“Deanie Lasher has a new pony named Pecheresse. Candle must have given it to her.”
Jessica said, “You know he got thirty-three months in prison, plus a fine of $350,000. And he has to reimburse Southgate Insurance $300,000.” “Shit! That’s chicken feed to him!”
“Don’t say shit, darling. It doesn’t become a lady.”
“You’re right. Change it to “rats”! Isn’t that what Lucy says in the Snoopy cartoon?”
“Hey, speaking of rats. I just thought of something. How would you like to nail a femme fatale who’s taking up residence at Annabel?”
“Annabel. She must be rich,” Scotti said. It was the new, swanky inn on the ocean in Montauk, known for its spa. Rooms went for $800 a night, and cabins started at $2,000.
“Oh, Sheba is filthy rich! Her newest scam is to set herself up as a rape victim in some fancy resort, preferably one with a good spa, that draws females. She’s been working on the West Coast. Sunny Shores, near Malibu, settled two million on her.”
Scotti asked, “Was she raped or not?”
“Not, But they all settie, rather than have that kind of publicity . . . and she’s good! She fools doctors, hospitals, police. She lets herself get roughed up by her accomplices, and get fucked so there’s semen. She’s head of this gang called the Samitses. Now Sheba Samitses has booked a cabin at Annabel for two weeks in May.”
Scotti poured more wine, wondering how Jessica managed to find cases so handy for Scotti.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Jessica.
“When didn’t you?”
“But it’s sheer coincidence, one case right after the other out your way. I might have planned it if I could have, but I didn’t, Scott. It’s strictly fortuitous. With only one catch where you’re concerned.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You’d have to work full-time on this one. You’d have to get a leave of absence from the library.”
“The library just canned me. They’re downsizing.”
“I’m sorry, Scott, but that makes it all the more convenient. And I have some money for you. I sold the GE stock we bought back during the Punic Wars. You get half.”
“Save it for Emma.”
“Take it, Scott. Lighten the load on your credit cards! The only thing Emma needs is that damn Fortune Fanny doll all the kids have. I couldn’t find one for her in time for Christmas. They were sold out everywhere.”
“A doll? She’s nine years old! Put the money in Emma’s account.” “You goose Fanny and she rattles off a prediction,” Jessica said. “All the kids have her. You don’t watch enough daytime TV.”
“I don’t watch any.”
“Getting the goods on this gang could pay off big, Scott.”
“The Samitses gang, hmmm? Greeks?”
“Greek Americans probably.”
“I bet Gus and Zoe have heard of them. Remember my mentioning them? They own Hydra, where I hung out all summer. They seem to know every Greek who’s ever hit these shores.”
“The Samitses are infamous, so they probably do know them. Hey, shall I talk you up to the boss for this one? You’re a minor hero around Southgate since you caught Candle. Everyone thinks my ex died.”
“So he did,” Scotti said. “Try to remember not to call this minor hero Scott.”
“I don’t have happy memories of this place,” Scotti said as Max jumped up to help her out of her coat.
“It’s the only place around here open on New Year’s Day,” said Max. “I called everywhere.”
Helen’s family had descended on them yesterday. There would be no privacy at his house.
“That post I hit out front Thanksgiving is still askew,” Scotti said.
“Let me get the lady a drink,” Max said. “Bloody Mary?”
“Thanks.”
When Max came back from the bar he said, “When we were last here you had a little more pizzazz.”
“That’s your testosterone complaining, Maxie.” For the rest of his life Max Bernstein would have to inject a dose of testosterone every two weeks, just as Scotti took estrogen regularly.
Max said, “Helen’s picking me up in an hour. I came in a cab. I’ve already had eggnogs with the family.” He sat down. “How’re Jessica and Emma?”
“Jessie’s fine. Emma’s trying but it’s hard on her. She couldn’t wait for me to leave today. She was worried one of her friends would come over and she wouldn’t know how to handle it.”
