Little Fish

by Casey Plett

  Back in the fellowship hall, everybody was friendly. Everybody chatted and everybody talked to everybody else, the family included. It was different than it’d been at Wendy’s Oma’s funeral. “Faspa time,” said an old man to Wendy, waiting in line for another helping at the food table.

  Sophie’s family went back to her mom’s place. Her friends went to Cousin’s. At the bar, Wendy and Lila and Raina sat at one table, with a few younger girls with short hair and black dresses and two women from the States who’d come up. Sophie’s old straight friends sat at another.

  One of the women from the States sat down next to Wendy, a white lady with rat’s-nest hair, wearing a cardigan and jeans under a huge fucking coat. Carrying a pint glass filled with ice-black liquid.

  “Hey,” said Wendy. “Your name’s Carla, isn’t it.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m Wendy.”

  “I know who you are.”

  Wendy smiled.

  “What are you drinking?” she asked Carla.

  “Whisky and Diet Coke.”

  “We call it rye up here, Yankee.”

  “Oh, whatever! You speak the same language we all do. I haven’t been to Canada in years, though—it always been this expensive?”

  Wendy rubbed her eyes. “They raised the fuckin’ … liquor taxes again. Last year I think. It was in the paper. The PST went up too.”

  “Socialism ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, huh.”

  Wendy shook the ice in her drink. “You lived with Sophie, didn’t you?”

  “No. She lived in my town for a bit.”

  “Chrysalis?”

  “Yup,” Carla breathed. “That’s the place.”

  “Were you close?”

  “Kinda?” Carla coughed. She hacked. “Sorry. Hey, you don’t got any weed, do you?”

  “No. I could hook you up, though …”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m going home tomorrow. Anyway, like I said. Sophie lived across town from me. Big old house full of assholes. For a while, she was the only other trans girl running around. I’m from a small town, you know. We saw each other around but we never got close. Except this one time, right?”

  Carla raised her voice over a sudden change in music.

  “So, you know—well, you know Sophie was … I don’t know if you know—fuck it, she’s gone, you’re a sister, I can probably trust you, huh? She was—like, well, she was a sex worker.”

  “Yes,” Wendy said, her voice sterile. “I did know that. I am one too. I am a sex worker.”

  Carla’s face went blank as a potato. “Okay, great,” she said. “That’s cool. I mean, I don’t know if it’s cool, maybe it isn’t. You tell me. Or not. I mean I’m just trying—”

  Wendy blinked a few times.

  “Right, I’ll just go fuck myself right now,” said Carla. “Sorry. Starting over. So Sophie. She would borrow a car and drive to other towns for work, right? Where I’m from, there just ain’t a lot of people; she couldn’t make much money, I guess. So one time we ran into each other at the bar. And Sophie’s bitching how she doesn’t want to go, she’s always lonely and wigged out on these trips of hers. I thought hell, I get weekends off now. So I said to her, ‘You want me to come with you? It could be fun. I have a real job now, it could be like a vacation! You know, you and I never legit hang out. I dunno—that a good idea?’ I thought, Damn, maybe I’m fucked up, is this a jerk thing to even suggest? But the look on her face—did it just light up. This was a couple summers ago.”

  Carla’d already finished her drink.

  “I got a room beside hers, we watched TV, had some drinks in my room. She saw two or three guys every night, said she made a decent amount of money. Fuck me, I never realized, you know—I never realized how much sitting around you girls do! Heh. She’d be, like, waiting for the phone to ring. Sussing out all the guys just wasting her time or who wouldn’t show up. All for not getting paid. I was, like, Christ, that’d drive me up the wall. I didn’t realize.”

  “Yeah, that ain’t fun,” Wendy said. “Kinda no end if you tried to talk about it. It’s boring and crappy. So I don’t. Go on. Tell me more.”

  “Sorry, sorry, you know,” Carla said abruptly. “So over, like, four days we went up to Grand Forks then down to Fargo, and it was just great. The last night, we said to hell with it and slept in the same bed. We watched that one movie—Heavenly Creatures, I think it’s called? Garbage movie.”

  “Oh yeah! That movie’s boring as hell!”

  “Piece of shit,” Carla agreed. “What’s next, The Well of fucking Loneliness? Fuck me. Anyway. So afterward we’re talking. And you know,” she hiccupped again, “the thing about Sophie. You probably know. She was one of those girls who didn’t grow up with it that hard. I mean, she grew up being loved and she grew up with security and believing the world would protect her. I guess what I’m saying is—”

  “Why don’t I get your next drink?” Wendy cut her off, looking around. No one was listening.

