by Casey Plett
As Sophie progressed to screaming vowels instead of words, and before Raina and Lila could get to her, she began to make dents in the plaster wall. It was a sight. Two girls, one dressed as a bat and the other as the Queen of Hearts, holding down a screaming giantess in a leopard-print dress. They talked to her soothingly while Sophie hyperventilated snot. The small crowd staring at them filtered back to the floor.
Wendy realized she’d seen that flower pinned to the wall above Sophie’s night table.
You are so fucking stupid, Wendy thought. Why the fuck would you bring something important here.
Ernie wanted to talk to Sophie too, and Wendy put a hand on his cheek. “They’re looking after her,” she said brightly.
They made out in the abandoned front room, and then Wendy sucked him off behind the blanketed table where earlier, the venue’d collected the cover charge. He didn’t touch her head or grind into her, and she liked that. When they got up and found a full open can of beer on a shelf, they drank it. But that set Ernie’s stomach off. He tried to go downstairs but instead painted thirteen steps in a row a splotchy yellow. Wendy hustled him to the fire escape and put a finger to his lips when he yammered how embarrassed he was and how he was never this screwed up …
“Trust me,” Wendy whispered, pressing a stick of gum in his fingers. “Trust me. I don’t care,” and he said, “Okay okay okay,” with wind and flakes swirling around him as he breathed heavily and shuddered on the black iron grate and Wendy loved his horror and vulnerability in that moment; she loved that this was his standard of embarrassment; she loved the broken concern on his face when Sophie was punching stupid fucking holes into this beautiful old building; if he suggested right now that they get on a plane, she’d say yes.
They began to say goodbyes to everyone they knew, but it was catching up to them that they were drunk, they were so so so drunk, drunk enough to have trouble walking or finding each other after Ernie cleaned up in the washroom. He slurred out that his place was close, and she said, “Great great great,” and while getting their shit, they tripped in the corner on a pile of cans as thick as a ball pit. Wendy whacked her head on a counter. They carried-held each other over to the front room and found: Sophie. Sitting on the blanket-covered table with flushed eye-shadow-stained skin.
“You’re beautiful!” Sophie said to a girl coming up the stairs in a leather jacket and polka-dotted blouse. She said goodbye to Wendy and Ernie, then broke off when another strange girl came through. “You’re gorgeous!” Sophie said to her. “Your shirt is so pretty! I love your shoes! You are so gorgeous, and I want you to know how amazing you are!” They heard Sophie’s voice trailing all the way down the stairs: “You are beautiful you are beautiful you are beautiful you are always beautiful and you always will be!”
Ernie hailed a cab they sat in for five minutes, then they took an elevator far up, and Wendy said, “Ernie, do you have something to drink,” and he opened a beer in front of her and she tipped it straight up like a glass sword, and after that her memory shut down.
5
Her body was roiling when she woke up. She felt ruined. Like when jumpy innocent teenagers in desolate weakness wake up from a first bender in misguided horror of what they’d done to themselves. But Wendy was very attuned to the signals of her body. She only had to experience something once or twice to know exactly what her body was telling her.
Wendy turned very slowly from one side to another. Ernie’s comforter was huge and felt like moonlight. She opened her eyes. He wasn’t in the bed. She turned her head to see the room—bare white walls, grey carpet, no furniture except the bed, a closed door on one side and a washroom on the other.
Kitchen noises from behind the door, streetlight filtering in the blinds with the first signs of dawn.
She had to pee incredibly badly. She stood up very, very slowly. As she walked she was as shaky as a surgery patient.
On the toilet Wendy realized: She was wearing his clothes—a bright blue tank top and white cotton shorts. She laughed, seeing herself in the mirror. She looked like an oversized version of herself from grade school. There was something deeply satisfying and funny about it, being here, in his washroom, and seeing herself like this. She rested her beating head on her hands and smiled.
She could say goodbye to Ernie before he went to work. Maybe he made coffee. She creaked herself up. She moved to the closed door. Then she fell on the bed and slept for two more hours.
