Chapter 17 - Beach Episode

It wasn’t long before Calliope sent some text messages with large photo attachments. I had to wait till I was closer to the city to have enough data for them to download.  My eyes widened.

In the photos, she was wearing the two-piece swimsuit she'd alluded to before. It had a velvety texture and a sea-blue look. However, it didn’t seem to be the right fit for her. Her breasts bunched up, as though an invisible hand was pushing out more cleavage than she intended. The window, with stringy bands stretching from one side to the other, appeared quite revealing. The top was doing its best, like a set of baseball gloves trying to smother unruly balls. The kind she was wearing wasn’t too different than mine, more like some sort of sports top than a typical bikini.

Three photos followed up with her trying to adjust it, unsuccessfully. The bottom looked fine though. I used my finger wiggle to communicate as many of these details in reply. She sent along a string of distressed emojis and pleaded with me to help her. I puffed out a breath.

I considered the options. I wasn’t too far away, and we could pop off to the nearest Walmart. But the really good options were already closed and what was left would be closed soon. So, it would likely have to happen tomorrow, to be ready for the waterpark on Sunday. Not that I had anything planned for Saturday. Except maybe rest.

The problem was it would be kind of like the blind leading the blind. Or rather, a blind person led by someone wearing a blindfold and they can just make out the shapes in the shadows of a thing and are desperately trying to communicate it to their partner. There had to be a better option.

At an especially-long turning light, I struck upon a possibility: The one lady at Light Fantastic with the gray tank top put under more pressure than any of Calliope’s. She had to have more experience with this kind of thing than Callie. Granted, she hadn’t been a girl for even as long but, hopefully, she had enough memories to help out.

What was her name though? I sifted through the eight slots added. I didn’t have Amber‘s contact info. Eloise. No. Cynthia. No. Marsha. No. It had to be Elizabeth. 

To console Calliope, I wrote a text message, “How about trying our one friend at the game store who has a similar look to you? Elizabeth, right?”

The lull between messages allowed me to reflect on the names that had been dropped into my memory hole. I know enough faces but assigning them to a name felt like some challenge on a game show lost to the 1980s. For certain, I remembered Ariadne, the owner, and the fact she had a kid with another on the way. After that, it wasn’t too difficult to recall Natalie. In high school, I knew someone with a similar look and bright red hair, like she was her younger sister… although, technically, she would be an older sister by now. That Natalie, last I remembered with the assistance of Facebook, had five kids and was a missionary.

What about beyond that? Five more. The twins… No way I was going to distinguish one from the other. Although, one was more passive, and the other was more assertive. Cynthia seemed like the Tomboy. And Elaine was more demure. Siana stood up for me when Amber was being a bitch and she had a cool look with almost goth colors without making it over-the-top. And that left the two former pretty boys. Eloise… Wasn’t there a TV show character with that name? It seemed like an old lady name and was way too similar to Elaine and Elizabeth. Gosh, if I was writing this reality… no no no no no. Don’t go there, no rewriting people’s names.

But there were ways it could’ve been easier. And then Marsha… Marsha Marsha Marsha. I think the TV one actually had blonde hair too. That was probably the most I was going to get for ways to remember their names, aside from spending more time around them.

Eventually, my phone chirped with Calliope’s response. She agreed it was a good idea (in a message with multiple grammar mistakes and misspellings) and double-checked with me the contact information she had. Even when she sent out the request, she still kept talking to me.

She wondered if the colors looked nice even though the fit was wrong, as well as adding that the material felt really nice. Because of my long-standing appreciation of velvet, I had to agree. It didn’t take long before she asked me about my Friday, how my classes went, and whatever else was happening. I questioned her in kind but generally outlined that my day had been mercifully quiet with just a little wrangling of the kids and the usual. So far as my internal accomplishments, I alluded to the fact that things that had been bothering me for a long time had been addressed and resolved peacefully, for the moment.

Beyond that, I didn’t think that I had all the words I needed to articulate the contours of my feelings. Especially not when I had to drive and jiggle my finger across the screen until those words came out. I just put down a little when I could comfortably come to a stop, either by the bookstore on the mall end of town or before the train tracks with a long-haul freight blocking the way. It would’ve been better if I had something to drink or a book I really felt like listening to in the dark. I still needed to give love to the books I’d purchased this week.

Not until I was practically back home did I have a safe stretch to really check Calliope’s messages again. She “appriciated” my thoughts about her outfit and went hyper cheerleader on my accomplishments before noting that Elizabeth had gotten back to her and had some “cool ideis”.

