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say.
    Jolene crosses it out again.
    Dr. Ellman is suddenly at her side. “Your best quality is pizza?” she says. She cocks her head.
    â€œNo,” Jolene says. “I just had another idea.”
    Dr. Ellman leans in. She looks thoughtful and serious and compassionate. She taps a short, ragged fingernail against her narrow lips. Jolene shoots us a wide-eyed, panicked look. She knows what happens when teachers put on that face.
    â€œHave you considered the power of your story, Jolene?” Dr. Ellman says. Her voice is pitched low and intimate.
    Jolene is the third person in our school to come out as transgender, so no one really blinked when she did it in the fourth grade. But teachers like to remind her that they’re open-minded and accepting, and that she is special. This backfires. All they really remind her of is that they have no idea what they’re talking about.
    â€œYes,” Jolene says. She flips her paper over.
    We initiate Distraction Technique C—the Everyone’s Got Their Something maneuver.
    â€œDr. Ellman, is it too much of a downer to discuss my abandonment as a child in my personal essay?” I ask. At the same time Laura says, “Dr. Ellman, would the admissions board be rocked by the power of my quest to become a female designer or maybe an artist in a male-dominated world?”
    Hector is glancing back and forth between us and Jolene just sighs, but Dr. Ellman’s mouth is opening and closing like an aquarium fish. There’s too much to affirm . Too much to validate . Dr. Ellman is immobilized. A moment later she is distracted by an argument in the corner about what constitutes a “quality” as opposed to an “ingrained behavior” and squeaks off in her oxfords.
    I have wondered myself what Jolene’s essay will be. She does not often talk about her parents, their anger at her, her conviction that has had to turn into bravery too often. She wore a dress to the first day of fourth grade—a dress my grandmother bought Jolene because her parents wouldn’t listen to her, refused to listen to her, slammed doors on her for a year. Jolene asked everyone politely that they call her Jolene please and not everyone has been polite all the time, not always, despite the Humanism Handbook , and the other kids who came before her. People get curious. They ask her prying, detailed questions about her body. Jolene does not like it when I’m angry for her.
    There’s a moment of silence after Dr. Ellman’s retreat. ThenJolene calmly says, “Not pizza then.”
    â€œGrandmother hates pizza,” I say. “If she even tries to eat it she just tears off all the cheese and toppings and then has a couple of bites of the bread and then she dabs at her lips with a napkin and throws it all away.”
    â€œThat’s terrible,” Hector says.
    Jolene says, “Maybe she just thinks it’s too greasy.”
    Laura thumps her feet down on the floor and leans forward, pushing her sketchbook across the table. The page of heavy, curving interlinking lines is geometrically beautiful and a little dizzying. “I don’t understand your grandmother,” she says, and I look up from the sketchbook. “She’s so strange about that stuff.”
    â€œWhat stuff?” Hector says, but Laura’s not stopping.
    â€œAnd I don’t get the whole birthday bribe every year because what is she trying to say exactly and why doesn’t she realize that she’s just out of her mind?”
    â€œShe’s not out of her mind,” I say.
    â€œShe’s kind of out of her mind!” Laura throws her hands in the air and her pencil goes flying. “It’s not her business. Your body isn’t her business.”
    Laura lives in a world where she doesn’t have to answer to anyone, especially not her dad and stepmom. She can disappear into San Francisco for a weekend without a word. My father says, Jesus,