When she woke, a spring was blooming in her insides. She scrambled out of the cloud-sea of covers and ran to the toilet and threw up everything in her body.
She felt worse than she had a couple hours before—actually, she felt sicker than she’d been in a while. I never puke anymore, Wendy thought. I don’t remember the last time I puked.
Drinking a sip of water then lying on the cool linoleum, she took long slow mouthfuls of air and forced her body to breathe. Half of her hair was bunched between her head and the floor, but it hurt too much to move it. Her hair hurt. The cabinets under the sink were pinwheeling and clicking back into place at the same time.
Wendy had a thought. She moved a hand to her pussy and pressed. It was tender, hurt different than the rest of her.
So they had had sex.
Her ass?
She wondered whose idea that’d been.
Eventually she forced her body up, commanding it like a robot. Ernie’s alarm clock read 9:37.
The rest of the apartment was an ageless bright room with a kitchen and a couch and a TV. There was no Ernie and no coffee and a half-full carton of Five Alive in the fridge. She sat against the fridge door and drank it down, its light flowing into her like flowers.
Blacking out used to devastate Wendy. She used to obsess about what she might have done, messaged friends: Did I do anything shitty? But she learned eventually. Annoying people with drink-related guilt just annoyed them more—and anyway, Wendy rarely did anything bad. Drunk guilt was childish, and worrying about it didn’t make things better. So she didn’t worry about it anymore.
Her phone. Of course! Of course Ernie wouldn’t leave a note! She stood up, feeling stronger, and went back to the bedroom. Six texts:
Lila: I had fun tonight. Love you. (4:01 a.m.)
Raina: You aboot? (7:36 a.m.)
Raina: *pokes you* Wendy-burger I had the best time last night now wake up and come home! (7:52 a.m.)
Sophie: I’m sorry about last night. Thank you for putting up with me. Come to breakfast with me and my mom? (8:32 a.m.)
Sophie: She has a shift at 10 so it has to be soon (8:34 a.m.)
Sophie: Oh did you end up at Ernies? Raina said you left with a guy. Haha nm ;D get that d (8:35 a.m.)
Lila: I hurt everywhere and I hate you and I want you to die. You better have got that d. (8:40 a.m.)
Lila: P.S. If you didn’t get laid we’re not friends anymore. (8:41 a.m.)
Lila: Love you. (8:42 a.m.)
No new contacts and no texts that Wendy had sent herself. (In the past, this had sometimes clarified things.)
She searched for Ernies in Facebook but found nothing. Sophie had posted: I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, and a bunch of people had liked it and some said, You have nothing to be sorry for with a heart, and others had said, Sorry for what?
Wendy thought momentarily of typing: Anyone in social work world know a hot guy named Ernie? Who was at Frame last night? but she hadn’t posted in months—and besides, what if he was uncomfortable with that?
Oh, for fuck’s sake! She could just ask Sophie—who actually knew him. Duh.
And then, arrestingly, heart-droppingly, she thought, You know, guys who fuck you then want to hang out again usually have a way of making sure that’ll happen …
She wrapped her arms around herself, fit her fingers into the back of the blue tank top.
Where were her clothes?
Her clothes were a raccoon costume.
Next to the bed, a shiny brown polyester lump lay against the colourl
ess blanket and wall.
Wendy changed, put on her coat, found her bag, and went back to the kitchen.
Well, she would write him a note. Regardless. Nothing to be gained by not writing a note. She looked around for paper. Then the Five Alive revolted and she threw up in the sink.
“Okay,” she panted. She leaned over the sink, weak again, her skin shuddering and warming beneath her heavy clothes. “Okay.”
Wendy washed out the splash of puke, drank a small slosh of water, and shuffled to a side table to look for paper and pens.
She would write something like, “You’re sweet, if you’d like to hang out again I’d like that.” Simple and honest. Nothing cutesy. She was getting too old for cutesy.
