Authors: Sassafras Lowrey
Wendi brought the brass to wood. The door flung open, and we were met with bright yellow light from the hallway. Mrs Darling didn't look at all surprised to see us, but Wendi didn't notice. She was too busy nestling into the Darlings' embrace and then proudly introducing us. I got caught up in the commotion, making sure that the Twins were paying attention. When I looked around, Pan had turned away and was walking swiftly down the sidewalk, away from us, my leather cuff dangling from his back left pocket. Mrs Darling had just been saying that, of course they would take us in, help us get settled in life, that she could be like a mother to us. It was at that very moment that I started to cry, and she thought I was crying tears of relief and gratitude for her words. Stupid. I've never cried over a mother. It was Pan I cried for when I thought I would never see him again and the unbearable weight of my decision settled onto me.
W
e'd arrived at dinnertime. Wendi had me help her set the table. She kissed me by the fireplace in the dining room while Mrs Darling was busy teaching all the bois how to mash potatoes and fix green salad. Wendi said we needed to keep “us” a secret for now, that the Darlings wouldn't like us “living in sin” within their proper home. I groaned. These were the parts of the grownup world I had forgotten and wasn't prepared for. Wendi kissed me again, her fingernails tenderly tracing my jaw before pinching my neck. She would make all this worth it. We heard a glass break in the kitchen, the slippery hand of a boi, no doubt. I giggled, and Wendi glared. This was new turf and I had to learn the rules. She pointed at the stack of plates we had left at the edge of the table. The dining room table had a leaf so it could be made long enough to fit us all. Carefully, I put one before each chair. They all matched and none of them were chipped. We were fed dinnerâfried chicken and potatoes not from a box.
Mrs Darling made us all shower before bed, even though we insisted we had done so earlier in the day. Foldout beds and air mattresses had been brought into the children's room for us. We were all far too big for this, and it was not the sort of age play I get off on. Mrs Darling tucked us in and stayed awkwardly sitting in the room as we drifted off to sleep on clean sheets. I dozed then awoke startled, not knowing where I was or to whom I belonged.
Mrs Darling was at the window, speaking in whispers to a shadow. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark room, I realized it was no shadow but Pan, seated upon the old tree, the same one from which he had spied on Wendi. My air mattress was right next to Wendi's bed; thankfully, she had made sure of that. I shook her awake, and before she could protest being awoken from peaceful sleep, she saw Pan at the window and rushed from the bed.
Sitting on the window ledge, Wendi held Pan's hand tightly, as though she didn't fully believe he wasn't just a dream that could slip away. Mrs Darling ignored the display of affection and turned her attention back to Pan, who seemed somehow to have charmed the older woman. Her voice was tender when she said, “It's clear that we both love Wendi.”
She spoke gently to him as she continued, explaining that he could have a different life; that he could come in from the cold, eat dinner, take a shower. She said, in exchange for bringing her Wendi home, that she would help him, give him a new start.
Pan looked, for a moment, as though he might change his mind. I'm not sure if he knew I was watching or not.
“Will I grow up?” he asked quietly into the darkened bedroom.
“Of course, everyone must,” Mrs Darling replied sweetly.
Pan shook his head, a smirk crossing his face. “Not everyone, not me, not ever.”
It was Wendi who spoke next. Of course, this had all been her idea, and yet she somehow hadn't anticipated it would go this way. “But Pan,” she whispered, “will I see you again? You'll need someone to do the spring cleaning, won't you? I know how dirty Neverland can get ⦔ Her hopeful voice trailed off.
Mrs Darling sat silently. She seemed to accept that there would be a bargain and that this strange person in the tree outside her window had some hold on Wendi. Despite the ugly things he'd said over coffee just that afternoon, he seemed to care for her Wendi, and had returned her not too much the worse for wear. Mrs Darling nodded her approval, though I don't know if Pan even noticed that; he wouldn't have cared. In fact, he might have told Wendi “no,” just to spite this grownup. Pan's eyes looked past Wendi into the bedroom, to the neatly tucked lumps of bois sleeping in beds. Then his eyes came to rest upon Wendi's sweet, white wooden dresser on which lay, neatly folded, the mint-green lace apron he had once tied around her waist. He closed his eyes and for a moment images of his Mommy cooking dinners
and cleaning his wounds danced through his memory. Pan opened his eyes.