It was at that point I realized that I hadn’t responded to Camille yet. Pulling into the area beside what used to be a theater, I wrote back that her choice looked lovely and, no, I didn’t think it looked like too much. Casually, I alluded to what Calliope had just fretted to me about. From there, it didn’t take long before she jumped in with advice. The noises from my phone continued, unabated, until I actually got a message from Elizabeth.

Her typing was calmly composed but lengthier than Camille’s. So, that was how I got invited to Saturday shopping. Elizabeth knew a few specialty stores to help Calliope‘s situation as well as a seamstress who could assist with her ill-fitting garments. But it was a thirty-mile trip south, to the edge of the Los Angeles basin.

I pondered it. She definitely tantalized me with “possibilities that should fit you comfortably”. Siana and Natalie were “maybes”, according to her, because of a bookstore down there that apparently rivaled anything around Brook Valley for gaming content. She also assured me that she had a large enough vehicle for the group.

It felt like a lot for people I had just met for an hour a couple days ago. At the same time, I felt a weird responsibility for them, not so much like daughters or sisters, but at least like some sort of obligation without a bad connotation. Camille soon got back to me but sounded cold to the idea of going with a group. Christ… too damn popular.

I doubted any particular choice would’ve been a good one but soon arrived at a compromise. Not the best one though. Camille wanted to check out a massive clothing shop combined with a swap meet and a library way out in the desert east of Sunrock. That could take just a few hours, early in the morning.

Then Elizabeth said that around noon time would be good to head down on the trip. And, by evening, I would have just enough of shopping and everything to come home and drop dead on my feet in bed. The only way it could work would be to wash up and fly under my sheets as soon as I got home.

Sure… Why not?

Warily, I got to work preparing my clothes and paying half of my attention to the messages still shooting back-and-forth between the people I knew. Unfortunately, I felt ready to go after the success of the evening and not at all in the right state to fall asleep. Lingering by the mirrors with my eyes half-closed, I could imagine my luxurious shape with all the subtractions and additions I wanted. My hands balled up towards my chest at least provided the illusion in one sense and a careful turn of my hip hid enough to complete the look. It momentarily tricked the stump into the arboreal stratosphere.

Snuggling up on the bed after drying, I listened to a happy little narration of cryptids hunting humans in the darkness. With the annoying alarm set to blast me in the morning continuously unless I solved a variety of math problems, I soon fell asleep.

It was far too brief a session of dreamless sleep before I woke to cracked lips, an aching neck, and a brain not yet ready to add 83 to 58.

Wandering through the motions, I made it in perfect time for Camille to ring my phone and emerge at my door. She was dressed in a flowing skirt with gentle pleats that bobbed around, boots that betrayed a side beyond her teacherly appearance, and a top that dipped adventurously. After a quick hug, she made sure I was thoroughly hydrated with a couple icy water bottles inside her car, along with tea and other options.

“You seem like the most popular lady in town lately. I’m glad I could squeeze in time from your busy schedule.” She chuckled with her words. I switched between a concerned look and a grin before settling on a polite smile. Her phone playlist pumped into the speakers definitely had a tilt towards 1980s pop and smooth country crooning. I’d heard most of it in doctors' offices, so I casually sang along.

On the trip, I felt like I had lost all ability to tell a story to someone else. It was like I was belching the rambling dregs of a half-remembered anecdote where I was stumbling over the punchline again and again in the worst way. Camille didn’t really give me an impression as to whether I was dying with my words or I had her in rapt attention. I tried to make the time with my parents sound as significant as it felt, but instead, it was like reciting “water is like…wet” to an oceanographer.

Everything felt hollow and I felt stupid, but I refused to back down in fear of myself. Somehow, I managed to say, “There’s a lot of raw history between me and my parents and I finally feel like I’ve put that history behind me, and we can move forward positively.”

“That’s good!”

We sat together in the car as one song ended and another, with a long guitar solo, started. Segueing into talking teacher shop like with mom didn’t quite go as well as I was hoping. I mentioned incremental rewards and giving benefits in the right ratio, and she just found that part “interesting” and “oh, yeah” worthy.

Was this a good idea? I had shit-level experience dealing with other people recreationally. I could barely deal with myself on a regular basis. Dealing with others amounted to putting on the role of Jacob until there was nothing left to say.

So? Tell her that, I posed to myself. Not like she was going to guess it with some kind of psychic powers. And please don’t give her psychic powers, just to make this easier.

So, I told her I was crap at being social and interesting to people who weren’t parents I was trying to survive with, in another reality.

