“It is.”
“I wish you’d let me and Maddy go to support you.”
“That’s nice of you to offer, but I really want to keep this in the family.”
“I understand,” Grace says, though I can see from the way her mouth twitches that she doesn’t. One of these days I’ll have to bring her to Dr. Palmer’s office with me so she can learn the truth about me.
“Thanks. How are things here?”
“The same as usual.”
Which means dead. Grace only gets a handful of customers in a day. If not for the inheritance from her mother, she probably would have had to close this place down long ago. Then we never would have met and I might never have run into Maddy at the Kozee Koffee down the street.
Grace smiles at me and then changes the subject. “I have some good news. You’re looking at the new assistant treatment counselor at Windover Rehabilitation Clinic.”
“You got the job? That’s fantastic!” I give her a hug this time. Grace had gone to a second interview a few days ago but hadn’t heard back from them. “When are you going to start?”
“Next week. I thought that would give me time enough to wrap things up here.”
“You mean to sell everything off?”
“No!” She gives me a playful slap on the arm. “You remember our deal, don’t you? When I get a job, all of this becomes yours. If you still want it.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not sure—” my voice trails off as I think of my appointment with Dr. Macintosh. Do I want to run the store? I wouldn’t be able to go to school, not full-time anyway. I might still be able to take a few classes at night, after the shop closes.
Proprietor of a bohemian clothes shop in the garment district is a lot different than my last career. Steve Fischer had been born to be a cop; he would never want to run Grace’s store. Yet my job here is what brought me closer to Maddy and Grace—my friends. “I don’t know,” I stammer. “It’s a big step.”
“I know. You wouldn’t have to take official control. I could still be the owner for all the taxes and whatnot. You could just be the manager. I swear I wouldn’t get in your way. You can do whatever you want with the place.”
When I look Grace in the eye I can see she wants me to accept. As much as she wants to be a psychiatrist, this shop belonged to her mother. It was her mother’s dream to have something of her own after she divorced Grace’s father. Grace desperately wants someone to help keep that dream alive. Since there’s no one else around, it falls to me.
“That sounds OK,” I say.
“Thank you so much.” I’m not prepared for her to kiss me. The way she staggers back a moment later, I don’t think she was either. “I’m sorry. I got a little excited.”
“It’s all right. It is really exciting.”
“Well, um, I think the best idea would be to keep the receipts for the week and then we can go over them on the weekend.”
“Sure,” I say.
“Hey, what’s with the long faces?” Maddy calls out from the doorway. “Someone die?”
“No,” Grace says. “We were just talking about Stacey taking over the store.”
“Really? So that means—?”
“Yep.”
“That’s great!” Maddy’s kiss is a lot longer and less awkward than mine with Grace. There’s still a part of me that shivers when I see my daughter kiss another woman, that old-fashioned father in me who always thought I’d give Maddy away at the altar. If she does get married it will probably be in a courthouse with me in a dress as a witness.
After she lets Grace go, Maddy says, “OK, kids, we have to go celebrate.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Grace says.
“Well I think it’s an awesome idea,” Maddy says. “What do you think, Stace?”
“I don’t know—”
“You two are such sticks in the mud. Come on! Grace has a new job, Stacey’s taking over the store, and I just finished finals. We all have a reason to get plastered, right?”
“I can’t,” I say. “I’m not old enough to drink.”
“Oh, the hell with that. I know plenty of places that won’t card you.”
Grace takes Maddy’s arm. “Madison, stop it. We’ve talked about this. Stop trying to pressure Stacey into things she doesn’t want to do.”
“I’m only trying to get her to loosen up a little.”
I remember what Dr. Macintosh said about me being defensive. “I guess a drink or two wouldn’t hurt.”
“That’s the spirit!” Maddy claps me on the back hard enough to stagger me. Sometimes my daughter doesn’t know how to control her enthusiasm. That relentless enthusiasm is what makes her so special to me and Grace, but sometimes it can be annoying. She takes my hand, and pulls me towards the stairs leading up to the apartment she shares with Grace. “We’ll have to find you something to wear. I have this green dress I think would be perfect for you.”