“I will come for you every year. Neverland will await your cleaning, and so will I. Don't forget to pack your apron.”
He squeezed her hand as that brave smirk crossed his face. With that, he was gone down the tree and into the night with Erebos, who had patiently waited, lying in the grass. Wendi got back into bed and not long after, I heard the window close, the floorboards creak, and the door squeak as Mrs Darling left our room.
I didn't sleep. I tried counting railroad ties and streetlights that could lead me back to Neverland, but I knew there was no going back. When that didn't put me to sleep, I thought about the classes I would take at school. I thought about the family that I could build with Wendi. I thought of the job I would have, with fucked-up kids like I'd been. I knew I couldn't save them, but at least I could keep them from being alone. I tried to sleep, but I couldn't get Pan's last words to me about adventure and forever out of my mind.
In the morning, I didn't tell any of the other bois that Pan had come. It would have been too hard for them, to know he had been so close but hadn't said goodbye. Besides, they were already so immersed in this new world. There was no sense in complicating things. That's the good answer. I was also selfish, and I wanted to keep something of Pan for myself.
Growing up is so easy for bois; it's remarkable we were able to resist it for so long. The pressures are everywhere:
on the internet, in classrooms, in conferences. “Grow up,” everyone says, if you are acting foolish, if you don't have a regular job or a long-term date, if you aren't interested in politics and activism, if you haven't read the right books, if you watch the wrong TV shows. It didn't take long for all the magic and wonder to be forgotten as we saved for top surgery, applied to colleges, submitted proposals to teach workshops. I didn't even realize what was happening to us. The grownup world is so busy, bookended by late-night philosophical debates in bars and buzzing alarm clocks to get to work in the morning.
I had forgotten Pan's promise to come for Wendi in a year's time, but she hadn't. At the end of the first year, everything had changed. John Michael was away at college, studying to be a doctor. Slightly had met a grrrl at a conference, married her, and was living in London. One of the Twins was on a break from college and in rehab; the other joined the military and had just made it through boot camp. Curly was in love with a boi he'd met while working as a security guard at the mall.
Wendi and I had a small one-bedroom apartment. She was in school and writing her stories and I was working overnights at the homeless queer youth shelter. Work was almost like Neverland, except with boundaries. I was still Wendi's boi, and she still tucked me in. She had just finished doing so the night Pan came for her. I don't know how he knew where to find our rundown apartment in the middle of the
most bland complex, but there he was, sitting on our balcony, as handsome and cocky as ever, peering through the sliding door, waiting for Wendi to notice him.
Mommy spent the weekend with him. I took on extra overnights, working around the clock. It was too hard to be home alone. On my breaks, I sat in the park, eating my sandwich and throwing pieces of bread to the pigeons. I looked for Washington but couldn't find him. The pigeons wouldn't get close. They stayed on the ground, waiting for me to throw crumbs. They didn't know who I was. They didn't care who I was. It had been a long time since I had last spoken to pigeons. I was worried Pan would keep her, that Wendi would realize what she'd given up. I was also scared that I would remember who I had been and chase after them, trying to catch what we once had. But Mommy came home on Sunday, just like she'd said she would. She cooked dinner for us. I helped chop vegetables for salad. I let the silence sit between us and didn't try to fill it. I've done enough poly to know the coming together again can be strange and disorienting. I let her open up. I waited for Mommy to tell me that she had changed her mind about us, that she was leaving.
“It was strange to be back,” she finally said, stirring the mashed potatoes. “Neverland looked just as I remembered from when we left, yet I couldn't figure out how to fit in anymore. It's like the magic was gone, and even though I know nothing has changed, but Neverland was covered in a layer of dust, instead of glitter, like how I used to see it.”