  “I didn’t grow up with it easy,” Carla said again right away when Wendy brought her drink back. “My mom loved me. My dad didn’t. We didn’t have money, but my dad always had a job; we weren’t trashy.” Wendy’s eyes flickered at this. “But my mom loved me. Now she doesn’t love me. That was hard. That was one of the hardest things. I don’t know what it’s been like for you. I’m guessing you’ve lost some things. Maybe you’ve lost more than other girls. Maybe you’ve lost less. But Sophie grew up loved and she grew up with security and dreams. Do you get what I’m saying? Am I pissin’ you off? I know this is dicey.”

  “I do know what you mean,” said Wendy. “And I didn’t grow up with security. Mostly. I had it for a few years as a teenager. I don’t fuckin’ know. Look, go on.”

  “What I’m saying,” said Carla. “Sophie was a girl who lost a lot. For me, I didn’t grow up thinking my dreams would ever be real. Like, sure, I used to say I wanted to go to the city and be a fabulous writer or whatever, but in all honesty I knew I wasn’t going to be famous and I wasn’t going to be rich and I wasn’t ever going to move to New York City or anything like that. I’m the GM at my store, you know; I make more money now than I ever thought I would. I’m not saying everyone who grows up like I did feels that way. But that’s my read on myself. And Sophie had a different experience. She had such dreams. She believed in good, and she wanted there to be good.”

  “Hey,” said Wendy. “Hey, Carla!” Wendy glared at her, suddenly and instantly flaring. “Why don’t I buy you another drink, and you maybe think about what you’re saying?”

  “Sure,” said Carla. She swivelled her head around. It fell forward for a second then she caught it. She pulled on her cardigan. “Yeah. Whisky-Diet in a tall glass.” The drink Wendy’d just got her was half gone. Wendy took her time with this one.

  “Carla,” she said, sitting down, politely and icily. “You were telling me a story about a motel.”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s a sensitive time. Sorry.” Carla cast around like she was looking for something. “She told me that when she was little, she wanted to be prime minister. Isn’t that a thing?”

  “Ha!” said Wendy.

  Carla shook her head and burped. “I’ll finish my story and get—” she burped again, “get the hell out of your hair. I know, I’m a goof. So like I said, we were lying in bed. And she was dealing with some asshole. Insisted he only had forty bucks. Said she was a bitch. A bit later, he re-appears, says he has more money, sorry, he’ll pay full price, please forgive him and see him. She gets all ready and he keeps saying he’s just about there. And then he ghosts, he just doesn’t show up. Well. Again. You’re probably used to that stuff.”

  “It’s daily,” said Wendy. “More of an incall thing. Outcalls still flake plenty though.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Go on.”

  “I mean, Christ. I don’t know what it was like to be her.” Carla hack-coughed again. “She’d made money already like I said, so she wa
sn’t really bummed. After that guy, she said, ‘I’m calling it a night. I’m taking my ad down. I’m turning off my phone.’”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “And then we just got hammered,” said Carla. “Watching stupid TV and telling stories, we talked shit about people in town. That was fun, heh. Y’know, people who hate gossip aren’t any better than anyone else. They just try to put political justifications behind their shit-talking. They’re just as bad as everybody else plus they’re boring. I trust people who gossip. Anyway, it was fucking fun. And then I went out for more beer, and I came back in. And Sophie.” Carla paused, set her drink down and made a hand motion. “She’s sitting straight up on the bed. I’ll never forget it. She’s sitting straight up in this huge T-shirt. And pyjama pants. And Sophie kisses me. I don’t usually …”

  Carla faltered and her eyes grew vacant. Wendy wondered if she’d just crossed over to blackout.

  “Anyway we had, um. We had sex. She fucked me. I didn’t think. From just stuff she’d hinted at. She even … liked doing that. But she fucked me. It was rough. Good, just rough. I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of sex. I mean. People usually don’t want to have sex with me. Nobody likes having sex with me. Anyway. She fucked me through my panties. She had this big, manic grin on her face. We’d never even flirted before! I don’t think we had that—energy. Or whatever. And we were SO drunk. It was sloppy. You know? You know. It was that kind of thing.” A glimmer of a smirk flashed on Carla’s face. “It was fun. And we fell asleep at the same time.”

  “Sure.”

  “Hours later,” she continued, “I woke up in the middle of the night. Sophie was bucking on the bed, facing away from me. Still naked. That red bob of hers going up and down. And this creepy sound, like a skriitch skriitch. And I lay there—I was still pretty drunk—just looking at her back, dumbfounded. Didn’t say anything.”

  “Okay …” said Wendy.

