I walked to the door and opened it wide.
She stormed out without a word.
I felt like I’d won a major victory. I guess in some ways I had.
I sat at the kitchen table over at Frank and Molly’s, showing Molly my photos.
“These are good work,” she said. “Great work for a beginner.”
I could actually feel the words move down into my gut. Like a warm, tingly glow. They actually had an effect on my body.
I knew damn well that Molly didn’t throw compliments around lightly, or say anything she didn’t mean. Even though I hadn’t really known her that long. It was just one of those evident things. It would be the first thing you would know about her, and the minute you knew it, you would be completely sure.
Frank was taking a nap on the couch, but it didn’t seem like we had to worry about being quiet. I guess he was tired from working and going to school. He looked different without his glasses. He had dark circles under his eyes. He looked kind of defenseless. Which looked sweet.
It made me feel almost like I really did love him. Which, between that and the compliment on my photography, well—it was a lot to feel all at once. It almost made me a little dizzy.
I tried to pay attention to Molly and not stare at Frank while he slept.
“I made a lot of mistakes,” I said. “These were the only good ones.”
“You’re supposed to make mistakes. You’re just starting out. Mistakes are a good thing. They mean you were brave enough to try something hard.”
I could feel one of their cats rub up against my legs. I picked the cat up, and held her in my arms and hugged her. It was Gracie. I loved Gracie. I loved them both.
“My cat still doesn’t let me touch him,” I said.
“Be patient.”
“I am. I guess. I mean, there’s nothing I can do about it. I still sometimes wonder why I picked him.”
“Maybe because you knew how badly he needed to be picked.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Or maybe he picked you.”
“Or maybe I really was just trying to get back at my mother. I was pretty mad at her that day.”
“Or maybe all of the above.”
“Yeah. Maybe all of the above.”
I watched Frank sleep some more, but Molly was kind of watching me watch him, and that made me uncomfortable.
“Will you show me some of your work?”
“Of course I will,” she said.
She brought out a huge, flat, leather-bound portfolio. I already wanted one just like it. Even though I knew it was way too soon for me to need something like that.
They were almost all photos of people. Mostly on the street. Homeless people, working-class people. Faces in a crowd.
They all looked like they were missing something really, really important. Like she was taking pictures of the holes in people’s lives.
Some looked hungry, or like they had no place they belonged. Or both. Others looked lonely. A lot of them looked lonely. Like, I guess there’s a lot more lonely going on in the world than I’d really ever stopped to think about.
Some looked angry. But then, even the ones who looked angry also looked lonely or scared. Usually anger seems to be a feeling that people have all by itself, with no other feelings around it. Or under it. But not in Molly’s pictures. In Molly’s pictures, people felt lots of different feelings, all at the same time.
And they say the camera doesn’t lie. So I knew life must really be the way it was in Molly’s pictures. Which means there was a whole other layer of life I didn’t even know about until I saw it in her portfolio.
That’s a lot for a person with a camera to be able to do.
One of them she won an award for. A national award. It was a picket line, everyone joined together arm in arm to keep the scabs from coming through, and the faces on both sides were just so fierce. It was like Roman gladiators, except it was here, and now.
Lonely. Scared.
So, they weren’t just pictures. I mean … what do I mean? They weren’t just simple pictures whose only job is to look nice. They had something to say. They were each a sort of document of some kind of injustice. Usually people do all this shouting about injustice. But Molly’s photos just froze the injustice, and then it was right there in front of you. And you couldn’t look away anymore. They just presented you with the injustice and then left you to do all the rest of the work on your own. You either cared or you didn’t. But you couldn’t ever pretend again.
I had no idea, until that exact moment, that a camera could do so much.
I was so caught up in what they made me feel, and in all the thoughts running laps in my head, I think I actually forgot that Frank was sleeping right across the room on the couch. The whole world, just in that moment, was about the possibility of taking pictures.
For the first time ever, I knew there was something I really cared enough to do. I actually wanted to be something.
Then I wondered how I’d ever managed to live my life and be happy without knowing this important thing I wanted to be. Even though it had been just a matter of minutes.
Still, some minutes are longer than others.
SEVEN
I Don’t Even Know What Top Surgery Is
I think it was about seven days later that I realized I hadn’t seen Toto in a long time. But maybe it was nine. I should’ve kept better track of him, but he was always hiding someplace or another, and there’s only just so much of the day you can spend on a treasure hunt for your weird cat.
He had a food dish that I checked a couple of times a day, and if I saw he was low on dry food, I filled it up. All of a sudden one lazy Sunday afternoon it hit me. It wasn’t low, but it should have been. It hadn’t been low for days.
I hunted.
I found Toto in the closet, nested in some dirty clothes on the floor. I didn’t exactly have a hamper yet, so the bottom of the closet was temporarily filling the bill.
He looked up at me in the half-light. Looked at me with that one eye, and my stomach jerked, and I knew something was really wrong. Because he didn’t run away.
