Chapter 2
Two
When I interviewed for this job, I nailed it. I read dozens of articles on how to come off as competent and employable but
not obsequious or overeager.
I rehearsed in front of the mirror. I memorized the NSX Visitor’s Guide and reread my dog-eared, cat-scratched copy of The Making of Nuclear Seasons. I wore an oxford shirt with a high, starched collar and a scratchy tag, along with a bow tie.
I went in so prepared that I preempted half the questions before they were asked. I touted my unpaid customer service experience
helping out around my moms’ diner, judiciously exaggerating my ability to calculate change in my head. I had my transcript
with my fresh-off-the-press A+ in precalc to corroborate my mathematical aptitude.
Most importantly, I had an honest answer to the number one interview question that, according to Forbes, trips everyone up: Why did I want the job? I didn’t need to fumble through a lie to hide the inconvenient truth that capitalism necessitated I find any old job.
I could honestly say that I loved this museum and might not kill to work here but would probably bury a body if they asked. I was glowing with my love for Nuclear Seasons, like Rebecca Spector glows in episode four, “Singin’ in the Acid Rain,” after she goes skinny-dipping in the radioactive
creek. I was a shoo-in for this job.
Until Anya asked one question I hadn’t rehearsed: Did I have any questions for her?
I didn’t want to ruin my chances by coming off as a problem employee, but there was one thing. I asked, “Is this a trans-friendly work environment?”
Anya’s eyebrows scrunched together. I couldn’t tell if she was surprised I was trans or offended I’d ask.
“I’m transgender, and I know tourists come from all over the world to visit the museum. So I need to be sure . . .” I knew
management couldn’t make every MAGA-cap-wearing guest respect me—they couldn’t promise me a safe space—but . . . I cleared my throat and rephrased, “Everyone here is trans-friendly?”
“Of course,” Anya said. “Billy in HR is gay.”
Now she’s here, proclaiming that I am a sister. A girl. Even though I asked her, and she promised me.
Maybe it’s my fault; maybe I wasn’t clear.
I said I was transgender, but I didn’t specify.
I don’t look like the trans boys on TV, so maybe she read my stereotypically feminine features and assumed I was transfemme.
A passing, stealth trans girl, like Lola.
Maybe that was why Anya was confused that I asked about a trans-friendly work environment at all; it never occurred to her that I’d need it.
But now she’s standing here, smiling, and Dan and Blake are inscribing our names, faces, and implicit genders into memory, and this wasn’t supposed to happen today. I’d come out at the interview and been hired on the spot, and yet here I am, on the spot. Except the spot is actually a
bull’s-eye, and I’ve already been hit, point-blank.
Most queer people learn fast that coming out isn’t a one-and-done, no matter how you identify. But it’s different when you’re
trans and don’t fit the binary. Cis people might accept you, but that doesn’t mean they’ve put in the work to relearn how they perceive gender.
When you look like me, coming out is something you do a million times a day. Every time someone sees you on the street, every
time a stranger starts a casual conversation, every time you try to order a coffee. It should be an autonomic reflex, simple
as breathing, but it hurts like an asthma attack. Or, on dysphoric days, walking pneumonia.
I have to say something. Even as my chest constricts—I wish I had my inhaler right now—I have to fix this.
Otherwise, I’m going to be surrounded by coworkers who misgender me every day and, more crucially, see me as a girl.
I need to open my mouth now, right now, before it’s too late, but I’m shaking.
In spite of myself, I hazard a glance at everyone who knows better.
Gwen’s studying her nails. Lola’s clenching her fists. Naomi’s retying her ponytail. And Efraín—
“Goldstein siblings,” Efraín says, with his stiff jaw and arctic voice. “Elisha’s pronouns are he/him.”
Although everything about his manner is cold, I sweat under Efraín’s scrutiny. My face is hot, flooded with blood, and the
limit to my embarrassment does not exist. But everyone is staring at me like I’m something interesting. If I was already on
the spot, now there’s a spotlight shining right at me, and I’m the kid who forgot his bit-part, two-line rejoinder on opening
night.
Efraín said something, so why can’t I speak up for myself? Then again, it’s not like he has anything to lose. His family owns
a vineyard, he hates Nuclear Seasons, and his identity isn’t the one up for debate.
I can speak for myself.
“Yeah, I’m . . . boy,” I stammer. Fuck. Apparently, I can’t speak for myself. “I’m transgender. A trans guy, to be exact. He/him/his. Elisha—or Eli’s fine, too.”
Blake acknowledges me with an up-nod, which I choose to interpret as “cool,” as in “queer recognizes queer.”
“Um,” Dan says, with that wide-eyed, pop-quiz look that cis people get when asked what a pronoun is. “Okay. Thanks.”
Anya comes over, ducks down, and claps her hands on my shoulders. “Oh, Eli. I’m so sorry. I remember now. I’ll remember in the future.” Her eyes are very bright and shiny, like she might burst into tears. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
She’s still touching me, and I’m caged in, halfway to feral. I’m not comfortable with people touching me under the best of
circumstances. After Naomi read one of Ma’s college anthropology books, she told me I have “proxemics issues,” which I’m pretty
sure is not a real thing, but the weight of Anya’s hands on my shoulders is very real.
Anya has trapped me in the performance of her apology. All I want is to get out and make it stop. So I force my lips to move into a self-deprecating smile-shrug two-step. “It’s okay.”
It’s not okay.
But she smiles and steps back, case closed, and I tell myself it will be okay.
She just forgot. She promised it wouldn’t happen again, so it won’t.
This is just a blip in my summer of Nuclear Seasons bliss.
I did the hard thing—with prompting from Efraín, yes, but it’s over. Cuban Missile Crisis averted.
From here on out, I’m just a boy working the job of my dreams.