I could tell Sam about how I’m scared Toni isn’t telling me things because Toni knows I won’t understand. After all, I’m just boring little Gretchen. I’m nowhere near as cool as all of Toni’s new genius friends.
I could tell Sam I’m so scared about all this stuff I can’t sleep at night.
Then I remember Sam’s too embarrassed to even go to a gay bar. I bet she’s never once heard the word genderqueer. She’d have a thousand questions before I’d even finished the story. I’m sick of explaining my life to everyone.
Besides, Carroll’s almost put me back into my happy mood. I like being in my happy mood.
So I say it’s nothing. That Sam was right from the beginning. That I’m freaked because I miss Toni.
I’m not even lying about that part. If Toni and I were just in the same place all the time, everything would be simpler.
Carroll’s right. I need to stop thinking about this so much and focus on having fun. Distractions, that’s the key.
Starting now.
*
“Those make your ass look cute,” Carroll says nine hours later as I try on a pair of Tracy’s tight gray pants. “They make you look like you have an ass, at least.”
I laugh. “Thanks, I guess.”
He passes me a plastic cup of orange juice mixed with Absolut that he stole from Juan. I take a drink and pass it back. We’re supposed to meet Briana and her friends in the lobby in ten minutes. If I really want to keep up my good mood, I need to drink as much as possible tonight.
“How’s the overall effect?” I ask Carroll, spinning around and nearly falling over.
“To be honest? Kinda dykey.”
I laugh. “That’s okay. I am kinda dykey.”
“Oh? I’m disappointed. I thought you were all the way dykey.”
“I am!” I say, feigning outrage. “One hundred percent dykeadelic!”
“Yeah, as if that’s not obvious based on your footwear alone.” Carroll points to my neon-green Crocs. I switch them out for the black witch shoes I wore to the dance. They’re the only shoes I have that meet with Carroll’s approval.
“Speaking of which,” he says, “do I ever get to meet your partner in dykedom? Is she coming down here this semester?”
“Toni’s busy,” I say and take another long sip. “The classes up there are insanely demanding. It’s Harvard.”
“What’s NYU, a safety school?” he asks. “You managed to go visit her.”
I shrug.
What I don’t say is that we’d been talking about Toni coming down here in the next couple of weeks, but that plan is off now.
Toni called this afternoon to tell me that a teaching fellow named Lacey had offered to set Toni up with a summer internship. At Oxford. In England.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity,” Toni told me. “A chance to do research with some of the top people in the field when I’ll only be a sophomore! All I have to do is go over there next month for an interview.”
“This came from Lacey?” I asked. “Wasn’t she the one who tried to fight with you about random political stuff?”
“Oh, I was misinterpreting that. It turns out Lacey’s got all these great contacts. Lacey did a program at Oxford, too, so now I’ve got a ton of insights into the academic culture there. It sounds incredibly stimulating. All I have to do is meet with them, and Lacey said if the lead researcher likes me, the job’s mine.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“I won’t be able to come to New York for that weekend we talked about, though. I’m way too behind on my work already. There’s no way I can take two more trips this semester, but at least we’ll see each other at Thanksgiving.”
“So you’ll be in England,” I said. “All summer.”
“Yeah. It’s great, right? It’s the perfect excuse not to have to go down to my parents’!”
The thing is, if Toni’s not going down to Maryland, we won’t get to see each other, either. Toni didn’t seem terribly bothered about that part, though.
I can’t help wondering if seeing me again made Toni realize that spending time with me isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That we might as well spend the summer living five time zones apart.
“I’ll miss you,” I said.
“I know. That’s the one part of this that sucks. I’ll miss you, too. But we’ll still see each other. You can come visit me in the UK. It’ll be fun.”
“Can’t you get an internship in Boston or New York?” I asked. “It’d be a lot easier to visit you that way.”
“No, no, listen, this internship is really competitive. It’s a huge deal to be asked. I can’t pass it up.”
“So, what am I supposed to do all summer?” I asked. “When I’m not hanging out with you in England?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t you say you wanted to get a job in DC or something?”
Toni had to get off the phone after that. The guys were waiting.