I took the lamp from the bedside table and pulled it as far as the cord would stretch. Shined it in on him.
He still didn’t run.
He turned his face up to me, and it wasn’t shaped right at all. It was all lumpy and puffed up on one side. So much that it pushed his nose over in the other direction. So much that his one good eye was partly shut.
I just stood there for a second, not knowing what to do. The vet we used for Francis was all the way on the other side of town. And he wasn’t open on Sunday anyway. And I didn’t even know how to get Toto into the carrier.
Then it hit me. Frank.
I almost ran over there and asked him to help me.
But then I decided I had to at least put Toto in the carrier. I was on my own now. I didn’t want to be helpless. I couldn’t just rely on Frank for everything. Or maybe I wanted Frank to be proud of me for being able to handle things. I just knew that sooner or later I had to be able to handle my own cat.
I got the carrier and brought it back to the closet door.
It was easy to get him cornered in there.
I took him by the scruff of the neck. I thought, I’ll do this just like Frank showed me. But I couldn’t pin him to my side. I had to dangle him in the air and lower him down into the carrier. So his back legs were swinging free, and he got panicky, and I felt one set of back claws rake down the side of my wrist. Bad one, I could tell. But there was no time to think about it now.
I closed the carrier and ran over to Frank’s apartment. Banged on the door. I could hear a lot of noise in there. Lots of voices. Dozens. They had people over. Multiple people. Maybe even a party.
Maybe I’d even heard the party before. Through the wall. And just hadn’t really focused on the fact that the voices were coming from Molly and Frank’s. Maybe it just didn’t sink in until I was standing in front of his door. Wishi
ng I hadn’t just knocked.
I turned to run back to my own apartment. Then I froze again. I couldn’t bring myself to yell for help to Frank when they were having a party. Then again, I couldn’t just go home without any help for my cat.
Before I could decide whether to run away or not, Frank answered the door.
“Elle, honey, what’s wrong?”
“I need your help with Toto. He’s sick. But you’re having a party.…”
Frank looked down at my hands. At the hall carpet at my feet. “He’s bleeding? Where’s he bleeding from?”
“No. No, he’s not bleeding. No, the bleeding would be me. But he hasn’t eaten for days, and his face is so swollen up that he can barely see out of his good eye. And he doesn’t even run from me. Toto. Doesn’t run from me. So this is really bad.”
“You better come in,” he said.
It felt good to have him just sort of take over. Just take me under his wing like he always did so well, and then I knew Toto and I would both be okay. It made all the scared places in my gut feel warm and settled.
Then I walked into their apartment. And then nothing felt warm and settled anymore.
I looked around at their friends. Some just looked like anybody else you’d meet. But about half a dozen of them were, like … I don’t know any other way to say this, so I’ll just say it. Like men in dresses. Like you could just see by their faces and shapes that they were men. But they were wearing makeup and women’s clothes and either wearing wigs or just had their hair done up in a women’s style. One of them looked really fifties old-fashioned in a high-necked dress, white gloves, and a single strand of pearls. Another was wearing jeans and a skinny spaghetti-strap tank top, but his shoulders and arms looked too big to pull it off. Then a few others were sort of in between. And a lot of the women looked really gay. And some of the men who were dressed like men were …
You know what? I think I kind of stopped trying to take it all in at that point. Some of them just looked and felt strange to me.
I tried to turn back to Frank. To follow him into the kitchen. He was trying to lead me into the kitchen. But he had stopped for a minute while I looked around. He looked vaguely uncomfortable.
On the way into the kitchen, I saw one other thing. One huge other thing, sitting over by the window.
It was a top surgery tree.
Not that I know what a top surgery tree is. I had no idea. But it had a sign on top that said TOP SURGERY TREE. So there you go. So that’s what it was. It was like a Christmas tree but with no green needles. Only bare branches. And on the sharp ends of the bare branches people had stuck money. Twenty- and fifty- and hundred-dollar bills.
But, like I usually do with anything I have no frame of reference for, I just sort of put it out of my head again.
But the people. That stayed with me. And rattled me a little bit.
We stood at Frank’s kitchen sink, and he washed my wrist off with antibacterial soap, and it stung like crazy.
“You’re supposed to be entertaining your guests,” I said.
“It’s not a problem,” he said.
He put ointment on the scratches. Four of them, the longest about three or four inches, from the side of my hand all the way up past my wrist. He brought out a box of giant-sized Band-Aid patches. It took three to cover the damn thing.
“Okay,” he said. “Now we worry about the cat. We’ll take him down to my work. I’ll call one of the vets from my cell on the way and have somebody meet us there.”
“But your company.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “They’ll get by for an hour while we’re gone.”
We walked fast to the subway together, and Frank held the carrier. I felt like I should, because Toto was my cat. But he was heavy, and it’s hard to walk fast lugging an extra fifteen pounds. I could barely keep up with Frank as it was.
