Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
Labor Day is tourist season’s last hurrah, a three-day holiday travel weekend for summer road trippers. The museum, of course,
is open.
A lot has changed over the past few weeks, but NSX will capitalize on any and every holiday, no matter who’s in charge.
Leadership is the most significant change since the union’s fateful bargaining meeting. We had a productive conversation with
Dagny, who agreed to rehire Efraín and requisition NSX-branded pronoun buttons.
Although she’d hardly given away the farm, the museum’s board of directors opted to remove Dagny as CEO. Publicly, she’s stepping
back to focus on her family; privately, I’ve heard she’s taking a sabbatical in LA to reconnect with George Rhodes and the
remaining select few whom Victor Kane considered family.
Anya is serving as interim CEO, and Dan is reluctantly heading up guest services. Ford quit in a huff when he heard the news.
This is my last shift in guest services, but starting next week, I’ll be interning with curatorial, helping Winston and Eden
put together a formal presentation for the board about their proposed special exhibit, Lieber Schatz: The Lost Love Letters of Victor Kane.
Today, however, I’m splitting my time, ticketing in the morning and guiding tours in the afternoon. It’s the first time Lola
and I have ticketed together in weeks, and it’s nice, peaceful in spite of the hectic holiday haze.
In the sporadic gaps between guests, Lola plies me with gossip, not about our fellow workers, but about herself. Apparently,
her ex, Curtis, made a brief appearance at the anniversary party, and they’ve been texting ever since. She’s been opening
up more, both to him and to her friends—letting herself be known in a way she was afraid to be vulnerable before her interview with Kiera Kim.
Between our deliberations on the best date locations, we also talk about the most important date on my calendar: my top surgery
date with Dr. Mburu the first week of June, which I officially reserved last week.
Unbeknownst to me, the strike fund wasn’t the only proverbial donations jar at our alternative anniversary party.
The union—no one will tell me whose idea it was—solicited contributions for my top surgery.
Partygoers—locals, out-of-town fans, and possibly a certain celebrity special guest—quickly met the target.
Three months ago, I wouldn’t have believed that was possible—that anyone else would care enough to contribute. I certainly
never would’ve asked for help. I never once thought about making a GoFundMe. I might’ve been too stubborn to accept donations
then; I would’ve assumed people were only opening their wallets out of cis guilt and misplaced pity, never believing that
strangers might want to help because it’s kind.
I know better now. I’m learning to trust kindness. I’m doing my best to pay it forward, too, whether that means being a little
liberal with ticket discounts or spending my entire morning break going through dozens of near-identical bird photos on Naomi’s
laptop to help her pick the best shot.
Not long after I come back from my break, an adult and a youth come up to my till, and I’m so comfortable giving my ticketing
spiel that I don’t notice anything out of the ordinary, until the tween squeaks, “Do you sell those?”
“The polo shirts? They’re just uniform—”
“No, your button. Do you have them here or in the gift shop? I want one just like yours. I have my allowance. How much?”
I take a closer look at the kid, who can’t be older than eleven or twelve.
His Coke bottle glasses are too large for his face—but puberty, that cruel mistress, will soon rectify that.
Box braids with glittery gold beads clack together as he bobs up and down in excitement.
His jean jacket displays a plethora of pins and buttons from every fandom imaginable—and a trans flag, too.
“Oh.” I look down at my new, hard-won pronoun button. In magenta, yellow, and black, it isn’t pretty, but it is NSX-approved,
and it gets the job done.
Who am I kidding? It’s terrible; I love it.
Unfortunately, management only rush-ordered a small batch of pronoun buttons for staff.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have them available for sale.”
The kid’s face crumples, and my heart sinks. I sell the pair tickets and watch them wander across the barn.
When there’s a lull, Lola leans over. “What’s up?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look like someone killed Sputnik.”
“First, don’t ever joke about that. Second, this trans kid asked if we were selling pronoun buttons. He was so excited, but—”
“Eli,” Lola says with that jocular, lilting tone she puts on when I’m missing something obvious.
“What?”
“You can get another button.”
“I don’t have time to run upstairs and get one.”
“You don’t have to.” Her eyes flick down to my button, and suddenly, I get it. Truly.
“Cover for me?”
Lola grins. “Go find him.”
I sprint across the barn just as Stanley’s about to start his tour. “Eli!” he calls out. “Wasn’t expecting you until after
lunch. Did you want to switch early?”
