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  Gramps’s clothes were fine. White long-sleeved shirts with cuffs and cuff links. Long, thick ties. Tweed jackets with suede or corduroy elbow patches. Man, these were distinctive for their day. I had to cut off the pant legs, but I let ‘em hang long and frayed. I knotted the laces on my work shoes.

  People stared. Behind my back they scathed me. What else was new? I worked for many years perfecting my persona. It wasn’t only the clothes Kevin picked up on. I’d always dressed like a boi. Today, I thought, it was my fresh attitude. I was authentic. Binding and packing. Wearing my P. Could everyone tell?

  Kevin pulled into Fazoli’s to let me out for work. “Dude, what time you get off tonight?” he asked.

  “Eleven.”

  He checked his watch. “I might be a little late. Therèsa’s coming over to study.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Study, dude.”

  “Right. I get it.” I wasn’t stupid. He was doing his girl. I wish I had me a girl. “I can walk home,” I told him.

  “No,” he said. “Just wait for me. I’ll call if it’s going to be more than fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “You’re slowing down in your old age. You need a hit of Viagra?” I smirked.

  He shook his head. “I mean it, Valentino.”

  “Vince.” Stop messing with me, I shot him a glare. I changed my name a lot, but it’d been Vince all month. Not Valentino. Not Eva. Especially not Eva, the name my mother gave me. I opened the door and got out of the Hummer. “Give my love to Therèsa.” I pooched my lips. Then held myself like a guy and went, “Hunh.”

  Kevin shook his head again, but a smile cricked his lips. “You’re too much.”

  “For you to handle. Let me know when you set Therèsa free.”

  Kevin gunned the motor and backed up. I headed inside to work.

  Jerome, my shift mate, was a cool bro. We’d play gangsta rap and jive each other while we piled pasta onto plates and slathered marinara over the edge. We’d make lewd jokes about the meatballs and sausage. “A squirt of juice here,” Jerome’d say. “Yes, ma’am. Meaty balls.” We’d arrange them with anatomical exactness on the plate. Jerome high-fived me in greeting, then hitched his chin toward the front counter. “We got us some tasty new chik-fil-ay.”

  “Yeah?” I swiveled my head. A new girl was training up front with Broomhilda. Right away I knew me and Jerome would be vying for this girl’s attentions. She was hot.

  I strung on my apron and got busy with the dinner rush. A couple of hours later, Broomhilda cranked back to the kitchen to hassle us. She was a scary bitch. Her real name was Honey Bea, if you can even imagine. The names parents give their kids. Eva. Honey Bea. When I have a kid, I’m going to name it Jesse or Mel. Something ambiguous. Free-choosing.

  Honey Bea was on the eternal rag. She barked orders at us like we were deaf dogs. “Why is that tray of breadsticks out on the counter?” she woofed. “I told you they’d get hard. Who dropped the parmesan on the floor and didn’t sweep up? We’ll have rats in here.”

  Jerome muttered, “More ’n one?”

  I stifled a snort.

  “Don’t just stand around. Unload the dishwasher.”

  The other girl, the new girl, looked terrorized. Broomhilda said, “Jerome, show Nevaeh where the pasta forks go.”

  “I know where I’d like to stick one,” he said.

  Broomhilda tore his flesh with eye shrapnel. Jerome yawned and went, “I’m on my break right now, Ms. Honey. It can wait a few minutes. Anyways, I’m beat. How ‘bout you, Vinnie?”

  “Vince,” I corrected him. “Yeah, I’m eviscerated.” Everyone looked at me, like, huh? Kevin and I used to play a lot of Balderdash with Grams and Gramps. Before the cancer.

  Eviscerated. Right. We’d had maybe three customers in the last twenty minutes.

  Nevaeh, in particular, had glommed onto me. Shit. She heard my voice. Soon as I could, I was starting testosterone. It’d lower my voice and turn my fuzz into real facial hair. I couldn’t wait for the day I could afford T.

  The front door dinged and Honey Bea stormed out to assist the public. Nevaeh stayed behind, staring at me.

  “Heaven spelled backward, right?” I said.

  She blinked, but her eyes didn’t warm.

  Jerome said, “Wazzat?”

  I turned to explain. “Nevaeh’s name. It’s heaven spelled backward. My mom was named that.” She extracted my name from hers.