I look back at Grace to plead with her to save me, but she just smiles and gives me a little wave.
***
The green dress is a little big on me, which is a good thing because it means the skirt covers my knees. I still don’t like to show skin around Maddy, no matter how many times she says I have great legs and boobs. While Maddy means well, to hear that from my daughter only makes me more reluctant to wear anything sexy when we’re together.
Maddy shows plenty of skin in a little red dress. In the cab on the way over, I made sure to keep my eyes on the window so I wouldn’t get too good of a look at her legs—or anything else. That old-fashioned father in me always wants to throw a blanket around her and then drag her home to lock her in her room until she’s sixty. The rest of me reluctantly accepts the idea Maddy is twenty-three years old and free to make her own decisions.
Grace shows less skin than either of us. She looks almost dowdy in a long tan skirt and a yellow T-shirt. She’s gotten a lot more self-conscious about her body since she turned thirty. She should probably go to a therapist herself for that, although I’m sure most women struggle with that, unless they’re oblivious like Maddy.
The cab drops us off at the Open Mic, a karaoke bar in the garment district. “A karaoke bar?” I ask.
“It’ll be fun,” Maddy says. “We can have a few drinks and then get on stage and mangle a few songs.” Maddy squeezes Grace’s knee. “Remember when you did like six tequila shots and then got up there to do ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?’”
“Not really,” Grace says. Her face turns red.
“Oh my God, Stace, you should have seen it! First it sounded like someone was skinning a cat on stage. Then about halfway through she threw up on the first row! To finish it off, she dove off the stage, right into the lap of this really fat chick. Grace started making out with her, thinking that elephant was me. Can you believe it?”
I can’t contain my laughter at this story, in large part because it’s so uncharacteristic of Grace, who’s usually so calm and in control of herself. Maddy is the one I imagine would get drunk, throw up, and then jump off a stage. “That’s so awful,” I say.
“I wish I’d brought my phone to get some video of it. It would have got like a million views on YouTube.”
“Well this time you can be the one to make a complete ass of yourself,” Grace says.
“Oh I don’t think I could ever top that,” Maddy says.
No one cards us as we go inside. The karaoke bar isn’t nearly as bad as some of the clubs in the city. It looks mostly like my old watering hole, except there’s a stage at one end with a karaoke machine, a microphone, and a couple of stools. A drunk blond girl looks ready to fall off her stool at any moment as she butchers one of those Lady Gaga songs Maddy downloaded onto the iPod she gave me for Christmas.
A waitress shows up to take our orders. Maddy orders a mojito. Grace gets an appletini. “Just a club soda,” I say.
“Come on, Stace—”
“She doesn’t have to drink if she doesn’t want to,” Grace says.
“OK, I’ll have a beer,” I say.
“We don’t serve beer here.”
“You don’t? What kind of bar is this?” I ask.
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Just bring her a sake,” Maddy says. She pats my hand after the waitress is gone. “That’s rice wine. It’s pretty good.”
We talk about Grace’s new job while Maddy drinks another three mojitos and I drink two bottles of sake. Grace trails behind us; she sips at a second appletini. I’m into a third sake when Maddy climbs onto the stage. She talks with the emcee about what song she’ll perform. “No, I’m not going to do that one. Here, this one.”
Maddy sits on the stool and gives us all a drunken smile. “This song is for the love of my life, Grace, and my best friend, Stacey. OK, girls, I’m going to show you how it’s done.”
Despite Maddy’s best attempts, I don’t know much about popular music since the early ‘70s. I still recognize the song she sings as the Cyndi Lauper one Grace mangled years ago. Maddy’s version isn’t much better, except she doesn’t throw up or jump off the stage. She sings most of it in an off-key baritone that contrasts greatly with what should come out of a young woman’s throat. Grace and I break into peals of laughter and put our hands to our ears.
Maddy breaks off the song to glare down at us. “Oh, I suppose you could do better?”
“Not me,” Grace says. She gives me a little push. “I bet Stacey can.”
“Me? I can’t—”
“Oh, come on, don’t be such a chicken,” Maddy says. She looks around at the rest of the audience. “Hey, who wants to hear little Stacey sing?”
