Chapter Three:

Might Be Thinkin' 'Bout Goin' Down to the Shore

That weekend, we got up before light, loaded up the Mountaineer (Emily always made cracks about how her tiny mother loved to drive this massive tank) and moved to the sea. Actually, not the sea- to a little resort town on the Gulf of Mexico. I wasn't much help packing the SUV; my skinny arms were so weak, I couldn't carry even my own suitcase without setting it down once between the door and the Komori Family Truckster. 

“You need help?” Emily asked as she passed me with her own suitcase.

“No,” I squeaked and hefted the bag again.

“It has wheels.  Why don’t you just roll it?”

“I want to do it my way.  Now shut up!”

Emily squinted her eyes at me and went back inside to get more stuff.  I barely managed to get the suitcase up high enough to throw it in the back.  Stupid wheels.  Why hadn’t I noticed them?

We hit the road in the dewy early morning, just after sunrise. It took seven hours down twisty country roads and along the interstate to get there, but it was worth it to come around the final curve, break free of the pines and see the gulf shining in the afternoon sun.

As we drove slowly along the beach highway, I took note of the older girls down by the water. I could still look, although the expression on this face probably would've creeped out anyone who saw me. My mood had been better that morning, but the thought struck me that I'd be on that beach in that blue two-piece, slopping sunscreen on this tiny body and generally being a beach girl, too.  None of those girls down there on the sand would see me as a potential mate by any means; they’d see me as some stupid Asian girl-kid, Emily’s tagalong.

"What's wrong, Amy?" Emily asked, and I cringed. "I mean, Martin."

"Nothing," I lied. Nothing at all. Just getting with the program.

We checked in, unpacked and settled into a very nice older house right between the highway and the beach. We ate sandwiches that night because we were too tired to cook or go out. Then Emily wanted to go onto the beach and walk down to the pier.

I hadn't planned on going, but Emily insisted, so I had to get dressed for my gulf-side debut as little Amy Komori.  I’d worn my Martin clothes for the drive with the idea of using this moment as a sort of chrysalis-opening thing.  Spinning a web of silk (or frayed cotton as the case may be), I’d wrapped myself up and it was time to come out metamorphosed into…

Me.

Just like I had in the fitting room a few days before, I dropped my sagging slacks and my rolled-down BVDs and tossed off my t-shirt and took out of my suitcase what was essentially a smaller version of my usual summer outfit, with underwear that actually fit (although the y-front pee slot was useless to me now), a gray-green Alien Workshop tee and khaki shorts.  Free from the outer wrappings of the past, I no longer looked like the Littlest Hobo.  I gazed regretfully at my Martin clothes in heap on the floor; they were going into the big plastic garbage can outside our beach house.

I sighed.  I was rapidly becoming a sigher.

"Oh, you look adorable!" Mrs. Komori exclaimed as I sheepishly entered the living room. I turned about as red as the sun going down outside over the pier.  She must have noticed my extreme blushing, because she quickly added, “Oh… is that… is that okay for me to say, Martin?  Handsome?”

I felt a little bad, so I told her adorable was fine.  I even managed a fake smile.

"Martin, let me do something with your hair, okay?" Emily asked.  I let her.

By then, my hair was pretty out of control. I kept it combed to prevent tangles, and being basic Asian hair, it was mostly straight, with just this little bit of a wave now that it was longer than when I’d had a dick.  Still very boyish, but like a sloppy, haircut-phobic boy's. Emily parted it down the middle, brushed it to each side and put a couple of hairpins in, then took the rest and made two short ponytails held in place with elastic bands behind my ears.  I didn't dare look in the mirror.

“Lemme grab something,” Emily said, hit her bedroom and came back.  She had her sketchpad and a pencil.  “You never know when you might see something worth commemorating in fine graphite.”

“Have fun, you two,” Mrs. Komori said as we slammed the door behind us.

I was barefoot, Emily wore flip-flops.  Emily also had on a funky muscle-tee with neat kanji on the front, right on top of those teeny boobs I used to love putting my mouth all over.  I couldn't help but wonder how my new girly lips would feel on them. But then I felt that disgusting sugary-sickly feeling again, teamed up this time with a painful wave of nostalgia, so I tried to concentrate on the other scenery.  We stopped once for Emily to draw a quick gestural drawing of a stinky dead fish while I held my nose.

I have to admit, if I'd still been a guy and I'd seen the two of us walking along in the orange sunset, I'd have had to look twice. I mean, Emily was all long and lanky, all legs but with this slouchy grace as she walked the shoreline. And I'm sure little Amy in her boy clothes was just as cute as a bug, trying to keep up as best she could.  Bouncy ponytails.  I felt them softly batting my head and snorted.

We made it to the pier and before too long, they came: horny guys. It was like Emily sent out some sort of signal they caught on the stiff gulf breeze. Shirtless tourist guys, locals in jeans, the Abercrombie and Fitch crowd, the JCrew Crew, Plaid Dorks, none of them seemingly her type- no pale artists or pretentious rockers here on the beach. Emily basked in their attention, but she cut her eyes at me constantly. I set my mouth in a tight, lipless frown.

