5 - To Be, or Not to Be?

Christina Jensen was gay; at least she suspected she was since all she did was think about Gail Knitter. As a seventeen year-old in 2030 she intimately knew what ‘gay’ meant, at least as far as TikTok had taught her. In the school circles she frequented, which (other than Nathan and Gail) were sports teams, the term ‘fancying’ someone was thrown about as randomly as children in Tivoli Gardens pointing desperately at any toy their father might win at a game of Shoot the Rabbit. Christina fancied Gail, ergo (an excellent word she had learnt as a cooler way of saying ‘so’) she was gay. She didn’t find boys interesting, other than their prowess at football. Then it was only to prove she was better than them. And she was better, she knew it.

But the subject of Gail Knitter was more complicated. Often Christina struggled with deciding what to do, since Gail was one of her two best friends. Also Gail was shy; not one to voice her feelings, at least not about people. So Christina had no idea if the attraction was mutual. Gail didn’t have a boyfriend, but that wasn’t unusual in the atmosphere of the International School. Students came and went all the time, and other girls she played football with said that it was hard to invest (another word she had banked for future coolness) time in a boy (or girl?) friend who might leave the school at any time. Plus, Gail was still new. It took time to learn to navigate the waterways of the school’s romantic canals. 

It also didn’t help that Christina was the object of much boyish attention from both her own year, the one above, and sometimes even those below. This she didn’t understand, as she was not at all girlish. She had discussed this with Nathan. He had said that perhaps because she acted more like a boy meant the boys were actually less nervous around her, so fancied her more. She wondered how he could be so wise? She put it down to the fact that he had an older sister (albeit living on the other side of the world), so was able to get advice from further up the age ladder. Also Nathan’s mother was an artist. Christina supposed this invested him with a worldview that varied extensively from her own, restricted as it often was at dinner to discussions of the tax differences between Denmark and Sweden. This was propelled by the oh-so-boring fuel of her father’s position as a senior inspector at the Danish tax bureau in Copenhagen, and her mother’s similarly senior job at the regional Swedish tax office in Malmö.

Christina always sat next to Gail in class. They teamed up (or added Nathan when three were needed) in science practicals, and she made sure that Gail was taken care of during sports lessons. That Gail showed no interest in athletic pursuits troubled Christina not one bit. One of the things she admired about Gail was that she neither wanted, or needed to compete with Christina. Gail was shy, but she had a way with people that could be quite disarming. Where Christina was tall and athletic, Gail was small and petite. They were in many ways opposites, but as Nathan had said during another of their confidential (meaning she’d said that if he ever told anyone he’d never made it out of teenager-hood!) talks about Gail. 

Christina wondered if Gail talked to Nathan about her, since they did casual work together at the veterinary clinic. Gail was destined to be a vet, everyone knew that. Her father wanted it, which for most teens was the kiss of death. But Gail was so good with animals, and even better with their owners; ‘carers’ Gail called them, refusing to allow an animal to descend to the level of a mere possession. Nathan worked there because he wanted work experience, and the incident with the Retriever had given him kudos with Gail’s father. So arrangements were made and there he was, sweeping up pet hair and clamping yowling cats.

Nathan never said anything to Christina to make her believe Gail fancied her, but she didn’t expect him to. If he had, then she would have immediately suspected him of telling on her. She never asked him to tell her if he knew how Gail felt, but swooped down on hints like a winter bird spotting breadcrumbs on pristine snow. Often these were nothing more than snippets of conversations she had heard them having. But sometimes Nathan hinted at something deeper, and this left Christina feeling warm inside. Last week Nathan had mentioned that Gail wanted to sit next to Christina on the bus for the upcoming field trip to Jutland. Gail had said it was because, “Christina is so interesting.”

The trip to the Mønsted Limestone Caves was only two weeks away. On hearing the news that Gail wanted to be her bus buddy Christina had grinned and punched Nathan in the arm. He had not appreciated the physics, but had said he understood and was happy for her. Christina supposed Nathan was playing the role of matchmaker, at least that’s what she hoped he was doing. You could never be sure where Nathan was concerned. He was something of a mystery, even after they had been friends for ten years. She believed that if she hadn’t been gay she would have fancied Nathan. He was reasonably good at sport. 

