Chapter Text
Joanna looked at the phone booth and wondered how Rufus knew she was here. But then again, he was from the future and had a log on all sorts of events big and small. It made her worry about the privacy-invading implications of such knowledge but at the moment, she was glad that Rufus was here.
The man stepped out of the phone booth with his blue cloak and nifty shades.
“Hey, Joanna,” he said, “What’s going on?” His voice sounded like the soft, nurturing version of the tough, cynical voice he normally had.
Joanna took several short breaths. Her eyes stopped watering.
“It’s Bill…” she said.
“Yeah?” said Rufus, “What about him?”
“She’s a fraud. She’s been lying to me this whole time, telling me that her name was Bill and that she was a boy. I’ve known her for the past two years and it’s like this whole relationship has been a joke!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Rufus. He lifted his hands and pushed the air as he said this. “Let’s call him by his preferred pronouns, okay? I know you’re mad at him, but let him have some dignity, okay?”
Joanna thought a bit. Looking back, Bill wasn’t in a jokey mood when he told her about his past. There was no way that he hid this for two years just to be funny, even though he was normally a funny guy.
“All right. HE is a fraud. HE’S been hiding this from me the entire time.”
“I’m guessing you just found out that Bill is transgender?” said Rufus.
“Trans… what?”
“Transgender. You know… you were assigned a gender at birth and it turns out to be the wrong one.”
“I’ve never heard of this before. Is it a little like the eunuchs that reside in the Far East?”
“Not really. If you have the time, I can explain it to you. I can explain a whole lot of things to you.”
Joanna blinked. She had the time. She wasn’t doing anything else that night. Understanding the concept of transgender couldn’t be any more difficult than trying to understand electricity, the automobile or antibiotics. On second thought, she only had a slight grasp of an understanding of those things. The least she could do was try to understand.
“Yes,” she said, “I want very much for you to explain.”
“Well, first, we have to get into the concept of gender…”
Joanna sat there attentive, just like she did when she had those etiquette classes back in the day. Rufus spent that time explaining gender, sex, sexuality, identity, presentation, and anything else that could be related to the topic at hand. He made sure to pause so that she could ask questions. Rufus even made sure to give some history lessons relating to the subject. It was his specialty, after all.
Before they knew it, two hours has passed. The orange tone of the sunset had given way to the darkness and shadows. From this lecture, Joanna learned how nuanced human beings could really be. It wasn’t just men with penises attracted to women and women with vaginas attracted to men. Sure, that was most people, but humans had multiple layers to them. These people with different-looking layers existed throughout history.
“I have to say, I feel a bit more enlightened now,” said Joanna. “I think I understand.”
“Well, you don’t have to understand it all at once,” said Rufus, “It takes a while.”
“I think… I think I’m ready to go back to Bill now. That is, if he hasn’t completely given up on me.”
“I have a good feeling that he won’t,” said Rufus. He opened up his history book to inspect the contents. “My history book here still says that you eventually marry him and your band will bring about The New Golden Age. From that alone, I say there’s still hope.”
Joanna figured that if she didn’t hurry back to Bill’s house, the contents of the book in Rufus’ hand would change. Or maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe all possible timelines would have her and Bill together. Either way, she couldn’t concern herself with the rules of Space-Time.
“You have my gratitude, Rufus!” she said as she ran off.
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She stood on the sidewalk in front of Bill’s house. The lights on the lower level of the house were still off. It seemed that Mr. Preston and Missy’s date was going a bit long. Joanna gulped. Could she face Bill after the insensitive things she said to him? She had to. The fate of the world rested on her doing it.
She walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. She could hear the dulcet melody faintly from the inside of the house. There was no way that Bill could ignore it. He wouldn’t know it was her until he answered.
Finally, Bill came down the stairs and answered the door. He didn’t smile like he normally did when seeing Joanna after a long while. The muscles in his face were as dormant as a stone
“Bill… I’m…” she said. She bit her lip in her anxiety. “I’m sorry for the way I acted. I’m sorry for accusing you of playing tricks on me. I’m sorry I used your old name. Do you think you can let me inside and we can talk some more?”
Bill tightened the muscles in the sides of his mouth into something that could sort of be a smile. Without saying a word, he let her inside and guided her up the stairs.
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Joanna found herself sitting on Bill’s lumpy bed once more, but this time with more knowledge than before.
“So, you’ve had some time to think, I’m guessing?” asked Bill.
“Oh, better than that,” said Joanna, “Rufus showed up and gave me a lesson on what exactly a ‘transgender’ is.”
“I prefer to be called a transgender person… but hey, it’s a start, I guess.” Bill looked down and played with the hole in his jeans, which was getting bigger every time he fiddled with it.
“He taught me about gender and how people are attracted to different people and how some people aren’t male or female at all, in their sex or their gender. He also gave me a history lesson on various people.”
“And what do you think of all this?”
“I have more of an understanding… but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I’m still quite confused about some things.”
Bill laughed. “You and me both, Babe! We can be confused together.”
