Between Perfect and Real

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-4601-7

  eISBN 978-1-68335-951-7

  Text copyright © 2021 Ray Stoeve

  Illustrations copyright © 2021 Susan Haejin Lee

  Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura

  Published in 2021 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

  Amulet Books® is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  ABRAMS The Art of Books

  195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007

  abramsbooks.com

  For trans teens everywhere, and for teenage Ray. Who you are is right and good, and you deserve to be your fullest self.

  ACT ONE

  “… some consequence yet hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night’s revels, and expire the term of a despised life closed in my breast …”

  —ROMEO

  Romeo and Juliet, act 1, scene 4

  CHAPTER TWO

  I sit in the folding chair, waiting for my turn in the classroom. The monologue in my hands looks more like an accordion than a piece of paper, but I can’t stop folding and unfolding it. I have it memorized backward and forward, but I brought it anyway, just in case I wanted to look at it before I go in.

  “What are you trying out for, Dean?” Olivia sits down beside me. Her waist-length brown hair swings forward, spilling over her shoulders.

  I look down at the paper in my hands. “Lady Capulet, I guess. There aren’t a lot of roles for women in Romeo and Juliet.”

  “I know, right?” She rolls her eyes.

  “What about you?”

  She smiles. “I’m going for Juliet.”

  “Nice.” I stare at the closed door. I want it to open, I want to get this over with. “That’s perfect for you.”

  “Thanks. I just feel like it’s senior year, you know? I want to play a lead before I graduate.”

  I nod. I want to play a lead too. But there never seems to be a lead role for me. Tomboy lesbians don’t get a lot of parts in theatre.

  Even though, at this point, I’m pretty sure I’m not a girl. Or a lesbian.

  The door opens. Blake nods at me, smiles at Olivia. He’s bulked up since the end of last year, his usually white skin sunburned. He looks like he should be out on the field with the Jefferson High football team instead of here auditioning for the school play. Olivia jumps up and they kiss.

  Mr. Harrison appears behind them. He’s got his trademark bow tie on, a purple-and-green plaid pattern today. “Dean?” He smiles at me. His British accent is crisp, like the paper in my hands before I held it. “Come in.”

  Inside the classroom, it’s just me and Mr. Harrison. I crumple the monologue and shove it into my back pocket. I’ve been here before, just me standing in front of the whiteboard while he sits a few rows back, one leg crossed over the other, twirling a pen in his fingers, but this time feels different. I’m not a scrawny, shaking freshman, a cocky sophomore, a jaded junior. Before, I never assumed I’d get a lead. I was always excited just to audition, but I knew a lead was a long shot. The seniors always got the leads. A few times I got a major secondary role, like last year, in the gender-swapped version Neil Simon wrote of his famous play The Odd Couple. In that version, most of the main characters were girls instead of guys. I played Sylvie, a friend of the main characters, who were both played by seniors.

  But now I have a chance. It’s my turn to shine. To be the star.

  “How was your summer, Dean?” Mr. Harrison asks.

  “Good.”

  He smiles. “I’ve got a few excerpts here of scenes from the play. We’ll do a cold read first, then your monologue.” He shuffles through the options as I wait. “Ah, yes, how about this.”

  He stretches out a hand and I walk over, grabbing the paper and bringing it back to the open floor. I scan it: the scene where Romeo and Juliet meet. It’s awkward reading a love scene with my teacher, but that’s theatre for you.

  “Now, this excerpt doesn’t mean I’m considering you for Juliet,” Mr. Harrison says. “I know you know this, but I like to remind people it’s just to see how you read in scene, and for me to get a feel for where I might cast you, whether for your chosen part or not.” He looks at his clipboard. “You’re trying out for Lady Capulet, yes?”

  I nod.

  “Start from ‘Romeo, Romeo,’ and we’ll go from there to Romeo’s line ‘I would adventure for such merchandise.’ ”

  I take a deep breath, and begin.

  “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.” I’m acting with my voice, but I don’t feel the words in my chest, the way I sometimes can when I really get into character. I know what Mr. Harrison just said about cold reads, but still, I’m not much of a Juliet. I’m sure he can see that. I’m not Olivia with her sweet smile. And I’m not much for the Nurse role either; I’m not Olivia’s best friend Courtney with her wisecracks. I’m me: tall, skinny, white, less outgoing than Courtney, more outspoken than Olivia. I’m the only girl in theatre—if I even am a girl—with short hair. I’m wearing my red Converse, the heart on one toe where Zoe drew it this summer. Thinking of her makes me smile, and I try to channel it into my read.

  The scene goes okay. I carry it off well enough with my expressiveness, even if I’m not in character.

  “All right,” Mr. Harrison says, taking the scene excerpt back from me. “Are you ready for your monologue?”

  “Yeah.” I close my eyes, wiggling my fingers to get the shakes out. I’m not actually nervous; I know I’m a good actor. It’s just the high stakes. Will he cast me as Lady Capulet? And if not, where else would he put me? I try not to think about the possibility that I might not get cast at all. That’s happened to seniors in the past.

