A Fine Bromance

by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

  On the desk was a desktop computer with a large monitor. Andy examined it all: the mouse and commemorative mouse pad, the two CPU towers both connected to the monitor and keyboard, the external drive and several thumb drives in a USB bus, the large speakers, headphones, a telephone, and a small fan. It all looked like the latest equipment. There was even a Kindle Fire sitting next to the mouse pad. The monitor was turned on, showing a screensaver of historic buildings of the world. Behind the monitor sat a colorful cat bed, complete with a large orange cat.

  “Hey, Mr. Duck!” Robby reached to pat the cat on the head. The cat responded with a huge yawn and a dramatic paw flourish.

  Andy stepped back and examined the top of the desk. Looking at Robby with round eyes, Andy said, “Your aunt knows her way around a computer!”

  “She has to,” Robby said. “She writes books. Nonfiction about history.” He stepped away from a bookcase and held out his hand to direct Andy’s eyes to two shelves of similar-sized paperback books in different colors. Andy made a beeline for one of the shelves and reached to touch the spines. He held his head sideways so he could read the titles and author. The French Revolution, Post-Civil War Reconstruction, The Destruction of Pompeii—lots more. And all by an I. D. Beaumont. “Is that your great-aunt?”

  Robby smiled and nodded. “She’s been using the Internet to research some of the materials for the books lately. She even gets books on Kindle, if she can, or she gets a hardback scanned and put on her device. This way she says she has the whole library of Alexandria on her Kindle. In fact she named her Kindle ‘Clio’ after the Greek muse of history.”

  “She’s so full of trivia about history, she reminds me of Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds,” Andy said.

  Robby nodded enthusiastically. “I know! I just love that guy.”

  “Me too,” Andy said with feeling. “But I wish the other agents would stop putting him down all the time.”

  “I agree. I wince every time because it reminds me of how people react to me when I trot out some random facts. They get better in the later episodes, though.” Robby gave Andy an impish grin. “And that’s not all. Come into the other room.”

  They left the office and went through the closed door of a bedroom.

  “Oh, Robby, I don’t feel right invading Aunt Ivy’s bedroom.”

  Robby gestured toward a low bookcase. “Just look at these.

  On all three shelves were paperback books. Andy pulled one out far enough to see the cover. He looked up at Robby with awe on his face. “These are romances!” He looked again. “They’re all by an Adonia Bellaventura. Is that your great-aunt’s pen name too?”

  Robby nodded again, a look of mischief combined with pride on his face. “That’s my great-aunt Ivy. She told me once that writing all the dry books in her professional life and working in a high school with priests and nuns and lots of stuffy people made her write these terribly steamy romances. I mean, look at them. The titles!”

  Picking up three of the paperbacks at once, Andy peered at each. They had what might be called quite baroque covers. Women swooned with costumes hanging off their shoulders while men in the uniforms of different armies through time held them up, looking either stricken or savage. He read the titles: The Duke’s Deception, The Prioress of Peterborough Abbey, The Lakeland Lamb’s Tale. “She has a penchant for alliteration.”

  Robby laughed. “And you’ve been paying attention in English Lit.”

  Andy went on looking at the books. He had to get on his knees and lean way down to read the bottom shelf. Fair and Fortunate Isle, The Husband’s Harbinger, The—“Now wait a minute.” He picked up two more and showed them to Robby. On their covers two men were almost naked and clearly looking deeply into each other’s eyes. “Gay romance?” Andy asked, incredulous.

  Robby looked as surprised as his friend. “I haven’t seen those before. I guess she’s branching out. You can tell from the quality of the paper on the covers, as well as the printing style and all that, that most of these are a couple or three decades old. These last two are from the last couple of years. Let’s see who published them.”

  He looked at the back covers and then into Andy’s eyes. “Dreamspinner Press! I hadn’t heard of them. But then, I don’t read gay romance.”

  Andy snatched the book out of his hands. “I do!” He looked at the spines, then said, “I haven’t seen these before. I read mostly paranormal and science fiction, not historicals, though.” He stopped and looked sheepishly into Robby’s face. “Only a few. I found them at a library sale where someone threw those in with regular books. I was just curious.”