  “Was?” Jerome said. “She dead?”

  I hesitated. “Yeah.” To me she was.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” He held up a palm to high-five me. I slapped him and he gave my hand a squeeze. Stepping forward toward Nevaeh, Jerome pressed the same palm to his chest. “I’m Jerome Kahlil Monteh Nathanial Washington the third,” he said. “You can call me stud nut. This here’s Vinnie.” His arm swept to the side to indicate me.

  “Vince.” Dammit. Get it right. I extended my hand. She gazed at it for a long second, then shook it. More obliging than willing. She let go fast. She had long, elegant fingers. Fake nails all manicured and lacquered. She wouldn’t be scraping the grill or chopping chicken strips anytime soon.

  “I need help out front.” Broomhilda’s gnarly face swelled up like an ogre under the heat lamps.

  Jerome answered in a lowered voice, “Lady, you need help in front, in back, in every which way.”

  I couldn’t smother my laugh. Nevaeh said, “Are you a girl?”

  Out of the blue. Just like that.

  I swallowed hard.

  “Sorry,” she said, lowering her eyes. “I couldn’t tell.”

  Boi, I thought. I’m boi. Transman. Born girl, but changing over. One day, soon as I get the money for T. For surgery to remove my breasts, maybe.

  Honey Bea, for once, saved the day by posting the customer’s order and sniping, “Nevaeh! You take this.”

  She startled, almost leaping onto the stove.

  Jerome snatched the order off the carousel. Nevaeh squinted her eyes at Honey Bea’s retreating back. She said, “Already I hate this job.”

  “Don’t quit,” I told her. “Give it a few days. Broomhilda’s just testing you. Exercising her authority over you, or determining if she can.”

  “Yeah,” Nevaeh said. “Well, she can exercise it over my gone ass.”

  “Ah, don’t sweat it.” I took a toothpick out of my pocket and rolled it between my teeth. “I’ll protect you.” I winked at her and balled a fist to jab her shoulder lightly. I only touched her arm playfully, but she reeled back into the trash bins, making a racket.

  Geez, sorry.

  “I’m not that way, okay?” She circled the bins, rolling a trash can between us.

  Not that way — like, human? I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Jerome sauntered past with a plate of alfredo, which he slid under the heat lamp and announced, “Order up. One snarf and barf to go.”

  Honey Bea scuttled over and scowled at him. Some people have no sense of humor.

  There was a queue of customers around eight-thirty, nine, then it died again. Me and Jerome busied ourselves in the kitchen rapping about music and chicks and politics in the Middle East. His cousin was touring Baghdad. My shift ended and I told him, “Later, man.” He closed up.

  “See ya, Vince.” He saluted. “Mañana.”

  Outside the front door, I waited for Kevin. It was a brisk night. Bracing, Gramps would say. Invigorating. “ ’Tis an evenin’ for the Willoughbys,” he’d say. I had no idea who the Willoughbys were. I should’ve asked when I had the chance. My breath streamed out in a vapor trail. Blow out. Suck in. I jammed my hands into Gramps’s suit coat and felt my box of round toothpicks. I fingered one out and stuck it in the side of my mouth. I counted cars in the lot. Three to be exact. Not exceedingly busy at this late hour. Where was Kevin?

  I leaned against the smooth brick and squeezed my thighs together to ensure it was still with me. It was.

  I loved the sense of it. The sensuality. It made me f
eel confident and complete.

  The door swung open and Nevaeh stepped out. I pushed off the wall. “Hey.”

  She lurched backward.

  My hands came out of my pockets and I held them up. “Don’t worry. I’m not contagious.” I slid my hands back into the pockets, balling my fists hard against my thighs.

  Her breath willowed up and dispersed in a mist. Her eyes swept the parking lot and she shivered.

  My first instinct was to offer her my jacket, but wow. She was cold to me. “You waitin’ for someone?” I asked. Her boyfriend, probably.

  She nodded. “My brother.”

  What, no boyfriend? She had to have a boyfriend. Hot girl like her?

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was… I forced myself to glance away. Out of bounds.

  “Look, I didn’t mean anything, okay? I’m just not that way.”

  I twisted my head back slowly. “Yeah, I get it. I wasn’t coming on to you.” Much.

  Our eyes held. Hers broke off first. She gazed into the distance and murmured, “He’s always late. I can’t stand when people are late. It’s so rude.” She scuffed the sidewalk with her boot.