“Couldn’t you be an aunt or something like that around her friends?” “I could be. But we don’t know what her friends’ folks might know. Bay Shore’s a small town. I don’t want to make a liar out of Emma.” “The best surprise is no surprise,” Max said.
“Meaning?”
“You didn’t hear about the Holiday Inn ad? It was a few years ago. My phone rang off the hook that afternoon. Their old slogan was, “The best surprise is no surprise.” Then they did this billion-dollar renovation and figured they’d shed their old, dowdy, family-oriented image. So they ran this ad featuring a gorgeous blond who goes to her college reunion . . . only she used to be a man. . . . You never watch sports, do you, Scotti?” “No.”
“They ran the ad once, during the Super Bowl: this sexy tran who surprises classmates at a college reunion. The best surprise is no surprise. They got so many complaints they pulled it.”
“Too gross, as Emma would say.”
“You’re all getting along okay?”
“Jessica and I are in a good place now ever since we solved the horse killing.”
“You solved it.”
Scotti shrugged. “She brought me to it. It depressed the hell out of me, though.”
“It depressed the hell out of everyone,” Max said. Scotti wondered how long Max would look like a teenage boy.
“Why would a man like Edward Candle risk his reputation for a quarter of a million? He didn’t need the money.”
“Don’t think need,” Max said. “Think greed. You want to believe that people like that love horses. But their whole purpose is to make themselves look good. If a horse can’t act in a way that brings the owners glory, their investment hasn’t paid off. And you know what the rich do when they lose money. They try to recoup the loss. I don’t mean all rich people are twisted. But if you’re twisted and rich, too, then—then,” he began to laugh. “Then you have a sex change. That’s what Dad said. Dad said, ‘May, if you weren’t privileged this sex change would never have entered your mind. This is the sort of twisted thinking that overtakes people who don’t have to scramble for a living so they join a damn cult or think they’re the wrong sex or some other tomfoolery.”’
“I can hear him saying it,” Scotti said. “And I can hear your mother saying if you’d only gone to Vassar instead of Smith she never would have lost her only daughter.”
Max’s family were oil people. In addition to his own ample income as a computer doctor, Max was heir to a fortune.
Most FTMs in the program grew beards or mustaches, a male prerogative few could resist. For a time Max had grown both, but now he was clean-shaven. His hair was in a crew cut. He loved wearing neckties, a navy-and-white-striped one that noon, with a white shirt and blue blazer. Scott doubted that anyone as well-dressed as Max had been in By The Bay since the last time Max was there with her.
“Tell me your news, Max. You said you have something important to discuss.”
“What do you think of Helen and I having a baby?”
“I think science will have taken another major leap forward.”
“We heard of a couple in San Francisco who can’t afford the baby girl the mother will have in two months. They already have four girls, and they’ll only make the financial sacrifice for a boy.”
Scotti smiled. “There’d be some kind of cockeyed justice if you were to adopt a female, Max. Your female persona was sacrificed in favor of a male, too.”
“We’ll both have daughters, Scotti!”
“Our kids coul
d start a support group for children of transsexuals.” “No. I never intend to tell Nola. Why should I?”
“Nola?”
“Helen chose die name.”
“It’s really in the works then?”
Max grinned and nodded. “Nola Bernstein.”
“Congratulations. ”
“Thanks. Have you read The Master Key yet?”
“I couldn’t finish it. There’s that scene hallway through when the mother leaves her child? And the child’s gone when she returns? All the torture she goes through? I felt as though it was happening to me. I kept thinking of Emma.”
“I’m glad you’re back in touch with her, Scotti.”
“Then I began to wonder if the book would have bothered me when I was Scott.”
“Sans estrogen as a trigger?”
“Yes. I’m beginning to understand what we hear in Consciousness Raising about emotional changes. Seeing Emma gave me all these new maternal feelings, Max. Have the hormones changed you emotionally?” “The only change I feel is regret.”
“You do, Max?”
“I regret losing my ability to sing,” Max said. “I miss entertaining. I miss being a draw.”
Scotti smiled. “You could have been a contender.”
“I had a damn good voice!”
“Now you have your Woodies to fix up, hmm?”