“I thought we talked about this ha ha. I’m so the worst. I either have too much on my mind or not enough, but just tell me whatever is on yours, and I promise not to spare any of mine from you in turn, deal?"

That was an easy deal to take. Unfortunately, just seizing upon that didn’t necessarily resolve as many things as I was hoping for. Silence followed immediately after as we came to a four-way stop. I could hear some portion of my personality face-palming itself at how much progress I’d recently made and how much I was still stuck in the same place.

I was getting to it! I was getting to being sociable with her. I just didn’t wanna start with one-word responses that dangled in the air like a wet fart. Instead, I decided I was gonna fling my entire consciousness down a metaphorical ski slope and not look back.

I told her about this area of the valley and how, as you got further into the desert, there was a national park and it was also a place that relatives of my parents used to go in the 70s and it once took me a while using maps and stuff to help those extended family members remember exactly where all these trips were taking place. That was a weird tangent to go on, so I pivoted to asking her if she liked hiking trails.

Her answer was she liked hiking, in theory, but there were way too few trees around here to really make it fun. I agreed with her, there should be more trees around here. Oh God, don’t take that literally!

Unfortunately, California was in dire need of places that actually felt woodsy. Big Bear, somewhere in the mountains, felt like the closest option. We had a cordial back-and-forth discussing the idea of going up there for a weekend. Camille noted that it should definitely be a two-person deal.

After that, for some reason, I started talking about things that helped with relaxation and dropped the leaded boot that I loved creepy horror stories read to me at night in the darkness. She took it in stride and offered up her skills for a terrifying little bedtime story whenever I wanted. Without prompting, she recited one of her favorite passages from a children’s book. It didn’t take long to recognize it as a passage from Charlotte‘s Web. My mom liked that one.

It wasn’t the quote with some aphorism to never give up being a child. Instead, it was the one about “a true friend and a good writer”. Despite all good sense, I started to cry right there and needed a big wad of tissues from her purse as I had forgotten to bring my own. But, because of it, she started presenting topics on her own like different nail polishes I might like, brands of makeup, and just other things of a fashion focus.

There were actually a few I knew by name, from the random nature of Googling curiosity. And that was about all I could claim so far as knowledge. I hadn’t even bothered to try out nail colors. It was such a small thing, yet the presence of mom plagued me so much. Merely treating myself well felt like gross overindulgence. But that time was past. Time to catch up!

The little desert town was more spread out than I was expecting, with fewer people than Sunrock. I remembered the library, but it had moved into a different strip mall than last time. Fashion Vista, as it was labeled by the worn, red sign, looked like a hollowed-out warehouse like those on the other side of the valley near the county fair. It wasn’t fancy, but it was full of possibilities.

Inside, it didn’t take me long to notice the prices similar to a factory outlet. Many were reduced several times. The trade-off was that the interior looked like a Kmart that had been pressed with a rolling pin and then hastily straightened out. Some lights in the back flickered ominously. They had a few makeshift areas for trying on clothes.

My only complaint was an oppressive fragrance like someone had spilled a massive vat of perfume in our path. Once we were through that old factory zone, it was fun. A wallet case for my phone looked like a much better option than holding it inside of its original box. A massive table with bikinis spread out seemed more like an art piece by Jackson Pollock. I found a few possibilities in my favorite shades of blue.

Getting a sarong and a bottom with a little bit of leg helped, but I still quivered in fear at wearing it publicly. Camille‘s gentle urging finally managed to get me into a one-piece, but I soon decided that the section along the groin didn’t give me enough comfort. Not that the stump out-performed its name, but I didn’t trust myself.

I wanted to just get another swim piece similar to what I got before, but the material bothered me. It was fortunate that I was with Camille even though it was clear no one was paying any undue attention to me. I would’ve been so terrified to stand amongst such clothing, despite how I looked. Target and the other place only worked because surely some part of my brain had fried and was riding high on the notion that the changes were enough.

Finally, I discovered a swim bottom with a folded fringe that allowed me enough privacy that I didn’t explode into a bloom of red. It looked like something from generations ago so far as modesty, but it was what I needed. Plus, it was also marked 50% off.

Camille was adorable in everything she showed off to me. I just still struggled with the idea she wanted to hang out with me, that she was a teacher, and she was the grown-up version of a little girl I knew a long time ago. The best I could do was just ignore it while we sifted through the piles of different nail colors. Naturally, I immediately went for the different shades of blue along with dark tones that approached an evening sky. Camille chose lighter colors with a sandy brown and a sparkly green.