  “I know. I hate it too. I’m always on time.”

  “Me too. I’m, like, anal about it.”

  I grinned. We had that in common. I took the extended conversation as a truce.

  “How long have you been working here?” she asked.

  “Me?” I said. “’Bout eight months.”

  “Wow.”

  I’m steady, I wanted to say. Reliable.

  “I worked at Kmart for almost a year before they shut the store,” she said.

  “The one in Four Points?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I shopped there all the time,” I said.

  She hugged herself. “You’re the only one.”

  “I need —“ “I want —“ we both began at once. And cracked up.

  “Go ahead,” I told her.

  “I need to work,” she said, “so I can pay for my dance lessons.”

  “You’re a dancer?” I tried not to check out her body, but my eyes had a mind of their own. “You look it,” I said.

  Her eyes fell. “Thanks.” Rubbing her hands together, she added, “I’m not going to stand here all night.” Nevaeh pivoted and hurried down the sidewalk in the direction of the drive-up window.

  “Hey.” I hustled to catch up. “You shouldn’t be out walking alone. Not in this neighborhood.” Impulsively, I reached over to touch her. She flinched. I withdrew my hand quick. “It’s dark. The streetlights are all shot out. Can I walk you home?”

  “No!” Her voice softened. “But thanks.”

  A car squealed around the corner and flooded us in headlights. Tires crunched gravel and the fender overshot the curb. Instinct made me pull Nevaeh back a foot. Two guys hauled out of the car and swaggered up to us. “Nev, you okay?” One of them clenched Nevaeh’s upper arm and jerked her away from me. “This guy bothering you?” he said.

  The other dude, the taller one with a dirty cut on his cheek, checked me out.

  “Yes,” Nevaeh answered.

  What? I think she meant, Yes, she was okay, but the guy misinterpreted. Both dudes did. They were on me before I knew what was happening.

  My heel hit the edge of sidewalk and the sticker bush behind me poked into my back. “Hey, it’s cool.” Both guys had a grip on my arms. “I wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t touch her.”

  “Eric, come on,” Nevaeh said. “Leave her alone. Let’s go.”

  I assumed Eric was her brother. He positioned me in front of him, straight on. “Her? Did you say ‘her’?” His eyes stripped me down. They paused at my chest.

  “Fuck,” the other dude said. “Are you a girl?” His lip curled, wrinkling the cut, making it more ominous. Hoisting his hands onto his hips, surveying me like a specimen, he added, “You one of them freaks? A crosser? A transvestite?”

  “Everything’s cool,” I said. My voice held firm. I’m not a transvestite. The sticker bush began to prickle through Gramps’s pants.

  Someone in the car hollered, “What’s up?”

  Cut-face replied, “Moby. Come check out this freak.” He reached forward and twisted the sleeve of my jacket, pulling me toward him. A car door slammed.

  “He’s a she. A she-he.”

  Ze, I thought.

  “No way,” the third guy said. Moby was bigger than the first two, a giant. Like two ninety.

  “There’s only one way to be sure,” Nevaeh’s brother said. He grinned at Cut-face, then me.

  “Man, hey, it’s cool.” I wriggled out of Cut-face’s clutches. And Eric’s. My pulse raced. I fought down the fear. I knew if I let them see fear…

  Two of them lunged at me, trapping my arms behind my back. They reeked of beer and weed and cigarettes.

  A sudden chill on my stomach made me gasp. They’d lifted up my shirt. “Oh shit. Look at that.”

  All three gawked. Eric or Moby, one of them, put his face up to mine and said, “What’s the matter, sweetcakes? You shy?”

  “Eric, stop.” Nevaeh’s voice, small and far away. “You guys.”

  His hand scraped down the front of my wrap and yanked forward. The Ace Bandage budged maybe an inch. It held firm. His forehead touched my breastbone and he said, “There’s something down there.” His hands pressed against both my breasts. “Oh yeah. I see cleavage.” He inserted an index finger between me.

  “Cut it out.” I pushed him off. I kicked him and missed. “Pervert.”

  He laughed. The other two howled with laughter.

  From behind, Cut-face jerked my suit coat roughly over my shoulders and down my arms. Eric got my shirt unbuttoned and the other, Moby, tore it off. Cut-face found the end of the bandage and spun me around and around as he unwrapped it. I tried to plant my feet, slap them off, kick, elbow, resist, whatever I could do, but they just kept spinning and spinning me. The wrap came free.