“Tell Helen the testosterone is causing that, will you? She’s not happy about our backyard.”
On the third round Scotti switched to Virgin Marys, but Max stayed with boilermakers.
Max would probably never have passed a Breathalyzer test if he’d come in his station wagon and been stopped by the police on his way back. But he defied the idea that someone as short and thin as he was would be quick to show his drinks. He held them well. He’d been a whiny, sloppy drinker before his change, but now, of all the post-ops Scotti knew, Max Bernstein was the most composed. Scotti thought it was because he had Helen. She had seen him through everything.
Scotti wondered if he should tell Max about Delroy Davenport, and the ominous feelings she’d had since Delroy had written her the note and forced her to collect it in person. She didn’t want to spoil New Year’s Day, but Max was the only one she could talk to about this man. She hadn’t been able to tell Jessica, give that glimpse of herself in such an unstable, vulnerable situation. Not when Jessica was finally accepting, able to tease Scotti, convinced at last that Scotti wasn’t caught up in some neurotic obsession.
She wras about to broach the subject when she saw a couple come into By The Bay with snow on their coats.
“I’d better go soon,” she told Max. “It must be coming down hard outside.” And she was relieved, too, that she wasn’t going to tell Max. There wasn’t time. It wasn’t an easy confession no matter who was on the listening end. Untold, she kept any chaotic vision of herself safe from all eyes, just as though it hadn’t happened.
Max glanced at his watch. “Helen’s due any minute. Just wait to say hello. Otherwise she’ll think you never forgave her for that Thanksgiving dinner.”
The woman who had just entered the bar had removed her scarf and was shaking the snow off it.
Scotti knew who it was before she even turned around. She recognized the man, too, as he ran his hand through his wet, curly hair.
Some dizzy trick of fate seemed to be throwing Nell Slack in Scotti’s path. Scotti didn’t know the man’s name, but she had seen him with Nell at the bowling alley and again, ever so briefly, at Hydra Christmas night.
The pair hung up their coats and sat on bar stools.
There was no point in mentioning her to Max, no time now, either, to fill Max in on her friendship with Mario.
“One more for the road,” Max said, standing up. “Do you want something, Scotti?”
“Maybe a coffee.”
Max was still standing by the booth. “You know, Scotti, you’re the only person in my life I like to drink with. Helen and I always get into some kind of argument, and I can never let my guard down completely with my colleagues.”
Scotti stood up. “I’m going to slip into the john before I start back. I hope Helen’s on time.”
“And I hope she comes alone. I’m not ready to face my mother-in-law right this minute. ‘Max, you better shape up,’ she’d say. ‘You’re about to be a father.’” He laughed, his face shining like a schoolboy’s, his tie loosened, one of its tails tossed across his shoulder.
Scotti couldn’t help remembering May Bernstein from summers long ago at Cherry Grove, on Fire Island.
May was this young, hook-nosed tomboy, trying to fit in to the lesbian community, her large breasts bound, her Texas-style cowboy boots stuffed with socks to make her taller. The only thing going for her was her voice, which reminded Scott of Streisand’s. The testosterone had ruined that, and it was indeed regrettable.
Both Scotti and Max had worked with the program’s speech therapists: Max to lower her voice, Scotti to raise hers.
“I am not a lesbian,” May would insist in the old days. “I just don’t have any community but the gay one. They accept me, or at least they do when I’m singing.”
And Scott had argued with her, told her the nose job she was planning to have would be all the surgery she’d ever need to be happy... at the same time recognizing himself in things she said about being in the wrong body.
She was the first one Scott called once he heard about the institute. Max enrolled when Scotti did, and thanks to the profligate rewards of the Bernstein oil wells, finished before Scott had started the depilatory treatments. Max had wanted to lend Scott money to help him transition, but Scott could not accept it. Scott had the feeling it was the one gift to himself he really wanted to pay for.