The side table was brown and old and had beautiful moulding, standing out from the sterile room. In a drawer she found pens and a notepad along with loose push pins and an iPod cord and both a city and a provincial phone book.
She blinked.
She took the provincial phone book and sat on the couch and checked the directory.
Anna Penner—10425 Hwy 329—Morweena—498-0925
Wendy tore out the page and put it in her bag, drank more water, and zipped up her coat. She wrote “Ernie” elegantly at the top of the notepad and glanced around idly.
There really was almost nothing here—an Ikea bookcase with more shelf space than books. The sad little couch. A quad-photo frame on the wall she hadn’t noticed before. She could make out the top one. It was Ernie with someone smaller, a kid—
Wendy stood up and moved to the frame.
A small girl, maybe eight or nine, with brown hair, who looked like Ernie. She was standing in front of a brick building with steps. She looked scared.
In the next frame, the same girl in a classroom at a small desk, looking startled and snuck-up on. There was butcher paper in front of her.
Next, she was in an old, empty stand of bleachers, with a canola field on one side in the background and big new-looking houses on the other. In that one she was smiling.
Next, she and Ernie, sitting in the fellowship hall of a church. He was in a suit and smiling at the person with the camera, and the small girl was open-mouthed and reaching for his coffee cup. And Ernie had glasses.
Wendy put her hands to her face. She pressed her temples, calmed herself.
In her raccoon suit and winter coat, Wendy stood back, levelled her phone at the frame, and took a picture. Then she moved back and took a close-up of all four.
She checked they came out clear, scrunched up the paper with “Ernie” on it, put it in her pocket, put away the blank notepad, and slipped out the door.
Going down in the elevator, her heart fried.
Don’t be stupid, she thought. Nothing means a future. Nothing.
She pushed the button to go back up, scribbled “Call Me!—Wendy 775-2410” on the back of a receipt and pushed it under his door. Okay, there, she thought.
6
Remembering her promise to Anna, Wendy called her great-aunt first.
“That’s certainly an interesting theory!” she said when Wendy finished the story.
“I don’t think I have an opinion,” Wendy said delicately. “She just wanted me to pass the message along so I did.”
“And I do appreciate that,” said the great-aunt. “Well, Anna’s an interesting one, and I’m sure she has lots of things of my brother’s.”
“Oh?”
The older woman was silent. Then: “Well, we could talk about that forever. Wendy, I think it best if you don’t mention this call to anyone else in the family. I think if we leave it be in this time of grieving—yes, that’s for the best. Are we understood?”
“Sure,” Wendy said in a tiny voice.
“Blessings,” her great-aunt said warmly. “How are you? How is your job?”
“It’s great.”
“Good! How’s your dad?”
“He’s great.”
“Oh, that’s excellent, that’s excellent.”
Then Wendy called Anna and got an answering machine. It’d only been a few days since Wendy’d talked to her, but it was startling to hear her voice.
Among other things, the stuff with Ernie had got her thinking again about how she came to like guys. Wendy was one of those women who’d only turned onto men when the lady pills started. There was a guy she had worked with, a tall boy from Portage La Prairie with blond-red curls. It hadn’t been slow. They’d had one conversation the first week he started and that night her head went, Bing! You are in love. Something about it embarrassed her now.
On her lunch break, her dad called.
“Hey, girl! I got some good news. We’re getting rich!”
“We are?” said Wendy. She’d left to get food and had to shout over the wind.
“A deal’s coming up. I heard about it through the office. I’m gonna be one of the first investors, and you’re never gonna believe what it is.”
“A building? Real estate?”
“No, it’s got nothing to do with work,” Ben said quietly. “But it is a local thing. It’s all gonna be right here in the city.”
“What is it?”
“Rickshaws,” said Ben.
“Rickshaws!” Wendy screamed. Her hair whipped around and covered her eyes.
“You know what those are, then.”
“I know what those are, Dad,” she said, pawing her hair out of her face, her head and eyes still fuzzy from her hangover. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re putting money in a rickshaw company? Here? Fucking here?”
