Transitions Read online

“We’ll always need you,” Tom Alan said.

  “I will always be close enough to speak to if not touch. You four are not the only ones adjusting to a new life, you know. Things are still changing for me as well since your father’s passing.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Dry your tears. The baby is here.”

  Erika heard Mrs. Wahl’s car pull up, too.

  “She doesn’t want to see you upset. Enjoy some time, and then we will get in a long practice session before I prepare to leave.”

  * * * *

  By mid-afternoon, Erika was ready for a break.

  “Once more,” Kyoko snapped. “Hands on hips! No crash!”

  Tom Alan placed one hand on each side of Erika’s waist for the split triple twist. She tapped into the ice and went up, almost parallel to it, as the harmonies of Simon and Garfunkel blared. Kyoko worked them even harder than usual, as if she wanted to be sure to leave her mark. Erika spun around three times, came down into Tom Alan’s arms. Then he tripped, and then she did, and they both fell down, Erika flat on her back.

  “Kiki!” Tom Alan rolled to the side. “Are you okay?”

  “Ow.”

  “Where?”

  “Everything.”

  “Your head?”

  “No.”

  “Erika?” Kyoko leaned over the boards.

  “I’m okay, Mother.”

  “You’re not. Neither of you. What is going on?” Kyoko asked.

  “We’ll get there.” Tom Alan helped Erika up.

  “I fear you won’t,” Kyoko said. “You’re not even landing your triples, and you need the quad to medal.”

  The back door opened. “Did I come at a bad time?” Billy asked. He had Jesse with him.

  “Take a break. Fix whatever is wrong…up here.” Kyoko tapped her forehead.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Erika flinched from pain when Billy hugged her, “but I wanted to give Jesse the news here, in front of you guys, so you could share in the reaction. Is Booger around…Fisher…Milo?”

  Erika was charmed by Billy’s effort to do better with names. “Etsuko was a little fussy, so he took her outside.”

  “I’ll go look for them. Make her sit. She just fell hard.” Tom Alan took off.

  “Come on. Up to the bleachers.”

  “I’m fine.” She went anyway. “I fall every day.” Though not on the easy stuff. “You’re going to love what Billy has to tell you.”

  “He won’t tell me anything,” Jesse said. “What’s going on?”

  “Good news. Big news. I’ve made you wait long enough.”

  “You’re making him wait longer,” Erika teased.

  “Melinda Helmer texted me this morning. Kevin Katt wants to put you through some drills to see how you do.”

  Erika waited for the excitement to hit. Jesse had to know who Kevin Katt was. His name was certainly well known amongst truly devoted fans. Maybe Jesse didn’t, though, because his mouth was set in a scowl.

  “Pass.”

  “What? Why?” Billy asked.

  “Because I don’t want to play women’s hockey.”

  Erika hadn’t considered that. Well, she had—for half only a second. Shame on her.

  “I thought hockey was your whole life’s mission,” Billy said.

  “Half of it. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “An opportunity like this doesn’t come around every day, Jesse. It only happened thanks to Tom Alan and Rika.”

  “So, they can get a guys’ coach to come over after I transition.”

  “Jesse…”

  “What?” His voice had an edge.

  “I don’t even know how…any of that would work in a situation like this. I mean, it’s not something that happens in a week, right? How long would you want to put these people off?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “That’s not realistic,” Billy said.

  “You don’t think I’m guy good.”

  “You’re the best I’ve seen, but the US Ladies Olympic hockey team is nothing to look down on. This is a major opportunity. Major! Once in a lifetime, maybe. You’re incredibly lucky to even—”

  Erika stopped him with a touch. “Meet with them,” she said. “What harm is there in that?”

  “Maybe none,” Jesse admitted. “But I’m not going to BS them and say I’m interested in women’s ice hockey.”

  “I still don’t get why you can’t be.” Billy turned up his palms. “One step at a time. Put the gender stuff on hold.”

  Erika’s breath caught.

  “I thought you got it.” Jesse turned to her. “Both of you.”

  “I do, Jesse.”

  “No you don’t, Coach.” He stomped like a child. “You played girl’s hockey, right? You told us that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But as soon as you could get on a guy team, you did. Why?”

