Baumgartners Empty Nest (The Baumgartners)

by Selena Kitt

  Doc sat between the two women, an arm around them both. He didn’t look the least bit bothered by being ferried around, or by their attention to their studly, twenty-something chauffeur. The pedicabs were a great way to get around town, if you didn’t want to walk—or drive. Most everyone in Key West was drinking this time of night, and driving wasn’t such a great idea. Besides, the streets were usually packed with crowds, and cars often got stuck in the morass. Pedicabs were faster.

  “You’re going to love Captain Tony’s,” Doc said to Jody. “It’s a total dive.”

  “So you really know Captain Tony?” Jody asked, appreciatively watching a group of obviously gay young men rollerblading by, most of them wearing nothing but Speedos, just as Elise had predicted. Carrie always thought it was an accident waiting to happen—not even any elbow or knee pads—but tons of people did it.

  “His son owns the place now. But he still comes around.” Doc nodded toward their destination, up ahead on the right. It was a little yellow building, nothing fancy. Its claim to fame was that it was the oldest bar in Florida—it had been a speakeasy during prohibition—and Jimmy Buffet got his start there in the 1970’s, playing tunes for tequila. Captain Tony’s also boasted that Hemingway had made it his favorite drinking hole back in the day.

  Their driver braked his bike in front of the bar, bringing them to a slow stop. Doc stood, climbing down off the seat, holding out a hand first for Jody, then Carrie, helping them out of the pedicab. He paid the driver before they all went into the little yellow building. It wasn’t too crowded, thankfully, and they found a table by the tree growing up through the middle of the floor.

  “This place is great.” Jody strained her neck, looking at all the business cards and sales slips tacked to the ceiling, along with a row of bras, in various shapes and sizes, that had been nailed up there.

  “What can I get you folks?” The waitress came up, not really looking at them, but Carrie recognized her immediately.

  “Lola?” she asked, catching the young woman’s heavily made-up eye.

  “Oh my word, it’s the Baumgartners,” Lola exclaimed. She called over her shoulder, “Tony! It’s the Baumgartners!”

  Carrie didn’t see the old man, but maybe he was within earshot.

  “I haven’t seen you in—hm, two years? Three?” Lola hugged Carrie with one arm, then hugged Doc with the other. Her gaze fell to Jody and her eyebrows raised. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Jody, this is Lola.” Carrie introduced them, but Lola was already sliding into a chair beside her. “Lola is Tony’s cousin. Jody is our… uh…”

  “You…” Lola breathed, head tilted, squinting at Jody in the dim light with a look of wonder on her face. “Are nearly unclockable.”

  “Un… what?” Carrie shot her husband a puzzled look and he shrugged.

  “Who was your doctor?” Lola asked.

  “Lola!” Carrie exclaimed, aghast. “You can’t just…”

  “I’m non-op, actually,” Jodie admitted with a smile. “You?”

  “Oh, I’m all girl now.” Lola smiling, flipped up the edge of her skirt, revealing a flash of white panties.

  “Lola!” a voice from the bar called. It was Tony’s son, Nick, who now owned the place and tended bar. “Stop pulling up your damned skirts!”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Grouch.”

  “Unclockable?” Carrie asked, looking between the two of them. “What’s that mean?”

  “Passing privilege,” Jody explained, then glanced at Doc. “Just means she thinks I make a pretty good looking woman.”

  “She’s got that right.”

  “Was it Dr. Timbor?” Lola asked, looking down at Jody’s cleavage. “Did he do those?”

  “No.” Jody glanced down too. “These are Georgia peaches.”

  “Luscious.” Lola nodded at them, admiring, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder.

  She made a pretty woman, but there was something about her angular features that somehow gave her away, Carrie noticed. She understood what Lola had meant, now, looking between the two of them, when she called Jody “unclockable.” You really couldn’t tell, unless Jody stripped down to the nude, that she wasn’t really a woman.

  “Well, if you’re down here now, I’ll give you Dr. Timbor’s card. He’s not a gender-Nazi like some of them. And he’s good. He did these.” Lola lifted her tits, showing off her cleavage in the V-neck blouse she was wearing and they heard that warning voice from the bar again.

