This is How We Change the World Ch. 04

***

13 Mar 2023

Maddy had not, by any means, forgotten what day it was. Or... was going to be in a handful of hours. Working overnight had completely screwed up her concept of days. She lingered in bed, pretending to sleep while Lyric got out of the shower and headed into the kitchen. She was always so quiet when she thought Maddy was sleeping.

Maddy looked at her phone for the third time. Again, her inability to keep track of days was screwing with her. Of course no one had messaged her yet. It wasn't her birthday. Not yet. Not for, like, six more hours, anyway. That didn't stop her anxiety even a little, nor her depression.

She put her phone back on her nightstand and rolled over. The stack of books on Lyric's nightstand were all library books. Books they'd picked out together about sexuality and the human psyche. It wasn't a psychology degree, but it was a start. It was something her girlfriend could start doing right now, that was working toward her goal, and that felt good.

It was with great reluctance that she dragged herself out of bed and went to get coffee, and even greater surprise when she found herself staring at two boxes on the miniscule kitchen counter space, wrapped and with bows on them. Lyric was sitting on the couch, not paying attention at first, but her head whirled around when Maddy gasped.

"Happy birthday!"

She only noticed Lyric getting up and coming around the room tangentially, in her peripheral vision, as she stared at the boxes. "I didn't tell you," she said, disbelievingly. "How did you know?"

Lyric just blinked at her. "I know when your birthday is," she said, eventually.

'It's not on the work calendar," Maddy said, as she stepped over to the counter. "I have to tell Eric every year."

"I know," Lyric said. "I've heard you tell him."

"That would have been over a year ago!" She picked up the smaller box, and looked back and forth between Lyric and the box.

"It was two years ago," Lyric said, smiling a smug little smile.

Maddy didn't know how to respond to that, so she just started opening the box and periodically giving Lyric some side eye. The box opened to reveal a gray-white shirt with a logo circle in the center of the chest, featuring...

"My Little Pony!" Maddy cried, grabbing it by the shoulders and lifting it, so that the shirt unfolded fully. "Oh my god, and it's the good one!"

"That's gen one, right? Those are the ones you like?"

"Did you know that Applejack is one of my favorites?" Maddy said, giving Lyric a sharp stare. Given the way Lyric froze, it seemed like she hadn't, but Maddy moved on before she had to admit as much. "You just happened to pick her?"

Lyric shrugged. "She came up first when I was looking for the old ones, and I recognized her 'cus she's in the new one, and..." Then she shrugged again.

Maddy tucked the shirt against her chest, smiling broadly, and stared at Lyric. Lyric was blushing, and took a long sip of coffee in that way she did sometimes when she was nervous.

Maddy said, "It's lovely."

She spread the shirt out over her chest, leaning back slightly and mapping it to her torso, and smiled. "Applejack has been my favorite for a long time. When I was, like, eight, I needed to take this medication for my ears that came in a huge pill. It was too big to swallow, but my parents would, like, break it open and mix up the contents into applesauce for me. They bought me an Applejack doll because, I don't know, they really needed me to take the medicine. I can't even remember what it was. Some kind of amoxicillin?" She drifted into a warm memory, just for a moment, of her parents surrounding her, and smiling at her. Proud of her. And then Lyric was hugging her, and it all melted together, and she was crying a little.

"Alright, alright," she said, turning toward the other, larger box. "Not sure how you're going to top that."

"This is a present grenade," Lyric said.

"A what?" Maddy said, as she ripped open the paper to reveal the box of an unassembled shelf. "Oh. Cool."

"A present grenade," Lyric repeated, smiling wider. "It's a shelf. I'm gonna put it up in the bedroom, I was thinking over in front of the bed above the dresser, and you can put ponies on it."

Maddy stared at the shelf, and then turned slowly. "You bought a shelf for ponies?"

Lyric shrugged and smiled a little.

Maddy kept staring at her. "For my little ponies? For my my little ponies?"

"For your your little ponies," Lyric said and giggled. "I mean, it's not very fancy, but we can paint it how you like, and I think it can fit, oh, maybe ten ponies, and if you want more we can get another one, and..." She paused and bit her lip. "Don't you think it would look cool?"

"Like, what, a full shelf of ponies?"

"Well, yes, and you know, if you don't have very many, maybe we could buy some more. On. like eBay or something. Or then, you know, I think they're remaking the first gen ones now."