  “Eventually, I realized she was shaving. She was dry-shaving her legs. At least I assume it was her legs. I don’t know what else that sound could have been or what else she could’ve been doing with how she was moving. I watched for a long time before I fell asleep again. I didn’t want to move. It felt like I’d done something bad by waking up and learning this. I didn’t want her to know I could see her. I had to pee bad too. I fell back asleep. Next day, she was totally normal and we’re driving back home and she says, ‘I’m sorry, you know I love you, but I don’t think we should be sexual again.’ I said, yeah, yeah, that’s fine.” Carla swallowed. “That’s all,” she said hollowly. “I guess that’s the end. Nothing happened after that. I dunno. Never mind.”

  Wendy’s mouth was dry. She wanted to change the subject. She wanted to talk about anything else right now.

  Lila was across from both of them, silent, not speaking to anyone. “Hey!” Wendy said to her and Carla. “Okay, random question: What was it with the aunt? How she thought Sophie would be famous for writing or music? Like, I didn’t know she wrote or played music.”

  “I don’t think she did,” Lila said.

  “Never heard shit about that.” Carla shook her head.

  “Me neither,” said Wendy.

  “People like to exaggerate,” said Carla, sucking on her straw at the dregs of ice, “a person’s accomplishments after they died. I get it. But the girl doesn’t need exaggerating.”

  Wendy clinked her glass against Carla’s. “I get you on that.”

  “Her family was all Mennonite, huh?” said Carla.

  “Yup,” said Wendy. “Just like mine.”

  “No shit.”

  “All shit.” Everyone laughed at that.

  “There’s nothing else to it,” Wendy said, later in the night, when it was near closing time and they’d steered Carla into a cab with Lila’s roommate. Wendy was drunk and in a bad, ugly mood.

  “We’ll slowly forget, and then this will happen again, and it probably won’t be someone I loved as much as I loved her, and Sophie will still be gone, and another person will be gone, and I will think about all we should have done together till the day I die. And I won’t miss them like I miss her. That is all there is. That’s what suicide means! It’s death! She’s just fucking gone, and she should fucking be here! And it’s her fault. She did this.”

  There was a lot of silence. Everyone looked the other way. “Thought you said you weren’t mad at her,” said Lila.

  “I’m not,” said Wendy. She didn’t feel angry. She felt hopeless.

  “Oh, okay.”

  Raina coughed and got up from the table.

  Wendy put her head in her hands, pressing her cheeks out, almost off her face. When she looked up, an Amazonian girl from the straight-friends table was making her way over. Wendy readied herself to tell her to fuck off.

  “Hi,” said the girl, pulling out the chair beside Wendy.

  She realized the girl was trans.

  How the fuck had Wendy not noticed her earlier? And how did she not know who she was?

  Wendy was speechless for only a second. “Hello,” she said, visibly confused. The girl looked at her drink and sipped.

  “I don’t know you, do I?” said Wendy.

  The girl arched an eyebrow and said, “I don’t think so.”

  Wendy latently registered through her fogged brain the details of how the other woman looked.

  The girl was tall, taller than Wendy, with short, shaggy jet-black hair, thick black eyeliner. She wore a studded belt and a loose, huge threadbare white T-shirt under a maroon hoodie under a dark-blue jean jacket. Tattoos creeping around her neckline that Wendy couldn’t decipher. And freckles all over her body.

  “No, you don’t know me,” the girl said. And then Wendy registered: She had an English accent. It wasn’t an upper-crusty accent, like the ex-pat Brits who came into her work, but it wasn’t, like, Cockney either. Wendy felt embarrassed she couldn’t place it. “My name is Aileen,” said the girl.

  Wendy laughed.

  “What?”

  “My name used to be Tulip.”

  Aileen laughed. “Well, I like my name better’n your old one.”

  “Yeah, me too. Where are you from, Aileen?”

  “Me? I am from the Internet.”

  “You look like a trans girl from the Internet.” Oh, you suck, Wendy, she immediately thought to herself, but Aileen snorted.

  “Right,” she replied. “Girls in my city think I’m a weirdo too.”

  “What city’s that?”

  “I live in Dublin. But I’m from the north of England, outside of Sheffield,” said Aileen. “I came to visit a friend. Aside from—you know.”

  “You chose a hell of a time.”

  Aileen didn’t break her gaze. She sipped from her drink, put it down. “Cheap to fly here this time of year.”

  “Oh, right. Well, so, how’d you meet Sophie?” said Wendy.

  “I didn’t,” Aileen said. “We talked online for years. We’d made plans to meet in person for the first time. I been here five days.”

  There was something confident and frightened in the girl’s eyes.

  “And instead you’re here, in this bar,” Wendy finished.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you buy me a drink?” said Wendy.

  “Yes,” Aileen replied instantly.