So far as lipstick and makeup, I let her lead all the way. In general, I felt absolutely woozy and like it would’ve been preferable to just pass out and drag myself to another part of the store. Her energy helped so much though. When confronted with hesitancy, she just nudged me forward to try one thing followed by another and keep going to the point that it was done. The lipstick I went with was a subtle shade somewhere between an orangish-red and pink. It matched my hair. Makeup was a little bit easier to acquire, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it once I had it. Sunscreen was a must.

All told, we spent over three hours on our feet, and almost more than my brain wanted to spend in cash. The addition of a few more skirts and fun-looking shorts along with some cool blouses made me feel peaceful. I had only a light lunch at the salad and sandwich café on the edge of the shopping complex and didn’t spend as much time focused on the library as I expected I would. Who had replaced the overflowing nerd inside my heart with a clothes horse?!

Camille kept things friendly and casual while not making any overt moves towards physical interest. It was fun to be with her and relax, and I hoped that she got something similar out of the experience. As we returned to what civilization amounted to in this desert wasteland, I noticed her features more drawn in and impassive, like a statue.

When I asked her about it, she took a deep breath and released it slowly. She reiterated that she had an awesome time, and she was looking forward to the waterpark. But she also wanted to know how I felt about it.

“Did you have a good time, with everything?”

I assured her, yeah. Well, I tried to assure her, by saying, “I loved spending the morning with you. Thank you.” She adjusted her seat and gave herself a few nods. I expected something else to follow, but we soon shifted back to talking about music and listening to a few final tunes as we worked our way around the roads and back over to my house. After some time in the shade along the porch, I put all my purchases away and we shared a hug. Camille set her head close to my neck but that was all.

From that point, I made sure to get my phone charging back up into the 90 percents while realizing I had very little time before text messages and phone numbers would begin flooding me from the other group. In fact, all I had time for was a quick restroom breather before the deluge started. Elizabeth would be picking me up first and then swinging over to the far side of North Langers for Calliope before cutting through the valley, where she could pick up Siana and Natalie. Because of this, my bowels decided that all things must go right now.

Mercifully, I was able to attend to that before Elizabeth arrived, even though it was a tight matter of minutes. I offered up several water bottles and a few drinks I had on hand for the group, but she already had all that taken care of as well as some candy and snacks in a cooler bag.

“How are you doing? It’s so good to see you! I’m so glad that it’s totally cooling off this weekend and that’s really gonna help tomorrow. Oh, and I was just in contact with Ariadne, and I have the final price. You can pay now or tomorrow at the waterpark, but it was a really good rate. And for our friend Camille too, who I spoke to.”

With Elizabeth, there wasn’t a whole lot of silence between things, as it constantly seemed like something was happening that she needed to take care of which was on her mind. So far as music, she had a video game and Japanese pop radio station through a satellite device in her car‘s dashboard. And it was a big honking car where just the positioning of my feet and torso felt like I was a shrinking Alice. But then my legs and feet were already retreating from what they had been put through.

She drove swiftly, but with a clear sense of attention, despite asking me stuff. When I touched upon playing certain board games with my parents, she immediately geeked out about mechanics and themes. I just found myself impressed that, despite having a bust that almost literally bordered on bowling balls, she seemed so comfortably situated in her own skin. I felt a little rotten at the occasional peeks I snuck at her… peaks. As we glided along a smooth stretch of the main road with her shocks responding much better than my car’s, I had to ask her, “Have you been through trouble due to your proportions?”

That was not at all the way I wanted to phrase that question, but once it was out I couldn’t really take it back. She glanced at me, and I added, “Like I don’t know, how things are… with that?” And that was an even worse way to put it.

“…Do I have problems because of my huge titties?” I felt sheepish but nodded to her clarification of my question. She laughed.

“They’re just there. I was an early girl, and a lot of the other kids were little shits. Some thought they were gross, and plenty tried to accidentally get a hand in. I have heard every version of calling me a big cow in my life. Nothing anyone says can mooooo-ve my emotions anymore haha."

Whatever words I had in my mouth got tossed around like in a dryer as I coughed and covered my face with a turn towards the window. I still kept a smile and used a squeak to answer, “I’m sorry people suck.”

“What’s there to be sorry of? Not like you made things suck. That’s just life and all I can do is keep my head up.” I met her rhetorical statement with thoughtful silence. I was responsible for some of it, at least. If I’d left things alone, she would’ve just been some surfer-looking guy with brushed-back dark hair and none of this to worry about. But I hesitated, no, recoiled from the possibility of turning her back to what she was. If it happened, then it happened. She seemed fine like this, and it provided Calliope with a friend and someone to help her out in this situation. A situation I had drawn each of them into with my imagination or whatever…

Far more of the tunes that played were recognizable to me than in Camille‘s car and invited me to sing along. It wasn’t long before Elizabeth quizzed me about my favorite comics. Among them was that one series where almost all the men died out due to a super virus or changing the laws of nature or something else left unexplained. It got turned into a lackluster, too serious show that was swiftly canceled. I always daydreamed about a version that was less violent and more transformational.