  I look up. Mr. Harrison is watching me. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  I nod once, and then I launch into the monologue.

  “What say you? Can you love the gentleman?” I ask, drawing my eyebrows together, pleading, pretending Mr. Harrison is Juliet. The monologue is in act one, scene three, before Romeo and Juliet have met, before the party, before the deaths. Lady Capulet asks Juliet if she’s thought about marriage, and Juliet hasn’t. Relatable. I mean, she’s supposed to be what, like fourteen? Of course she’s not thinking about marriage. But Lady Capulet presses on. This is what makes me think I can do this: She reminds me of my mom. Always pushing, always telling her kid what she wants and never asking Juliet what Juliet wants.

  I sweep out my arms, extolling the delights of married love. “This precious book of love, this unbound lover, to beautify him only lacks a cover!” I’m halfway through the monologue and I’m flying. I’m the most ridiculous version of my mother I can be, pleading one moment, swooning the next, never really listening. Mr. Harrison is smiling and chuckling.

  I lower my
voice as I approach the last line. I’m earnest, my hands clasped over my heart, dreaming of my daughter’s future. “So shall you share all that he doth possess, by having him, making yourself no less.”

  I can kind of get on board with that part. I think it means that being with someone makes you better, like you become both part of them and more of yourself. I think. It’s hard to tell with all the Shakespearean language. But that’s how I feel when I’m with Zoe: like I can be more of myself, like everything she is—smart, beautiful, funny, sweet, driven—lifts me up, makes me better. She’s the girlfriend I always dreamed of having, all the way back to when I first realized I could date girls.

  I grin at Mr. Harrison and bend into a deep bow, then straighten up. He claps. “Excellent work!”

  “Thanks.”

  “I should have the cast list up soon. It’ll be outside the theatre on the board, like usual.” He looks at me over his glasses. “Any questions?”

  I shake my head.

  “Wonderful. Send Olivia in on your way out, please.”

  “You got it.” I shoot him finger-guns and trot out of the classroom.

  When I step outside the school, the early-September warmth wraps me up like a blanket. The classroom was cold, but out here, summer in Seattle is still hanging on, the last gasp before ritual death-by-drowning in fall rain. The first week of school is almost over. One down, so many more to go.

  “How’d it go?” Ronnie hops down from his perch on the bike rack. In the sunlight, his pink shirt glows bright against his warm black skin, the Oxford collar buttoned to the top. He promised me he’d stick around for post-audition moral support.

  I’m still jazzed, riding high on performance adrenaline. “So good, dude. I was like, in it. And I made him laugh!”

  “Nice!” He falls into step beside me. “Who’d you read for?”

  I tell him. He raises an eyebrow. “And you want to play her?” He’s heard me complain about the lack of good female roles in theatre before.

  I shrug. “I don’t really have much of a choice, right? Besides, I got into the monologue a little bit. I think it could be fun. I’m gonna channel my mom.”

  He snorts. We walk away from the school, toward the busy road along the neighborhood’s edge. I’m starting to sweat in my hoodie, but I don’t want to take it off. I’m more comfortable when I have an extra layer between me and the world.

  “Besides, I don’t really care what the role is as long as it’s big,” I say, looking over at him. “A lead for senior year will look so good on college applications.”

  On NYU’s application. Because that’s where I’m going. I’m applying other places, but …

  I have to go to NYU. They have the best acting school in the country. Theatre isn’t just an elective to me like it is for other kids. The rush of being on stage, of being someone else, escaping my head, escaping my body—that moment when everything hits right and the scene becomes real, the lines aren’t just words but live wires connecting me to my scene partners—it’s magic. It makes me feel alive. I want to do it forever. I want it to be a real career. And to do that, I need to go to the best school for it.

  “You’ll get in,” Ronnie says.

  “Did you start yours for Parsons yet?” We slow down at my bus stop.

  “Opened the Common App last night,” he says. “Just don’t tell my dad.” He grimaces.

  We’re all applying Early Decision: Ronnie for fashion design at Parsons New School, me and Zoe at NYU. New York City, baby. That’s been the plan since Zoe and I started dating last year. I’m not even thinking about not getting in. Not getting in isn’t an option.

  The bus rolls up, we fist-bump, and I get on.

  CHAPTER THREE

  How many YouTube videos do you have to watch before you know for sure you’re trans? It’s not like I tried to pee standing up when I was a kid or refused to play with dolls or whatever. I know I don’t fit some of the stereotypes of trans guys. But when I watch videos, when I scroll through trans guy hashtags on Instagram?

  I feel something.

  I don’t know what that something is, but it feels right. It feels like recognition, and sometimes like jealousy.

  Most of the time, being myself feels more like acting than theatre does, like I’m perched somewhere far back in my brain, pulling the levers that make my body move: Do this, say that, feel this emotion. Like every other girl got a manual of how to be a girl and I didn’t, like I’m fumbling around trying to figure it out and whenever I think I’m getting close, it all gets fucked up again. Kind of like when your headphones are tangled up and you pull on the end but they just get more tangled. Maybe my gender is tangled-up headphones. Someone should tell the guys at school. Maybe then they’ll stop making stupid jokes about how they identify.

