By the time we get to the office building, every cell in my body is irritated. It was torture being trapped inside the confined space of the car. I slam the door and follow Mom inside the building. Another closed-in space.
“Norbert Dorfman?” a lady asks, and walks Mom and me back to an office.
The lady annoys me by the way she says my name. Mom annoys me for coming back with me. I’m not a little kid.
“Hi, Norbert,” a man behind a desk says.
“I don’t like that name,” I say, even though I know I’m being rude and I have no idea who this guy is. Except another doctor.
Mom looks shocked. Not by the fact that I don’t like my name, I’m sure. She already knows that. “Ahem.”
“Sorry,” I say, even though I’m not. I’m pissed and I don’t want to be here. I cross my arms over my chest.
“That’s okay, Norbert,” the man says in an overly jovial tone, making sure to use my name again.
I wonder what would happen if I punched him in the face.
Knock it off !
I turn my head quickly to the left to see who said that.
“Norbert,” the man says, using my name for the third time. “I’m Dr. Daniels. It’s nice to meet you.” He waits, but I don’t say anything because it’s not nice to meet him, and I don’t feel like lying. “How are you feeling today?” Dr. Daniels taps a pen on his desk.
“Okay. Good, I guess.” I lean forward in my chair. “Great, actually. I found out I made the basketball team.” I give Mom a glare because she didn’t make a big deal about it, and it was really hard work to make the team.
“Besides making the team—congratulations, by the way—how are you feeling? Anxious? Up? Down? You seem very up to me right now, and maybe a little agitated, too.”
“I’m okay,” I say, sinking back in my chair. But I feel like a jack-in-the-box whose spring might pop me out of the chair at any moment.
“Norbert?” The doctor folds his hands and rests them on his desk.
I wish he’d stop using my name. And I wish he wouldn’t fold his hands like that. It’s like he’s pretending to be calm so I’ll stay calm.
“Are you taking your medication regularly?” Dr. Daniels asks.
I nod, surprised at how easy it is to lie.
“Never missed a single dose?” he asks, like he knows I’m lying.
“I might miss a dose here or there, but not often.” I think of the pills wrapped in a tissue in the trash can at home.
“Did you bring your medication with you today?” He looks at Mom instead of me when he asks this.
Mom nods at me, so I reach into my pocket and hand the doctor the pill bottles.
He examines the labels and looks inside each bottle.
“We’ll have to get labs to determine his blood levels,” he says to Mom. Then Dr. Daniels presses his palms flat on his desk and looks at me. “Did you take your dose this morning, Norbert?”
“No,” I say. “I forgot.”
“Here.” Dr. Daniels reaches behind him, grabs a bottle of water from a small fridge and hands it to me along with my meds. “Would you take your medicine now, please?”
“Now?”
Dr. Daniels nods and waits, hands folded on his desk, like he has all the time in the world. Like we’re not paying for that time. Like he’s not a dumb jerk-face doctor who’s trying to make me do something I don’t want to do. I know those pills will slow me down, make it harder for me to be awesome on the basketball court.
I hear Mom tapping the arm of her chair. I picture her chewed fingernails and wish she’d stop tapping.
I’m so uncomfortable, trapped in this office with Mom and the doctor staring at me. My leg bobs a million miles a minute, but I can’t stop it. I wish Dad were here. He’d sweet-talk the doctor out of making me take my medicine. He could charm anyone. Mom called it manipulation, but Dad said it was his secret superpower—the charm factor. I look from the doctor to Mom and back to the doctor and consider bolting. I have enough energy to run all the way home, if I wanted to. Maybe all the way to New Jersey!
“Norbert?” the doctor says, using my stupid name again.
What would Phineas do?
“Sweetheart?” Mom says. Her voice sounds worried. I don’t like that sound in her voice. It makes me think of the not-good times with Dad. It makes me think of—
“Sure,” I say, and gulp down the pills in front of the doctor and my mom. I feel like an animal in the zoo. “Happy now?” I direct the question to Mom.
She inhales sharply but doesn’t answer.
The doctor wastes more of my time by asking a bunch of stupid questions—I could be practicing basketball. And when he asks how I feel about what happened to my dad, I lie, then change the subject. Finally, he gives Mom an order for a blood test and prescriptions for refills of my two medicines.
The last words Dr. Daniels leaves me with are: “We don’t want you to end up in the hospital again, Norbert. Keep taking your medication.”
Fantastic!
