Rainbow Road by Alex Sanchez Page B

returning the squeegee he went inside, with Jason folowing.
    “I’m BJ.” The girl extended her hand to Jason.
    “I’m Jason.” He gently shook her hand, smiling.
    When Kyle told her she could come with them, BJ cheered, clapping her hands. She ran to tel a gray-haired mechanic in the service bay. He looked over at the three boys. BJ returned saying he’d asked her to write down their license numbers and addresses. “In case you guys turn out to be ax murderers.” She grinned.
    Once the boys had done that, BJ returned to kiss the old man on the cheek. Then she grabbed her bag from behind the counter and climbed into the car’s backseat with Nelson.
    “Put on one of my Britney CDs,” Nelson told Kyle as they puled back onto the interstate. “I worship Britney,” he said to BJ. “She’s a great look for you. So what’s it like out here in the sticks growing up gay?”
    Jason flashed a glance in the rearview. Was the girl in the backseat a lesbian? Wow. He’d never have guessed.
    “Wel, the truth is …” BJ hesitated, her voice quivering a little. “I never realy thought of myself as gay.” Jason listened carefuly. Was BJ saying she wasn’t a lesbian?

    “Not that I have anything against gay people. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve always known I was a girl.” Jason didn’t understand. What was she trying to say?
    “Is it okay if I smoke?” BJ asked, and Nelson gave her a cigarette from his pack.
    Jason frowned into the mirror at the two of them smoking. To make matters worse, it had starting raining, so he could open the window only a bit.
    “In school I always played with the other girls,” BJ continued and puffed on her cigarette. “And I always wanted to wear my sister’s clothes, though my mama and papa tried to stop me.”
    BJ raised her chin to exhale a stream of smoke and Jason noticed something weird from the rearview. Did BJ have an Adam’s apple?
    “The problem,” she said, “was I’d been given the body parts of a boy.”
    “Watch out!” Kyle shouted, reaching over to grab the steering wheel.
    Jason swerved, barely missing a truck that had braked ahead of them. His heart pounded as he refocused on the road ahead, while trying to keep from staring at the boy/girl in back.
    “The school I went to hadn’t a clue what to do with me,” BJ resumed. “They sent me home for wearing skirts I borrowed from other girls. My papa took a strap to me, teling me he’d die before any son of his wore a skirt.”
    As BJ spoke, Jason darted glances in the rearview, both curious and a little repulsed. Why would a guy dress up like a girl except as a joke? With the Faeries’
    zany outfits at least it had seemed like they were half-kidding. This wasn’t joking. Jason felt the urge to wipe off BJ’s makeup and tel him to stop it. But at the same time, she looked so beautiful.
    “I knew in my heart I was a girl.” BJ’s cigarette trembled in her hand. “I just couldn’t understand why nobody believed me. The county found out papa was beating me and caled social services. They brought me to live with my grandmama and granddad. That was him at the gas station. They didn’t know what to do with me either, but they pretty much let me stay home, grow my hair long, and help Granny around the house—until the county said I had to be in school. But when I showed up in a dress, the school sent me home saying I couldn’t come to school like that because it caused too much disturbance. I don’t know why it made the boys so crazy.”
    Jason glanced over at Kyle. Had he known BJ was a guy? Kyle glanced back at him and shrugged.
    “Finaly grandmama tried to put me in a Christian school across the county, teling them I was a girl. She put them off from getting my school records. For a whole week everybody treated me like a girl. It was the happiest week of my entire life.” BJ smiled at the green fields beyond the rain-spattered window.
    “Then this horrible PE teacher said I had to change