Maybe it’s completely unfair to blame someone else for my gender feelings. But how am I supposed to know if I’m uncomfortable with my capital-G Gender or just with the way people treat me because of it. Or is that the same thing?
Dad wouldn’t expect imaginary dude-Ellen to form a tight mother-daughter bond with his stepmom, so he would never fail miserably. He would have already fixed the garage door months ago, probably. I don’t know exactly what it says about me, but I want to live up to his imaginary example.
I climb back to the doorway to punch the garage door button. The light blinks and the motor grumbles and the door rises about a foot and a half, at which point it squeaks and shudders and everything stops.
I press the button again; the door descends smoothly. Again—the same abrupt stop.
I shift all the big furniture away from the door, figuring it might be catching on something. I don’t make a very graceful figure, panting and kicking and cursing at the old bookshelves, but I manage.
The door, unimpressed by my efforts, still refuses to rise. A problem with the tracks, then?
I’m balanced on a rusty folding chair stacked on top of an old coffee table when Connie pokes her head into the garage. I don’t stop inspecting the left runner (which bends around a crusted rust spot), but I nod and wave.
“Hey, can you hit the button? I want to see this up close.”
Connie stares at me like I’m speaking an alien tongue. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to see if the door stops right here, because I really think the problem is . . .”
Connie crosses her arms over her chest and sucks her breath in loudly.
“I know I haven’t gotten a whole lot done yet,” I say quickly, looking around at the space that somehow looks more crowded than it did when I started, “but this will go so much quicker if I can take things out through the door, right?”
“Okay,” Connie says, in a tone that clearly indicates that it is not. “I just came out here to tell you that I made lunch. I thought we could go over some of the design ideas to give you a break from . . . your work.”
“Um, I’ll come in there in a few minutes?” I don’t trust that I can eat the lunch she made anyway.
Connie presses her lips together and leaves (without pressing the button).
I consider giving up and just moving furniture like I was supposed to, but I want to prove that I can do this. I check online for tips about garage doors, watch a few YouTube tutorials, get distracted by new trailers for musical movies. Before I know it, Connie’s poking her head back into the garage, looking even more exasperated.
“I’m going to pick up Yasmín from camp. I’ll leave you to . . .” She waves a hand, the disappointment plain on her face.
I’m not trying to get out of work. I honestly want to make this job easier. I peer at the garage ceiling, double-checking that there are no other rust spots on either runner, then head inside to arm myself. Now I really have to fix this.
I return to attack with WD-40, a Brillo pad, and an actual hammer in an attempt to scrape, smooth, and straighten out the runner. When I take a break to test the button, the door sticks about two inches higher up than before, and with a lot more squeaking and wiggling. Progress.
I scrape harder at the rust, flakes raining down on my face and the rough edges of the Brillo pad digging into my fingertips. I climb down, jab the button, watch the door creak, shudder, rise, falter . . . slide. It squeals past the rust spot and sails shakily up to the ceiling. It works.
Take that, Connie.
I head inside, grab two granola bars and a jar of peanut butter. Yasmín sits on the living room couch, her head buried in Connie’s phone, so I flop down next to her.
Yasmín puts the phone down and looks at me, which is always unnerving because she has this stare that makes you feel like she is one hundred percent focused on whatever you’re doing, even if you’re just sitting like a lump of old oatmeal, getting dust and sweat on the light beige upholstery. I sit up a little straighter.
“What’s up, kiddo? How is math camp treating you?”
God, I sound like Dad at his most dorky. I didn’t have a problem talking to Yasmín when she was a toddler who followed me around the house with a rotating bouquet of stuffed toys, or when she went through her pre-K hellion phase and came home covered in mud, but now . . .
“Are you in trouble?” Yasmín cuts straight to the point.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Did your mom say something?”
Yasmín shrugs. “No.” She breaks eye contact as she says it (lie) and then returns to staring at me. “What’s quidditch like?”
“Um, basically like it’s described in Harry Potter.” She’s seen all the movies, read the first three books.
Yasmín tilts her head to one side. “You know you can’t fly, right?”
How can I feel so intensely judged by such a small person? I nod.
Yasmín turns back to her phone. “Samantha from my camp says it’s weird, but she never even read Harry Potter. It’s not weird, right?”
I think about me and Melissa, running around with PVC pipes between our legs. I think of Karey’s in-y’all’s-face enthusiasm, Elizabeth’s somber expression half hidden by sports goggles, Lindsay’s sweaty headband. “What’s wrong with weird?”
Yasmín thinks for a second before responding: “Weird is weird.”
“Well . . .” Maybe I should leave well enough alone, but I can’t pass up the perfect conversation opener. “‘Weird’ and ‘normal’ just depend on your viewpoint, right? I mean, at some point someone started throwing a ball at a basket, and everyone probably thought that was weird.” Yasmín nods, but doesn’t look entirely convinced. “So just because something seems weird by society’s standards right now—”
I don’t get to finish my (probably life-altering and ten-year-old-mind-blowing) point, because the tap-tap of Connie’s heels cuts me off. She walks into the living room and winces at either the sight or the smell of me.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I flinch, ready to defend my snack break, but Connie isn’t talking to me. “You’re not supposed to be playing, Yasmín, you’re supposed to be using the flash card app.” She glances at me. “Did you move any furniture?”
Damn. “Um, not yet, but—”
She doesn’t wait for an explanation. “Well, it’s too late now—I’m taking Yasmín to swim lessons, and I want the kitchen cleaned before dinner.”