My duties as freshman treasurer were not half as glamorous as the title implied. For most of October, it meant being stuck at a table near the entrance of the cafeteria selling “Spirit Links” to raise money for the homecoming fundraiser. The idea was that for a mere quarter you could buy a colored paper ring and attach it to the growing chain that was decorating the main commons. I remembered walking past tables such as mine in Matthew’s timeline, where he would scoff at the preppy kids who were active at school functions. Yet here I was as Maya, watching as the slackers scoffed at me.
It wasn’t made better by the fact that as a freshman I wouldn’t even get to join the upper classmen at the dance; I was pretty much a lackey with a fancy designation. The ironic thing was that the way my stock movements were going I could write a check and pay for every homecoming dance for the next four years. Even though I carried out my duties to the letter, it made counting nickels and dimes feel far, far beneath me.
Aside from my other positions I carefully managed, for most of the year I had been focused on a company called Iomega, which was the tech investment darling of 1995. Iomega produced zip storage drives which were advanced for their day, and before they exploded back in January I was already putting in call orders. And when Iomega began having quality control issues two months later, I had already liquidated and had initiated put orders right before their supply chain failed and netted even more profit.
Iomega was one of the most prominent cautionary tales of the dot-com bubble, of which I was at the outset. It also happened to be the subject of a thesis paper I had written for my master’s degree in the 2000s, so I was well aware of the roller coaster ride this particular company would be. In fact, I had already submitted my scheduled buyback to coincide with the holiday season, of which Iomega Zip Drives would be one of the hottest Christmas gifts of the season. A frenzy that would last for months.
No one would believe that the mild-mannered cheerleader selling Spirit Links had already earned her first hundred thousand dollars, and was working on her second.
I certainly didn’t act like it. Granted, I dressed very well despite not having modeled for Dayton’s since the summer, but I was resolute in making sure my wealth existed only on paper. With one notable exception, of course. As a Christmas gift to myself, I bought an arctic white Fender Stratocaster as a complement to my Gibson. While I loved my sturdy acoustic guitar, it was nice being able to plug in my headphones and shred in what little free time school, cheerleading, and manipulating stock positions gave me.
There was one aspect of my life as a high school girl that threw me for a loop. Ever since he conceded in the treasurer election, Jake and I had become fast friends. It turns out we had a lot in common; in particular, we enjoyed a lot of the same music and we both were rather detached from the drama that plagued most of our classmates. Even at lunch the two of us would sarcastically deride the teenage chaos around us, and he was one of the few students that I felt a real connection to.
When boys basketball started in January, Jake was one of the starting forwards and I was on the sidelines cheering for the home games. I had no interest in basketball, but I found myself fixated on the game whenever Jake was on the court. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until Catherine pointed it out a few games into the season.
“You like Jake Mason, don’t you?” she asked, in the locker room after a game.
I squeaked a little bit. “What!?” I stammered. “No, of course not! He’s just a friend, that’s all.” I felt a pang of guilt, mixed with disgust. But also…embarrassment?
“He’s a cool guy,” she said with a wry smile. “Maybe he’ll ask you to Snow Daze!”
“I don’t even know if I want to go to Snow Daze,” I pivoted. This was not a topic I felt comfortable talking about with Catherine.
“Well, I think you two would make a cute couple.”
I could only stare at the lockers in front of me. The signals coming to my brain were a constant source of discomfort, and my body occasionally responded in ways that disarmed me. There were moments when my eyes lingered a second too long when a boy would walk by, or I felt a flutter in my heart when one spoke to me. I angrily shoved those thoughts aside on the rare occasions they happened.
What made it more unnerving was that I could barely remember what being Matthew was like.
It was subtle; the raw information was still there, but I increasingly felt disconnected to it. I remembered growing up and being a man, but it was as if I was recalling a different person. Almost five years living in my new biology was rewriting how I walked and talked, and ever since puberty went into full force I was more aware of how people were looking at me and how the world loomed around me.
It was why I liked walking to the lockers at the end of the day with Jake. I felt safer next to him for some reason, and I wouldn’t get approached by random boys. I liked the feeling of security, almost as much as I resented that I needed it now. We were in the middle of a conversation about music when we reached his locker.
“My mom let me listen to her old AC/DC records, and those guitar solos are crazy. And you can actually play them?”
I nodded. “I mean, everyone learns ‘Thunderstruck’ at some point. But I think ‘Back in Black’ is more fun.”
“Seriously, I want to hear you play for me some day. I bet you’re awesome!”
“I don’t really play for people,” I said shyly. “But…maybe?”
Jake flashed me a smile that made me hug my books closer to my chest. I stood awkwardly for a moment as he dug into his locker. I was reaching for something to say, and on impulse I blurted out, “Are you excited about Snow Daze?”
Jake shrugged. “I dunno, haven’t really thought about it.”
I told myself I should drop it, but I couldn’t help myself. “I was thinking of going,” I lied, “but it would only be with some of the girls on the squad. No one asked me to it, or anything.” What was I doing!?
“Well, you should go, if you really want to,” Jake said absently while slinging his bag on his shoulder. “I gotta run to the bus—talk to you tomorrow!”
“Sure, sure,” I replied absently as he jetted away.
