“Everyone is an ass-wipe during the beginning of their transition. Luckily, I was dog-walking and didn’t have much human contact aside from the Witch and the Stoner-Hacker, who are lost in their own worlds. Still, I was mean to the dogs, not in any direct way, but my inner dialogue was constantly bitter, like, Why do you assholes get to be fed and applauded for every small thing, played with, caressed, treated with warmth while I am the lowest of the low, and I am a human, which is supposed to be higher than an animal in some fucked-up hierarchy?

“That first Yom Kippur in the city, I tried to atone for all the bad vibes I had unleashed into the world by washing my hands in the radioactive waters below the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge, even tho, arguably, the bad vibes didn’t belong to me. They belonged to the existence of social norms.

“At first, my former guardian, Margot, was all uptight and weird, but then I was, too. Now she sends me articles about every state that legalizes a third-gender option, which is her way of expressing love.”

“Good for her,” Aiden said.

I was hardly satisfied with this reaction. I had just dumped all of my whole story onto him, and he’d let it slide off.

I certainly could not do that with the stories of others!

“You know, I think it will be good for Blithe if we’re open about our complicated feelings,” I said. What I meant was that it would be good for him if we arrived in Joshua Tree newly bonded.

Aiden shrugged.

To my right, the businessman played a game involving jewels. He made no sign that our conversation had reached him.

The palm trees waved at me through the windows at LAX. As we walked to the baggage claim (Aiden brought a ton of material possessions), we passed travelers in straw hats, holding their succulent carriers. I found myself believing that things could be different in a new, drier climate.

We picked up our luggage, found Aiden’s hatchback in Lot D, and headed east toward a motel in the Californian hinterlands.

The more hours I spent with him, the more I was able to destroy his perfect tableau. He was super anal about driving, checking all his mirrors before he switched lanes, keeping the car just under the speed limit. He had a folder with him in his waterproof tote that contained every piece of documentation about his transition, in case airport security, some stranger in the bathroom, or a potential sponsor needed to verify exactly what was going on with his genital situation. Inside his wallet, antimalarial tablets.

He glanced furtively at the road as he passed a car, and I expanded in the dry air. I sat in the passenger seat, relishing the ugliness of California and surmising about Blithe in a gossipy way, as if we were entering a melodrama of easy feeling and action.