Gingerly, I unfurled this notion to Elizabeth. It didn’t take her very long to inquire why I liked that. The ultimate question I often asked myself. Maybe, if it was a little more selfish, then all this crazy supernatural stuff would cling to me rather than shooting out like electric bolts. I still wanted plenty of transformational possibilities, but in the same sense that no one would forgo a luxurious buffet of potential.

My usual answer was just a circuitous spin around the idea that it was fun. Change the world, change the way that people interacted with other people. The possibilities that Elizabeth was facing in her daily life… I didn’t even want to give voice to the reason why all this felt a little empty to me. Calliope understanding the difference in herself, while still willing to engage with it, made for a better situation than the nine from the store just being rewritten as having always been girls. God, don’t change anything else…

“I like exploring human nature in ways that no one has really experienced before, but I’m not really interested in combining human and not human though.”

“Ahhh… so like furry stuff?”

My heart quickened, and I swiftly shook my head. Then I took a second and realized I should’ve been nodding, so I did that instead. She giggled and explained that she’d run into a few people here and there on the Internet who were one way or another on furry. She also postulated that some kind of cybernetic transformation might also be interesting to read or write about. And she did all this while affecting a tone that was very light and breathy, with a clear, classical “valley” tilt. It was disarming but also intimidating because she sounded like she had much more authority but also a clear, casual nature.

Imbibing some of that feeling residually, I felt myself starting to work out my emotions on the subject. Being turned into androids existed in a different field with curiosity but also otherness and the same came with the territory of animal transformations. Being made into something that wasn’t human definitely sunk into tendrils of horror. And that was also true with becoming human in ways you didn’t want. Rewriting the core of what a given person represented. Being born immensely different would have a cascading ripple effect on every aspect of their lives to the point they would essentially be an entirely different person.

Elizabeth and the man she was before were certainly strangers to one another but, at the same time, I had these weird notions of the soul and that no matter how much of an environmental and biological change to someone, there was some fundamental atavistic essence that made them who they were. A soul beneath the biology. It was probably dumb, but I let a little whisper of it out as we made our way onto the freeway.

She immediately responded, “Well, I can say that so many in my quote…family...are total scumbags. Dad was a schemer and mom was the biggest bitch. My younger sister was their princess. She needs to be moved by forklift if she wants to go anywhere now. I came first as an accident when they were super young and really they wanted a boy. I was originally supposed to be the chosen child, but I would always think things and ask the kind of questions that they would slap you in the face for even asking. They thought my boobs grew early because I was a little whore and I had to hide their actual size for a long, long time because they were more embarrassed by them than I was. That and working very early to escape from them really defined my life growing up. It sucked, but I decided I was never going to be some lame-ass victim. No bitching. Sure, things suck, but I feel like I’ve got more 'testicular fortitude' than most out there and I don’t even have any nuts.“ She giggled again.

Okay… huh. That wasn’t really what I was expecting to come out of her. The car was so quiet and insulated from the expanse of the desert. I took a long drink from a cold water bottle. All I could really tell her was that I found her amazing. She was bewildered and heavily doubted that anything she had done measured up to that sentiment, noting, “It’s just life. I try not to be an asshole to anyone. Especially, I’m so sorry that Amber was such a little bitch at the store. Her ass gets so tight about some things it can damn near snap her chair in two. We want everyone to feel welcomed under that roof.”

It sounded like the kind of things I’d heard from a dozen places online, so many employers, and countless businesses. But I found a certain sincerity in the way she put it. I had to wonder though, “Why is Amber around then?“

To this, Elizabeth took a long breath and stretched her head around while keeping the car on an even keel. “I’ve asked her a few times. I don’t wanna get too deep into it, but Amber feels a lot better there than she could be like somewhere at home. She’s getting better though, and she knows when she screws up. Filters and all that.”

I sighed and nodded. Of course, Elizabeth wasn’t gonna leave me quiet, as she soon asked, “So, what did you think of the game?”

Some of the details about the dragon hoarding card game had slipped my mind but Elizabeth soon refreshed me on the mechanics. I told her that I liked how it could be spontaneous because of certain rules, and I really enjoyed the group that I played with.