  “Lola!”

  “Okay, okay!” Lola waved at the big, bald, tattooed bartender, smiling sweetly. Then she turned back to them and, pointing at her lap, she said in a mock whisper, “Between you and me, I could crack walnuts with my new va-jay-jay.”

  Last time Carrie had seen Lola, she’d been a “non-op” too. She was already dressing as a woman then, though, Carrie remembered, and she had a woman’s sense of injustice about infidelity, too. When Carrie had complained to her about Janie’s cheating boyfriend—Brian had been cheating on Carrie’s daughter, although Janie didn’t yet know or believe it—Lola had stepped up to the plate and had been more than happy to take one for the team.

  Lola had seduced unsuspecting Brian into the back room and the cheating little bastard had gotten the surprise of his life.

  “Anyway, I’ve got Dr. Timbor’s card in my purse,” Lola went on.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” Jody said, glancing at Carrie, then at Doc. “I’m kind of… between residences…”

  “Don’t you love it? Isn’t it like finally finding home?” Lola’s hand fell to Jody’s leg. Carrie noticed it with a twinge of jealousy. “It’s so T-friendly down here.”

  “Duvall Street sure seems to be,” Jody replied.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ve got room at my place if you’re looking,” Lola told her with a small, sly smile. “Just one bed, but I’m sure we could manage.”

  “I—uh—” Jody was saved from answering when Captain Tony came out from the back room, roaring a greeting.

  “The Baumgartners!” He was really getting old, Carrie noted, as he hobbled closer. He walked with a limp, now, and used a cane, although it just added to the air of “old sea captain” about him. Carrie stood to hug him as he approached their table, and Doc gave the old man a one-armed hug, too, slapping him on the back.

  “So how are the kids?” Captain Tony inquired, leaning on his cane with both hands.

  “Henry’s getting married,” Carrie said, realizing it was the first time she’d said it out loud to someone who wasn’t family.

  “Damn, I’m old.” Tony shook his white head, tipping back his sea captain hat. He wore it everywhere.

  “That’s how I feel.” Carrie laughed.

  Tony grabbed a stool and took a seat at their table so they could catch up. Carrie answered all his questions about Janie and Henry, and Gretchen and Ronnie, too. They’d all spent time in Captain Tony’s at some point or another. Lola went to get them drinks while Doc got involved in a conversation with Tony about his new passion—firearms.

  When Lola returned, she sat close beside Jody—too close, as far as Carrie was concerned—and started chatting her up. But Carrie couldn’t get away from Tony, who kept grabbing her hand and asking her something when she tried to excuse herself.

  She tried to listen to Jody’s conversation, but between Doc and Tony talking, the loud pulse of the music, and the crowd starting to grow in the bar, she only caught snippets.

  “So he wanted you cut?” Lola asked. Carrie definitely heard that.

  “…worked in boy-mode for the first year or so we were together…” Jody told her. Carrie was still getting used to the language and the lingo. But she knew what Jody meant when she said, “I don’t tell many people my T…”

  She meant her “transition history.” Was she telling Lola?

  “We’re down here to arrange selling the time share actually,” Doc told Tony. The conversation had shifted.

&n
bsp; “You’re selling?” Lola perked up at that. “Oh I wish I could buy it!”

  “You should move down here,” Tony suggested.

  “We can’t.” Carrie shook her head sipping her margarita. “Doc’s practice is in Michigan. We’ve got roots there…”

  “To hell with roots!” Lola cried. “Transplant yourself down here with us!”

  “Hey, Lola!” Nick called from the bar. “Could use a little help, eh? Aren’t you supposed to be earning a paycheck or something?”

  “Fine.” Lola rolled her eyes, standing and looking down at Jody. She was going to say something but Jody held up one finger, digging through her purse and pulling out her phone. Carrie hadn’t heard it ring, but the bar was filling and growing louder.

  “Who is it?” Carrie called, seeing Jody’s expression when she answered the phone.

  “I have to take this.” Jody excused herself as she edged by. “I’m just going to find somewhere quieter…”

  “Hey, will you give this to Jody when she comes back?” Lola slid a card across the table. “That’s Dr. Timbor’s card.”