Nathan’s father was high-up in the Maersk shipping company. How high Christina wasn’t sure, since her father said that titles in Maersk were often as meaningless as the names assigned to the ships they sailed around the world. But she knew that ‘SVP’ was pretty good, and the spotless, stealth-mode Audi A7 that deposited Nathan at school some mornings had a princely price tag. This was high enough that it had sent her father rushing to his laptop the first time Nathan’s dad had dropped him at their house. The only thing which made Nathan sad, and the one non-Gail subject she talked to him about, was his parents’ divorce and the geographical separation of Nathan from his mother and sister, Fiona. 

The Stromberg’s marriage had been turbulent. Johan, Nathan’s father, was an executive through and through: crisp shirt, polished shoes, and a silk handkerchief in his suit pocket. Sarah, Nathan’s mother, had grown up on an artist’s commune in the Napa Valley of Californian wine-making fame. She had become an accomplished painter, and had met the dapper Johan at opening night of an exhibition of her work at Copenhagen’s Louisiana Modern Art Museum. Like all children, Nathan was hazy about his parent’s courtship, but he knew that his father had been captivated by the enigmatic American. His mother, it seemed, had fallen in love with the wispy pace of life in the Danish summer, but had been unprepared for what was to follow. Life in Scandinavia was made up of two halves: you made the most of the long, summer days because you needed to store those memories of sun and warmth for the long, dark, cold winters. Some CIS students, with parents from countries like India, were taken home for the winter by mothers who simply could not stand the depression and bitterness that often came with the long run from New Year’s Day to the beginning of spring (which itself was unpredictable).

In the end, after two children and countless dark winter days, the Covid pandemic had hit and shattered their marriage on the anvil of practical imprisonment. Sarah Stromberg had had enough, and presented Johan with an ultimatum. Either they moved to the Bay Area, or she was leaving. Nathan had recounted the arguments, the smashing of ancestral Royal Copenhagen crockery, and his mother’s re-aquiantance with marijuana, sourced from the ‘free city’ of Christiania. Christina’s parent’s marriage, whilst lacking a certain passion, was solid. But her father was Danish and her mother Swedish (from Skåne, which meant she was basically half-Danish). They were born and bread to the dichotomy of light and dark which pervaded life in Scandinavia. Nathan’s father, entrenched in the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group saw no need to do anything other than stay put. He promptly received a divorce, and relocation of his wife and daughter to San Francisco for his troubles. Nathan’s mother reverted back to her maiden name of Fletcher and, much to her father’s disgust, his daughter did the same. 

Gail had joined CIS at the beginning of the academic year. Her father had come to Denmark to take over running a veterinary franchise which the American company he worked for had bought. Basing the family in Copenhagen allowed Gail’s father to travel easily back to the company’s head office via SAS flights to Boston. Gail’s mother had initially been at a loss as to what to do, but a chance encounter at a parent event had revealed that the son of a US diplomat was at the school. The Embassy was always on the lookout for US citizens who could do useful work. Rachel Knitter had joined the Embassy as a local employee, and now assisted the visa staff with their paperwork.

The very first day of school, when Christina had walked into the classroom, her heart had literally skipped a beat. It was as if she had performed a brilliant nutmeg on a plodding defender. She simply knew that Gail was for her. Christina had read about love, and seen what passed for it on TV and at the cinema, but to feel it rock her world for the first time was a jolt she was completely unprepared for. Gail’s head had been down (shyness, Christina now knew), but when Mr. Priest had introduced her, Gail’s first glance had been at Christina, and she had smiled that demure smile that Christina now knew so well. That smile had battered down any final doubts.

Christina had immediately chosen to sit opposite Gail. This meant she couldn’t sit next to Nathan, as she had in all the years they had classed together. But she could tell he was looking after this goddess. In any case Christina was sure he was happy to move away from her, since she had spend most of last year attempting to get tiny balls of rolled paper into his ear by flicking them randomly during lessons. Now Christina thanked him silently, as she moved to the desk and sat opposite Gail.