“Okay, that’s enough of that,” I say. Not that I object to Derek and Gretchen making friends, but this is kind of weird. “You haven’t met everyone officially yet. Come on.”
“He really is a good guy,” Gretchen whispers as we cross to the other side of the room. “I mean, I knew he would be, since you’re so picky about your friends, but I trust him. He reminds me of Chris, but older and wiser.”
“Derek’s definitely a lot wiser,” I say.
We go around the room so I can introduce Gretchen to the rest of the group. They’re all in costumes or otherwise dressed up except for Eli. Eli isn’t coming to the dance. Gretchen is distraught to learn this because Gretchen, unlike the rest of us, wasn’t there last week to hear about the dances of Eli’s past. We all dropped the subject once Eli finished the “and then they beat me up outside my senior prom” story.
“No, no, you have to come!” Gretchen tugs on Eli’s arm. “It’ll be fun. We can all dance together.”
“Hey, Gretchen, sweetheart,” Nance says, “you can dance with Eli if you want, but you have to dance with me first. I got to get in early, before Toni goes around kicking people’s asses.”
Gretchen laughs. “Like we’d make it through a whole song before that happened.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nance says. Nance is dressed as Clark Kent, in a suit and tie with the shirt unbuttoned just enough to show the red S underneath. It shows off a lot of cleavage, too. I’m guessing that’s not an accident. “T’s that much of an ass-kicker?”
“Nah, T just gets superjealous,” Gretchen says.
“Yeah, that’s kind of true,” I say. “One time in high school I paid someone to stop trying to flirt with Gretchen.”
“You paid her?” Eli said. “What, actual money?”
“Well, I did her calc homework for her once.”
“I was superglad you did,” Gretchen says. “She was this little track-team diva brat, but she was hard to get rid of. Even though I was already hopelessly smitten with Toni by then.”
“Aww,” Inez and Nance say in unison.
I blush. Then I get annoyed with myself for blushing.
My chest feels tight again. My whole body feels like it’s buzzing, and not in a good way. I thought people would notice I was binding tonight, but Gretchen’s the only one who’s said anything.
“So, should we go downstairs or what?” I ask.
The others stand up, grumbling, as if they’d just as soon hang out in the common room all night.
The dining hall on the first floor is already full. Some of the outfits people have on are really over the top. As Derek predicted, there are some straight guys in ridiculous, borderline-offensive drag, but they’re definitely the minority. I see more drag kings, in fact. They must’ve come over on the Wellesley bus, because if we had practicing drag kings at Harvard, surely someone would’ve told me by now. It’s funny to see girls dressed as Justin Bieber hanging out next to the three-hundred-year-old dark wood paneling and framed portraits of old, dead house masters.
Derek, Inez and Nance hang out with Gretchen and me for the first part of the night. Nance keeps leaning over to whisper things in Gretchen’s ear, which freaks me out. I overhear words like “self-care” and “sofa support groups.” Are they talking about furniture?
Derek sees me looking at them and mouths, “Don’t worry about it,” and I try not to. Then I overhear Nance saying, “It really makes you rethink your own sexuality, you know?” and Gretchen turns to me, looking panicked.
I take Gretchen’s hand and we go to get food. For a while we avoid Nance and hang out on our own. Gretchen keeps pointing out the interesting costumes to me and whispering in my ear about how cool the dance is, but I can’t relax. It didn’t bother me so much in the guys’ room, but now that I’m out in the open, I feel incredibly self-conscious about binding in public for the first time. No one seems to have noticed, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m so self-conscious I’m embarrassed of my own self-consciousness.
Having Gretchen standing next to me makes me even more nervous because I know everyone’s looking at us. Well, everyone’s looking at Gretchen. That’s what happens when your date is the hottest girl in the room and she’s dressed up as a sexy feminist witch.
What the hell am I doing here? Everyone’s going to know I’m faking it. I’m not serious enough about the trans thing to be wearing a binder yet. Plus, Gretchen probably doesn’t even want to be here with me. Why else would my own girlfriend lie to me about something as huge as college plans?
I’m a total failure. A fraud. Anyone who takes one look at me can tell I’m just playing at everything.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I whisper to Gretchen.
“Why?” Gretchen looks alarmed.
“Uh.” I shift from one foot to another. “I’ve gotta pee.”