Maddy looked at the shelf, trying to imagine it over the dresser. She imagined her favorite old ponies on the shelf, both astonished and excited, and turned to look at Lyric again. "And you would really want to have a display of ponies in your home?"

Something passed over Lyric's face, and then she shrugged, and grinned, and reached for the box. "Yeah! I'll show you."

Maddy pulled the new pony shirt on slowly, watching in awe when Lyric burst into action. In the time it took Maddy to have her two cups of morning coffee, Lyric had assembled the shelf and marked the spots for drilling to fasten it on the wall above the dresser. Maddy sat on the bed and watched. She was not not-handy, but things like this were beyond her capabilities. In their household it was usually François, and he often made a kind of a show of it. Lyric just worked, quickly and effortlessly, and Maddy was reminded of how quickly she had built the bed for herself in the kitchen. She didn't often witness this side of Lyric, but it made her feel good in a way that was hard to define.

"So, here, see?" Lyric held the shelf in place for a moment and then lowered it on top of the dresser again. "I think we better paint it before putting it on the wall. What color do you think it should be? I think I have white, and maybe some light blue, though it might have dried up."

Maddy tilted her head. White would certainly go with all the ponies, but it didn't feel quite right. She tilted her head the other way, and then it came to her. "How about pink? Like, pale pink?"

"Yeah, sure," Lyric said. "Why not."

"No, not the whole thing, but... like... white, blue and pink? Like in the trans flag?" Lyric stared at her, and then it was Maddy's turn to blush a little. "No?"

"No, I mean yeah, I mean... you'd want that?"

"Yeah," Maddy said and smiled. "I would."

"Okay then!" Lyric said, all smiles again. "Today your wish is my command."

Maddy smiled and wiggled lower in the bed, letting the nightie climb on her hips as she lay down, and said, "Oo, I like the sound of that."

Then, once her mind unwound a little, she asked, "What's a present grenade?"

Lyric laughed. "It's like a grenade. It doesn't go off right away. On the one hand, it's just a shelf. Very unsexy."

"But it's not just a shelf," Maddy said, nodding as she processed. "I get it. I get it."

Lyric nodded, and bit her lip. "If you wanted to wait, we can just order the paints from Amazon and they get here when they get here, but there's that hobby shop on 3rd Ave that we could swing by? On our way to work?"

Maddy nodded slowly, narrowing her eyes.

"I'm asking because, like, if we needed to use the drill tomorrow morning, I should probably DM Dave."

"Dave?"

Lyric cleared her throat and blushed. "Mr. Reagan. Upstairs."

"reaganfamily271! Right! Yeah. Yeah, let's go pick out some paints. I would rather look at a couple bottles to see what the colors look like anyway. Some things are better bought in person, and I think this is one of them."

Lyric's smile got wider and wider with every passing word, and by the end of it she was reaching for her phone and heading out into the living room. Left to her own devices, Maddy turned around to grab her own phone, still laying on her nightstand, and saw that the screen was activated. When she unlocked her phone, she saw that she'd just missed a call.

"Hey Ames," she said, after punching the redial button. "What's up?"

"I know it's not quite time yet, but happy birthday!"

Maddy smiled, and in her heart there was a swell. A great, metaphorical happy sigh.

"Happy birthday, Maddy," Frank yelled, in the background.

"Thank you!"

"I made reservations at Burobu, in about... three hours, and I checked. They don't have that cod dish on the menu that you liked so much last time, but the chef said it wouldn't be a problem."

"Ames," she said, deflating, "I work tonight."

"On your birthday? Can't you cancel or something?"

"No! Ames, we've talked about this."

"Okay," Amy said, "Okay. No problem. I'll reschedule. Just... let me know when is good for you."

"I think..." She put her palm over the bottom of the phone, and raised her voice. "Hey, when is our next day off?"

"Wednesday," Lyric called back. "Why?"

"Next Wednesday," Maddy said, into the phone.

"Okay. Also, hey, I know you were saying you had a lot of stuff there, and it's taken all week, but we finally got everything sorted out with Frank's company car. He can be there in the morning to pick you up."

"Oh." Maddy froze. "To... like... get my stuff back there?"

"We've missed you!" came Frank's raised voice, from somewhere further away from the phone.