“Oh, that’s the best part of all! That’s why I’m there. Despite how it started, almost everyone there is pretty much no-drama and we’re just there to play games and have fun. There was a group that used to exist at a North Langers location though I couldn’t get to it very much, but I was so happy to learn about this new shop. Ariadne is so chill and she’s such a sweetie. How did you meet Calliope?”

I gave a little raspy cough with my drink of icy water but soon cleared it away. We weren’t far from Calliope‘s home. Elizabeth was the kind of individual for whom my efforts to keep much of the craziness concealed was a challenge. I could talk to Camille about this sort of thing, but she wasn’t directly connected in the same way.

“Well. Umm. It hasn’t been too long. I just found the store and the shopping plaza at the beginning of this week, and we just got to talking because of our…umm well we just talked about stuff over lunch the other day. I feel responsible for her, and I just wanna make sure she’s all right.”

That was not the sort of answer I should’ve given, because I immediately intuited it would just lead to more questions from Elizabeth. But the questions I was worried about didn’t immediately come, rather she asked me, “You seem awfully preoccupied with owning up to responsibilities that no one could possibly shoulder or need to. That’s how people break.”

Yeah, she totally had me there. At the same time, I had incontrovertible evidence to fuel my fears. With a swallow, I explained, “I was a caregiver in a family situation for a long time and the fallout of it just trails after me. I don’t really have personal needs outside of being useful for others.”

Her eyes locked on me. “That sucks and that’s dangerous. If you run into someone with a strong sense of what you should be then they’ll just barrel you over. Also, if you relinquish your sense of self then it’s easy to twist and turn with lots of hate and self-loathing. So, you don’t have a sense of who you are?”

No, I do. I laid it all out last night but with the barest measure of what it looked like. I am a girl, I am an adult, and I want to be better. But that was like the smallest first step possible. Barely more than a motion. To Elizabeth, I wondered if this was the most opportune moment to spill out the complexities of my entire life.

“I haven’t given love and appreciation and development to myself for a long time, either out of habit or because of ruthless family. And there’s so much beyond that, but I don’t know how to find the words for it.”

I also alluded to the fact that this would be pretty heavy stuff to lay on Calliope as a discussion when she just wanted “something to wear”.

Elizabeth snorted lightly and noted, “Yeah, pretty heavy compared with XL over-the-shoulder boulder holder hunting. Remember though, have fun and have it because you want to have fun and not because of any obligation or anyone else. If you can do that, we’re cool. Alright?”

My natural inkling was to lightly tell her that it was okay or find some gentle way to weasel out of a firm declaration. But I resisted and told her, “I’ll do my best. And I’m glad to be here and shopping. And I want Calliope… I want her to smile and feel comfortable and I also want to feel more comfortable around bras…for me.”

Elizabeth gave an easy nod. “That sounds fine to me and I hope today and especially tomorrow are fun for all of us.”

I nodded back eagerly as we pulled into the housing tract where Calliope lived. Elizabeth texted her first and waited. When she didn’t emerge soon after, she gave a quick double honk of her horn. Swiftly after this, Calliope texted back that she was still getting ready and would be a minute. Meanwhile, I asked Elizabeth if I should move to the back seat. After fixing a stray hair, Elizabeth remarked, “Up to you. You can call shotgun. Siana and Natasha don’t get carsick so no one needs to be up front. What about you? I already asked Calliope and she said she tends to just fall asleep in cars.”

Mom didn’t like me playing Game Boy games at home so the only time I really got to play them was curled up in the backseat with my head kind of arching backwards so I could catch the glow of the street lamps enough to see anything when it was dark and angle the dim LCD screen in daylight. Sometimes, I would sprawl out on the edge bouncing up and down. No dizziness. I shook my head and told her I was perfectly fine wherever.

It didn’t take too long before a side door popped open, and Calliope hustled out. She swiveled around several times to check an oversized bag on her arm while locking the door. If you asked me previously about her fashion sense, then I would’ve said it was fine going by her outfits around the bookstore. This time, however, it looked like she had been forced to frantically grab whatever clothes were in front of her. It was the only way to explain the blindingly-yellow pants she had on, which were clearly not a good fit. They resembled a banana boa constrictor both bloated with multiple meals and horribly slack. Further up, she mixed a tank top with a loose blouse and the results were like crashing ocean waves. She bounded down some steps with the wobbles branching out. I looked away to catch Elizabeth expressing concern with her thin eyebrows raised. I shrugged back.

As she walked over with everything annunciating those jiggle waves, I noticed that she didn’t go for the passenger main door but instead the one in the back. And, considering the tint of the glass, I doubted she was able to see us. As she got closer, her hesitancy towards the front only increased, as she shuffled to both wave and reach for the handle as far back as possible.

