A Rare and Beautiful Thing

Chapter 1: Meeting Cal You never know what innocent little thing will start something rolling downhill so fast that your whole life changes. For me, it was asking my mom if I could tell her something about myself, something important. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve known better. I know it didn’t start what happened to my neighbor’s family, but in ours, it wasn’t very pleasant after that either. It opened a rift in our family, between my mother and me that I never would’ve known could be there if I’d kept my mouth shut. But she was my mother, you know? I thought she’d be there for me. Her demeanor turned to ice as soon as I said the letters L-G-B-T and she asked me what they meant. The first thing she said, was, “We will never talk of this again. I’m very disappointed in you.” Mom went on to say it wasn’t because I was a lesbian or whatever the hell transgender meant; it was because of the tattoo. I knew this was a lie. I only have the one small tattoo of a butterfly, a Richmond Birdwing butterfly to be exact, on my left breast. I never should have mentioned the topic of my s****l orientation or identity. I wasn’t even sure myself yet what or who I was. That had been the idea though, to discuss it with my mother, get her input, reason things out. Isn’t that what parents are for, to be there for you? To help you figure things out? It sure didn’t seem like that to me, though, for as soon as I brought up the subject, my confusion and fears, she sat back. She set her coffee down carefully and went on, still calm, “Miranda Rose, you’re a perfectly normal young woman with a growing interest in young men. You’re right on track. You should be out dating boys and going to movies, things like that, not spending your allowance mutilating your body with those ugly tattoos. What man will want you looking like that? How will you ever get a job? What will you tell your children? I don’t even want to be seen in public with you anymore.” Here she stopped, sighed dramatically, and then her voice changed as it so often did, to a hiss. “It’s such a shame. You’re such a beautiful young woman. Well, you were,” she sniffed, delicately, as if she were a tender heroine in a Victorian novel. “You were.” Mom continued, so into her lecture that I was able to drift away, first mentally, then out of the room, and out of the house, but the derogatory remarks had cut deep. They hurt like the thorns on the rose bush outside our kitchen window and followed me like the scent of the roses on it. I shut the kitchen door as quietly as I could, but I could not shut the door on my feelings. Neither, apparently, could I escape the notice of my eleven year old next door neighbor, a boy who looked as sad as I felt. I needed to be by myself. I felt lost, but not mean. I couldn’t be mean to this little boy. I didn’t see how anyone could, he was so sweet. “Curly,” I said to him, sitting down on the porch swing and calling to him to come over and sit beside me. “What’s wrong?” He’d never looked sad before. He was a happy kid with freckles and brown hair that glowed red in the sunshine. He was into art and karate. He had confidence and could talk the ears off an adult. I have no idea how he got so mature. He had a half-brother, Cal, who was my age—we both had just turned seventeen—who lived with his ‘other parents’ but was here for the summer. I didn’t know him very well, as he seemed to be as shy as I was. Curly scrunched his chubby self up beside me. I know he felt fat but it was just that age. Once he grew taller, he would thin out. “I had a pet frog. His name was Rowdy Junior. He died. I feel terrible. I guess I’m not a good pet-grower.” “What happened?” I asked. “When I told Mom it died, she gave me that look of hers. My dad heard me and was all lectures and stuff; ‘Here’s what you should have done’, and like that. They treated me like it was all my fault. But Cal helped me find a towel and a box to bury it in and said a prayer over it for me.” That was different. “What did he say?” I asked. Curly squinched up his eyes. I could hear my mom muttering in the house behind me. The gin bottle clanked. I wished I had some. Curly began piously, “‘Little Rowdy loved this frog,’” that’s what Cal called me sometimes, after his toy. Rowdy is a puppet but it means, um, happy and active or something.” I nodded. Okay. Rowdy the toy, Rowdy the boy, Rowdy the frog. Never heard about Rowdy before, or a Rowdy doll, though some of my old Barbies had been a bit, well, precocious. Anyhow, Curly pulled at my arm and went on, “My darling froggy, wild and free, why’d you go and die on me? You left me here alone and sad, and now I feel like s**t, real bad. So God of frogs, I know you’re there, please take Rowdy Junior, um, somewhere.” I had my mouth shut so tight that my eyes clamped closed to help keep the hysterical laughter from bubbling forth. Curly had tears in his eyes as his ragged little boy’s tenor dribbled to a halt. From beside the porch came a plaintive male voice, “That’s not what I said!” At that exact moment Curly’s mother called him home. She wanted to ask him about a missing box and a towel. Cal winked at me and dodged around the back of our houses into the trees that lined the creek there. I ran back to join him. My mom’s voice trailed behind me like a cat on Halloween—“Mirandahhhh!” but I outran her.