For Today I Am a Boy by Kim Fu

Author:Kim Fu
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (www.hmhco.com)
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Bonnie had a housewarming party a week later. I brought a six-pack of fancy beer as a gift, chosen because the girl in the label art reminded me of Bonnie. It was a raspberry beer in opaque glass bottles, the last of the summer stock. The girl had flowers for hair, the flowers’ vines creeping down her neck.

Bonnie lived in a shared eight-bedroom apartment in the lower Plateau—essentially a house built atop a coffee shop. As I came up the outside steps, the front door was thrown open by a man in a tie, sweatpants, and no shirt.

“Hey!” he cried, as though I were a long-lost friend. “Here for the party?”

I stopped walking, though I was still a few steps down. I had to look up at him. “Yes. I’m Bonnie’s brother.” I held the beer up over my head like an offering.

“Cool. Get in here.”

Inside, I went up a second staircase, lined by one brick wall. Photos of people I didn’t recognize were mounted onto the brick, in mismatching frames that climbed with the stairs. Near the top was a decorative white frame that I had seen sold in dollar stores around Mother’s Day. You were supposed to put a picture of your mother inside; there was raised black lettering underneath that read MOTHER * HERO * FRIEND. Instead of a photo of Mother, there was a picture of Helen, Adele, and me, lined up left to right, taken when Helen and Adele were teenagers and I was an alarmed-looking child clutching Adele’s hand. I couldn’t believe Bonnie would put up something so personal so quickly.

I found Bonnie right away. She wore a black lace full-length bodysuit that went from ankle to wrist to a turtleneck collar, the lace only slightly thicker over her breasts and crotch. She hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. “Peter! I’m so glad you’re here. Isn’t this a great space?”

In addition to the one brick wall, there were ceilings that were cavernously high and floors made of scratched, stained hardwood. The living room was huge, crammed with people of a wide range of ages. A toddler sat on her father’s shoulders, higher than the crowd, staring with naked curiosity.

“It is.” I meant it. “I brought beer.”

“Great! Put it in the kitchen!” She returned to the conversation she’d been having and then, noticing that I hadn’t moved, added, “It’s over there.”

The kitchen was relatively empty, only one woman inside, her back to the archway that I walked through. The noise seemed to fall away into a flat hum. Her hands were busy; I assumed she was making a drink. In the narrow passageway, I couldn’t get past her to the fridge. “Pardon me. Can I just—get in here . . .”

She didn’t move.

I flattened myself against the cabinets and slid by. The acidic smell of rotten garlic—in my line of work, I could identify the scents of specific foods rotting—emerged as I opened the fridge door and put the beer inside. I glanced over.

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