Elizabeth unlocked the doors and welcomed her inside. Calliope shot us each a quick smile before urgently scooching her way to the far left corner of the middle seat. Her hair appeared flecked with either shower dampness or sweat. When she spoke, it felt like she recently gulped a full dose of helium. Not only were her words so breathy it was hard to grasp them all even a seat away, but she squeaked with a frantic energy that sought to smash even more words into the upholstery.

“Isitsokasithere…?"

I arched a quick eyebrow which I hoped she didn’t take as scolding. Elizabeth cleared her throat and soon assured her that she was welcome to sit anywhere she really wanted, but she would have to ask me if she wanted to swap in the front and she also urged her to take a bottle of water and take a sip because, “You sound like a leaky balloon.”

A mangled mash of nervous mutterings escaped her lips before she plugged the hole with a gulp of water from one of the bottles. She also appeared to be quivering as much as a hare facing the jaws of a wolf. Did I ever appear that absurdly frantic? And what could’ve happened recently to leave her like this?

I added a dollop of concern with my next words, making sure she was all right. She took time to shift her bottle around before finally fumbling through, “Well, you know that my last couple days have been kind of a kind of a kind of kind of gosh I mean it’s been a crazy week.” Elizabeth’s immediate response was to ask if that was a Porky Pig reference. Calliope’s blank silence said enough about intent but she soon puzzled over what she had said and adopted giggling amusement.

“I totally didn’t intend that but ha ha I guess. Just a little frazzled. I never thought like you ladies are doing all this for me and driving and everything and like there are others too. And I felt so weird this morning like I don’t I don’t know… I felt kind of like a cow, if that’s not too weird to say…”

It didn’t take Elizabeth long to seize upon this admission and make plenty of bovine jibes tactfully intended to envelop rather than strike Calliope. The playful mood disarmed some of her awkward energy even though it still look like she was crunching up into a ball at the corner of the car. I shared some details of my morning with the both of them, along with the best finds of my shopping endeavor. With the phone case, Calliope wrestled her own phone out of her bag and delighted in announcing the discovery of ear pods that she didn’t even realize she owned.

Music returned and filled the background. Thanks to Elizabeth, the conversations in the car kept moving like a slippery rock nowhere near the bottom of the hill. She managed to thrust aside my nervousness but also seemed to make a game of not only engaging each of us in chat but trading us off one another as I asked Calliope about books on her phone. She didn't have any, but she wanted to know more about the possibilities.

Siana lived in a new-looking apartment complex within sight of Big Bismuth and Natalie on the other end of it approaching the mall. Siana was ready to go when we arrived, wearing a set of sharply-tinted shades and wrapped around the shaft of a cream-toned umbrella with the canopy cutting the sunlight. She had her ridges of cleavage presenting at the edge of the shadow and swept through the door with several bags on her arms and a vaguely peach mango aroma trailing after. The tame tangerine tone of her top twisted to her elbow. Her tan shorts seemed inadequate for her full thighs. She giggled privately followed by a relaxed puff.

After determining that she was perfectly fine with everyone in their spots, Siana offered up a variety of icy teas. Along with that, she soon unleashed a variety of dirty puns and playful innuendos. My personal favorite was about the “beef stroganoff” so far as bull masturbation. How exactly she got to that point naturally, I can’t really recall. A couple I had heard before, but she told them with such fresh exuberance. Calliope tensed at first, glancing at me a few times as if I were the mediator of whether she should laugh or not. Fortunately, it didn’t take long before she relaxed and giggled at her leisure.

Elizabeth had a few playful verbal volleys of her own on the way to Natalie. If Siana could be considered to have packed a lot of bags then Natalie had a truly monstrous purse with straps dangling out like a wrangled octopus. She settled practically sidesaddle in the back and managed to keep close in conversation despite the distance. At least everyone seemed comfortable in their spots even though the frantic fluidity of the conversation was starting to get a bit much for me. Two others was often my limit but I did my best to be cordial between turning back to the group and surveying the scenery as we returned to the freeway.

I caught bits of conversation and soon gathered that Natalie had a full business of seamstress work and had learned it through her grandmother along with apprenticing. Siana edited musical textbooks along with working as a receptionist for an audiologist and assisted. Both apparently had a board game they were slowly working on together with original art and sound clips. I felt emptied of words and paled when they asked about me.

“I well... I’ve always wanted to write. Right now, I teach English through video chat with an agency. I’m still figuring things out after…well I’m still figuring things out.”

