Becoming Cheyenne

By Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose

Elizabeth is this month’s winner of $535.00 for her story on courage and identity.

Bio: Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose’s writing appears in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, and Emrys, among others. Author of two chapbooks, Wild Things (Main Street Rag, 2021) and Imago, Dei (Rattle Chapbook Poetry Prize, 2022), she lives in Rochester, NY. Find her at www.elizabethjohnstonambrose.com.

Without further ado, “Becoming Cheyenne” by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose.

Cheyenne Powers never got upset. Being upset requires being surprised, and true geniuses are rarely surprised by anything. So when her boyfriend went to work and left his laptop open and she read the lurid Facebook messages between him and his high school ex, it was like flipping the couch cushions to discover some banal litter, a coat button or a Monopoly token. Of course she wasn’t upset. Cheyenne had always known it wasn’t going to work with Devin.  For one, he reeked of vat grease from his shifts at Whataburger, even after showering. More importantly, he didn’t understand nuance. Devin, she would say, trying not to sound exasperated when she read him one of her philosophical insights and he told her she wasn’t making sense, I’m being nuu-anced.  

Cheyenne was an extremely fast packer. Living with her mother had taught her how to get out of a place quickly. The only problem was figuring out what to do about her seventeen wigs. At the apartment she shared with Devin, she kept them on Styrofoam heads on the guest room bookshelf. But seventeen heads would not fit in her car’s trunk, so she sealed the wigs into Ziplocks and placed them in a box that she carried to her car. Next, Cheyenne returned to the apartment and proceeded to draw faces on the bald heads with a black Sharpie. She admired her handiwork, then positioned the heads around the apartment: one on the toilet, sticking out its black tongue; another with puckered lips on the bed pillow; the head with a single black tear she left in the refrigerator next to a bloated gallon of milk.  Cheyenne appreciated the irony: the milk was spoiled, too.

Then she got in her car and drove away. Just like that.  Because Cheyenne was nobody’s fool.

Cheyenne had been collecting wigs for five years. The first, a long blonde Rapunzel piece, was a high school graduation gift from her mother who, after receiving an inheritance from her stepmother the summer prior, had left to find herself in Europe. The wig had come in the mail, postmarked from France, along with a note that said her mom had found it in some quaint shop in some sleepy town and that it reminded her of the fairy tales she used to read Cheyenne.  “Let your hair down,” the note advised, “Become who you are meant to be.”  Of course, Cheyenne’s mother had never read her fairy tales. Or any kind of children’s books. She always said children, especially girl geniuses, should be treated like adults, so each night she had tucked Cheyenne into bed with classics like The Second Sex, The Interpretation of Dreams, or, for a brief time when her mom was considering a career as a Hollywood stunt woman, an autobiography by Evel Knievel.  

These days, her mother was going by the name Lamia and rarely contacted Cheyenne. Cheyenne, who never got upset, didn’t begrudge her mom’s leaving. After all, she had selflessly devoted herself to her daughter for seventeen years and didn’t everyone deserve a chance to become who they’re supposed to be? Plus, she always made sure the bills were paid and that Cheyenne had extra money in their joint account.  Every six months or so, a package would arrive from some foreign country-- Elephant Dung coffee from Maldives, a stuffed cane toad from Australia, a pink Ushanka hat from Russia—with a handwritten note that said, “Still Becoming!”

Cheyenne sold the souvenirs on eBay; geniuses are rarely burdened by nostalgia. But that first wig she kept for its practical value. She had been collecting wigs ever since. She owned curly wigs and wavy wigs, wigs with short bangs and long, wigs parted down the middle and wigs parted on the side. She bought them from a website that sold stripper lingerie. She never bought the lingerie; lingerie lacked nuance.  So did wigs named Salsa and Voltage. Instead, she ordered wigs with real person names. Gloria. Rachel. Gwyneth. A name like Salsa told its wearer who to be, but wigs with real people’s names were full of possibilities.

