“I’m sorry,” Vera said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Annie looked embarrassed. “Then again, not talking about it’s sort of been my problem.”

“Is your girl also cis?” said Lucy.

“No.”

“Right, best get her back then. What’s her number? I’ll call her for you.”

Annie laughed. Vera said, “Who is she? We know her?”

“Maybe? Lizzy, Lizzy Inada?”

“Oh, I think so!” said Vera. “Punk girl, funny …?”

“That’s her.”

“What happened?”

Annie paused, looking up, visibly recalling a memory. Then her expression faltered. “I think I actually don’t wanna talk about it. But hey, maybe this is a nice story: When she and I first met? I didn’t realize she was coming on to me. I didn’t realize trans women hooking up with each other was, like, a possibility. We were chatting outside the bar and I just thought, That’s nice. I don’t have many trans lady friends. And for once she’s not white. That’s even nicer. And then she was like, ‘Can I kiss you?’ And right there. In two seconds. The world was different.”

Vera had listened raptly. “That’s lovely.”

Annie smiled into her glass. “We had some good times.”

Vera was cashing out a bill at the other end of the bar when she heard Lucy, angry. “What the fuck!”

“You okay?” Vera called.

Lucy was staring at her phone. “What the fucking fuck! Have you heard of this show Work It?”

Annie’s face slackened. “Oh. That. Yeah.”

“What’s this?” Vera said.

Lucy flipped her phone to Vera and Vera read out loud: “‘This high-concept comedy centres on two unrepentant guy’s guys who, unable to find work, dress as women to get jobs as pharmaceutical reps. Not only do they pull it off, but they might just learn to be better men in the process’—oh my God, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Watch it win a million Emmys,” Annie said darkly.

“Can you believe fucking Entertainment Weekly is calling this ‘high-concept’?!” Lucy said. “I can’t stand America. If I stay any longer I’ll be an American. I have to leave.”

Annie tapped her glass on the bar. “I mean, I hate to say it—not to give them any credit, because they won’t have meant it this way—but it’s not a dishonest idea about what gender is. A way to get something.”

Vera’s back had been turned and she stopped and turned around. “Excuse me?”

“Gender is transactional,” Annie said. “It doesn’t exist in a vacuum.”

“Of course gender doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but how is it transactional? We’re making pretty bad transactions if that’s the case. Worst capitalists ever?” It came out more meanly than Vera meant it.

“No, she’s right Vera,” said Lucy. “All right, listen, I am old, okay, and I’m pretty done with this shit, but I came out in 2001, right? That time, I was only gendered correctly by homeless people. I thought there was something nice about that at first. Liberal bullshit, whatever. Later I realized, in that period of my life, they were the only ones who needed something from me.”