  Robby looked at Andy cautiously. “Oh, I see.”

  Andy laughed nervously. “I’m getting thirsty,” he said.

  “I could make tea?”

  They turned their heads and watched as Mr. Duck came in the bedroom door. He strolled to the opposite side of the bed and jumped up and lay down. He watched them for a moment, then started to lick his shoulder.

  With a decisive nod, Andy shoved the two books back on the bottom shelf and turned and went out the bedroom door.

  IN THE kitchen he sat at the table while Robby pulled together the makings of a pot of tea. “Black tea all right? Or do you prefer herbal?”

  “Anything,” Andy said.

  Robby thought a change of topic was called for. “So, it’s strange. These things go missing right out from under Aunt Ivy’s nose, then a few weeks later they turn up again. And all Aunt Ivy can say is how annoyed she is that they’re not exactly in the right position when she finds them again.”

  Looking around at the items displayed in the kitchen, Andy said, “It’s like someone comes in the house and borrows things, then eventually brings them back.” He thought for a few minutes. “Did you ever read the Borrower series of kids’ books? You know, like The Borrowers, The Borrower Afield, and The Borrowers Aloft. I think there was one more. With Pod and Arrietty—and Homily?”

  Robby had poured some loose tea leaves into an infusion ball and now hung it on the inner lid of the teapot. “Oh yeah! I think I read one of them. The boy put a ferret in the mouse hole and the little people had to escape, right?”

  “Right. That’s at the end of the book, The Borrowers. The next book is Borrowers Afield. They find a little Borrower boy living in the back garden. And in the final book they move into a little village some guy built so kids would come and pay to see it. It even had a little railroad, I think. They made a TV show of the first one. It had the guy from Green Acres in it.”

  Robby poured the boiling water from a kettle into the teapot. “You mean Eddie Albert?” He brought the teapot to the table, then reached into the cabinet for a couple mugs. “Do you take anything in your tea?”

  “Yeah, sugar,” Andy supplied, then went on, “Yeah, Eddie Albert. I don’t remember who played the two women. But that’s what they did, the Borrowers, I mean. They would take things for a while from the big people in the house and then later on put them back. Or not.”

  The two sat and blew on their cups of tea, eventually taking sips and lost in thought.

  Finally Robby broke the silence. “So, you got a girlfriend or anything?” he asked. It occurred to him that he didn’t know very much about his friend.

  Andy seemed distracted. “Naw, I’m not sure I’m even a lesbian.”

  Robby stared at him. Finally Andy looked up and said, “What?”

  Clearing his throat, Robby said, “You said ‘lesbian.’”

  Andy suddenly blanched. “Oh my God. I did?”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

  With a look like someone with a very sour stomach, Andy shook his head. “Way to out myself, eh?”

  Nodding, Robby said, “I kinda guessed, though.”

  Andy looked surprised, but then his face cleared. “The jerks in the boys’ john?”

  “Yeah.”

  It struck Robby that his sister, Claire, had been acting strangely when she gave the two of them a lift to Aunt Ivy’s.<
br />
  “So, what’s the correct term these days for, um, guys who were born girls?” Robby asked tentatively.

  Shrugging, Andy replied, “Oh, it changes every few weeks. I have heard AFAB, which means assigned female at birth, but I don’t like that one. It puts too much emphasis on having been female. I figure once you transition, you know, have all the surgeries and hormones, you’re male in all ways except your DNA, so I use FTM if I have to explain things—female to male. But why do I need a label at all? Just call me your friend Andy.”

  There was a sudden noise from the other room. “Did you hear that?”

  Robby thought he heard the sound of a key in the lock and the front door opening from the foyer. “My aunt?” he suggested. But then he heard the sound of the front door closing again. He waited for Aunt Ivy’s voice calling out but heard nothing more.

  “Is that you, Aunt Ivy?” He got no response. After a few seconds, Robby got up and walked to the front hall, but the door was locked. He glanced out at the steps, but there was no one there. He returned to the kitchen with a puzzled frown on his face.