This immediately led into Siana joking about how she would never be able to do that because the desire to snag a troublemaking kid by the collar would be too great. She envisioned sending the bad ones into a blackened void between web pages. Natalie was more interested in the kind of stories I liked to tell. Elizabeth glanced over too.

Not wanting to stifle the discussion, I murmured out a few thoughts involving virtual reality, artificial intelligences, and parallel universes. It was the transformation stuff that caught their attention though. I shared a few choice web addresses with Natalie to save on her phone. Of course, they asked why.

Why write this particular subject? Why try to transform characters in all sorts of ways, especially from male to female and vice versa and so forth? I alluded to a trembling thought that there was a lot of stuff in my life from my parents and from within myself that I wanted to work through with writing. However, I settled on a notion that felt new and yet sturdy, “Changing someone really digs into the notion of who they are and who they could be. I mean… Imagine umm if any of you suddenly woke up… Changed.”

I was really leaning on it with that, and I had a faint concern that the universe might decide to suddenly scrunch its eyes at me, metaphorically. As I could’ve expected, Calliope held her breath while twisting the edges of a grimace around her lips and offering timidly, “Yeah, that could be weird.”

“It would be interesting to find myself suddenly dickdoggled, sprouting strokables, meat measured, and sporting shooters.” Siana kept a restrained expression while speaking all this and setting a finger on her slight chin. Her pale blue, almost gray eyes didn’t widen though.

Natalie chortled and mouthed her way around those words. “Interesting, yeah maybe. My boyfriend would definitely have a few choice comments. I can’t really imagine it, but like I can imagine it sorta. I have a bunch of boy cousins but that would be me and yet not me, something like that. It is weird.”

Above the regular staccato of the freeway bumps, Siana expressed, “I’d probably jerk it till it hurt, put to rest all sorts of myths and such. Definitely go bare chested, as a lark, on the beach. Some shit would be simpler, but I don’t think anyone’s got it totally easy. I wouldn’t want to stay that way. It wouldn’t be me. But how do you get like a whole story out of that?”

I pondered that for a moment and settled on the response of the same way you get a story out of anything. You just keep adding words until you get somewhere and onward until there aren’t any more words left to give. My problem was never feeling like my words were enough to express everything. The backseat girls assured me that my stuff was probably beautiful and they wanted to check it out. Elizabeth inquired, “What’s the difference between a male character and a female one for you?”

I actually stumbled around that notion. I didn’t really have traditional male characters. They were things I could imagine but felt rather cartoony. Macho guy, debonair and confident with virile stuff. Maybe a hero type as well. Alone and focused with pride and protective energy. Socially different from a female character, but as I thought about it, a lot of the personalities and traits could easily overlap. So much was drawn from a physical identity but the psychological and emotional aspects felt so interchangeable.

Ultimately, I had to admit to the question, “Not a whole lot, I suppose. Just characterization.” Elizabeth didn’t follow up, she just left that for me to consider. Meanwhile, Siana had some “floppy waggle“ to consider as things orbited towards the forthcoming shopping.

I talked about this kind of thing when it was just me and Elizabeth and now with the group. It was daunting each time but the practice of giving it voice helped me fumble towards understanding. People weren’t bothered I was weird. I still felt nervous to conform to a tamer notion of myself while wanting to just burst forth with all the strangeness that enveloped me. So it was a good place to listen rather than speak.

Siana paired up some of the new music tracks she created as background music with the display on Elizabeth’s car. I leaned back in my seat and listened. It felt suitably epic, especially for a drive through the pass with all the rocky hills bleached dull colors by the summer. The road was a bouncy one even though the shocks on Elizabeth‘s car did their job. I noticed but did my best not to linger on the effect of those bounces on everyone else.

My top was loose enough that I could tent the front with the empty impression of a bust rather cockeyed and uneven with the rough pointies of an old action figure. I made sure to smooth it down before anyone noticed. I slipped casually but carefully into conversations with Natalie and Siana.

Outside, little puffs of clouds settled between the roughly tugged tan blanket of hills that split the faults of the land. Horse ranches, isolated mansions, and natural trails wove through everything. When I was comfortable, I could find myself talking someone’s head off about all the little things that existed in this landscape and which I remembered from a dozen family trips. But I was too nervous to presume that I knew anything more than the others, so I just made sure to drink as much water as my bladder could tolerate.

Eventually, I got sucked into a phone shared trivia game, followed by a card match from free software. It was like they had a plan to keep me from falling quiet and I didn’t mind. Before I could contemplate on the natural desert, we were already back into a cityscape with the exit in sight.