For Today I Am a Boy by Kim Fu Page B

his pans unnecessarily, as though it would make the mushrooms cook faster. “No. Just busy. Fuck off.”
    The cooks hooted. I banged two pots together to join in the noise. Chef put one hand on the range hood to cut off Simon’s path. “You telling
me
to fuck off, Simon? Is that what just happened?”
    â€œSorry,” Simon muttered, squeaking. “I’m just trying to work.” He tried to push past Chef again. “I need more onions.”
    Chef held him by the collar of his jacket. His voice changed. “Stop being such a macho fuckup and ask for help when you need it. That’s my fucking job, to help you. Don’t go running off to the cooler when your station looks like this—send someone. You hear me?”
    I slipped away from the pit. The dishes were almost cleared. The rashes on my arms had begun to peel and weep pus. Inside the cooler, I filled a new insert of chopped onions and brought it over to where Chef and Simon were now cooking elbow to elbow, working to finish all the sauté orders.
    â€œThanks,” Chef said, surprised. He nodded at Simon. “Maybe we should give Wong your job.”
    Simon pretended to laugh in his high, wounded voice.
    Â 
    In the front seat of Ollie’s truck, I changed from the work clothes that my parents saw into a T-shirt and sweatpants. Ollie ate handfuls of raw almonds out of a bag on the dashboard while he drove. My unstrapped body flung around with each sharp turn. “What are you going to do after graduation?” he asked.
    â€œCulinary school.” It was the nearest approximation to what was expected of me that I could handle. My parents might be able to understand. It had the word
school
in it.
    â€œMy brother went to university,” Ollie offered. This was still unusual in Fort Michel.
    â€œSo did both of my sisters.”
    â€œI know. We have that in common.” He gave me a moment to digest that. “I’m going to follow him after I graduate. He lives in Montreal.”
    Ollie’s gym was a storefront in one of the strip malls at the edge of town, its emptiness visible through the windows. We parked right in front of the door. “My brother says it’s, like, the best city on earth,” he continued. “The hottest women. The craziest parties.”
    We hopped out of the truck. He unlocked the door to the gym with his member’s key. Though there was no one around, it still smelled powerfully of sweat and bodies at close quarters. A poster by the door showed a woman doing some kind of twist, one foot in the air. She wore red spandex shorts and a halter bra, her defined abs and cleavage oiled. “How do you look like
that?
” I said aloud.
    Ollie took the question at face value. “Diet and exercise. I’m doing a bulk. If you want to look like her, you’ll have to keep your body fat quite low.” He didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about my wanting to look like her—like it was as legitimate as his desire to be hulking and large. Another thing we had in common: we wanted different bodies than our own.
    He called on me to watch and learn as he started loading weight onto a bar. My eyes kept drifting back to the poster of the girl. When I looked at it again, I couldn’t tell if was in fact oil or if she was just that slick with sweat. Droplets clouded the air around her ponytail. “What about her legs? How do you get legs like hers?”
    Ollie hoisted the bar behind his neck and started doing squats. He talked only on the exhale. “Your legs are already . . . as thin as hers. You just need to build . . . muscle on your ass.” He lifted the bar back onto the rack.
    I searched his face, looking for judgment. His expression was as resolute and unemotional as when I’d watched him running with his former teammates. He had me try squatting the empty bar. My knees bowed outward after only three, and he pulled it