  “Maybe the house is haunted,” Andy suggested.

  “Aunt Ivy said it could be ghosts, but I thought she was joking. I wonder if she’s heard strange noises and never mentioned it.”

  Andy took another sip of tea, not meeting Robby’s eyes. He finally said in a low voice, “So now you know I’m transgender.”

  Robby shrugged. “Yeah. But it doesn’t matter to me. I figure you have a really big challenge. I wanted to punch Smartass out for you. But then the coach came in, and I also thought you might want to do the punching. So I dropped it.”

  Looking up at him with grateful eyes, Andy said, “Hey, that’s cool of you. I appreciate it.” He took a couple minutes, then asked, “What do you know about someone being trans?”

  Thinking about his conversation with Aunt Ivy about the Chevalier d’Éon and Albert Cashier, Robby finally said, “Not much. I know they now think people have an extra flow of hormones when their brains develop. You know, when you’re in your mother’s womb. It’s sometimes different from the hormones when you’re conceived. That means you get born with a male body and then get a female brain, or vice versa.”

  “That’s pretty much it. They say that you can’t necessarily tell from a brain scan. It has to do with what percentage white and gray matter you have, but even people who are absolutely 100 percent certain they are the other sex, or I mean gender, might not have that. So there’s no way to verify it.”

  Robby shook his head. “Unless you ask the person. They ought to know which they are. Who needs a brain scan?”

  Andy leveled a look of complete gratitude on him. “Wow, are you ever enlightened!” he exclaimed.

  “I read everything I can get my hands on.”

  Smiling broadly, Andy said, “It shows.” His face got serious. “That’s why I changed schools. Everyone in Olympia knew me as a girl. My parents and I figured it would be easier to try to pass at a new school. But it’s not really working out that way.”

  Robby said, “I dunno. I think you are doing great.” He changed the subject. “More tea?” he offered.

  “I should go. I have homework.”

  Andy got up, took his mug, and rinsed it out in the sink and put it on the drainboard. “How are you going to get home?” Robby asked.

  “I can walk. I only live about ten blocks from here.”

  “Let me walk with you,” Robby said, standing to take care of his mug and spoon. Andy put a hand on his arm.

  “No, I think I need to spend some time alone thinking about how I don’t really pass. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  Robby stood with the mug and spoon in his hand and slowly nodded. “Okay.”

  Andy smiled shyly and got up on his toes to plant a quick kiss on Robby’s cheek. “You better not breathe a word about that,” he said in a mock stern voice.

  Putting his arms up, Robby said, “Your secret is safe with me.”

  Andy looked at him and said, “Yeah, thanks.”

  Robby watched his friend walk to the hallway and out the foyer door. He knew it was all right. He truly didn’t care what gender Andy was. Now, if he could just figure out what he was.

  Chapter 5

  ROBBY WATCHED Andy head down the street, then turned to go back to the kitchen. He washed out the tea things and noticed a note on the refrigerator he had missed before.

  “I am at the library book sale until 5,” it said. That was right; he’d forgotten the book sale was today. Nice of his great-aunt to leave a note, probably for whoever might be expected to stop in. He glanced at the clock. It was just after four thirty, so he might as well wait for her to come home.

  He opened the freezer and selected a couple of the neat little Banquet pot pies stacked in every available inch of space. He chose a chicken pie for himself and a turkey one for her. He figured if Aunt Ivy wanted the chicken pie, he would just take the other. He set the oven to the temperature on the box. It had microwave instructions too, but neither he nor Ivy cared for how that left the crust a bit soggy. He turned the timer on the stove to the required amount of cooking time, then set the table and brought out a pitcher of cold water from the refrigerator. It occurred to him that he could have asked Andy to stay for dinner, but he really did seem to want to be alone.

  Robby worried a little about how Andy had reacted to his calling attention to his slip. Should he have pretended he didn’t hear what he said? No, that could backfire. Andy might know very well what he had let drop and not trust Robby if he pretended he hadn’t heard.