  “Sure.” Doc picked it up, sliding it into his breast pocket.

  Carrie noticed this out of the corner of her eye, but she was paying more attention to Jody, who had stepped into an alcove near the restroom, one finger in her ear while she talked into her cell phone. Jody looked upset. Very upset. Had Jackie found her number, after all? The thought made Carrie feel cold, in spite of the heat. Someone famous came into the bar—some sports star Carrie didn’t know—and Tony excused himself to go say hello. She gave him a hug, but she was still too distracted by Jody and her phone call to really pay attention.

  “You okay?” Carrie asked as Jody returned to the table. “Everything all right?”

  “I—” Jody sat at the table, looking between the two of them. “I don’t know.”

  “Was it him?” Doc’s eyes flashed with anger.

  “No, no, sugar, it wasn’t Jackie.” She looked pale, even as she reassured them. “It was just a friend. She… she had some news for me…”

  “Bad news?” Carrie prompted.

  “Well, it isn’t good news.”

  “Tell us,” Doc urged. “You can tell us.”

  “I wasn’t Jackie’s first.” Tears trembled on Jody’s lashes. “I wasn’t the first one he… he wanted to change.”

  “What do you mean?” Carrie asked, sliding one stool closer.

  “My friend, Megan…” Jody looked down at the drink in front of her. “She heard from one of Jackie’s former… lovers.”

  Carrie gasped. “Was he cheating on you?”

  “Not exactly.” Jody gave a short, strangled laugh. “Megan says… oh my God, he’s done this before. With three or four others.”

  “Done what?” Doc asked, moving a stool closer, too, so he was on her other side. Carrie met his concerned gaze.

  “He takes them in.” Jody’s voice was low enough they both had to lean in to hear her. “Like he took me in. He… he pays for everything. He pays for their transition.”

  “What?” Carrie breathed, disbelieving.

  “Megan says he has them put up in little houses of their own in Atlanta.” Jody moved her drink off her wet napkin, rolling her fingers over the edge of the paper, tearing little strips of it. “He pays for their surgeries and turns them into the kind of woman he wants. Then he keeps them like… like girl toys he can go play with whenever the mood strikes him.”

  “Oh my God.” Carrie put an arm over her shoulder, feeling Jody trembling. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

  “These are all women who… who were born men?” Doc asked.

  “Well, they were all born with a penis,” Jody replied. “Yes.”

  Doc’s hand covered hers on the table. “And he forced them to have surgery?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged, sniffing. “I’m sure they wanted to transition. But…”

  “How many of them?” he asked.

  “She didn’t say for sure.” Jody swallowed, her lower lip quivering. “At least three. Possibly four. Maybe… more.”

  “And he keeps them like… dolls?” Carrie shuddered, squeezing Jody closer. “Or…”

  “Sex toys,” Jody whispered. It was so soft, Carrie didn’t know if Doc even heard her, but she did. “No wonder he never pressured me to have sex…”

  “He was trying to make you into his vision,” Doc remarked, frowning. “It’s like he’s trying to build the perfect woman.”

  Jody’s shoulders shook at that, and Carrie heard her holding back a sob.

  “I guess…” Jody took a little, shuddering breath. “I just wasn’t perfect enough.”

  It happened so fast, Carrie hardly had time to react. One moment, Jody was there between them, holding back tears, and the next minute she was gone. Just gone. Carrie glimpsed her at the front entrance, but Doc was already halfway after her, calling her name.

  “Jody!”

  She ran. Thankfully, she was in heels, otherwise Carrie wasn’t sure they could have ever kept up with her. Doc was faster, especially since he wasn’t hindered by his footwear, following her through the streets, keeping sight of her in the midst of the crowd. Carrie ran after him in her sandals, a stitch growing in her side as they followed her around the corner.

  Doc slowed, waiting for Carrie to catch up and grabbing her hand, pulling her after him. But they didn’t have to run too much further. Jody had cornered herself at the end of a pier and there was nowhere else for her to go, unless she meant to jump into the water. It was a dead end.