I was still dumbfounded as I sat on the bus going home. I shouldn’t have said anything, I thought to myself. I didn’t even want to go to that stupid dance. I shouldn’t be fishing for dates in high school anyway—it’s not appropriate!
I rested my forehead on the bus window as it rambled down the street. I should have felt relief that Jake didn’t take the hint, but I also felt like something was wrong with me. Why wouldn’t he want to ask me out? I asked myself. I knew I was pretty, but maybe that just wasn’t enough. Maybe I was a freak after all, and the world would only ever see me as a boy pretending to be a girl.
Which I was, all things considered, I thought bitterly.
Despite my internal conflict, the rest of the school year went by smoothly, even if I never actually went to Snow Daze. My time was divided between hanging out with Catherine and the rest of our girlfriends, my treasurer duties, and Iomega quietly netting me tens of thousands of dollars every month. I would monitor its meteoric rise in the high school computer lab, ironically as I sat near a mostly unused Iomega Zip Drive which the school had purchased.
It was almost enough to keep me from wavering between trying to gain Jake’s attention and berating myself for doing so. I didn’t dare confide in any of my girlfriends that I was increasingly anxious about my dynamic with Jake. That went double for Catherine; I didn’t even want to acknowledge how weird it would be discussing a crush with someone who was my wife in another universe. All I could do was smile and wait for him to initiate something. I could only assume that’s how it went for girls.
The day I had been waiting all year for finally arrived in May, shortly after my fifteenth birthday. I had been riding Iomega’s success every day, but I knew how it all ended eventually. I couldn’t remember the exact day that the company crashed and burned, only that it was some point in June. Days before, I had made my usual call to my broker, Mr. Henderson, with Dad as a proxy as I usually did.
“Hello, Bill. I’ll put you on with Maya,” Dad said as he handed me the phone before walking back to the garage. For nearly a year, having Dad initiate the call to the broker was a formality, but bless his heart, Dad didn’t really ask questions. He was all too happy about his positions in Microsoft and my other hand-selected choices which continued to do so well. I could tell from his voice during our calls that Mr. Henderson was impressed with the growth of my account, though I wasn’t sure how old he thought I was. I was a curiosity, if anything.
“Good afternoon, Miss Brown.” Mr. Henderson was usually straight to the point. “What’s our move today?”
“I want to place a GTC limit order on Iomega,” I responded, all business. “Ticker I-O-M.”
“A limit?” Mr. Henderson gasped. “The momentum on this is incredible. You could ride this higher, if you sold at market right now, then—”
“I want the order to be set at fifty-five even. The moment that sell order is filled, I want you to sell to open a short position. Same price. Use the maximum margin available.”
“Now, Maya,” Mr. Henderson stated, clearly at a loss. “You could ride this higher. Sixty, or even seventy! The growth on this has been incredible, and I would hate to blow past it.”
“Fifty-five even,” I repeated. “As soon as it’s there.”
There was silence on the other end, and then a sad clicking of a keyboard. “The order is in, Miss Brown.” It came out as a hoarse whisper. “Is there anything else?”
“Not at this time. I will talk to you soon, Mr. Henderson.”
I hung up the phone, amused that he likely thought I was crazy for dumping a position like Iomega. He could have demanded that Dad confirms my so-called suicide move, but it was a testament to his growing respect for me that he didn’t. In any case, I’d be justified in a month when Zip Drives began to have rumored technical flaws and investors realized that the company had grown too large too quickly. A lesson they wouldn’t learn by the time the dot-com bubble burst a few years from now.
I went back down to my room, and wrote down the latest figures for my profit estimations. By selling at fifty-five, I estimated I had just earned almost eighty grand. By shorting it now, I’d earn another fifty in about a month. It was just going to be folded into my Dell long-term options this summer, but on paper I was worth well over four hundred thousand dollars, and would break half a million by September if everything went to plan. Which so far, it did.
As I set my ledger aside, I sat on the edge of my bed and fell backwards. It was funny how effortlessly I could manipulate markets, yet I couldn’t even convince a boy to ask me out. It’s not like I wanted anything unseemly; I just liked the feeling he gave me when I was with him. That, and the interference he gave to any other boys who would approach me. All I could do was look cute and wait for him to make a move.
I sat up, furrowing my eyebrows. “To hell with that,” I growled.
I marched back upstairs and pulled out the phonebook. If I could manage a portfolio worth hundreds of thousands in my spare time, I could just bite the bullet and ask him myself. If he didn’t want to, then I’d be justified in dropping it and could stop obsessing about it. Finding only one Mason entry in the book, I dialed.
“Hello?”
“Jake? It’s me, Maya.”
“Oh, hey Maya! How did you know my number?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I took a quick breath. “Jake, have you seen Twister in the theaters yet?”
“The tornado movie? No, not yet. It looks cool, though.”
“Ask me if I want to go see it with you this Saturday.”
“Ah, okay.” There was a pause. “Um, do you want to see Twister this Saturday?”
“It sounds like fun. Figure out a time and pick me up. I’ll write down my address for you at school tomorrow.”
“Cool. Uh, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you,” I said as I hung the phone back up. I felt light-headed.
Somehow, I floated back down to my room, with what I assumed was a big dopey grin on my face. I made tens of thousands of dollars that day, and yet it was a boy that made me smile. I pulled out my Fender and slung it over my shoulder. Clamping my headphones over my ears, I grabbed a pick and started to jam.