Early morning. It was raining a lot more now, getting more humid. It was nearly April after all. Often, Mama didn't want to walk Zorro, I had to. I couldn't help but feel depressed out there in the grey rain, waiting for Zorro to do her business as she sniffed everything she could see.

In the rain, it was too easy to think about Ambrose. What he was doing, everything about him. I didn't want to think about him, but I did as well. And these were where my depressed feelings mounted into fury that felt like too much damn pain.

Ambrose. What was he doing right now? Where was he, was he okay? These basic questions were what were driving me insane.

Even though you don't want to, you still love the person who betrayed you. You can't stop it. I was learning this quickly. It was like when Zorro bit me sometimes. Ambrose had bitten me, but I couldn't stop loving him.

It was just the sort of thing I'd go to Georgina for, but Georgina was... So even more so when I had these betrayed feelings I felt awful because I was rudely reminded that Georgina wasn't there anymore. Instead, she was with Miss Cha Cha, at Ambrose's house, a place I couldn't go and couldn't face. But I couldn't face her anyway.

This rainy day, Zorro was out in the rain again kicking up at the little grassy bit a ways down from our door. I didn't want to pick up her mess, it was insult to injury. But I did anyway, leaning down with the bag. I threw it in the waste bin on the grassy bit, glad it was there.

Walking back home, I realized that at least picking up her mess made me think of something else than Ambrose and Georgina. And with a sinking feeling in my stomach I realized I'd rather think about her mess than my own.

The keys rattled onto the table as I set them down. I leaned down to undo the leash from Zorro's collar and once done, Zorro immediately ran to her water dish. Watching her drink messily, I sighed. I was so tired. Just so tired of it all.

Mama came out of her bedroom, putting on a red sweater. I never thought red looked good on her, but I didn't dare tell her. I sighed again, thinking about how I could tell Miss Cha Cha such things. But every color looked good on Miss Cha Cha. She was just that way, perfect in everything-

"I ordered Chinese twenty minutes ago. I'm going to pick it up, but I wanted to ask you something first."

Being polite was not Mama's strong suit, so it startled me a little bit. I hung the leash up on a coat hook next to the door. "Yes, Mama?" I asked, not looking her in the face. My mind was still on Miss Cha Cha despite. She was just there. I didn't know why. Maybe my heart missed her too much.

"Did you hear back from any jobs today? I want to know, Ruiz. The rent is due April 1st. That's only two weeks away."

"Ten days."

Mama stopped speaking, I dared to look up at her and she was staring at me. It made me shudder in my dirty sneakers, invisible to her.

"Yes, ten days. I guess. But it's due. I need you to have a job by then." She took the keys off the table in front of me with a scrape on the wood.

I swallowed, but this only reminded me of Ambrose. His habit of doing that. His habit... I looked at the floor, trying to avoid everything, especially my Mama's gaze. I wanted to tell her something, too. How I couldn't guarantee that I'd have a job in ten days. How the world didn't work like that, and how sometimes you don't get what you wanted. Like how...Ambrose and me... But I knew better than to talk back.

There was another thought in my head, but I didn't want to think about it either.

And what would happen if I didn't have a job in ten days? What would happen? Would she throw me out again? But I already knew the answer to that question, all by myself.

I didn't care. I really didn't care. This sudden thought was somehow liberating to me, causing a tickling in my stomach and a dizzying in my head. It was an uncertainty, but also a freedom. A strange rebellion, like nothing mattered anymore.

But my brain took it for what it was: a dangerous, dangerous thought. And it was sucked back into me, but my body knew it had happened.

"I'll have a job in ten days," I lied, still not looking at her, just staring at the kitchen floor.

"You better," was all she said back as she opened the door. They key chains rattled together on the keyring she held and I jumped as she slammed the door shut behind her.

Trying not to think about anything, especially about what had just happened in my body. I knelt down under the sink and took out Zorro's dog food and righted myself. Wordless, I scooped out a cup of food for her without another thought in my numb brain.

"I found us a job. Are you ready?"