"Yeah, silly," Amy added, "and while Frank's there, he can thank your little friend for taking you in. It's been nice to be back. It's not the same without you, but it's been a huge load off our minds to know you've been with, you know, not strangers."

"Oh, I don't know that he--"

"We were thinking we'd give her a little something for the trouble. Does she take Venmo?"

"Venmo?"

"We were thinking, like, a grand."

"That's a bit much," Frank said, now standing somewhat nearer to the phone.

"Not now, Frank. A thousand. At least."

"I don't know that she would take that," Maddy said, feeling her voice get weaker.

"Maybe stop by an ATM on the way then. If she says no, just pop it in an envelope and leave it behind somewhere."

"Fine," Frank said. "Fine."

Maddy said, "Ames," but didn't get any further.

"It's settled, one way or another. Is nine am enough time for you to get back after your shift?"

Maddy looked up as Lyric came back into the bedroom, and smiled weakly. "Yeah."

She looked like she'd heard some of it.

"Great. Okay. Finally. We can put this whole fiasco behind us. God, it's been such a clusterfuck. It's gonna be so good to have you back. See you tomorrow, Mags. Love you."

Frank chimed in, this time from very close to the phone, saying "Love you!"

"Love you too," Maddy said, as she hung up the phone.

The next few seconds passed slowly, like they were underwater. Maddy and Lyric just looked at each other. She wanted to explain. She felt like she needed to explain. She felt like she owed Lyric an explanation.

Before that could happen, though, Lyric smiled and said, "I can paint the shelf later. That doesn't need to happen tonight." Then she cleared her throat and added, "Plus, since we're not heading all the way down the 3rd, we don't have to leave so soon. Do you mind if I shower first?"

"G-uh... Go ahead," Maddy said, gesturing. "Yes. Absolutely. You first."

It was awkward.

***

17 Mar 2023

Maddy tilted her head back and laughed. She didn't remember the last time she'd laughed like that; she giggled a lot with Lyric, but this was different. She had forgotten how funny Amy was when she was in the mood.

She was also thoroughly enjoying what she called play the princess. She was dressed to kill, as were Amy and Frank, and between the three of them they formed a party which turned heads wherever they went. That was part of the fun. Almost every time they went out with all three of them, they purposefully aimed to confuse waitresses and bartenders on who was with who. Everyone tried to categorize them: is this a couple out with their friend, why would they be the third wheel, has something happened? Oh, but now the women are looking really familiar, maybe they're a lesbian couple, but who is the man then? And so on and so forth.

If nothing else, the playacting had helped Maddy to be more unassuming with her own customers.

Frank emptied the wine bottle into Maddy's glass, flashing her a stunning smile. He could be so smooth.

Amy looked at the dessert list, head cocked, and Maddy could almost hear her thinking. She was eternally fretting about her weight, complaining that her business suits stopped fitting the minute she laid eyes on a cake, but Maddy also knew she loved lava cake, and that this place had lava cake. Which might have had something to do with why Amy had picked this place.

Amy noticed her looking, and took her hand, smiling radiantly. "I'll have the cake," she said and squeezed Maddy's hand softly. "It's a special day, after all!"

Maddy smiled at her. She liked Amy's hips however wide they got, but she knew better and didn't say anything.

The waitress came and they ordered. After ordering her own portion, Maddy was suddenly struck with inspiration and said, "Actually, I'd like two pieces of the cheesecake, but please pack one to go?"

The waitress smiled, nodded minutely, and left with the menus and her pad. Frank was pouring himself water, but Amy was looking at Maddy.

"What?"

She didn't like how defensive her voice was, nor how she had asked when Amy didn't even say anything.

"I mean, you're The Slimmest Of Them All, but two pieces?"

"I thought I'd take a piece to Lyric."

"Ohh," Amy said, raising her eyebrows and glancing at Frank who didn't seem very interested. Amy looked back at Maddy. They weren't holding hands anymore, though Maddy didn't quite know how that had happened. "But isn't that... you're... oh, that's what the bag is for?"

"Yeah, I'm going there after. You know, you guys will be heading to bed anyway, and with the night shifts I won't sleep until tomorrow, and anyway I want to see her."

She ended with a more defiant note than she had meant to, but it felt right. She squared her shoulders and glanced at where the waitress had gone, even when she knew the desserts couldn't possibly be ready so soon.