  “Whoa,” one said. “Nice rack.”

  Another went, “Why would you want to cover up these pretty things?”

  Rough hands. Squeezing me.

  A car door shut. Nevaeh? Where are you?

  Someone pinched my nipple. I cried out. No, I thought. It isn’t me. They’re not my breasts. They’re coming off. I can’t feel this. I’m cool.

  Cut-face tried to kiss me, but I twisted away. Animal. Moby said, “Gross, dude. You know you’re kissing a guy.”

  “Oh yeah?” He grabbed my boobs and squeezed hard. He suctioned his lips onto mine.

  A wave of nausea swam up from my stomach and I gagged. I almost hurled in Cut-face’s mouth.

  A hand slid between my legs. “Whoa, ho. What have we here?”

  I kicked out hard, but both my wrists were clenched in vise grips. Whoever had me was strong. He bent my arms around my back. My shoulder cracked and I bit my lip to suppress a scream.

  “Check. It. Out.” Cut-face unzipped my pants.

  Please, I prayed. Please. Nevaeh. Anyone. Someone come to Fazoli’s to eat. Somebody come to the drive-up. One person, one person in this whole wide world, get hungry and want Italian.

  Cold. Biting cold on my legs. Teeth?

  Nevaeh’s voice, “What are you doing to her?”

  Eric shouting, “Nevaeh, stay out of this.”

  Don’t, Nevaeh. Don’t listen.

  Eric looking at me. Making a decision. “Let’s go.” Stepping away.

  “What?” Moby’s voice. “We’re just having a little fun here. You’re the one who said you’re bored with female shit. You’re the one who wanted to go cruising and find us a cheap ho. Man, you got your wish.”

  Cut-face said, “Careful what you wish for.” Nasty laugh.

  I tried to move, run, but my pants were around my ankles.

  Moby gasped. “What in the world… ? Hey, ho. Rubber dickie.”

  “Please.” My voice trembled. Please, God, I prayed into the sky. Gramps, if you’re up there.

  The d
uct tape ripped and a hunk of pubic hair came with it. I cried out. I couldn’t help it. “She’s bigger than you, Moby.” Cut-face laughed.

  Someone screamed. Was that me? Roaring, humming in my ears.

  Pressure, pulling on it. Yanking. Then the elastic snapping off my hips.

  A horn honked and the sticker bush scraped my legs. My face met concrete. A shoe on my head.

  “Hey!” Kevin’s voice. “Hey!” Louder.

  Running.

  Kevin kneeling next to me. “Eva?” His arms snaking around me, pulling me up into his chest. The smell of Therèsa’s sweet perfume.

  “Did they hurt you?” His face in my face. A car squealing away.

  I couldn’t move. Couldn’t answer. Consciousness swam to the surface, barely. Oxygenation. Breathe. Inhalate. Is that a word, Gramps? “Give her back,” I said. My voice sounded hollow, detached.

  Kevin bent his head. “What?”

  Conviction now. “Give her back!” On solid ground. What is this? Wet? My cheeks, my eyes.

  Kevin’s arms flexed around me and gathered me in. “Oh, Eva.”

  No. Sobbing, hiccuping. “Vince,” I spat at him. Why can’t he remember? “It’s —“

  “Vince,” he said. “I got it.”

  “It’s mine,” I told him, swiping my eyes, my nose. “I want it back.”

  Kevin held my head against his chest. “Never mind.” I felt his cheek brush my crew, back and forth. “Never mind,” he said again. “Whatever it is, I’ll fix it.”

  No, I thought, you can’t fix this. “I’ve been waiting so long.” It came out a wail. Was that my voice? “I saved up the money. I made you buy it.” Humiliation. Degradation.

  “Forget it, Vince.” He held me another minute. I was crying so hard I couldn’t talk. I was gulping in breaths, and choking. Kevin finally loosened his grip and retrieved Gramps’s suit coat, which was stuck in the holly bush behind us, and wrapped me up in it.

  I still felt naked.

  “I’ll get you a new one. The next one’s on me,” Kevin said. “You can get a bigger one — my size.” He grinned. “Don’t worry, Vince.” He looked at me deep. “I’ll replace it.”