“The reason I lashed out at you was because I was scared and confused. I didn’t quite understand anything from your perspective.”
“You’re right, Joanna.” Bill started to look serious once more. “In fact, many people don’t. They don’t know what it’s like to feel like a prisoner in your own body. They don’t know what it’s like to look in the mirror and feel like someone totally different is staring back at you. They don’t know what it’s like to cringe every time you hear the name you were given when you were born. I can assure you, none of those things are bodacious OR excellent.”
Joanna scooched a bit closer to Bill. She thought about how she didn’t give her birth name a second thought, how she never itched to get out of her body, even if outside forces conspired to make her feel insecure about her looks.
“I know I find it hard to empathize, but what I do know now is that before you became Bill, you were suffering. And I don’t want you to suffer.”
“Babe, I know deep down that you’re not hateful. At least not like my mother.” Bill picked up the “Cherished Memories” book and flipped to the middle. There was a photo of a little girl with golden curls and a fancy dress dancing on stage and smiling. For all Joanna knew, the smile was probably as fake as Bill’s presentation at that moment. “My mom wanted me to be the next biggest thing. She brought me to dance lessons and put me into talent competitions. She treated me more like a doll than a son. But at that age, I believed that I would become a man when I grew up and that was why I had the feelings that I did. I had those feelings for as long as I could remember, before my mother made me perform, but I couldn’t really communicate them. I hoped that I would grow into a man… but then my breasts came in. I got my period. It hurt to hear my mom hug me and tell me that I was becoming a woman.”
“I guess it would be like me growing into the body of a man when I don’t want to,” said Joanna.
“I think you understand where I’m coming from, my excellent girlfriend.”
Maybe Joanna wasn’t entirely correct when she said that she couldn’t empathize. Bill still saw her as his girlfriend to boot.
“Anyway,” continued Bill, “I finally decided that I had it. I wanted to be who I truly was. I cut my hair short. I started dressing differently. I started calling myself by a new name. I wrapped bandages around my chest. This was my first act of rebellion as the rockstar that I was destined to become. But my mother didn’t have it. She didn’t want to see her precious little doll like this. Many kids don’t like it when their parents divorce but boy, am I glad to have her out of my life.”
“What does you father think of all this?” asked Joanna.
“He doesn’t think much of it. He just thinks it’s a harmless phase. Whatever. I’m just happy that he and Missy call me Bill.”
“I’m assuming Ted knows about this?”
“Oh, he was the first one I came out to. When we used to play on the playground, we pretended to go fishing in the giant sandbox. My pretend fisherman name was Bill. It felt so right that I asked if he could call me that from now on, and he did.”
“Now that’s a true friend.”
“I know, right? But that’s Ted. He went along with it probably because he’s easy-going and weird, not that I’m complaining. I’m not surprised that you don’t understand this whole transgender thing. Not many people of this time period understand it, either. In fact, it took a guy from the year 2688 to explain to me what I was going through. After Ted and I went on our excellent adventure, Rufus took me to the future and took me to a specialist that did wacky stuff to my chest and my brain that made me feel way better. And when that happened, it all became clear. I was all, ‘I was right, I AM a boy. I was destined to become a man, just like how I’m destined to be a part of the greatest rock band ever.’ But I didn’t have them change everything. I might leave what’s between my legs the way it is. Or I might not. I don’t know.”
“I hope you accept my apology,” said Joanna. “I loved you before I learned that you were transgender. It would be awfully petty of me to retract that love after you came out to me.”
“You know what?” he asked in complete seriousness. His stone-serious look returned.
Joanna felt a slither of intimidation. She couldn’t possibly know what would come next.
“What?” she asked.
“I do accept your apology. I’m just screwing around with ya.”
Joanna laughed. “Never change, Bill.” She placed her hand on Bill’s knee. Bill placed his hand on top of hers. After a few hours of heartbreak, it felt good to be this close again. “I just have one question.”
“Yeah?”
“On our wedding night, how are we going to… um… you know…” Even after a two-hour lecture detailing sexuality, Joanna still didn’t feel comfortable calling it what it was.
Bill laughed.
“There are lots of ways to do that, Babe!” he said, “But I guess that’s another lecture from Rufus for another time.”
“And how are we going to have children?”
“There are ways of doing that, too. But we don’t have to worry about that until later.”
Like that, everything clicked back together. Bill was back to his happy-go-lucky self.
“Do you want to play a board game or something?” asked Joanna.
“How about Battle Ship?” asked Bill, “That’s a good two-player game. I would suggest Parcheesi but despite its name, it has absolutely nothing to do with cheese.”
Bill, Ted, Joanna and Elizabeth were off to save the world with their music. Or, rather, they were going to do that on some future date. For now, Bill and Joanna could have a quiet night playing a strategic game with boat-shaped pieces of plastic. No matter what kind of body Bill had, he was Bill through and through. Nothing on God’s earth was perfect. Bodies were flawed and temporary. Beautiful souls were a rare find and Joanna felt that she lucked out.