“Of course,” Douglas said. I nodded.
“Okay, good. So—” Rollins’s hands made grand gestures through the air, wringing the booming words out. “We’re back in the Restoration. Remember: This is the first time that actual women were allowed to play women’s roles onstage. This sort of seduction scene was the height of titillation back then, okay? Yeah, titillation, thank you, guys,” he aimed over his shoulder at the couple of people who were failing to stifle their laughter. “So, Jordan. Imagine it. Imagine being that restricted! That’s going to show in everything, okay? When every second of your life is shaped by being a woman, at a time where women are so defined by this idea of extreme femininity, you need to play this seduction sequence as if this guy is the first guy, ever, that you’ve seen behaving like this, showing interest like this.” He had worked himself into a frenzy. “It’s scandalous! You know? That’s why the unflappable Lady Calista’s so appalled by it. So delighted by it.”
I glanced at Douglas, my cheeks burning. He met my eyes, looking equally humiliated. I had this private theory that hell was an eternity of sixty-year-old teachers explaining seduction scenes.
Mr. Rollins took a breath and placed his palms flat on the stage. “Long story short, there’s some stuff happening with your body that doesn’t match that. Remember your Hagen, right? Who am I: How do I perceive myself? Part of character is how you take up a space. Part of humanity is how you think of your own human body. And Jordan, you’re a confident girl, that’s great. But at one point, I look at you and you’re sitting with your legs stretched out like you’re some guy on the subway. You’re laughing like someone modern laughs, not like a demure member of the aristocracy who was raised not to draw attention to herself. And you’ve got this arm thing going on, your arms are so involved when you talk. If you’re in the clothing typical of the period, right, you’re not going to be able to do that. You’ve got to make it all match, okay?”
“Got it,” I said.
“Great. Let’s try some of this when we run it again later. Anyone got something for Douglas?”
As Rollins turned back to the class, I frowned, looking down at myself. I hadn’t realized it at all, about the way I was sitting or moving.
At the end of last year, people’s comments had been the exact opposite. “You need to push it more.” “You look scared to reach out of your space.” “It’s like there’s this box around you.” The longer I thought about it, the more I realized that it had started to feel restrictive not to carry myself with the sloppy confidence I’d adopted for Julian. His persona had worked its way into the crevices of my normal life.
A hint of confusion awoke. What did it say that I’d gotten so addicted to my male disguise? If girlhood felt frustrating, and boyhood felt freeing, did that say more about girlhood, boyhood, or me?
I’d never questioned being a girl until now. I sat on that stage, detached, suddenly weighing every part of myself, wondering.
But the longer I thought about the possibility that I might not be a girl, the more I became sure that I was one. I knew it innately. The struggle to fit into some narrow window of femininity didn’t exclude me from the club.
At the same time, even just pretending to be a guy was changing me. It was letting me access parts of me I’d pushed back, and parts I didn’t know I’d had, and I wanted that version of me. I liked her better. She was new, she was interesting, she felt in charge.
My old self was losing traction, and as she fell further behind, I realized I didn’t particularly miss her.
Nihal texted me late that afternoon. Hey, what time are you going to Bonfire?
I stretched out my legs on the Nest couch, glancing around the room. Marcus sat in his window, brown hair lit up gold by the receding sunlight, reading a peeling copy of Leviathan. Mama hunched over the piano, examining sheets of staff paper spread out on the music rack, his huge hands occasionally darting over the keyboard with a surprisingly light touch. Erik was slouched, texting, in my usual armchair. It had been a subdued afternoon.
“Hey, guys, what time are we going to Bonfire?” I asked.
“Um, I don’t know, whenever’s good!” Marcus said, sounding awed, like he always did when someone included him in something.
“I dunno,” Mama said, pulling at the strings of his hoodie. His eyes were fixed on a page so densely packed with chords, it looked like somebody had spilled an inkwell over the systems. “I’m still waiting for Jon to get back to me.”
Erik laughed. “What are you, married?”
Mama didn’t turn around. “Simmer down, rook,” he said absentmindedly. His pen tapped F-sharp on the piano over and over.
“Hey, whatever.” Erik arched one eyebrow, still texting. “I don’t judge.”
Mama glanced to me. “I’m thinking early. Maybe right at seven?”
“Cool,” I said. “I’ll tell Nihal.”
I went back to my phone. Probably 7, I typed. You? I hit send, lying back on the couch. With September out the door, the Nest no longer felt like the inside of an oven, so I’d been spending more and more time here. Which meant less and less time out of disguise. These days, my voice fell naturally into its lower register, more than the occasional slip—whenever I was on the phone with Jenna, or even Mom and Dad, it felt like a performance.
Meh, Nihal texted. I was going to wait until after practice.
You’ll miss all the food tho, I said, before remembering Nihal didn’t eat meat. Wait. Ok. Never mind.
He texted back a cow emoji. Please, spare me!! I like wandering through fields!! Being alive!!
Aaand thanks for the guilt trip.
You are just so welcome, Nihal said. See you at 7.
I grinned, tucking my phone between the couch cushions. October Bonfire was the best fall tradition at Kensington, with the long tables of sizzling hamburgers and the flickering rumble of fire in the parking lot. The huge pyre they set up burned long and low, embers sparking and cracking up into the dusk.
“Seriously, though,” Erik said after a second of quiet. “Are you guys . . . you know? You and Jon Cox?”
It took a second for me to realize what he was asking. Marcus suddenly seemed too interested in Hobbes, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his beefy neck.
Mama went still for a second before turning to face Erik. “I mean, why do you care?”
“Maybe ’cause we spend all our time together?” Erik said, as if it were obvious. “Why do you not want to answer?”
Mama looked unaffected by the baiting. He tilted his head, letting the silence stretch until I felt this impulse to clap, or stomp, or yell, to snap the tension. Finally, Mama said, “I don’t want to answer because you’ve never bothered to ask me a question about my life before. And this is a weird, presumptuous one to start off with.”