She sat Poppy down on her bed then kneeled at her feet. This time, she was a little better prepared. “When you change into your nightgown tonight, baby, you need to do it somewhere private. You know?”
“Yeah?” Poppy didn’t sound sure.
“Sweetheart, Aggie doesn’t know you have a penis, and she would probably be really confused to see it, so you either have to tell her or just excuse yourself and go into the bathroom and change.”
“Okay,” said Poppy.
“Which?”
“Which what?”
“Which do you prefer? Should we tell Aggie? She’s such a good friend, baby. You could tell her, and then she’d know, and everything would be fine. You could decide to tell other friends too, or if you told Aggie not to tell anyone else, you know she wouldn’t.”
“What about Nicky?” Barely a whisper.
“Nicky?”
“Remember how Nicky used to be my best friend and then he found out about me, and he was so grossed out he tried to shoot Daddy?”
Rosie rocked back on her heels and waited for the breath to return to her lungs. How had Poppy’s memory twisted that story into this? And when? How long had she been carrying this version around? “Oh, sweetheart, no. Nicky was your friend. He was little, but he loved you in his way. It was his father who didn’t understand. Nicky didn’t try to shoot Daddy. Nicky’s daddy didn’t even try to shoot Daddy.”
“But after he found out, he didn’t want to be my friend anymore.”
Rosie nodded and said nothing. This wasn’t entirely untrue. And what was true was probably even harder to understand.
“What if Aggie doesn’t want to be my friend when she finds out I’m really a boy?”
“Are you really a boy?” Rosie asked gently.
“No.” The first sure thing out of Poppy’s mouth so far. “I’m not, Mama.”
“No, you’re not. So Aggie won’t think that. We can explain it to her anytime. We can go over right now and tell Aggie together what a wonderful, brave, amazing little girl you are.”
“I don’t want her to think there’s anything weird about me.”
“Why?” said Rosie. “There’s plenty that’s weird about her.”
“Exactly,” said Poppy. “She’s the weird one. I’m the normal one. That’s the way we like it.”
Late that night, after a movie and a skit and toenail painting and LEGO building and thirty-six rounds of Hangman, Aggie took off every stitch of clothing she had on, wandered around naked looking for something she might wear to bed, and eventually donned, commando, a four-sizes-too-big swimsuit cover-up of Cayenne’s. Poppy took her nightgown out of her bag, balled it up in her arms, and headed toward the bathroom.
“You can just change in here,” Aggie assured her. “I’m not embarrassed.”
“Oh,” said Poppy. “Thanks.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Embarrassed?”
“No. But … Roverella’s watching me.” Roverella was Aggie’s family’s six-pound Chihuahua. Penn called it a hamster. It followed Aggie everywhere.
Aggie giggled. “Roverella is a watchdog. She watches everything. She loves to see people in their nudies, so I guess you better change in the bathroom.”
Poppy went off, relieved and pleased with herself. It was years before it struck Aggie as strange that someone would be embarrassed to change in front of a dog.
Stalls