  “Because I’m a…Oh.”

  “Yeah. That simple.” Jesse focused next on Tom Alan and Milo the minute they came through the door. “How come no one thought I might want to get in on the game last night?”

  “Oh.” Tom Alan looked to Billy. After what went on at breakfast, Billy wasn’t going to save him. “That was more a g—” He bit his lip instead of his tongue. “An age thing. Grownup…for grownups. The atmosphere can get…”

  “That’s not what you were going to say. Kensuke needed a distraction from our fight, so he plays midnight hockey with some of the hottest guys on the planet, and I’m supposed to stay with Erika and her mother and cry like a girl, even though I’m a thousand times better. Even if I wasn’t transitioning, that really sucks.”

  “She’s got you there.” Billy glared, but Erika was even angrier with herself. “God! I’m sorry. He’s got a point. I hate when I do that.”

  “I don’t get mad, Erika, unless it’s done on purpose, like the hockey thing…I heard you all talking a few times about words and what they mean—which ones are innocent and which ones are hurtful, like with your short program and stuff. Even if the wrong pronoun comes out a little while longer, actions will always speak louder. That’s what Rocky meant, right Milo? That’s what his story meant. If you had last night to do over, would you ask me to play with the other guys? Whatever answer you have in your head, that determines if you really support me or not.”

  “Young man.” Kyoko’s voice startled everyone. “I have to speak with you. I have news. Tom Alan, Milo, Bill, will you excuse us?”

  “Oh. Sure,” Tom Alan said. Billy took off, but he and Milo moved slower, as if he was waiting for someone to call them back. No one did.

  “I am going back to Japan, Jesse.”

  “Oh.” Jesse played with a long, stringy strand of his blond hair.

  “I have a lover there. I hope you can visit—perhaps over Christmas. Perhaps spend next summer.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Thailand is much closer to Japan than to the US.”

  “Thailand?”

  “They do the surgery there, one of the premiere places for it in the world. For what you will need, there will be more than one surgery and recovery time in between. If you are in Japan, travel back and forth will be easier.”

  Erika was speechless. Why was Kyoko taking any of this on as if she had the right or the need? “Mother…”

  “You can have it done at eighteen there, from what I understand, instead of waiting until you’re twenty-one.”

  “Mother!”

  “Yes, Erika. I am your mother,” Kyoko said sharply. “You will need the same letters Milo and the other doctors have told you about,” she informed Jesse. “Two, I believe. Once you start the hormones, instead of waiting three years, you will need to wait only one to complete the rest of the physical transition.”

  “How do you know all this?” Erika asked.

  “Research. And…since your insurance will be no good over there, I will help with the costs.”

  Erika’s mouth fell open again. “This is happening rathe
r quickly, don’t you think?”

  “Nothing is happening right this minute except conversation. We are talking. We find ourselves in a rather…” Kyoko paused. Erika assumed she was translating in her head from Japanese to English. “Unforeseen yet serendipitous place. I never expected Jesse to come into our lives at this moment. Perhaps there are no coincidences. That said, it is all up to Jesse whether or not he wishes to accept what I am offering.”

  “I…I need some time to think.”

  “Of course. As I stated, this is not something we can finalize immediately anyway. Ten minutes,” Kyoko said to Erika. “Then retrieve Tom Alan and get back on the ice. We will stay here until I am satisfied you belong in front of judges again.”

  “Yes, Mother.” As Kyoko walked away, Erika turned to Jesse. “Jesse, I’m sorry about last night—and the hockey thing…”

  “But you still think I should go to that meeting?”

  Deep down, Erika did. Training for the Olympics took precedence over everything else in her life at one point, and this had the potential to be exactly the same. Looking Jesse square on though, she changed her mind. Erika was expecting Jesse to accept himself as something he wasn’t, like Nobuo Tsuchino had asked of Tom Alan. “It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s up to you.”