"So, you're thinking of keeping seeing her?" Amy said with a carefully neutral voice. "Is she... I mean, you are intimate, no? Is she clean?"

Maddy was about to snap something back, but at the last second it dawned on her that actually, while Lyric was clean at the moment, she was also a sex worker, and she couldn't in good conscience be as taken aback as she had wanted to be. Why did she feel such a need to defend Lyric?

Frank seemed interested the first time for a while and chimed in, "Oh yes, her! How is she down there?"

Maddy glared, and even Amy gave such a side eye that Frank raised his hands appealingly and flashed his best charmer smile. "Kidding! Just kidding! Though Mads, if you're going to keep her, maybe you could share some time, eh?"

Maddy rolled her eyes. "She's a person, she's not a... a... piece of cake. You're such an ass sometimes, François."

Amy frowned at Frank, and Maddy had a flash of intuition of how Amy had prepped Frank to behave, it being Maddy's birthday and all. God, had they always been so... so... predictable?

The rest of the dinner was still enjoyable, but something had fallen flat. Maddy wasn't sorry to kiss the other two goodbye and head for the subway with her overnight bag and the box of cheesecake.

***

Lyric made a pleased little giggle, tapping into some of Renna's energy, as she rolled back from a kneeling position into a squat and touched the tip of her index finger to the corner of her lip. She felt the wetness, but she really only needed to see where Dave was staring and smirking. He was predictable like that. When he saw her watching him, his smirk deepened. He reclined even a little bit more as she stood, softening cock flopped out over his pants. He didn't seem in a hurry to cover himself.

"The first is coming up," he said, as she turned. This was often how he brought up the subject of her wifi access.

She turned back to him, feeling the power imbalance of the moment, and tried to match his smirk. "Are you able to go again that quickly?"

"If you keep wiggling that cute little butt at me," he said, pointedly staring, "I might be."

"I have company tonight," Lyric replied. "Hence the drill."

Now, finally, he moved to tuck himself back into his jeans. "And you have pressing drilling needs?"

"Very," she fired back, archly.

She liked Dave. Dave would banter with her. The fact that she saw him more than anyone else probably enabled him somewhat. Good banter requires a point of ingress, some personal knowledge to twist, and Dave was just about the only person who knew anything about her. It was the bare minimum, but even that was a far sight more than her johns ever knew. He was still a landlord, in the theoretical sense, and among the constant mental gymnastics she performed to survive under capitalism, once-a-month anal was just about the easiest one to swallow.

"Do you have Lizzie and Mark this weekend?"

Dave nodded as he stood up, tugging on his zipper. "Got a whole schedule planned. This is a big one. Mark's birthday is the week after, so we're doing some stuff early."

"So you'll be busy."

"I didn't say that." He smirked at her, over his shoulder, as he pulled the hard plastic clam shell off the high shelf in his closet.

"I'm not coming over to have anal while your kids are asleep in the next room!" She managed a smile, to keep the mood light, but found that she'd also very tightly crossed her arms over her chest in clear no fucking way body language. "How about Friday? They usually come on Saturday, right?"

"Thursday is better," he said, presenting the drill case to her with both hands.

"Thursday it is," she said, giving him a little wink. She didn't love the performative enjoyment, but it wasn't the worst white lie she'd ever told.

"Oh," he said, as she turned to go. "Here."

He held out his hand, palm down as if to imply he was going to drop something, so she put her hand out to receive it. What appeared in her palm was a button, the kind with a pin on the back and his face on the front.

"Oh," she said, narrowing her gaze. "Are you running for something?"

"Open spot on the school board," he said. "There's a QR code on the back!"

"I'll check that out," she said, smiling despite the fact that something about the whole thing was setting off alarm bells.

She hustled back downstairs, turning the button over and over in her palm. The drill was forgotten as soon as she set it down inside the door, and she went straight for her laptop. She could have brought up the code on her phone, but she suspected the mobile version of whatever site he was using would be a little more polished. She wanted all the details. It took her all of about twenty seconds to start despairing.

What really stung was that he had been so proud to show her. He had smiled as he put this on her radar.

It was all dog whistle stuff. A platform based on returning power to the parents. Honoring the parents wishes. Increased transparency between counselors and parents when it comes to 'at risk youth'. Accountability. She didn't need to read the section on returning respectability to women's sports to know that there was a straight line through all of this that pointed to him being anti-trans, but she did and he was.