Poppy could not actually stand there and watch her parents dance, so she finished her juice and told Jake she’d be right back. She remembered the bathroom of her own at the fish spa in Chiang Mai, the nurse’s bathroom they’d made her use in Wisconsin, all the stalls she’d changed in over the years when she took swim lessons or went to the beach with PANK or it was pool day at summer camp. Sometimes being her was difficult and complicated. Sometimes only the bathroom was.
When she emerged from the stall, Aggie was leaning against the sinks, her hands tucked into her armpits and squeezed into fists. Poppy’s stomach did the same. She was so happy to see her, she thought she might start crying. She was so nervous to see her, she thought she might start crying. There was some chance she was also angry, but Aggie was her best friend in the entire universe so probably not. There was some chance that traveling halfway around the world to work with poor, often sick, sometimes orphaned children had given her a mature perspective on humanity that was going to help her handle this situation. But Aggie was her best friend in the entire universe. So probably not.
“Hi,” said Aggie.
“Hi.” Poppy remembered the first time Aggie had ever tapped on her window, the night they met, the night they became rival neighbor princesses. That conversation had started the same way—“Hi,” “Hi”—shy but full of promise, a million good things to come. Poppy had to admit that “Hi,” “Hi” wasn’t that uncommon a way to start a conversation and therefore probably didn’t reveal some fated belonging, but for one grace-filled moment, it felt like that anyway.
But then the spell was broken because Aggie’s mouth said, “How was Thailand?” but Aggie’s tone said, I could not even care less about anything you have to say ever again. Aggie had followed her in here though, so maybe she meant something else altogether.
“Hot. Crazy. Kind of amazing. How was here?”
“Sucky. Stupid. Totally boring.” Then, with a sneer, “Did you make a new best friend?”
“No.” Poppy thought of the friends she made in Thailand—her little students who showed her all about the Buddha and how school changes your life and how to tell stories and how to love your family, K who showed her how to be in between and live in the middle. “Did you?”
Aggie snorted in answer to this question. “Are you even allowed to be here?”
“School?”
“The girls’ bathroom.”
Oh. “I guess,” Poppy said to her toes. “My parents told Mr. Menendez at the beginning of first grade. He said I was allowed.”
“You told Mr. Menendez but not me?”
“I didn’t,” Poppy said lamely. “My parents did.”
“Maybe you aren’t allowed anymore.”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“Everything’s changed,” Aggie said but not mean. Sad.
“Why?” Not just sad. Heartbroken.
“We can’t be friends anymore.” Was that why everything had changed? Or how?
“Why not?”
“How can we?” Aggie was almost yelling. “What are we going to do together? We can’t have sleepovers anymore. We can’t talk about all the things we talk about anymore. We can’t be rival princesses. We can’t do plays.”
“Because you don’t like me anymore?”
“Because I don’t know you anymore.”
“I’m the same,” Poppy cried. “I’m exactly the same as ever. We can still have plays and princesses. We can still have sleepovers.”
“I don’t even…” Aggie’s face looked like she was trying to do long division in her head. “Poppy, if I ask you a question, will you tell me the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Are you a boy or a girl?” said Aggie.
“No.” Poppy made herself look up at her best friend in the entire universe. She thought of the fairy tale she’d told her students in Thailand, how much easier this would be if she had magic and a wand. “I’m not.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Aggie made a face. Then she softened it. Then she asked, “What are you then?”
“I don’t know. Something else instead.”
“What else is there?” And for the first time all night, Aggie sounded like the question she was asking was actually the question she was asking.
“I’m all of the above.” Poppy couldn’t help smiling, which was kind of like magic because then Aggie couldn’t help smiling back. “And I’m also more to come.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s complicated.” Now that Aggie had smiled at her, she felt almost giddy. She realized she was dying to talk to her about all this. “I guess I’m complicated. I’m hard to explain. I’m kind of a weirdo.”
“You’re not the weirdo,” Aggie said. “I’m the weirdo.”
“True,” Poppy admitted. “Very true. Then I guess we’re both weird. Maybe that’s why we like each other so much.”
“We’re too old for princesses anyway.” Aggie was full-on grinning now. “We can be rival neighbor weirdos from now on.”
*
Everyone was still up when they got home.
“Did Mom and Dad dance?” Ben’s face was pure commiseration.
“Yup.”
“Eww.” A chorus.
“Slow dance?” said Rigel.
“Yup.”
“Eww.”
“Did he touch her ass?” said Roo.
“Don’t say ‘ass,’ Roo.” Penn was looking for ice cream.
“Eww, Roo, gross,” said Orion.
“But he did, right?”
Poppy squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of something else.