  * * * *

  Erika tried texting Jesse one last time before heading out at the end of practice. Things were left up in the air, and she wanted to make certain he was okay. When she got outside, Billy was bent over, walking Etsuko around by supporting her under her arms, while Milo led her with her little stuffed skating Snoopy as the dangling carrot. They made a pretty good team. “You ready, babe?” It was a sweet and perfect picture, until Tom Alan literally threw Kensuke into the middle of it, and Billy scooped Etsuko up into his arms.

  “Stupid ass kid!” Tom Alan never cursed. He was never violent.

  “Where did he come from?” Milo asked.

  “I caught him sitting on his car, blazing up behind the rink.”

  “Kensuke!” Erika was shocked.

  “It was just a little weed,” Kensuke said.

  “You don’t do it here!” Tom Alan screeched. “What the hell?” Two swear words, Erika counted. Billy must have noticed, too. He took Etsuko over to look at a goldfinch that flitted back and forth between a maple tree and a fence post near the side door.

  “Alright, settle down, Skater Boy.” Milo rubbed the small of Tom Alan’s back. “His head ain’t on straight, is it? A toke or two is no big deal.”

  “Um…” Tom Alan sputtered. “It is a big deal. It’s illegal, for one thing.”

  “For another minute. The modern psychiatric community believes wholeheartedly in the healing properties of marijuana. It’s no worse than what he had last night, especially if ingested.”

  “Brownie baked. Sweet, yo!”

  “Zip it, Suke,” Milo said to Kensuke.

  “What’d he have last night?” Erika asked.

  Milo looked to Kensuke, suddenly unwilling, it seemed, to rat him out.

  “They let me drink beer.” Kensuke enjoyed stirring the pot. “Then One Direction showed me his ass.”

  “Tom Alan was there for that part,” Milo said.

  “Yeah. Let’s talk about that.” Tom Alan fumed. “Kind of inappropriate, don’t you think?”

  “Jealous?” Kensuke asked.

  “Shut up!”

  “Tom Alan.” Erika took his arm.

  “The peek down my knickers? Seriously? During the lap of shame? You mad about the other blokes seeing my bum, or just him?” Milo didn’t wait for Tom Alan to speak. “I know the answer. It felt like Suke was one of us last night—a peer, not a kid.”

  “He’s not.”

  “Good. I don’t want to be.” Kensuke didn’t stick out his tongue, but the tone indicated he wanted to.

  “See. He’s an immature brat.”

  “He’s acting out,” Milo said.

  “I am not!”

  Erika tried a different tactic. “Smoking’s just not good, especially if you want to be an athlete.”

  “I don’t want to be anything,” Kensuke argued.

  “This is the origin of your lengthy pissy mood, then? This? Why didn’t your wrath come out while it was happening? Why save it for the ride home and now?” Milo asked Tom Alan.

  “Because…I…I didn’t want to be…”

  Erika finished the thought in her head. He didn’t want to be the downer, the killjoy. That would have been unmanly. What hung between their legs made them a band of brothers, and what it allegedly signified ruled.

  “He was going to see it in the shower,” Milo said. “What’s the difference?”

  “I wouldn’t have showered with him. I was glad when he left.”

  “Most people are.” Kensuke’s voice might have caught.

  “Once again, in case you forget, we’re not talking about one of Billy’s little rugrat players. He’s pretty close to Erika’s age, actually. If he hadn’t flunked English, he’d be a college freshman.”

  “I was held back in third grade, too. Actually, I’d be a sophomore.”

  Erika remembered then what Kensuke had said about wanting to share senior year with Jesse. She wondered if he’d blown off the one class last year on purpose.

  “All that proves is you don’t use the brain you obviously have,” Tom Alan said. “Smart people doing dumb stuff all over the place lately.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “I’m pretty sure he meant me, Kensuke. In the UK, he could have had a pint a year ago anywhere he wanted, you know.” Milo said.

  “See that flag?” Tom Alan literally turned Milo toward the twenty-foot pole outside the rink. “That’s an American flag. You’re in America, now. He could have a beer, not a pint. And he can’t, because the legal drinking age here is twenty-one.”

  “Because all American laws make sense. Lose a leg in the desert at eighteen to protect and honor those laws, young chap, but don’t drown your sorrows when you come back unless you’ve turned twenty-one.”