Visits to ladies’ rooms were still chancy where Scotti was concerned. In a three- or four-booth facility, she seldom had the feeling someone would discover her, but in little restaurants like this one there was often simply a toilet and sink, so that Scotti had to be sure she was alone with the door carefully locked. When she came out, Helen was sitting with Max, her coat on, her small hands wiping die snow from her glasses. Jessica had always called her “the canary” because Helen used to dress always all in yellow, to match her blond hair. She also walked like a littie bird on these long, thin legs, a tiny woman Max was delighted to tower over.
Scotti reached down and hugged her.
“Hi, sweetie,” said Helen. “Mother’s waiting out in the car. I had too much eggnog to drive, but I wanted to wish you a happy New Year.”
“Max told me the good news about Nola.”
“I wish I could stay and talk about it with you.”
“I have to go anyway,” Scotti said.
“Sit down a second, Scotti. You have to promise me you’ll be Nola’s godmother.”
“I promise.” Scotti sat down and Max leaned forward to whisper, “We just noticed someone at the bar you may know.”
“Nell Slack,” Helen whispered, too. “Small world.”
“How do you know her?” Scotti asked.
“From TIPS,” Max said. “I never had any sessions with her, of course, but Virgil Loeper learned all her makeup tricks from her.”
“Remember Virgil became Virginia Loeper, Scotti? She started it all.” Helen said.
“Yes, I remember Ginny. But I never met Nell Slack because I didn’t take TIPS.”
It was an elective, a course for MTFs with advice on hair and makeup. The instructor even helped die new Fs shop. There wasn’t any such elective for the new males. They would complain that even among transsexuals, if you were born male there were the old male priorities and privileges.
The last thing Scotti needed when she’d first begun to be a female was someone to help her shop. She’d needed someone to help her stop shopping.
“I can’t believe Nell Slack is here,” Helen said. “I didn’t know her but Ginny adored her!”
Max said, “What I remember about Nell Slack is that she lived in Haven, a halfway
house. She was on probation. When she came amongst us poor Metamorphs she was fresh out of the clink. The Allen Institute is nonprofit and under a state grant, so she was probably doing community service.”
“Honey,” Helen said. “Keep your voice down.”
“I wasn’t shouting.”
“It’s just that there aren’t many people here. Voices carry. Do you think she’d remember you, Max?”
“I doubt it. When I entered Metamorphs there weren’t that many FTMs. We were the invisible ones. The girls got all the attention. Nell Slack’s cut all of her hair off. She had this big nest of rust-colored hair, and she used to wear eyeliner and false eyelashes. Rumor had it she was in love with some major con artist she took the rap for. He had this neat last name. Sunshine. Rainbow. That was his last name. Rainbow.”
“Max, you’re shouting. You don’t realize it but you are. We have to go.” “Why don’t you bring your mother in?”
“My mother? In this dump?”
“Now who’s shouting?” Max said.
“Who’s had too much to drink?” Helen snapped back.
Scotti stood and put her coat on while Max sulked in a corner of the booth. Before she left, Helen grabbed Scotti’s hand, pulled her close, and said, “He’ll settle down when he’s a daddy. Now we just have to get you married, Scotti, honey. Happy New Year!”
There wasn’t time for Scotti to tell them she knew Nell Slack, too, although Nell Slack didn’t seem to know her on the first day of that new year.
“I could swear he is,” Nell Slack said, once the short fellow in the blazer left By The Bay with Scotti Someone and a blond. “I could swear I saw him at the Allen Institute. Now that I’ve seen her with him, I think all three are.” “You think everyone’s a goddamn transsexual,” Liam said. “Do you know how few transsexuals there are in the world?”
“Five in a hundred are homosexuals and one in fifty thousand are cross- gendered. ”
“Where do you get your figures from?”
“From the Erickson Educational Foundation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We learned all about it at the Allen Institute.”
“Oh, Nell,” Liam sighed and shook his head.
“I took a good look at her through the mirror. The first time I met her at the bowling alley I didn’t pay any attention to her. But I just got a good look. And that kid with her—the one I’ve seen before—he’s no kid. He’s no he. At least he wasn’t born a he.”
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