Cheyenne had been wearing The Hillary, an ash-blonde wig with no-nonsense layers, when she interviewed for her new job at Stal-Mart, a luggage superstore just a block from the apartment she moved into after leaving Devin. For her first shift, however, she switched to The Reba, a fun choice that would indicate to her new co-workers that she was not without whimsy.  Cheyenne was very careful about how others received her. Most people are intimidated by genius.  The Reba implied: I’m a down-to-earth gal, the kind you could invite to happy hour karaoke.

When Cheyenne clocked in on her first day, the trainer who had hired her didn’t mention the change in appearance. Cheyenne wasn’t surprised. Most of the time people were too shy to mention the wigs, probably because they assumed she had cancer. She didn’t mind. People are nicer if they think someone’s dying.  

“My name’s spelled with a C, not an S,” Cheyenne told the trainer when he handed her a name tag.  “And it’s pronounced, SHY-enne, not SHE-enne.”

The trainer, whose nametag read Guy, shrugged. “Whatever.”

Cheyenne pinned the tag to her blue vest. Beneath her name was Stal-Mart’s motto: “We want to help you get where you’re going.”

 “But what if the customer isn’t going anywhere?” Cheyenne asked as she followed him to the register.

Trainer Guy turned, and raised one of his shaggy eyebrows. “Why would they come to a luggage outlet if they’re not going anywhere?”

 “Maybe they just like luggage,” she offered patiently.

She did not find Guy’s lack of imagination curious; most people don’t know how to think outside the box.  Not Cheyenne. She could imagine anything. Take, for example, the way she could imagine a new Self. Cheyenne’s imagining ritual went like this: each night, she would position a wig on her head, sit on her bed across from her mirror, gaze deeply into her reflection, and wait for a Self to emerge. Cheyenne imagined her skin like a clown car or an unzipped cocoon out of which marched endless transformations. This kind of imagining required a great deal of sustained concentration, but Cheyenne could sometimes emanate a Self for an entire day, even wearing the wig to bed.

Still, she always woke up as Cheyenne.  

She was certain it was The Hillary’s assertive demeanor that landed her the Stal-Mart job.  And she knew The Reba’s warm red hue and matching down-home drawl would guarantee fast friends. If not, she’d pull out The Britney. The Britney granted Cheyenne an aura of schoolgirl vulnerability that attracted others. But not all the selves she imagined were so likable.  Take Flo, for instance. Cheyenne had bought The Florinda back before she had fully developed her expertise in wig quality. A curly brown bob made of cheap synthetic material, it was already balding at the crown.  Cheyenne imagined poor Flo as a squat woman with thinning hair. Because of her low self-confidence and tendency to burp when she got nervous, Flo had very few friends and so spent much of her time alone in her sparsely-decorated apartment watching re-runs of Jeopardy and getting all of the answers right. Many people would look past a woman like Flo without appreciating her nuances, but not Cheyenne.

After her first day at Stal-Mart, Cheyenne unsealed Flo.  She decided Flo was exactly the kind of woman who bought lots of luggage but never traveled.  She imagined Flo sitting on a floral quilt in a small bedroom, staring into a closet crammed with luggage of varying sizes. Flo wanted to travel, but was afraid to fly. So, on her days off from her cubicle job, Flo would call a cab to the airport and walk through the sliding doors, rolling a suitcase behind her. All morning, she’d stroll back and forth just outside security. Sometimes she’d sneak a luggage tag from the desk, write on it some kind of fancy destination, a country she’d heard mentioned on the news: Tasmania or Qatar. In the afternoon, Flo would ride the airport shuttle, exchanging pleasantries with travelers. “I’m going to see my daughter in Paris,” she’d lie. “She’s an artist. She lives in a beautiful flat. She has a handsome artist husband and many famous friends.” Afterwards, Flo would return to her apartment where she would empty her suitcase as lovingly as she had packed it. Cheyenne imagined her gingerly settling each stiffly-folded shirt into her dresser like a swaddled infant. Flo had been unable to have children of her own.  A tragic skydiving accident had ruined her uterus.

