The school-year was born in hot California Summer, and after a brief, parched Winter and a misty Spring, it threatened to die with the sweltering heat of its birth. Thankfully the end-of-the-year field-trip had great air-conditioning. An hour in the art-museum dried Jillian’s sweat from her forehead.
She studied the map in her brochure while Dan studied a painting. “Early 1300s, the Harrowing of Hell,” he recited without reading the placard. “After the crucifixion, Christ enters the underworld so triumphantly he crushes a demon under a door.” He tugged his shirt hem. Today his shirt featured Princess Lucia, a blue-haired space-robot-pilot in the year 2399. “My dad taught me about it.”
“Neat.” Jillian folded the map. “The next hall has sculptures. Over Winter-break, my dad brought me on business abroad, and I saw lots of museums. Look here.” She pointed to the brochure. “This museum has one of two decorative pillars. The other pillar is just like it, but mirrored. I saw it in Spain.”
“Oh, neat.” Dan swallowed and put his hands in his pockets. “Let’s double-back and find another way to the sculptures.”
Jillian cocked an eyebrow. “Why not finish this hall? I thought you liked these religious paintings.”
“I do.” Dan turned away. “But there’s a Bosch over there and I can’t look at it. Eternal torture makes me fidget.”
“You love Dante’s Inferno.”
“I can read about it. I can’t look at it.”
“We’ll just look at paintings on the other side of the hall.”
Dan shook his head. “You go on. I’ll take the long way around. Oh no,” he said mid-stride. Faith and Beatrice had entered the hallway. Beatrice sat across from a painting of the Virgin Mary while Faith tore paper from her notebook and folded it.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jillian. Dan stared silently at Beatrice. “Hey, this is your chance. You know all about that painting, right? Go impress her.”
Dan covered his mouth and looked at the floor. “I appreciate it, but that’s not an option.”
“I see the way you look at Beatrice, Dan. Tell her, `the artist used so-and-so technique to highlight Mary’s eyes. Looking at your eyes, Ms. Baxter, you must have been painted the same way.’ But less corny than that, obviously. Then ask her out and get it over with.”
“It’s not my place to ask her out,” said Dan.
Before Jillian could ask what he meant, Faith held two folded paper animals to Beatrice: a fox and a bird. Beatrice took the bird and they played with the animals together. The fox and bird touched muzzle to beak, and Faith kissed Beatrice on the cheek.
“Oh,” said Jillian. “Well, just move on, then.”
Faith spotted Dan and Jillian down the hallway. She pointed them out to Beatrice and the couple walked over holding hands. “I thought we’d find you here, Dainty. Talking Jilli’s ear off?”
“Ha, yeah,” Dan managed. He smiled at Beatrice, but when she looked away pointedly, he turned back to Faith. “Enjoying the museum?”
“We’re headed for the sculptures,” said Beatrice.
“Interested? Dainty? Jilli?” Faith pulled Beatrice behind her. “C’mon!” Jillian followed.
Dan stumbled after them. “Wait,” he said, “you’re skipping the best paintings!” Dan strode to an enormous landscape cluttered with nudes. “Like this Bosch. He’s famous for painting Hell.”
Faith and Beatrice hesitantly approached. Jillian winced as Dan made himself look at the canvas.
“Devils flay a man’s flesh,” said Dan, biting his fingernail. “Demons drop a woman in boiling tar.” He bit the skin around the nail until it bled. “A crowd screams inside the mouth of a giant head, but even that head is in agony, obviously one of the damned.”
“Geez. That’s pretty metal,” said Faith. “Let’s go see the sculptures, BeatBax.” As they all walked away, Faith released Beatrice’s hand and lingered to speak with Jillian. “Is Dainty okay?”
“He said he couldn’t even look at the Bosch,” said Jillian, “but I told him to impress you two by talking about a painting, and that’s the one he chose.”
“Huh.” Faith shrugged. “Who’s the girl on his shirt? She’s cute.”
“Oh, that’s Princess Lucia from LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration. It’s an anime Dan and I like. Wanna watch it over the summer?”
Jillian inserted the last DVD. “Now that she’s got the Wheel, do you think Commander Lucille has a chance against the Enemy Hurricane?”
“Of course! The good guys always win in this sort of thing.” Faith bothered Django as the cat tried to sleep on the couch. “Right?”
“I’m afraid we’ll never know for sure. The show was canceled before the last episodes were made.” Jillian selected an episode. “Ready to watch?”
“Wait.” Faith played with the pink pads on Django’s paws. “Your parents are away, right, Jilli?” She looked up from Django’s toe-beans. “Do you want to try something naughty?”
Jillian blinked and paused the TV. “What do you mean?”
Faith pulled a cricket from the pocket of her torn jeans. Its wings were wrapped like mummy-linens. “I got this from the guy in our homeroom who always wears dark sunglasses. He says he smokes them all the time. They’re not dangerous at all. Shall we share a bug-stick?”
“Hm.” Jillian took the cricket and held it to her nose, as if by muscle memory. It smelled like spices. “What do we do? What’s it like being bug-eyed?”
“First we open a door so we don’t stink up the place, and then we light the eyes.” She sparked a purple lighter. “He said we’d see everything from a new perspective, and he couldn’t describe it any other way. He kept making sound-effects and exploding motions with his hands.”
Jillian passed back the cricket. “How about you smoke, and I watch?”
“But Jilli, I’m scared!” Faith laughed and wiggled her shoulders. “I hoped you could start it.”
Jillian sighed. On the TV, paused during the LuLu’s theme, ten thousand space-robot pilots crossed their arms across their chests. Together they directed their giant robot to cross its arms across its chest, the sum of their confidence. “You open the back door and I’ll light it.”
“Really? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“Pass it over.” Jillian took the cricket and lighter. Faith pranced to the back door and Django followed her.
“Djingo, Django, baked into a pie! Djingo, Django, wanna go outside?”
“Of course he does.” Jillian lit the cricket’s eyes on fire. Embers spread through the papery wings. “Now what?”
“Pretend you’re sucking a straw, just for a second.” Faith kicked the door open and Django hopped into the yard. “Keep the smoke in your open mouth until it cools. Then inhale, hold it, and exhale.”
Jillian sputtered smoke and bent over coughing. “Oh. Oh my gosh.” She held her head. “I feel it already.”
“Here, let me try.” Faith puffed smoke out the door. The cricket’s eyes cooled from cherry-red to ash-gray. “Oh, wow.”
“Faith, did I ever tell you…” Jillian rubbed her eyes. “I think I’m trans?”
“Trans?”
Jillian took another puff and clarified after coughing: “My first memory was a nightmare. In the nightmare, I was nude, and I had a dong. I was in a desert near a red mountain with a white fox, and a monster ate us. I’ve never talked about it, but I still feel male, through and through.”
“I’m glad you told me, then. That’s super interesting.” Faith’s last puff burned the cricket to its stem. She swayed, eyes unfocused. “Oh, I’m flying through time. Ha.” They both stared through the TV. “Do you have a new name lined up?”
“Jay,” said Jay.
“Jay Diaz-Jackson.” Faith grinned. “Start the episode, JayJay.”
Ted Writes 