Back home, I don’t even tell Bubbie about the basketball team. I just give her a quick kiss on the cheek and go to my room, which isn’t even really my room; it’s just some dumb girlie guest room. Why did the doctor have to say that about ending up in the hospital? It reminds me of that awful time over a year ago in New Jersey when my good mood spiraled way out of control and I had to stay in the hospital for a couple weeks of consistent meds and therapy until I was stable again. And it makes me think about Dad, which makes me feel rotten. And I had been feeling so great. I wish I hadn’t taken my meds in the doctor’s office, even though the doctor and Mom were watching. The medicine makes me sluggish. Lazy. Foggy. Tired. Soooo tired…
All I want is to lie down and go to sleep. I plump my pillow, lay my cheek on it and stretch out on the bed so far that my feet dangle over the end of it. I’m totally wiped out.
Night night.
I pop my head up, my heart pounding. “Who said that?”
Where Are We Going?
We hear the chant from down the hall while we’re taking a math quiz. “We are Gators. We are Gators!”
Kids in my class laugh softly. I strain to hear if Dunkin’s voice is part of the chorus, but can’t tell.
“WE ARE GATORS!”
More laughter. “Basketball team must have been announced,” Dwayne McCabe whispers.
“You’re taking a quiz,” our teacher snaps.
I go back to the math problems in front of me, but now I’m distracted by the chanting. Still, I think I get them all correct.
After school, I open the mailbox in front of our house and pull out a community newspaper, a bill from the electric company and an envelope from the city of Beckford Palms. There’s a palm tree on their logo and a small crab on a beach, off to the corner. There’s also a flamingo, which makes me think of the flamingo mystery we’re having here in Beckford Palms Estates. I wonder if various neighbors are putting them out on their own lawns—a secret society kind of thing. If so, maybe I should put one out on our lawn. I could put one of Dad’s reject T-shirts on it. That would be funny.
I drop my backpack on the end of my bed and think about changing into a dress. It’s been too long since I’ve done it, and I know it would make me feel more relaxed. I really want to change, but something tells me not to. Something always tells me not to.
I can’t wait another minute to open the letter from the city. Carefully, I lift the flap and am already planning to visit Bob and read the letter aloud to him. I might even yank that stupid sign out of the ground—if it’s still there—and lay it on the sidewalk so the trash collectors can haul it away.
I just know it’s going to be good news. Why else would they bother to write back to me?
Grandpop Bob was right. The pen is mightier than the sword.
I flip onto my stomach, unfold the letter, smooth out the creases and read.
Dear Lily Jo McGrother,
Thank you for your letter and for your concern about our community.
We’ve had several public meetings about the lot of land near the Beckford Palms Library. It was unanimously decided to use that lot for a park that the whole community will enjoy. Planners were not able to incorporate the banyan tree into the park’s design because of its size, so it’s scheduled for removal to make room for the building of a new community park. Some new shade trees will be planted in the area following construction of the park.
Thank you again for your concern.
Sincerely,
Mayor Teresa Higginbotham
I drop my head onto the ugly brown comforter. It smells like feet.
The pen is not mightier than the sword.
I failed Bob.
Mom barges into my room without knocking. “Let’s go.”
“Huh? Where?”
“We have an appointment,” she says, and walks out.
I roll off the bed, put the letter in my desk drawer and rush downstairs.
Mom and Dad are in the foyer, looking at me.
“Dad?”
His hands are on his hips, his foot tapping, like he’s planning to wear a hole in the floor. Meatball whines nearby, like he wants to go, too.
“You’re not going, Meatball,” Mom says.
“Lucky you,” Dad mutters.
“Lovely,” she says to Dad. She waves a hand at me and opens the door. “Come on.”
I walk out first and they follow. Did I do something wrong?
After we pile into the car, Mom zips out of the driveway like she’s in the Indy 500.
Dad looks out the passenger-side window and taps a rhythm on the glass with thick fingers. “I don’t see why I have to come to this. I don’t see why—”
“Stop!” Mom must hit the brake for a second, then the gas, because we jerk forward, then back. No one says anything as we pass the entrance to our neighborhood and turn left, toward the library. We are driving way above the speed limit.
I hear Dad breathing—fast and shallow, like an animal caught in a trap.
I’m dying to know what’s going on and where we’re going, but I understand when to keep my mouth shut.
When we pass by Bob—he’s so beautiful—and the stupid sign in front of him, I swallow a lump in my throat. I want to tell Mom about the lousy letter I just got from the city, but I know now’s not the time.
