On August 10, exactly one month after Cash Carter passed away, Topher, Joey, and Mo sat in the dining room of their favorite Chinese restaurant in Downers Grove, Cok with a Wok. They were there to celebrate their final meal together before splitting up for college the following day, and impatiently waited for Sam to join them. They weren’t only anxious because they were all starving, but also because today was the day Sam was going to tell his mother that he was transgender, and they wanted to know how Candy Rae Gibson had reacted.
“Here he comes!” Mo said when she saw Sam through the window. “Oh gosh, I’m so nervous to hear how it went! I practically feel like I came out as transgender, too!”
“Only you could make this about you.” Joey laughed.
Sam entered the restaurant and had a seat at the table. His friends were jumpy with anticipation and didn’t even bother saying hello—they went straight for the details.
“Well?” Topher asked.
“Weeeeeell…,” Sam began, and all his friends leaned closer to him. “Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I expected.”
“That’s terrific!” Joey said.
“Don’t get me wrong, there were still a lot of tears,” Sam prefaced. “But for the most part Candy Rae Gibson handled it pretty well. I didn’t have to explain what transgender meant like I thought, which was nice. Apparently there was a trans character on Grey’s Anatomy last season so my mom thinks she’s an expert on the subject now. There were a lot of questions, though—did it have anything to do with her, was I trans because she failed as a mother, was there anything she could have done differently that would have changed it, blah blah blah—but once I assured her it had nothing to do with her she was pretty much okay with it. Actually, a little too okay with it—she made me listen to Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ with her like six times.”
“Sam, I’m so happy for you!” Mo said, and gave him a hug. “You’ve been dreading this day for your whole life!”
“Yeah, it feels good to be open with everyone now,” Sam said. “I told her all about the clinic I found in Providence where I’m planning to start my first round of hormone therapy. She wanted to know if she could meet me there and maybe do a round of estrogen herself—so I had to explain that it’s not like getting a mani-pedi.”
Joey was over the moon for his friend, but he couldn’t keep some sadness from surfacing in his eyes.
“Joey, are you okay?” Sam asked.
“Totally,” he said. “I’m so happy for you, Sam. I just wish it had been a little easier for me, you know?”
“Have you still not spoken to your dad?” Mo asked.
“Not a word,” Joey said. “I’ve been meeting my mom for lunch every other day, though. She’s so dramatic—she’s always in sunglasses and a veil so no one in the church catches her. I keep reminding her I’m gay and not a terrorist.”
“I know it really sucked when your dad told you to leave, but it’s been wonderful having you at my house,” Topher said. “Joey’s been a huge relief to my mom and me by helping us with Billy. He also makes the best pancakes in the world on the weekends. Yesterday my mom actually referred to him as her son and didn’t even correct herself.”
“I can’t thank you enough for letting me stay,” Joey said. “I have to admit, it’s been like a vacation. I’d take Billy any day over those heathens I used to live with.”
Even though they were directly in front of her, Mo tapped the side of her glass with a spoon to get her friends’ attention.
“I have a little announcement, too,” she declared. “Today I managed to convince my father to give me my college fund to pay for Columbia.”
“That’s amazing!” Sam said. “How’d you do it?”
“Compassion wasn’t working so I tried a different method—blackmail!” Mo was proud to share. “I told him if he didn’t fork it over, when he was an old man I would put him in the retirement home that had the lowest Yelp score I could find. That did the trick.”
There was laughter and high fives all around.
“Way to go, Mo!” Topher said.
“God, you’re terrifying when you want to be,” Joey said.
Mo gave him a big devious smile but it faded away when a sad thought crossed her mind.
“You know, it’s really thanks to Cash that I did it,” she said. “I was thinking about him a lot today. Can you believe it’s been a month since he died?”
“It still doesn’t feel real to me—none of the trip does,” Sam said. “He was kind of like the world’s worst Mary Poppins. He just flew into our lives one day, brainwashed us into doing some terrible things, and changed our lives for the better somehow. I actually went with my mom to see this psychic she gives perms to, you know, just in case Cash’s spirit had something to say.”