Chapter 6

Later, after Tamara was snugged down in her sheets. The Pacific Northwest, as her dad called it, was at this time of year, cold and damp or icy and damp. Rain drizzled down for weeks at a time, and once or twice a year it would snow. In spite of the variety of precipitation, it was really monotonous -- it rained for weeks, it snowed or was cold for weeks; you were lucky to string together two sunny days in a row.

So much to think about! Such different things! She needed to find out the name of the girl she had played against this morning. It was odd, Tamara thought, to understand in a moment of clarity that she was most likely being hit on. It might not have been obvious, or what normal people would think of as ‘being hit on,’ but Tamara was sure that was what it was.

Her parents had been lying to her all this time. She was embarrassed more than anything else, as she hadn’t been honest with them either. How many times had she been asked how she felt? Hundreds of times for sure! Even now, nearly a dozen years after it had happened, now and then her side would ache and it was all she could do to move. Aspirin didn’t touch it, nothing did. Had she trusted her various foster parents from the beginning? Ha! It had taken years for her not to jump at loud noises or flashes of light. Her adoptive parents weren’t much of photographers and definitely weren’t rainy day photographers. And of course, thunder and lightning were uncommon in the Pacific Northwest.

The girl from this morning popped into her head again; a clear, sharp picture. The question was, who could she ask? She was considered a nerd by her classmates. She had missed a lot of school after it had happened. Nearly an entire year, and when she had gone back to school, she had been given a placement test to see where she needed to start. At the time, they were thinking going back to kindergarten, but Tamara knew how to add and subtract; she knew her multiplication tables, she could do long division, she could read what they gave her to read without halting.

The test showed she was ready to start third grade, but she started in second grade instead. So now she was sixteen, and should have been a high school sophomore, but instead, she was a junior. Was she being hit on? Rationally, there was no reason to think that five games of competitive ping pong could be construed as ‘hitting on’ as she was sure she had been. Another girl. Hitting on her.

Tamara snorted. Back to thinking in short sentences! What if the other had been hitting on her? What should she do? The smart thing to do would be to hang back and see if it was true. While she thought that was the best approach, it lacked important information. If not, no harm, no foul. Well, it might give her some pause to consider why she thought she was being hit on. But, far more urgent, was the question of what to do if it were true.

She’d had sex ed in middle school; they pretty much all had. Boys? Tamara snorted again. Nope! Not a chance! She didn’t know what she wanted to do for the rest of her life, but messing with boys had great risks for messing that up. On the other hand, she’d never considered the other option. Not only hadn’t she thought about it, she hadn’t even thought about thinking about it! And here it was! What should she do?

The church taught that two women together was wrong. Well, her parents might be sending her to a Catholic high school, but they were, so far as Tamara knew, Presbyterian. Her father was cynical. “Presbyterians believe that if you are among the ‘elected,’ you go to heaven. If you accept God on your deathbed, no matter how much a monster you had been before, Saint Peter would tell you: ‘Pass, friend.’” He’d shaken his head. “That’s a little too convenient for me.”

Her mom’s thoughts were that gays were pushing too hard, and her dad was quiet about his opinion.

She fell asleep, still tossing the subject around in her mind.

When she came down to breakfast, her dad was reading the Oregonian.

“Well, how’s it feel to have rocked a city, Tamara?” her dad asked. “The mayor has thrown the city attorney off the sleigh to feed the wolves. ‘What? Who, me? I’d never agree to cheat a city employee of our neighbor across the river of his just due! This idea was hatched in the city attorney’s office without reference to me or the others of the city council.’” Her dad shook his head. “Early yesterday, the C-Tran driver’s union filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit on the driver’s behalf against the City of Portland, the Mayor, and the City Attorney. Just before close of business yesterday, they added a pair of zeros to the amount they are suing for. The governor of Washington has announced that the Washington State Police will be involved ‘closely’ with the investigation.”