Mommy kept stirring and talking. “I tried to ask Pan about Hook.” I instinctively sucked air through my teeth.
“He seemed confused, like he didn't really know who I was talking about. I know you told me that when people went away or when they died, Pan wasn't able to remember them, but I didn't think it would be like this. I didn't think he could forget someone whose leather he still wears like another skin!”
I didn't know what to say. I knew all of this, and yet couldn't let myself think too much about it, because I knew what it meant about me and how he wouldn't talk to me, even when he sat on our balcony next to the pots of tomatoes and herbs that Wendi and I planted in the early spring. Wendi and I have built a life together, a cute little life, and Pan didn't ask how I was doing. He didn't even say hello.
“Will you go again next year?” I asked, head down, focused on helping to prepare dinner.
“Of course,” Wendi replied, wiping her hands on her apron.
That week, one night after work, Wendi told me to meet her at the mall. She bought me a cinnamon roll at the food court and then led us into the jewellery shop. From her purse she pulled a black handkerchief, laid it on the counter, and carefully unwrapped it. She held out Pan's green glass “stone” to the jeweller.
“I would like to have this emerald set into a pendant. That setting right there would look nice, don't you think, Tootles?” Wendi asked, pointing to a necklace in the case.
“Yes, Ma'am,” I said quietly as the jeweller held the stone up to the light and began to inspect it.
Wendi said to the jeweller, “This stone is a priceless family heirloom, it's irreplaceable.”
I hadn't known she still had Pan's stone when we left Neverland and was surprised she hadn't done this earlier in the first days of growing up, when she cried out for Pan in her sleep. Wendi must have known what I was thinking because she whispered, “I needed to know he would come back for me.”
The jeweller looked up from the stone, flushed, and seemed to struggle with his words. “Miss, I hate to break this to you, but this is nothing more than some cheap cut glass. It's not worth setting into a necklace, but if you like emeralds, I have some nice ones over here.” He had carelessly set Pan's stone on the glass counter and walked away toward a display case filled with gemstones.
“You are mistaken,” said Wendi. “If I say this is an emerald handed down in my family, then that's what it is, and I would like to have it set in
that
setting right there.” Wendi tapped the display case counter with her red fingernail before continuing. “Do you understand? If not, I believe another jeweller will be happy to take care of my family heirloom.”
The jeweller stammered an apology, and I tried to swallow a laugh. In that moment, Wendi sounded just like Pan, daring anyone to tell her the world was not just as she said it was. The jeweller managed to compose himself. He carefully picked up the stone and began to examine it again. “I'm sorry,
Miss, I must have been mistaken, it's just as you said; it's an emerald, and a very nice one at that. We will be happy to set it for you. It will be ready on Friday. Will you be paying with cash or a credit card?”
I had to work overnight on Friday, so Wendi went alone to the mall to pick up her pendant. She was asleep when I got home on Saturday morning, clutching Pan's emerald at her throat, which hung from a braided silver chain.
Pan didn't come the next year. I was not surprised and secretly a bit relieved. I worried when Wendi was away, and I was jealous too that I couldn't go back, that I couldn't have a Neverland visit with Pan. He stopped coming, and if Wendi was sad about it, she didn't tell me, but she never took off her emerald pendant. Years passed. Wendi graduated from college but couldn't find a job, so she worked at a coffee shop. She stopped looking for other work, and spent more of her time writing poetry. I got promoted to manager of the shelter. We had a lot more time, a lot more money. Wendi and I moved to a bigger apartment, a loft downtown. We were sellouts, Pirates in our own funny queer way. I didn't see us that way, but I knew Pan would. Ultimately, I learned there aren't “good” or “bad” decisions. Sometimes, decisions are just ⦠decisions. All bois grow up. We get jobs, we work in non-profits, we get married or have civil unions. We are artificially inseminated, or write grants to keep our jobs. We go grocery shopping. We build lives out of the choices that we've made. We make the best lives we can.