  I spend all weekend after auditions on YouTube. One of the guys whose channel I follow just got top surgery. In the video, he’s all broad smiles, the barely healed scars raw and red. His breasts are gone. Even though his chest is still swollen, I can see the shape of it, the pecs like every other bare-chested guy’s pecs.

  I touch my own chest, flattening it with both hands, and blur my eyes when I look down, trying to see the shape of what my body could be. Seven months ago, I thought most girls didn’t like having boobs. But seven months ago, everything changed.

  It was the beginning of February, a few weeks after Zoe and I started dating. “Movie night at my place tonight?” she asked, tilting her head with a smile. Uh, yes please.

  She said something about watching Boys Don’t Cry. The title sounded familiar, and I nodded, but all I could think about on the bus ride to her apartment was her lips on mine, her body pressed against me. Watching a movie? More like making out every time her mom left the room.

  At her apartment, I sat back on the couch, watching her pull up the movie on Netflix. The opening credits rolled and she settled beside me, then scooted closer, and I put my arm around her. Her hip touched my hip. Her shoulder nestled under my armpit. Her arm laid a trail of fire across my stomach. Every place our bodies touched lit up my nerve endings like fireworks. In the kitchen, pots clanged on the stovetop as her mom, Sheena, cooked dinner.

  What seemed like hours later, Zoe’s gentle kiss on my neck startled me, pulling me away from the movie. “Dean?” She looked up at me. I glanced around, blinking. Sheena was gone. The living room and adjoining kitchen was dark. “She’s been in her room for a while,” Zoe whispered.

  I looked back at the screen, watching the main character. He was a trans man. Brandon Teena. I knew that trans women existed, but I didn’t know there were also trans men. When I looked at him, a wordless echo sounded in my head. I couldn’t look away.

  After that night, I got online whenever I could, searching through Instagram, YouTube, personal blogs. I wanted to know more about trans men, how they felt, why they chose to transition. And in every post I saw myself. I knew I was supposed to be a girl, but I’d always failed at it, never feminine enough, always so uncomfortable with the latest fashions, perpetually confused or annoyed by the expectations people seemed to have for me. But it ran deeper than that, like my body was never quite right, like my face wasn’t really me. I’d noticed that as soon as I was tall enough to look in mirrors. So I usually avoided mirrors.

  I read more, and the wordless echo became a siren wail. Everything made sense now: Why I always wished I could play male roles in theatre. Why I wanted everyone to call me Dean instead of my full name. Why clothes made for girls never felt right, no matter how boyish they were. I tried to stop looking at the websites, but every few weeks I found myself on my laptop, watching videos in the private browser. I still watch all the trans guys I follow on YouTube, almost every night.

  I think I want to transition.

  But I have to come out first.

  I just don’t know how.

  When I get to school on Monday, Ronnie and Zoe are standing at my locker. Ronnie’s flinging his hands around, which means he’s excited
about something.

  “What’s up?” I say, and they both jerk their heads like I caught them doing something wrong.

  “Hey you,” Zoe says, brushing a long strand of wavy teal hair out of her face. Her skin is milky-white, black eyeliner sweeping in wings away from her eyes. Her striped dress highlights the curve of her wide hips.

  I smile before I even realize I’m smiling. She does that to me.

  She stands up on her tiptoes, my hands finding her waist, the fabric of her dress soft under my fingers. We kiss, ignoring Ronnie’s coo. Her lips are soft and taste like her coconut lip balm.

  “So.” I look at both of them. “What are you plotting?”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Ronnie puts a hand to his heart.

  “I saw your hands flying.” I spin my combination lock. “What’s going on?”

  They exchange a look. “You haven’t seen yet?” Ronnie asks.

  I stop mid-spin.

  “The casting decisions.” Ronnie looks at Zoe again, and back to me. “They’re up.”

  “Oh.” I go back to spinning.

  Zoe grabs the lock with her hand and stops me. “You need to go see.”

  “Why?” I let go.

  “Oh my god.” Ronnie rolls his eyes and grabs my arm. He marches away and I stumble after him, under the giant construction paper arch still screaming WELCOME, SENIORS. Down the hall, weaving through the crowd, people laughing, running, huddling with their friends, until we’re rounding the corner of the hallway where Mr. Harrison’s classroom sits and beyond that, the theatre, its double doors shut tight. There’s a bulletin board to the right of the doors.

  There’s a list pinned to the bulletin board.

  I stop before I’m close enough to read it, yanking out of Ronnie’s grasp, and just stand there. Back here, the noise of the halls is a distant hum. Back here, it’s just me and Ronnie, standing side by side in front of the board. Posters of past productions line the walls: The Crucible, Rumors, Grease. I want to look at the list, but at the same time I just want to walk away. I don’t want to play a girl again. I don’t know why Ronnie is so excited. Am I Juliet?