like dad said once, interlocking demilitarized zones. He’d been a math nerd as a teen, before nerds were cool.
I spotted her coming out of math. Mercy bypassed the lunch area and headed for the gym. The gym? I slowed my steps, feeling a little stalkery, but I wasn’t going to do anything. I just wanted to know.
I almost lost her while searching fruitlessly through the girls’ locker room. I decided to leave through the other door, when I heard faint music coming from the dance studio opposite the indoor basketball court. I went up to the door, which had one of those little square windows, like all the classroom doors, and there was Mercy in those old pink sweats, whirling and dancing all alone. The music was a shortened version of the “Inferno Dance” in Stravinsky’s Firebird—a piece Mom Tate loves. I watched as Mercy’s bird tried to escape, fell back, tried to escape and fell back again, and then finally soared.
I had to tear myself away. I was definitely being a stalker. But all afternoon I kept seeing after-images of that whirling, flying figure, more bird than human. After school, I waited around on my bike in case she appeared, and when she did, and saw me, she smiled.
We talked about the manga I’d borrowed, we even stumbled through a conversation in Japanese—very short, because this was her first semester—then talked about myths we’d found in manga, about Korean webtoons and bands we liked and hated, but three subjects never came up: Alliance, twins, and talents.
* * *
The next day was Thursday. At lunch I went back to Alliance. When I got there, I headed toward my usual corner, but Harper stopped me. “Haven’t I seen you working on the sets in the aud?” she asked, as if we’d never met. “You can do art, right? Would you like to help with these Pride posters?”
Would I! So I found myself, for the very first time ever, surrounded by people I liked while I did something I liked. And none of it had to do with magic.
At the end of lunch, she whispered, “Meet you after school.”
At three, Harper was waiting beside a car. She had a college-age brother who drove. He dropped us off at the hospital, where we found Fletch and Bec waiting.
My first reaction was disappointment. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get all those people inside, but when we went to the front desk, Fletch and Bec were nowhere to be seen. Harper and I signed in, and sat down to wait for Mom Gwen.
And here’s where things went off the rails.
I said, to make conversation, “Too bad Mercy can’t be here, too. Though I guess her talent isn’t really needed here.”
“His talent.” Harper flushed.
“Huh?” I said. “Mercy. You know, blonde. Jumps.” I flung my hand upward.
Harper’s lips curled with disgust. “His real name is Metri. Demetri, I think. Something Norwegian—I knew them back when they were Dem and Dom, he and she, only she was the one with all the smarts, who should have got the talent. He was an obnoxious turd who belongs—belonged,” she corrected herself, like she was forcing the word out. “In juvie.”
Have you ever gotten that ice-down-the-backbone feel? I always thought it was stupid when I read it in books, until I felt it that day. “Excuse me, but are you telling me that one of the twin sisters is…” What was the right way to say it? “Transitioning?”
Harper flushed even redder. She folded her arms across her chest. “It’s a total scam. To get out of doing time. He’s still definitely a he under those clothes. He doesn’t even have to do P.E. because they can’t let him into the gym on the girls’ side, and his parents got him an excuse not to go on the boys’.”
Mercy was…? My head actually reeled. I couldn’t help myself from whispering, “The T in LGB…”
Harper shot me such an angry look the last letter dried right there in my mouth. She breathed in a hiss a couple times, then said, “You weren’t here. I know he’s really a boy. Which is so vile. I mean, look at you, totally fooled. How dishonest is that? What if he starts dating someone, and they find out the real truth? What’s that going to do to them?” She glanced at me then said in a quick unconvincing tone, “Of course it’ll be completely different if he really goes through with the surgery … But until then, I will work with that person on talent projects, because it’s important. But don’t expect me to go along with a lie because it’s politically correct. Then I’m as big a phony as he is.”
The tap of heels interrupted. There was Mom Gwen.