  “What about Kensuke’s parents? They could cause a lot of trouble for us—for Bill, too—and they’d have every right.”

  “No worries there,” Kensuke said.

  “Flower was more snockered in the pool than Suke was at the rink. We all were. My God! We could have drowned!”

  “Don’t make fun of me, Milo.”

  “Since when? Bloody hell! He didn’t drive. He went with Vij, who stuck with water. Really, love, get over it.”

  Tom Alan was silent, but rage filled his eyes. Watching him and Milo argue was more awkward than watching them fuck. It was actually kind of scary.

  “Kensuke, maybe you should go,” Erika said.

  He looked from her to Milo, hoping for an ally, maybe wanting Milo to disagree. “Fine. Whatever.” Both hands went up to his eyes, then he raked his sleeve across his nose. “Thanks for everything. Thanks for nothing.”

  Even after Kensuke bolted, Tom Alan and Milo went on.

  “Consider this,” Milo said. “Jesse…yes, we should be there for him, but he’s no doubt had a million conversations with himself about transitioning, hasn’t he? Now realize he’s had one with Kensuke. Only one. In a perfect world, it would have ended with ‘I just want you to be happy.’” Milo took Tom Alan’s hand. “And ‘I could never stop loving you.’ The world ain’t perfect, though. People split all the time. Shit comes between them.”

  “Yeah. It does.”

  “And even given all of that, Suke was acting as mature as any one of us.”

  “‘Suke?’” Tom Alan pulled away. “When did that start?”

  “I…I don’t know.” Milo threw his hands up in frustration. “Maybe those five minutes you were in the parking lot with Flower. We snogged and I shouted it out in the throes of passion. Bloody hell, Tom Alan, when’s the last time I called anyone by their given name? It even sounds funny now, doesn’t it? If this is another jolt of jealousy, let me remind you the kid is more enamor
ed with you than me.”

  “And you acted all bratty about it. When is he a kid and when is he not? When is he a threat to us and…?”

  “No one is a threat to us. Not really. You and I, we were never insecure about that.”

  “No.” Tom Alan slouched.

  “So stop it,” Milo said. “With Kensuke and Bill.”

  Billy looked over at the mention of his name.

  “I would have been the buzzkill, Skater Boy. I would have told Kensuke no when he picked up the beer, had I thought he was going to end up shit-faced. We had a twelve-pack for eleven blokes, because Adam can’t partake. Since I was the only one who no longer cares what I look like, I had two. Beer gut be damned. Frankly, I’m gobsmacked you’re in such a snit over beer and pot.”

  “Look at my childhood,” Tom Alan said. “And Ben and Adam…they were nearly destroyed because of Adam’s addiction. Plus…Jesse’s mom…I mean, come on!”

  “I’m not sure it’s about all that,” Billy said, bouncing Etsuko as he joined them again. “Everyone who smokes a joint or sneaks a beer doesn’t hit rock bottom. I did my share of both.”

  “That what you’re going to tell her?” Tom Alan asked. “Rough day at kindergarten, Etsuko? Dada says toke away!”

  “Tom Alan…”

  “No, Kiki. I can’t believe how casually these two are taking this.” Tom Alan looked at Milo, not Billy. “Maybe all the time we’ve spent apart over the two years we’ve been together means…” He took a shaky breath. “Means we really don’t even know each other as well as we thought. We got together pretty fast. The situation was…chaotic.” He took Milo’s hand and brought it to his cheek. “You were my first…” Then he glanced briefly at Erika. She’d have sworn he did. “My first love. Maybe we’re not ready, Milo. Maybe I’m not. I’m gonna go.” He let go of Milo and started to walk away.

  “Go where?”

  Tom Alan didn’t answer.

  “What the hell was that? Go after him, Milo!” Erika shoved him.

  “I don’t think he wants me to.” Milo was uncharacteristically subdued. “The last time we fought like that it was over you and your marriage…and we ended up splitting.”

  “You stop that. “ Erika waved off any concern. “Billy and I have found our way back together.” She took his hand. “And you and Tom Alan…the two of you…that’s forever. If you got past all that, nothing can come between you…ever.”