  “But first, do you want to talk about Sophie?” Wendy said rapidly. “Then you should talk to someone else. Because I can’t do that. I can’t do that anymore for a while. I know you knew her online, but if you want to talk about her, you need to do that with someone else.”

  “Maybe,” said Aileen—she had wide, deep-brown eyes—“maybe I came over to talk to you.”

  Wendy’s head fell forward. She was drunk. She was so, so, so drunk. “You’ve got pretty eyes,” she heard herself say.

  “You’ve got a pretty face, love. Now, let me get your drink.”

  When they kissed, it was magic. The others were gone and they’d done shots at last call and now were alone outside
Cousin’s, wind blowing and snow melting on their faces, their lips. Well. Thank goodness that’s mutual, Wendy said, a finger on Aileen’s lips, her swirling breath a cloud moving up and over the taller girl’s face. You tit, said Aileen. Like you don’t have pretty girls all over you all the time. In her head Wendy’s first thought was Well no, I’m kind of straight, but she caught herself midway and just said No. Aileen said Oh no? and kissed Wendy deeply, her shaggy frizzy hair gradually speckling with white. Wendy said I don’t mean to be bold and I don’t know if you like walking but I don’t live too far away, whispering though they were truly alone on Sherbrook in the hushing icy swirl of dark. You think you’re bold, said Aileen, I was going to say I’ve got a room around the corner I’m betting you look good naked in. Wendy hooted. She laughed her guttural heard-down-the-block laugh with a pickled brain hundreds of feet above herself, spiralling off to the moon. Why don’t you show me yer fuckin room then, I guess Wendy said, grinning, suddenly and dumbly aware of her own drizzly McKenzie Brothers-like accent. They walked around Wolseley and up Furby—Wendy briefly flashed to the guy on the stoop. Three weeks ago that happened, Jesus, only three weeks ago? Stop, STOP, you’re with this girl not him—mulched grey and black snow everywhere, the air now still, their boots squeaking and crunching. Wendy pinned Aileen against the side of a corner store, grinning and fondling her face and rubbing hard on her tits through her layers. Aileen gasped. You are a treat Miss Aileen, Wendy said. I can already tell you’re a treat. They made out in front of the stucco wall. There was nothing around them. It was all quiet. The girl’s flesh felt soft and safe and beautiful in this way Wendy had forgotten was possible. An old feeling. Aileen led Wendy onward and up Spence and when she turned into a gate Wendy said, No fucking way. Action House? You’re staying at Action House? Aileen said, Yeah I’m friends with Randi. She came through Ireland last year. Wendy nearly fell over in the snow You know Randi? We got on like mad, she kept begging me to come visit, Wendy snorted. Fucking punks. Action House? I’ve been going to parties here since I was … well, anyway. Aileen led her through the front door, hung their coats on the overflowing rack, through the kitchen with the two fridges and impossibly tall black cabinets, through the back the decaying stairs, down into the basement past the laundry into what Wendy recognized as some boy’s bedroom who’d lived here forever, who Aileen explained in patches was away … somewhere … doing … something. A slippery memory rose and fell of hanging out in this room with people at a party—years ago. And now this girl Aileen was here. There were posters. Wendy couldn’t focus on them. She was so, so drunk. There was a tiny bottle of Jameson on the bedside table. Aileen kissed Wendy on her breasts, the breasts that were both fuller and rounder from the new medroxy and also getting baggy from the years—wait, when did Wendy’s top come off? Aileen had the smaller, perky fresh-on-HRT tits she remembered both on her own past self and others (when did both their tops come off?). Wendy pressed the other girl down onto the bed, straddled her and held her firm. It didn’t take long for Wendy to figure out what she liked; drunk as she was, she intuitively made sense of Aileen’s shuddering skin and a light hiss of air when Wendy touched certain things. She pressed on Aileen’s nipple and whispered, You like that kind of thing. (Yes!) A courtesy, building trust as opposed to gathering information. Wendy’s ponytail was coming loose, her huge black mane draping and expanding down her back. Wendy smiled inside herself. It really had been years. Sex with another girl. Wendy screwed her hands into Aileen’s chest, and she bucked like fire and screamed, Fucking shit yes yes! Shit! Wendy ground against her crotch and Aileen said, Hurt me. Come on. Be rough with me. Wendy’s pussy was wet and stinking, soaking her panties, God, that fucking smell—she pulled Aileen’s hair back. Her hands were on her throat—how did her hands get to Aileen’s throat? Aileen was wriggling and vibrating and her clit was hard against Wendy’s through their underwear. She released. Am I, Wendy said dumbly. Is that too—? No, fucking choke me! Oh, okay. Her hands slippery and sweating on her neck. The picture of Aileen below her snapping patchy in and out of focus. Suddenly she is here. Suddenly she is here.