  The slip made Robby think about his own situation. Puzzling for years whether he was straight or gay, he was now nearly eighteen, and no one seemed to cause his junk to react. There was never any particular object for his excitement. That struck Robby as terribly strange. Shouldn’t he at least find someone attractive? If he was just not sexual, he figured he would never get an erection, but as he knew from ample experience, he did.

  Robby heard a noise at the front door. He went into the hallway and looked down it to see his great-aunt coming in, struggling with four or five brown paper shopping bags.

  “Oh, Aunt Ivy, hang on! I’ll help. Honestly I don’t know why you don’t get yourself a cart or at least some plastic shopping bags for when you go to the book sale.”

  She looked up at him from the bag that had just torn and spilled its contents onto the foyer floor. “Oh, Robby, how nice to see you here. Yes, you’re right. I should get some better bags, but I know I’d just forget them at home. Then I would have them and the ripped paper bags both.”

  Robby took a couple of the bags into the kitchen and set them on the table. Then he went back and gathered the books that had fallen when the bag ripped, and he carried them in and stacked them next to the full bags.

  “Robby, how did you get to be such a sweet boy? Your father was never as kind as you are, and your mother—well, she’s your mother, and I shouldn’t say anything.” Aunt Ivy gave him a peck on the cheek, which she had to accomplish standing on her toes.

  Robby smiled, beginning to look through the pile of books he had stacked. “It’s my pleasure, Auntie. I would have gone with you, but it was during school.”

  She patted his hand. “I know, dear. And it wasn’t really the sale today. It was just the Friends of the Library setting things up for tonight and this weekend.”

  Looking at her with a wry grin, Robby said, “I see. The book sale hasn’t even started yet, and you already have several grocery bags full.”

  She had taken off her coat and draped it over a kitchen chair, and now she turned to him with her hands on her hips. “Well, you can’t expect me to see all these great books and not buy them, can you?”

  This time he stooped to kiss her cheek. “No, of course not. These look interesting.”

  He sat in the nearest chair and picked up one book after another. She had quite a variety. There was a cookbook, an astronomical dictionary, a b
ook on Etruscan art, one on the politics of the James Buchanan era, one on fashion design that looked to be from the 1960s, and several fat books of the almanac sort. He picked out one particular book and started to leaf through it. “This looks good,” he observed.

  She came back into the kitchen at that moment after taking her coat to the foyer closet. “Oh yes, I got that one for you.”

  It was a math puzzle book, right up his alley. “Thanks, Aunt Ivy.”

  She went toward the refrigerator. He was so engrossed in the book he didn’t see her take two pot pies out of the freezer and remove the packaging. She leaned over and opened the oven door. “Oh. But there are already two in here! How strange!”

  He looked up at that point and laughed. “I put those in the oven. I thought we could have them a little later, when you got home. They still have a while to bake.”

  “I do love you,” she said as she came up behind him, put her arms around his shoulders, and gave them a quick hug. “I see two mugs on the drainboard. Those weren’t both yours, were they?”

  He glanced over and shook his head. He closed the math book and set it aside. “No, I brought my friend Andy over, and we had tea.”

  Ivy looked at him expectantly. “Is Andy in the little boy’s room or something?” She glanced back at the hallway door.

  “No, he left. He said he had to be alone.” He realized after he said it that the statement necessarily called for a follow-up question. He blushed.

  Ivy beat him to it. “Alone? What happened that he had to spend time by himself?”

  Robby just waved his hand in dismissal. “Doesn’t matter. I took him upstairs to show him your office and bedroom.”

  She looked sideways at him. “Is that wise? Might he start taking things?”

  Sitting back in his chair, Robby replied, “He knows all about your mysteries. He came over to start helping us unravel it all. That’s why I gave him the grand tour.”

  “Oh,” she said. “But you know the captain and the cards are back, right? Back in the house, that is, but not exactly in the right place.” She started to get silverware and a couple of glasses for water but then saw he had gotten them already. “Well, aren’t you sweet? Way ahead of me.”