“Well, they’re not going out tomorrow, dummy! It’s when the summer gets going. Think about it—it’s perfect! Get around the Village, the Exchange—everyone’s out, they’re drunk, they’re a mile away from their car or their apartment or whatever. Get some rickshaws rolling around, get some good-looking kids to pull ’em—”
“Please don’t put a lot of money into this.”
“Aw, don’t worry, kid, I know the guys, they’re friends with my boss, they know what they’re doing. It’s going to be good. And I’m putting half the shares in your name.”
“Oh,” Wendy said. “Oh, wow.”
“Yeah,” her dad said. “Well, your grandma was always a saver and us kids are getting a cut from selling the house, so I thought, what the hell, I haven’t looked after you the best that way.”
“Well—Jesus.”
Wendy actually didn’t know how to respond. Ben had made money promises since she was little, but something this concrete was new.
“Um,” she said. “What do I have to do—do I have to do something?”
“Cash in when we’re rich and get a boob job!”
“Okay,” Wendy said flatly.
“I mean, your boobs are plenty nice, don’t get me wrong, I just always thought if you had the dough, you’d want to—”
“Ben.”
“Look, I overheard the boys talking, and they clued me in. It’s gonna be good, kid. Listen, you should be excited!”
Her dad wanted to move up at his job, a real estate office where he was an admin assistant. He got the work five years ago after his last stint on welfare. Wendy hated the men in his building. She didn’t think they respected him.
Wendy woke up the next morning feeling like she’d barely slept, shaking and achy again. Some mornings—not all, not even most—she’d go, I shouldn’t drink tonight. An hour later, she’d be feeling fine. Coffeed up and running, teeth brushed, hair brushed, eyeliner and foundation, and out the door. And often, later in the day, she would remember, Oh, right, I wasn’t going to drink today. But by then, the notion seemed silly. Like, right, that was a thing she’d planned—but was it truly necessary?
Wendy liked that feeling of giving in. It felt gentle and soft and sleepy and weak. Like within was rest. She knew that wasn’t good, but when she tried to hold it all in her head and really think about it, it would evaporate. It would slip out of sight like something pulled from a cat’s paws.
The
next day before work Lila called. They didn’t talk about Ernie or the night at Frame. It turned out a friend of Lila’s had gotten some medroxyprogesterone.
“Holy shit,” Wendy said matter-of-factly. “Who?”
“I don’t think you know them.”
“Just tell me.”
“Her name’s Tora.”
“I don’t know any Toras.”
“Told you,” said Lila. “You want medroxy, right?”
“I told you my doctor wouldn’t give it to me,” said Wendy, loading her coffeemaker. “I don’t know.”
“She has lots. She got a case from the States. I just thought—”
“I think so?” said Wendy. “I don’t know. Has she taken it? Does she know anything about medroxy?”
“No, she’s cis, and I don’t know anything about it either. I just thought you wanted it.”
“Oh,” Wendy said. “Probably? I wish I knew someone who’s taken it. I’ve heard it can be more dangerous, like, with strokes and blood clots and stuff.”
“You ever take regular progesterone?”
“Yeah, it was fuckin’ bullshit, didn’t do anything. I had to plead with my doc for, like, a year too. I’ve heard medroxy can be worse for depression, like suicidal depressed. But maybe it’s just like cis women and birth control? I don’t know.”
“Okay, look, man, I can’t decide for you,” Lila said.
Wendy stood up and drummed her fingers on her dresser. Her coffeemaker was steaming. “I’m sorry. Thank you. Probably. Right now I’m going to say probably. You ever known any trans woman who got a blood clot? Who’s taken HRT, like, this century?”
“No.”
“Yeah, exactly,” said Wendy, brushing her hair. “Doctors hold that shit over our heads like we’re falling over by the hundreds. Like this is what’s fuckin’ killing us. I know I’m being indecisive. Can I text you tomorrow? I’ll probably get it, I just need to think it over. I do appreciate it.”