  For a moment, Carrie thought that was exactly what she was going to do, but Jody slowed when she reached the end of the long, wooden pier. Carrie stopped to catch her breath, feeling Doc’s hand tighten in hers as they both saw Jody standing there, looking out at the sun moving low toward the water. She was hugging herself, arms crossed, such a lonely, solitary figure that just looking at her in the slowly fading sunlight broke Carrie’s heart.

  They didn’t speak. They just approached her quietly, both of them coming up behind her on the pier. Jody didn’t turn, but she acknowledged them.

  “It’s okay.” She sniffed, closing her eyes. “I just… I have to be alone.”

  “Is that what you really want?” Carrie put a hand on her shoulder. Jody glanced at it, her lower lip trembling.

  “I’m always alone.” She shivered. “I’ve been alone since I could remember. That’s how it is.”

  “Jody…” Doc’s hand on her other shoulder. “You don’t ever have to be alone again, if you don’t want to be.”

  “He means it.” Carrie felt tears stinging her eyes as she leaned her chin on her lover’s shoulder, her words spoken close to her ear. “I mean it.”

  “You’re both sweet.” Jody offered her a half-smile. “But… I’ve never been enough.”

  “Jody, no, don’t say that,” Carrie whispered, feeling her own, hot tears starting to fall.

  “It’s true.” Jody’s gaze stayed distant, on the horizon. “You know, other kids, they got adopted. But no one ever wanted me.”

  “I wanted you.” Carrie put her arms around Jody’s slender waist, pressing her forehead to her cheek. “I always wanted you. You were the first person I ever loved. I gave everything to you. Don’t you remember?”

  “I remember.” Tears slipped down Jody’s cheeks too.

  “And I still want you.” Carrie tightened her arms around her, as if she was afraid she might slip away again. “Look at me.”

  Jody didn’t, so Carrie took her trembling chin in her fingers, turning her eyes toward hers. They were big, brown, and full of tears. So much pain, so much fear and uncertainty.

  “You’re beautiful,” Carrie whispered, her voice catching in her throat. “You’re perfect. And I love you.”

  Jody’s face crumbled. She gave a low, gut-wrenching sob, throwing her arms around Carrie’s neck.

  “Shhhh.” Carrie stroked her hair, her back, rocking her back and forth
, her own tears falling hard and fast. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I promise.”

  Carrie felt Doc’s hand on her head, moving though her hair, and she glanced up at him, seeing the pained look in his eyes. Seeing the love there, too. She held an arm out to him, and he enfolded them both in his big arms.

  “You’re safe,” Doc murmured, kissing the top of Carrie’s head, then Jody’s, all of them rocking together at the end of the pier.

  “I don’t remember the last time I felt safe.” Jody sniffed, turning her face to rest it against Doc’s chest. Carrie did, too, so their arms were around him and each other, their tear-filled eyes locked. “Maybe never. I never belonged anywhere before.”

  “You belong here,” Doc assured her.

  Carrie nodded, leaning over and kissing her wet cheek. “With us.”

  Jody didn’t answer, but Carrie thought, for the first time, looking into her dark, hopeful eyes, she might really believe it. And even if she didn’t believe it now, she would. They’d spend the rest of their lives showing her just how much she was loved, wanted, accepted.

  “Perfect,” Carrie whispered, pressing her lips to Jody’s. “Beautiful. Mine.”

  “Ours,” Doc murmured, smiling, tightening his hold on them both.

  “Yes,” Jody mouthed, but there were no more words, just kisses.

  That was a language they could all speak.

  Chapter Nine

  The call came while Carrie was mixing afternoon margaritas in the kitchen. The temperature outside had cooled down to the early seventies and the breeze coming off the ocean was divine. She had the windows and the sliding door wide open as she ran the blender, singing along to the Counting Crows on the radio.

  She glanced out onto the patio, seeing Jody sitting cross-legged and topless on one of the lounge chairs, Carrie’s iPad in her hand. Carrie poured three margaritas—Doc was due home any time from the Hunt Club—giving each a little extra splash of tequila. Back when the kids were little, they kept their drinking to evenings or nights when they had a babysitter or nanny to watch Janie and Henry.

  Couldn’t do this with kids around, could we? It was Doc’s voice in her head, and she smiled, taking a sip of her margarita. Strong. Made her eyes water. Yum.