“No, I—” I glance up at him, at the easy smile on his face. “Unless you want to? Are your knees bothering you, or—”
“No, no, my knees are perfectly fine. Everything else, too.” He taps the water bottle—a full bottle, not a flask—clipped to
his belt. Another concession from management. “You need anything?”
I shake my head. “Just need to borrow someone from your group for a second.”
“By all means.”
I smile my thanks and survey his tour group. I find my mark on the far side, in gift shop territory. I cut through the crowd,
grateful that I remembered to wear my noise-filtering earplugs for this shift.
“Hi,” I say, trying and failing not to be awkward about this. I wave down the kid and unpin the button from my shirt. “I want
you to have this.”
His eyes go wide. “Are you sure?”
I nod.
“What do you say?” his parent prods.
By way of thanks, the kid flings his arms around me. Gingerly, I hug him back. “You’re welcome,” I whisper.
I watch the kid pin the button in a place of honor on his jacket. He’s so excited, animatedly talking about all his friends back home and online who are going to be so jealous. I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or his parent, but I smile all the same.
“You want a picture?” Naomi comes up from out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of me. I have absolutely no idea what she’s
talking about, but the kid hands Naomi his phone. I quickly check with the parent, but they just look pleased. So, I let Naomi
position me, and she snaps a few shots where I try to smile normally despite the bewildered feeling in my chest. Naomi asks
if she can take one for the museum’s social media accounts, too, and with the parent’s consent, she takes another on her own
phone.
Stanley’s starting his tour, so the kid hugs me one more time before dashing off.
“It would be a better picture if you were wearing a button, too,” Naomi muses.
“I gave him my button. That was the point.”
“I know. I saw it. But I don’t think the picture tells the story . . .” Naomi sighs.
“What was all that about?” Efraín also gets the drop on me.
“What are you doing here? Wait, if you’re here, who’s running the gift shop?”
“Jaime’s got it. Naomi’s taking her fifty-two. I’m taking a quick fifty-five.” He wraps his arms around my waist and rests his chin on my head to look at Naomi’s phone. “Who’s the kid?”
I shake my head. “He liked my button.”
“So you gave him the button off your back.”
“Off my shirt.”
“Same difference.”
“Be gross on your own time, please,” Naomi interjects.
“You’re the one on your lunch break. You can go upstairs any time,” Efraín teases her, and I am struck by the surreal fact
that none of this is actually surreal anymore. My boyfriend joking with my sister is a perfectly normal, commonplace occurrence.
Naomi rolls her eyes but promises to text me the photo before going on her way.
That leaves Efraín and me, not even remotely alone in the bustling lobby. Neither of us can afford to take 55s right now.
I’ve left Lola alone at ticketing long enough.
“Wait,” Efraín says as I’m pulling away. “You’re forgetting something.”
“If you’re waiting for me to kiss you goodbye before I walk all of fifty feet away—”
“I wouldn’t turn down a kiss”—Efraín smirks—“but I meant this.” Then he’s unpinning his own pronoun button and pinning it
on my polo.
“Oh my God, you’re so dramatic. I can go an hour without a button. I went months without—”
“I know,” Efraín says softly. “I know you’d be fine without it, but you deserve better than fine. You’re a good man, Elisha Goldstein.”
“The Charles Schulz Museum is fifteen miles away.”
“So fucking pedantic.” He stifles a laugh with a kiss to my forehead.
This, too, has become commonplace.
“Are we still on for dinner with your dad later?” I ask.
Mr. Juarez is one of the holiday road trippers who drove up from Madera to spend the long weekend with his son.
Efraín nods. “He’s meeting us at Lou’s after work, and he’ll head out from there.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to spend your last night with him just the two of you?”
“I’m sure,” Efraín says.
I take him at his word. “Okay. Thank you for the totally unnecessary replacement button.” I reach up on my tiptoes to kiss
his cheek. “I’m going back to work.”
“If you must.”
“You must, too.”
He pulls a face, but Efraín goes back to the gift shop.
I head back to ticketing, passing through throngs of starry-eyed museumgoers. Lola smiles at me as I slip behind the counter.
I reclaim my till, shaking the computer awake. As the software loads, I straighten my borrowed pronoun button, still warm
from Efraín’s touch.
Then I get back to work.