The street was crowded with people walking in both directions, and now and then someone wouldn’t yield, and I’d get separated from Frank and Toto and have to run a few steps to catch up. Half the people who passed us were chatting on their cell phones, and people’s cigarette smoke blew back and caught me in the face, and I waved it away.
I felt relieved when we trotted down the steps into the subway. I like the subway. I’m not sure why.
Right away I could feel it get cooler. It’s usually cooler down there, and a little bit moist, like a cave.
I used to like to stand right by the edge of the platform and look down the tunnel, waiting to see the lights of the train. Back in the old days, when hardly anybody got pushed onto the tracks.
Without a word to each other, without any discussion of how we do these things, Frank and I took a spot with our backs up against the cool wall. I could feel the edge of an ad frame against my back. I could feel the wood of the bench we’d chosen not to sit on. It was right up against my left leg.
I thought about Frank’s friends from the party, then pushed the images out of my head again. But I kept having that constant feeling like there was something I was purposely not thinking about.
When the train came, the brightness of the inside of it seemed comforting somehow.
We sat on the hard plastic seat, the cat carrier between us on the floor. I was wondering why we weren’t talking.
Then I realized it was me.
I clam up when I’m upset. But realizing that didn’t exactly fix it.
I just sat there, stony, watching the lights flicker off and then on again. Listening to the clatter of the metal wheels on the tracks. Feeling the rocking that is pure subway, that just doesn’t feel like any other transportation in the world.
Then I said, “I should’ve known he was sick. What was I thinking? Letting him sit in that closet for days. I never even looked around for him.”
“He’s a different kind of cat,” Frank said. “You expected that kind of remote behavior from him. If he came around a lot on his own, I’m sure you would have missed him when he stopped.”
I wondered if that meant Frank thought it was Toto’s fault. I didn’t figure it could be. It was never the cat’s fault. That would be like blaming a three-year-old. I was the grown-up in charge. The buck had to stop with me.
“Are you saying it was Toto’s fault?”
“I’m saying there’s no point blaming anyone in this case.”
We sat quiet awhile longer, feeling the distinctive rocking. Comforting.
Then Frank said, “Nobody else would have taken that cat out of the pound, Elle. You know that. That cat would already be dead if it wasn’t for you. You’re taking the best care of him you can, and he doesn’t make it easy. Can you let yourself off the hook for this?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure. I guess.”
But I was halfway lying. Telling Frank what he wanted to hear. Maybe I could let myself off the hook. Eventually. But not just like that.
Another very long silence. But this one was more strained and painful. At least for me.
“What’s top surgery?” I asked.
I heard him pull in a deep breath. It was probably only a second or two before he answered. But it was the longest second or two in the history of civilization.
“It’s a phase of gender-reassignment surgery.” A heavy, dead weight in my stomach. A little nauseating. “It’s a double mastectomy, but then also with some cosmetic surgery to give the chest more of a male shape and appearance.”
“I guess it’s none of my business,” I said.
The words sounded like they were coming from someone else. My lips felt numb. Also my brain.
“Well, you’re my friend,” he said.
Which I took to mean I could ask more questions. If I wanted to. But there was only one more question I could think to ask.
I didn’t want to.
* * *
I paced around in the waiting room for a long time. I had the whole area to myself. I read the pet cartoons on the bulletin board. Looked at the pictures on the walls. A puppy sleeping flat on
his back, his belly exposed to the cool air from a fan. A cat holding a mouse, but not a real one. A computer mouse. Holding the thin cable in his teeth, the mouse hanging down in front of his chest.
There was a canister of doggie treats on the counter, with a label that said THANKS FOR BEING PATIENT.
A middle-aged woman with wildly curly hair came out from the back and stood behind the counter. The swinging door made a whoosh noise behind her.
“Has anyone filled you in yet, dear?”
“Oh. I’m waiting for Frank. Frank is back there with my cat.”
“Right. The cat with the infected tooth.”
Then I felt better, because it was just an infected tooth. How bad can that be? Right? Pull the tooth if you have to. Put the cat on antibiotics. Nobody ever died of an infected tooth. Right?
Just then Frank came out through the swinging door. Whoosh. I looked at his face for encouragement, but he wasn’t giving anything away.
“Shirley, I’ll call for an update.”
I followed him out the door.
“What?” I said. “He’s okay, right? It’s just an infected tooth. He’ll be okay, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what we hope,” he said.
We walked down the street together, and he steered me toward a coffeehouse.
“Wait. Don’t you have to get back to your party?”
“In a minute. We’re just going to talk for a minute.”
My stomach felt like it was swarming with stinging insects. This was not going to be a good talk. I could feel that much. I could tell.
“Can’t they just pull the tooth?”
“Yeah, it’ll come out today. But we’re a little concerned because we think he might have a secondary infection.”
He held the door open for me, and the sound of people chatting and milk being steamed felt welcoming in a weird way.
“Is that serious?”
“Can be pretty serious, yes. But he’s getting the best care.”
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