I don’t know what it is, but when I see her in her doctor bun and white coat, somehow she looks taller and bigger. Now I was so unsettled she zoomed to mecha size. I shot to my feet and started gabbling an introduction, making it way too complicated.
“Whoa, slow down.” Mom Gwen put her hand on my shoulder, and peered into my face. “Are you all right?”
We were there for Michael, I reminded myself. “Sure. I’m fine! Totally! I’m just excited. About this tour.”
“Well, then, let’s get started,” Mom Gwen said, shaking Harper’s hand. “I’m Dr. Jones. Welcome to the hospital…” And she started the tour.
I hung back, my thoughts bumbling around like flies in a window that can’t get past the glass. Mercy, a boy? Mercy wasn’t a boy. Or maybe she was part he, sort of?
A cascade of little stuff now made sense: that stupid thing I’d said about twin names. How Harper had talked at Mercy, without ever using her name. Or a pronoun. That lunchtime dancing, all alone.
A hard glance back from Harper woke me up, and I said as naturally as I could, “So, Mom, after a trauma. Where do they keep the patient’s clothes?”
Mom Gwen looked startled, but answered; I was aware of a flicker on the edge of my vision. I closed one eye—and there was Bec, with Fletch walking right behind her, matching steps. When I looked with both eyes, there was a kind of glittery blur that made my gaze slide away. They vanished into a service elevator.
Mom Gwen and Harper kept walking along the pediatric ICU, until Mom Gwen nodded at a door. “One of your schoolmates is in there.”
I barely kept myself from looking at Harper. “We heard,” I said. “Do they know who attacked him?”
“You know we can’t talk about our cases, but in this situation, I’m afraid there isn’t much to be known.” Mom Gwen shook her head. “Anger is such a terrible weapon. Worse than drugs or guns, because it’s free to everyone, yet nearly impossible to use wisely or well.”
I was now supposed to keep Mom Gwen busy with questions, so she wouldn’t notice Harper going into the room. I’d prepared questions. I’d rehearsed the questions. But they’d all vanished fr
om my brain.
Harper was standing there, looking at me, so I said, “Can anyone use anger wisely?” as I walked a step or two away.
Mom Gwen followed me, talking about flight or fight, and how adrenaline spurts enable people to do amazing things when protecting loved ones, all stuff I know. She had her back to Harper, who motioned to me keep talking, then looked around. Nobody else was in sight.
Mom Gwen paused, and in desperation, I lowered my voice. “About sex changes.”
“What?” Mom Gwen asked, looking surprised.
I’d already used for school as an excuse twice. “Someone. At Alliance. Was talking.”
Mom Gwen nodded slowly. “Well, you’re in high school now. I guess the bigger questions are bound to come up. What do you want to know?”
“How old do you have to be to make it permanent?”
“That depends on the person.”
“Let’s say my age,” I said desperately, as behind Mom Gwen, Harper eased the door open to Michael’s room. My looking almost caused Mom Gwen to look so I said desperately. “If I told you I wanted a sex change, what would you say?”
“I would talk it over with Tate and Rob, of course. And with you.” She gave me a funny look, then said, “But I know what they would probably say: let’s give it time.”
“Is that true for all teens?”
“It depends on the teen,” she began. “When did the teen feel firm about their identity being different from their birth gender? If it’s been a lifelong issue, I believe hormones can be started around your age. Some do it earlier, though there have been adverse effects due to drug reaction. Surgery—so far—comes later. If the decision was yesterday, well, remember when you desperately wanted a tattoo of your favorite Korean boy band, and we said you had to wait until you were sixteen, and you hated us for that, your life was ruined?”
I grimaced. At thirteen, sixteen seems forever in the distance.
“That was only two years ago. Would you like that tattoo on you now?”
“No,” I said. “Okay, so if I suddenly decided this week, I get you’d want me to wait.”
The door to Michael’s room snicked shut, and Mom Gwen whirled, but Harper was standing at the wall, intently studying a boring piece of art bolted there.