Cheyenne was aware that in a less perceptive woman, such deep and abiding empathy could be dangerous.  In fact, her ability to feel so much for others had led to that fateful night one year earlier when she invited Devin out on their first date. She’d been working the register at McDonald’s, wearing The Ariana with its adorable high ponytail. Devin, meanwhile, had been completely flustered about which value meal to choose. She picked the Fish Fillet for him and slipped him a free apple pie with her phone number neatly penned on his receipt.  When he called, she invited him to her apartment and slept with him immediately. She liked to get sex out of the way so it wouldn’t distract from getting to know someone. Afterwards, she watched as he crossed her bedroom to the bathroom, taking in his pipe-thin legs, his slightly humped back, the question-mark curl on the back of his prematurely balding head. Who else but Cheyenne could love such a homely, indecisive man? A week later, she asked him to move in with her.

Now, lying in her bed in her new apartment, Cheyenne decided she had no regrets. “Loving generously should never be regretted,” she said aloud. She liked her insight so well, she sat up, turned on the lamp, and wrote it in Poetic Insights, Volume 6. That was the name she’d given her journal, carefully writing the title in puffy glue across the cover. One day, she planned to publish all six volumes as a compendium. In the meantime, she would copy her insights on post-it notes and leave them in public restrooms or on park benches for strangers to find:  inspirational quotes like, “You’re a star, so just keep flickering” and her personal favorite, “Be your own beautiful zephyr.” She just wanted to help people feel less alone in the world.

After a few weeks in her new life, Cheyenne decided it was time to offer her friendship to someone. She considered her options carefully, finally deciding on a co-worker named Connie. Connie was a floater like Cheyenne, which meant sometimes they worked the register, sometimes they stocked shelves, sometimes they answered phones. Of course, there would be a power imbalance; Connie wasn’t very smart and was going nowhere in life. Everyone at Stal-mart knew she was having sex with Guy; rumor went that they liked to do it behind the large trash compactors in shipping and receiving. This despite the fact that Connie was in her forties and also hugely pregnant. Guy wasn’t even the father. The father was some guy Connie met at a Fleetwood Mac reunion concert.  Connie had gotten a butterfly tattoo on her arm to mark the occasion; underneath it she had inked the words, “Can the child within my heart rise above?”  Except the tattooist had misheard her and spelled heart, “hurt,” which Cheyenne found endearing.

In some ways, Connie reminded Cheyenne of her mother. When Cheyenne was ten, Lamia was into getting tattoos. A blue butterfly tattoo just like Connie’s on her right shoulder. A rainbow on one ankle and a storm cloud on the other. A Celtic symbol for love scrawled across her belly. Then one day, she got them all lasered off, even the ones on her wrists that, held together, spelled out Cheyenne’s name. “Like handcuffs,” Lamia had laughed afterwards, rubbing the tender red skin.

With some planning, Cheyenne knew she could time her break so as to wind up in the breakroom at the same time as Connie. This is where Cheyenne would propose her friendship.  For the occasion, Cheyenne wore The Joan, an obsidian wig with shag bangs and mullet.  Connie was leaning against the bulletin board eating Doritos. Cheyenne offered her a fiber bar. “I read on the What to Expect When You’re Expecting website that pregnant women struggle with constipation.” 

Connie laughed wryly, “Tell me about it. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m taking a shit or giving birth.” Her eyes ran over Cheyenne’s trim frame. “Are you pregnant, too?”

 “Oh, God no. I just left my boyfriend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Connie’s eyes softened and she reached out to touch Cheyenne’s arm.

Cheyenne was keenly aware of the warmth where Connie’s hand momentarily rested. “It shattered him,” she said, though she hadn’t heard from Devin since she left. Obviously, he was too depressed to even get out of bed.

“Men!” Connie rolled her eyes.  Then she waved the bar away. “I’m good. I’ve gotta eat like six bags of Doritos a day or I turn into a total bitch. Hormones, you know.” She motioned to Cheyenne’s hair. “Hey. I like the bangs. I can’t wear bangs. My face is too fat. Even before I was pregnant.” She puffed out her cheeks and crossed her eyes. “You’ve got great cheekbones, though.”

