Emily June Street

I trailed in Papan's wake, keeping half a block between us as we passed the extravagant townhouses that bordered Vreeland Park. I couldn't imagine what Papan would do if he found me walking the streets unescorted, dressed like a boy in Gabriel's clothes. He'd surely have Maman lock me upstairs for the next year or so, or take a stinging belt to my palms. Or, more likely, marry me off to the first willing wastrel he could find.

I sidestepped a puddle and darted across Green Street. A crowd had gathered beside the park gates. A velocipede race at Vreeland's practice track had brought the crowd and Papan — not to mention me — out on this humid afternoon. I couldn't miss Gabriel's first qualifying race. Nothing, no fear of punishment or reprisals, could have kept me cooped up at home pacing the parlor in anxious anticipation with Maman. I had told her that my nerves for my brother had brought on a megrim and I needed to rest in my room undisturbed. Maman would understand the manufactured excuse, as she suffered that affliction frequently herself. I expected to be out for no more than an hour, and I could make it back home before she looked in on me if I hurried.

Papan entered the park and met up with two other men. I caught snippets of their conversation as I sidled along with my head down, taking care to make large steps that ate up space.

"Everyone's a rookie in this race," one of Papan's friends said. "Your son is racing, isn't he, Escot?"

"Should we bet on your boy?" the other one asked Papan. "Have you seen him race here at Vreeland?"

Papan had no answers for them. He'd never seen Gabriel race. Like most track swaddies, he spent the entire racing season observing the professionals at the Arena. There was no money to be made scouting the new talent coming up at the Vreeland practice track.

I knew the incoming talent well. I'd spent countless hours watching Gabriel and his cohort ride, longing to race myself, feeling the motions in my body with my entire soul twisted in a knot of envy that could never unfurl. Watching my twin brother compete was torture, but I kept coming back despite every danger — Papan's wrath, a ruined reputation, public censure, Maman's distress — because my vicarious pleasure in watching Gabriel was as close to racing as I could get.

Yet.

Papan headed through the gates with his friends, their dapper coattails snapping in the breeze, out of place at Vreeland where the dress code was casual. The early qualifying races took place at Vreeland until the wheat had been sorted from the chaff, at which point the track swaddies would return to their favored locale of the grand Arena.

I couldn't have gone to watch the race without dressing like a boy, and I couldn't have dressed up like a boy to watch the race without Gabriel's complicity. My brother permitted me to wear his clothes; he kept my secret and condoned my lies. I yanked at his jacket, making certain it covered my breasts, and followed Papan and the swaddies. They had begun to make bets. Though it was barely past noon on a Moonday, I suspected they had already been drinking. Papan had taken a shot of malt whisk directly after breaking his fast. He had offered a "good luck" shot to Gabriel and scoffed at his refusal, saying, "What kind of man are you if you can't handle a shot of malt whisk on a big occasion?"

Gabriel had gotten that hunted look in his eyes, the one I knew he couldn't afford right before a race. I had to bite my tongue to avoid snapping at Papan to lay off my twin brother. I'd learned from Papan's belt to keep my silence. Papan was deeply concerned about Gabriel's being a proper man and my being a proper woman, as if fitting his children into their prescribed boxes was his main duty as a parent. As if that would make up for all his own shortcomings.

I darted into the bleachers behind Papan and his friends, thinking about the past and how I had come to this deception.

My obsession, this love affair I had with velocipedes, had all begun on our eighth birthday. We had walked from the house together, Gabriel holding my hand, his palm clammy with excitement.

The new velocipede, a two-wheeler, red, shining in the sun, leaned against the gate.

Gabriel had given a great shout and launched himself at the new toy. It took him only a few tries to balance, and then off he'd gone, zipping around the yard.

My present that year had been a new petticoat. I'd wanted to ride like Gabriel, but even if the rules of the riesen class hadn't forbidden it, my new skirt would have hindered me.

Maman had stood behind me that morning, one hand on my shoulder as we watched Gabriel. Her fingers dug into my flesh the way the new petticoat dug into my waist. I thought at the time that her tension came from fear for Gabriel's safety.

Now I wondered if she had felt the desire coursing through me — the fierce longing born as I watched my brother on the velo. Maman had pulled me back. "Emmeline! Remember yourself, young lady. Show some grace and restraint."

But I couldn't hide my desires from myself. That, I thought, watching Gabriel as he rode unfettered out the gate and onto the street. I have to do that.

From that moment, all I wanted was to ride, a tainting dream that colored all the days of my confined childhood.

The velo jockeys lined up at the starting line. Papan and the other track swaddies sat closer to the track, but I knew the best vantage point — two rows down from the top bleacher — from long experience as a clandestine spectator at Vreeland. I scanned the row of novice jockeys to find Gabriel in third wheel position. Gabriel's coach, Mr. Kersey, held Gabriel's velocipede steady as Gabriel mounted it. The velo was not up to par with those ridden by the competition, and this disadvantage might cost him. Papan's financial situation had been on a downhill decline for many years — largely on account of his reckless gambling habit — and Maman had not yet found the funds to replace Gabriel's old model.

The top four jockeys in Gabriel's race would advance to the next round of trials. In a field of six riders, the odds were in Gabriel's favor. Even so, two jockeys would be eliminated. I interlaced my fingers in my lap and squeezed. Please, don't let Gabriel lose. The Escot family had pinned our financial hopes on Gabriel's success. To be a velo jockey was the only respectable profession a riesen man — who should not have to stoop to doing paid labor — could seek. In the stratified world of Serenian society, the Arena, the great forum for the velocipede races, was surprisingly egalitarian. Riesen men competed with commoners and even foreigners. The only criterion by which a velocipede jockey was judged was his record of wins, and winning earned money — money we desperately needed.

Gabriel had been working towards this dream for ten years, ever since that first red velocipede. He had put in endless hours of practice: calisthenics, riding a trainer indoors in winter, riding outdoors with Mr. Kersey when the weather was fine. I knew the muscle-burning pain of those training sessions. I had joined Gabriel nearly every morning, performing exercises in the secrecy of his bedroom: push-ups, handstands, squats, curls, stretches. We exercised diligently, and after, when Gabriel rode outside where I could not follow, I used the stationary trainer and a skipping rope in his room...