Oh. It was two days from when my Mama had given me her lecture about the rent. Two days from that feeling in my stomach. That tingling feeling.

"Um...yeah, Tony. I'm ready." I adjusted the phone on my ear. I'd dragged it into my room. I could still hear Mama's TV blaring in her room. She was watching Telemundo or Univision, one of those. The laughter of an audience flared up, too loud.

"Okay, listen. Veronixxxa and I were eating at this diner, right? Then she started getting really mad. I was like, 'whoa, what's up'. So get this. She told me it was her dad's diner. Did you know that? Did you know her dad owned a diner? I didn't. Well, apparently he doesn't own one diner. He owns three. We weren't at the one that he works at, but she didn't like being there. So I asked her if they were hiring or what because I know you need a job like now. She knows that, too. She didn't want to tell me right away, but it turns out they were hiring in her dad's. They need dishwashers-"

"I'm not going to be a dishwasher again." My hand gripped the phone harder in this, how I'd dared to say that. How dare I turn down a job? But I hated dishwashing.

"Ruiz."

I sighed. It was small, but I'd detected a betrayal in his voice. "I'm sorry," I sighed into the phone. "Tell me about the job."

He went on, his relief audible. "You don't have to take it if you don't want to. I know you were a dishwasher at McCrory's Pub and all. That place is racist, I know I told you. But Veronixxxa's dad's place isn't like that. If you're a good worker you can be a waitress, maybe work the cash register. You gotta work your way up, that's all it is."

You can be a waitress. A waitress? Wait a minute.

"Wait, Tony. A waitress? What are you talking about? What did you tell them?"

He had to know the question I was asking. The pause on the line told me he did.

He spoke again, after a bit. He sounded unsure, nervous. "I told them you're a woman."

My heart dropped into my stomach. "Tony... You didn't..." Great. This job. I needed this job and he'd told them that? What was I going to do? Why would he do that? My stomach was shuddering, going against what I wanted. But my heart was telling me something different, a strange hopeful spell going on in my mind. But I had to snuff this out. I couldn't do that.

I couldn't go there as a woman. I couldn't work as a woman. I was too scared. Working at night in drag was one thing, but this was in daylight. There would be families. I'd be-

"Tony, I can't- I can't do that. You gotta tell them... But... God, Tony, I don't know..." My voice was shaking. I couldn't stop it.

"I just figured that, um, you'd want to be you. You know? You know what I mean? Veronixxxa goes there all the time in women's clothes. I don't think her dad cares. The regulars are used to it and everything, that's what she told me. She also told me that who cares what people think?"

Who cares? My stomach began to tingle. That tingly feeling again, from the other day. It made me shudder.

"Tony, who cares? Who cares? Customers care. They don't want to be served by someone like- like me. Do you understand that? They don't want..." But my voice trailed off, because the person who'd been in my head for the past two days persistently showed up again. Her smiling face.

Customers. Miss Cha Cha. My brain was thinking frantically. Miss Cha Cha has a dance studio. She has all those students. She taught them how to dance every day and they didn't care who she was. No...that wasn't correct.

"Tony, I don't..." He waited patiently on the other end of the line.

Miss Cha Cha. Her students admired her for her talent and kindness. How she helped them learn, taught them things they wanted to know. She was transgender like me, but they didn't care about that part.

I breathed in sharply, held it.

So what if...customers didn't care about me like that? He'd just said regulars didn't care about how Veronixxxa dressed. Her dad, maybe my future boss, didn't care about how she dressed. What about...

My lips parted, forming my thoughts in my mouth.

What about me?

"O-okay, Tony." My stomach started to tickle more as these words left my mouth.

"Okay? Okay, you want to work there? Like you?"

"Um. Yeah, Tony."

I heard him breathe out on the other end of the phone. He sounded so relieved. I tried to breathe too, but it was harder now. The tingly feeling in my stomach was growing. The strange feeling, that strange, dangerous freedom feeling. My toes curled in it as my hand gripped the phone so hard I thought I'd break it.