“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just that you’re this super hot black girl. It makes it very hard for me to have a mental image of you. I keep having to change it.”
“Picture me however you want to picture me. Because odds are, that’ll be more true than any of the bodies you see me in.”
She makes it sound easy. It’s not easy. Especially with a pretty girl.
“I think my imagination needs a little more time to catch up to the situation, okay?” I say.
She nods. Even her nod is stunning. Not fair at all. “Okay. Now, where to?”
I’ve given this some thought. And I am not going to change the plan just because of the body in my passenger seat.
“Since we’ve already been to the ocean,” I say, “I figured today we’d go to a forest.”
So much for not thinking about it.
As we’re driving, all I can do is think about it. About her. About A inside her body. We’re talking—I’m telling her about the phone call with Kelsea’s father and the party last night, and she’s telling me about the parade she went to yesterday, in the body of a gay boy with a boyfriend. But even as we’re talking, my mind is racing with all kinds of thoughts. And the pathetic thing is that I know if A looked like Nathan today, I wouldn’t be having any of these thoughts. It would feel normal, because I’d be out with a normal boy.
But this is so different. Too different. Even though when she looks at me, I can feel A inside, it’s not easy to separate the two. And it’s not easy to realize this is part of the lottery. Some days, A is going to be like this.
I don’t see where I could possibly fit into a life like that.
I don’t want to kiss her. I could never kiss her.
So there’s that.
But I can talk to her and not worry that I’m talking too much, or talking too little, or saying the wrong thing. It’s like my life is usually lived behind this veil of judgment, and A manages to pull back the veil, seeing me more truthfully than anyone else.
I tell myself to notice that. To remember it. To not get so caught up in how attractive she is that I forget everything else.
I take us to this national park that I know has picnic benches. I’ve planned a picnic for two—and even if Ashley looks like she eats half a meal a day, I’m hoping A will find a way to eat like the rest of us. There are a few other people in the park, but I try to avoid them. This day is meant to be ours.
My phone is off. I am here, now.
“I love this place,” A tells me.
“You’ve never been here before?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not that I can remember. Although it’s possible. At a certain point, it all blurs together. There are a lot of days when I haven’t really paid attention.”
I know she’s paying attention now. She smiles at me as I turn off the car. She watches as I head to the trunk. She seems delighted when I pull out the picnic hamper.
The hamper came with a blanket, and I put it over the picnic table like a tablecloth—because, when it all comes down to it, I don’t like sitting on the ground if a table is an option. Then I put out all the food I bought—nothing big, just a lot of small things, like chips and salsa and cheese and bread and hummus and olives.
“Are you a vegetarian?” A asks.
I nod.
“Why?”
I am so tired of this question. Shouldn’t it be the meat eaters who are asked why? And it’s always like they’re expecting this crazy answer. So I decide to give the craziest answer I can think of.
I keep a straight face and say, “Because I have this theory that when we die, every animal that we’ve eaten has a chance at eating us back. So if you’re a carnivore and you add up all the animals you’ve eaten—well, that’s a long time in purgatory, being chewed.”
It’s funny to see Ashley’s perfect features contort into a grimace. “Really?” she asks.
I laugh. “No. I’m just sick of the question. I mean, I’m vegetarian because I think it’s wrong to eat other sentient creatures. And it sucks for the environment.”
“Fair enough,” she says.
I’m not sure I’ve persuaded her.
Maybe over time I can, I think.
Then I think, What?
I shouldn’t be thinking of anything over time. It’s just one day plus another day plus another day. Maybe.
When things get bad with Justin, the question I find myself asking is: What’s the point? Like, why put ourselves through all this? Why try to squeeze two people into the shape of a couple? Are the things you gain really worth the things you lose?
Now I’m asking myself the same things about A. We’re talking about favorite foods, and the best meals we’ve ever had, and the foods we hate the most—when she asks me all these questions, I enjoy answering, and when I ask her questions back, I enjoy the answers she gives me. If this were a date, it would be going really well. But there’s a part of me that’s standing outside of it, that’s looking at it as it happens, and that part is asking, What is this? What’s the point?
When we’re done eating, we pack the leftovers in the hamper and return it to the trunk. Then, without discussing what we’re going to do next, we walk into the woods. The paths aren’t obvious—we find our way through the trees by heading into them, looking for the widest distances, the clearest ground.
When we’re alone, when we’re walking like this, all of the conversation that’s been happening on the outside moves to the center of our minds. What is this? I know I can’t answer it alone.
“I need to know what you want,” I say.
She doesn’t seem surprised by the request. If it were Justin, I know I’d get a What’s gotten into you? But A answers without missing a beat.
“I want us to be together,” she (he?) tells me.
She says it like it’s easy. But there’s no way my mind can turn it into something easy. Not when she’s in a different body every day. I can have a conversation with any of them, I’m sure. But when it comes to chemistry, when it comes to making that part of me come alive—I know some days are going to work and some aren’t. Like now. She has to see that.
“But we can’t be together,” I say. I’m amazed by how calm I sound. “You realize that, don’t you?”