Mom swerves the car into a parking spot in front of a three-story office building. “We’re here,” she says flatly.
“Whoopee,” Dad replies.
Mom gets out and slams her car door.
Dad gets out and slams his.
I get out, too, and gently close mine.
What’s going on?
The Doctor Is In
After the psychologist introduces herself as Dr. Klemme, she asks Mom and Dad if she can talk to me by myself.
As my parents leave the office to go back into the waiting room, I hear Dad hiss, “See, I don’t know why I needed to be here.”
Mom doesn’t reply, or at least I don’t hear her answer before she closes the door to the doctor’s office.
“So,” Dr. Klemme says, folding her hands in front of her and placing them on her desk. “What would you like me to call you?”
The question surprises me. In a good way.
“Some of my patients prefer to go by a different name than is listed on their birth certificates.”
My whole body tingles. Who is this woman?
“For example, a patient might like to go by the name Janet instead of James.”
I take in a slow breath. Lily. I think of Dad in the waiting room. Now I know why he’s so angry. Mom took us to a therapist especially for me. The vein in Dad’s temple is probably pulsing like crazy right now.
“My name is Timothy. Some people call me Tim.”
I instantly feel awful. I feel wrong.
“Okay,” Dr. Klemme says. “I’ll call you Tim, then. But if you ever want me to call you by another name, simply let me—”
“Lily.” I sit up taller.
“Hmm?”
I speak louder, but not loud enough for Dad to hear, in case he’s anywhere near the door to the office. “I’d like you to call me Lily, please. Lily Jo McGrother is my name.” With those words, a weight is lifted off my chest.
There’s a hint of a smile on Dr. Klemme’s mouth, and she makes a note on the chart in front of her. “Lily,” she says. “Such a pretty name.”
And for the first time in a long time, my shoulders are pulled back and my chin held high. Screw you, Vasquez and your evil band of Neanderthals. Here, in this office, I can be Lily Jo McGrother.
And feel safe.
The Other Side of the Door
I end up telling Dr. Klemme all about Bob and the letter I got.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
And I can tell she really means it.
“Lily, do you mind if we talk about your hormone blockers?”
I get a tingle in my stomach. I think of how I had to pluck a few new mustache hairs this morning and how much it hurt. I think about how my voice cracked the other day when I was talking to Sarah—a reminder that it’s going to get deeper soon. I think about how horrible I’ll feel when things grow more down there. “Okay.”
“Your mother told me that your father would rather you didn’t get them. How will you feel when you grow hair on your face and around your penis, when your voice deepens and your shoulders broaden?”
I can’t believe she says the word penis just like that. I’m NOT okay with hair growing around my penis, because I’m not okay with my penis. “Not okay,” I say quietly. Then I think about how I can’t stand the thought of those things happening and that if I don’t do something to stop it, all of it will definitely happen. And soon. “Not okay at all,” I say loud enough for Dad to hear. “I’m not okay with any of that happening to me.” Tears well up, and I look down at my lap.
“Lily?”
I don’t look up, even though I know it’s rude not to. Even though she’s using the name I asked her to use.
“Lily, why do you think your father doesn’t want you to get the hormone blockers?”
A hot tear leaks out, but I swipe it away with the back of my hand and bite the inside of my cheek to keep more from escaping. “He doesn’t like…he doesn’t like…who I am.” I look up at the doctor, another tear streaking down my cheek. “I mean, who I really am.”
Dr. Klemme hands me a tissue, then stands, which surprises me. “Lily, I think it would be a good idea now if you waited in the other room with your mother and I spoke to your father. I think he’s the one I need to talk to right now.”
She comes around her desk and puts her hand on my back as she leads me to the door. “I believe there may be some things about what’s going on with you that your father may not fully understand or appreciate yet.”
In the waiting room, Mom looks at me, her eyes prying, like she’s trying to read my mind and find out what the doctor said to me, but Dr. Klemme told me that unless I plan to harm myself or someone else, whatever we say in her office is completely confidential. She promised she wouldn’t tell my parents anything I said in there, unless I wanted her to.
Dad looks surprised when the doctor asks him to come in. As soon as Mom rises to join him, Dr. Klemme says, “Just Mr. McGrother right now. Thanks.”
When Mom returns to her seat, I sit next to her.
She reaches over and holds my hand. She doesn’t say anything, just gives my hand a gentle squeeze. I give her hand a squeeze, too, so she’ll know I appreciate her taking me to this doctor.
Then the door closes with Dad on the other side of it.