"Uh, hey," one of the braver guys ventured. Emily had her sketchbook open and pencil ready, but she smiled at him, which, for reasons obvious to anyone who's ever met her, encouraged him to stop and lean against the wooden railing. "Cool sunset, huh?"

"Um, sure," Emily said. Quick glance at me, sketchbook shut.

"Hey, uh, my name's Todd," the interloper said. No interest in her drawings.

"Emily. And this is Amy." Grrr...

Todd Interloper offered us both his hand to shake. Emily took it, I looked away, like he'd tried to hand me a fresh turd.

"Oh, is that sand down there?" I said, as if I'd seen the beach for the first time. Todd's turd-hand slowly dropped.

"So, where you staying?" he wanted to know.

"Over that way."

"Cool. Nice places there. Staying long?"

"We're leaving tomorrow," I said, sharply.

Emily put her arms around me from behind and started rocking me.  I sent mental "go away" signals to Todd, but failed just as I had in Macy’s.  Had Professor X taught me nothing?  Powerless Girl.  Failure Bitch.  Kid Useless.

"Actually, we're staying a week," Emily said.

Was she interested in this guy? He looked like a lame-o to me, the complete Mr. Jackass package, not at all the type of guy she'd go for back home. And his attempts at conversation?  Please.  Come on, Emily, ditch this sack of shit, I thought. You're ten times smarter than he is!

"Cool. Maybe we can… uh… you know, hang out, and stuff."

"Maybe."  No, not maybe. Definitely not!  Not ever!  And absolutely no "stuff."

Emily and I made our way back to the house not long after that, and if anybody had heard our conversation on the way, they would've felt severely confused.  Schizophrenic, even, as hallucinatory as it must have been.  Because I really let Emily have it, and loudly, which was the completely wrong thing to do, looking back. But I wasn't feeling too understanding at the time. No, this time, I wanted to fight, to draw blood.

“That stupid fucker!”  I said.  “And you were like flirting with him and everything.”

“I was not.  It’s called being friendly.”

“That’s how friendly you were with me the first time we met.  Yeah.”

“Dude, being social is my normal state of being.  If you want to hate everyone and everything, that’s your business.  I’m down her trying to have fun.”

“That guy was hitting on you.”

“So what?  Like I can control stupid shit other people do?”

“You didn’t have to flirt back.  You could’ve been like, ‘I’m here with my cousin, and it’s a family vacation, so see ya, Todd McMotherfucker.’”

"Well, yeah, I thought he was... you know… attractive," she said. The pause before "attractive" meant he got her motor going. Really got it going, or she would've said something cruder, and made it out to be a joke.

Devastation. An emotional Hiroshima, a Nagasaki. A Bikini Atoll.  She’d blown my ass completely away, taken my love and annihilated it, spreading it like fallout across the stratosphere where it would join the chattering background radiation of every romantic failure ever.  Hurt replaced anger and now my heart was booming.

"Emily, I'm still your boyfriend in here!" A desperation ploy.  High-pitched, a little too whiny.

"Just give me time to figure this out," she said. Then, quietly,  "I just don't know. I'm still just... weirded out by this whole thing..."

"Are you saying you want to break up with me?"

"Break up? Are we even together anymore? I mean, look at us-- we're both girls. And not only that, you're a little girl. It's wrong, that's all. Wrong."

"How can it be wrong when I'm still the same person inside? I love you."

"And I love you. Just not in that way... anymore."

“But…”

“A-and… I haven’t.  Not for a while now.”  Her voice broke as she said it.  Then, very quietly, “And now you know.”

Emily went silently over the dunes and through the sea oats towards our house and I plopped my skinny little girl ass on the sand and prayed the tide would roll right over me and carry me off to faraway Mexico or around the Keys into the Atlantic where I could sink forever into the deep. The Pixies's "Wave of Mutilation" started playing itself in my mind. I was riding a real wave of that nature- my life was completely mutilated. I'd just lost my greatest heart's desire and I was going to be an observer of her love life from now on, instead of a participant. But realistically, what was I asking Emily to do-- molest me? Even if she were gay or bi, how could I expect her to want to do that?

And from somewhere in the darkness, that crappy "beach baby, beach baby, give me your hand" song came wafting on the wind. It was like this falsetto-singing Brian Wilson wannabe was talking directly to me.

I got up, found a young couple making out on a towel with a boombox nearby. I got a little glow from their befuddled facial expressions as they watched this tiny cross-dressed Japanese girl stalk out of the darkness and, with a fierce look (and a wimpy grunt), take their radio and throw it into the water where it promptly shorted out completely. Of all the-- ! This is an outrage!  We demand to speak to the management!  Their eyes went round and their mouths gaped, but they didn't dare say a word; I vanished as quickly as I had appeared.

Finally, I had my X-Men code name:  Anti-Oldies Avenger of the Night.