After more than a few stops, they got off the bus. Aunty Floresta checked an address, then led them to a Mexican bakery with the usual cookies and cakes, multicolored pan dulce.
But Edwin scratched his head. With all the cakes and sweets on display, why was he smelling bread?
Then Aunty beelined to a shelf full of warm bolillos. Other women were filling their bags with the rolls, but she was able to get a half dozen.
Floresta also bought two hot chocolates and gestured to a table. Edwin walked over and sat down just as a young white man with a beard and a piece of pan dulce rushed to take it.
“Oh, for crying out—you’re not really going to take that table when I wanted it, are you?”
Edwin was about to get up and apologize when Aunty Floresta put his hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t say sorry. He’s not our customer.” She glared at the man, who muttered something about Asians, then backed off.
“Now, let’s try this,” Aunty Floresta said happily.
First, they sipped the hot chocolate. There was cane sugar, honey, milk, cinnamon, almond, and yes, a small amount of nutmeg.
Then Aunty reached into the bag and pulled out one of the bolillo rolls. She broke it in half and gave one piece to Edwin.
It was a little like the French baguettes used to make Vietnamese sandwiches. But where those were almost dainty, these were big, and chewy, and hearty. This was bread that a family could say grace to. This was bread that, after working hard all morning, you found waiting in your lunchbox, sliced in half and stuffed with meat and beans and cotija cheese.
“You like?” Aunty asked.
Edwin nodded. He tore off some crust, then dipped it into his hot chocolate.
By the time they returned to Starrgate, two hours had passed, yet no one had noticed their absence. Lan was still discussing the level-four diagnostic with Shirley, while Markus had moved to monitoring the replicator.
Windee was at her computer, methodically plotting schematics for the stargate. Edwin split a bolillo—it was still warm—then gave half to his twin sister. She paused and took a bite.
“It’s bread.”
“I know! Bread!” Edwin said excitedly.
Windee shrugged and went back to work.
Every few days, Aunty Floresta would motion Edwin to the bus. Often they sampled some sort of bread product, but it might also be pork blood soup with fresh mung bean sprouts and crispy basil, or crispy skewers of fried stinky tofu drenched in garlic and sweet soy sauce. Once it was a fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice. Another time it was corn on the cob, roasted on a stick and slathered in half-melted butter.
All the while, Aunty would be talking to people on the bus, on the street, at the store. She would chat with people pushing carts, holding shopping bags.
And then, she would light up and tell Edwin of the next place that they must go.
* * *
Finally, Katrina had a voice that was beautiful. Martha had been wonderful, and she was very grateful, but with Aubergine, her voice was finally her own.
She cradled Aubergine and quietly tiptoed downstairs from her bedroom, and into her new studio.
Her studio. She stopped. Her violin? Her studio?
As if. As if any of this could be believed.
All it would take would be a change in mind, a change in word, and she’d be on her own once more.
She?
Katrina’s smile faded immediately, as if reality had returned.
She thought of her body, the chromosomes it lacked, the voice that it could not hold. Sure, someone could hold her, kiss her, treat her like a girl today. But tomorrow, that same person could say she was crazy, a half-woman freak.
Hadn’t Evan done just that?
So what about her was true? What could be trusted?
Her father had hit her, even kicked her. But her mother said he was such a good man. And besides, they were her parents. What did Katrina do to make such a good man hurt her so badly?
She had told herself it was because she was transgender. She had told herself that it was because she was ugly, creepy, stupid, dishonest.
But what if everything she had told herself was a lie? What if it wasn’t about what she was, but that she was? What if something about her was intrinsically, inherently wrong?
She began to shake. She closed her eyes and clenched her hands.
Then she remembered that her hands were not empty. She relaxed her grip, and as the Evah Pirazzis came off the fingerboard, they made the softest, gentlest cry.
“Are you in distress?” a voice said.
Katrina almost dropped her violin.
“What?”
Katrina noticed the projector was glowing faintly blue. Slowly, Shirley’s form solidified.