“I have good genes,” Cheyenne agreed. “My mother was a beauty queen.”  Lamia had won the Milledgeville Annual Forty and Flirty Beauty Contest when Cheyenne was in the seventh grade. That was the year Lamia was entering lots of contests. She’d also won a field day sack race at Cheyenne’s school and had taken third prize at the county fair for rooster calling. But a poorly planned grits-eating contest had sent her to the hospital with food poisoning, officially putting an end to her contest circuit.

Connie was studying Cheyenne. “Can I ask you something? I mean, I don’t want to pry. But do you have cancer? Is that why you wear wigs?”

Cheyenne was pleased Connie had asked. “Wigs are my way of becoming.”

“Becoming what?”

“My truest self.’”

Connie looked confused.

Cheyenne tried again. “Think of it like evolution.”

“Well, I’m definitely evolving,” Connie groaned, rubbing her belly.

Cheyenne’s mother had been becoming as long as Cheyenne could remember. Across the years, Lamia had become, among other things, a Mary Kay consultant, a taxidermy-trainee, and a paranormal investigator. After the food poisoning incident, she had become a caterer for children’s parties; for weeks, Cheyenne had eaten chicken nuggets carved into snowflakes, palm trees, and ladybugs.  Then Lamia joined a Facebook group called FAM (Feminists Against the Man) and lined a cookie tray with her beauty contest trophy and several of Cheyenne’s barbies and tried to melt them in the oven.  After a large fine from the Fire Department, Lamia blocked her FAM friends and became a belly dancer until she sprained her ankle practicing a twirling move. There had been lots of other “becomings” over the years. When she texted Cheyenne from Greece six months prior saying she had become “Lamia,” she was headed to volunteer at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand where there would be no cell service. Cheyenne hadn’t heard from her since.

A few days after that first real conversation with Connie, Cheyenne again timed her break so she could meet Connie in the breakroom. Cheyenne was still wearing the Joan and had rimmed her lower lids in sooty black. “I brought you one of these,” Cheyenne said, handing Connie a thermos. “It’s a green smoothie. I blended it myself. How are you feeling?”

Connie groaned. “Getting knocked up would have been a lot easier on my twenty-year- old body.” She opened the lid to the thermos, sniffed it, wrinkled her nose, and put it down.

Cheyenne nodded. “’The body is not a thing; it is a situation.’”

 “Oh! I love Lizzo!” Connie exclaimed. “That’s off of Big Grrrl Small World,  right?”

“No, it’s a philosophical quotation I like,” Cheyenne explained.  “I read a lot of philosophy quotes on Goodreads. Socrates. Rupi Kaur. I even write my own philosophies. I could write some down for you, too?”

“Wow,” Connie seemed impressed. “You must be really smart.”

“I am,” Cheyenne agreed, pleased that Connie had recognized her intelligence so quickly and yet didn’t seem intimidated. “So have you picked a name for the baby? Names are very important, you know. They set us on our path of becoming. Take my name. It’s Lakota; it means ‘People of a Different Language.’”

“Oh! You’re Native American? That’s so cool!”

“No. But my mom was attending a spiritual warrior retreat at a Marriott in Atlanta when she got pregnant with me. A wolf—that’s her spirit animal-- revealed her pregnancy to her during one of the ceremonies.” Cheyenne had never met her father; Lamia had even suggested it had been an immaculate conception. But there had been lots of drugs at the warrior retreat, so it was hard to say.

“Huh. Well, Guy thinks I should name the baby Buck. Or Bud.  Something manly.” Connie made a puking sound.  

“What do you want to name him?”

 “Connor. Like Connie, but a boy.”

“Very creative,” Cheyenne said, knowing people liked to be affirmed.

“Guy said it’s stupid. I said men do it all the time, name their sons after themselves, and he just laughed and laughed.” 

Cheyenne inhaled deeply, put her hand over Connie’s, leaned in, “This thing with you and Guy—you know you’re not stuck, right? You can break the rules.”

Connie looked at her quizzically.

Cheyenne spoke slowly, carefully enunciating each word. “The rules are made up. Like naming babies after men. Like the nuclear family and stay-at-home moms. Like waiting for a man to propose.”