The bar patrons begin to applaud. Some even whistle. Maddy leads them in a chant of my name while my face turns so warm I expect to combust at any moment. Grace gives me another push. “Go on, Stace. It’ll be fun.”
I remember again what Dr. Macintosh said. I suppose to make a fool of myself in public is a great way to break out of my defensive shell. I take Maddy’s hand so she can pull me up onto the stage. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Just tell this guy here what you want to sing. He’ll bring the words up on this screen and you sing them,” she explains. She pushes me towards the emcee. “What do you want to sing?”
“Do you have any Creedence?” I ask.
“Creedence Clearwater Revival? God, that’s the kind of shit my dad listened to,” Maddy says.
I’m tipsy enough to stand up to my daughter. “Well maybe he was on to something,” I say. I turn to the emcee. “You got ‘Bad Moon Rising’ in there?”
He nods to me and then brings it up. I remember when I sang this song to Maddy in the car a few times, or at least I tried to; she always whined about my music being yucky. I sit down on the stool and find myself in front of a roomful of people, most of whom stare at me in anticipation. “Hi,” I whisper into the microphone. “Um, my name’s Stacey and I’m going to try singing this.”
Maddy leans into the mic to add, “She’s a karaoke virgin so don’t be too rough on her.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“That’s what I’m here for,” Maddy says. She pats me on the back and then goes down to sit with Grace. I’m alone with the emcee on the stage as the song begins.
The words start to appear on the screen, but I don’t need them. I just close my eyes and remember all the times I sang it to myself on stakeouts. Except back then my voice sounded like a car backing over a gravel driveway. Now it’s so high and thin, like I’ve sucked down a couple of balloons filled with helium.
At least that’s what it sounds like to me. The audience has a much different opinion. The place erupts with applause as I finish. I open my eyes to see Maddy and Grace gape at me in shock. What did I do wrong?
My first thought is to bolt from the stage. Then I hear people call for an encore. I look helplessly around the stage, not sure what I should do. Maddy climbs onto the stage and puts an arm around me. She pulls me in for a hug. “That was beautiful,” she whispers.
“It was?”
“Yes. Why have you been keeping that a secret?”
“I don’t know,” I stammer. “What do I do now?”
“An encore, dummy.” She gives me another squeeze and then goes over to the emcee; she whispers something in his ear. When Maddy returns, she says, “Here’s something a little newer for you. This is me and Grace’s song, so don’t mess it up.”
The song the emcee brings up is called “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan. I’ve never heard of it, but obviously Maddy has. This time I can’t close my eyes. I keep them focused on the screen so I can follow along with the prompts.
When I finish, there’s more applause than before. I turn to Maddy and Grace and see them both in tears. Was it that bad? So bad the emcee comes over to take me by the arm. He leads me off the stage, accompanied by the crowd cheering.
I expect him to tell me not to ever come back, but instead he says, “Listen, kid, that was the best I’ve ever heard in this place. How’d you like to do it again?”
“Um, I don’t know. I should ask my friends.”
“Forget about them. Look, I’ll give you a hundred bucks to come back and do a set.”
“You want to pay me to sing karaoke?”
“OK, make it three hundred. If you wow them like you did tonight, we could make it a regular thing.”
Three hundred bucks to sing a few songs off a screen? I’ve never imagined myself as a singer before, but I could sure use the money. I owe Jake and Tess a few grand already for my tuition and textbooks at school. “Sure,” I say. “I’ll give it a try.”
Chapter 5
When the receptionist shows me into Dr. Macintosh’s office this time I find him already in one of the armchairs. “Hello, Stacey. Have a seat.”
I sit in the chair opposite him and keep my body tightly compacted this time instead of sprawled out. I look down at my sneakers and say, “I guess you aren’t surprised I came back.”
“I’m very glad you decided to give therapy a chance to help you,” he says. “So have you thought about what we discussed before?”
“A little. I got a couple of job offers since last time.”
“Really? That’s wonderful. What sort of jobs?”
“Well, my friend Grace owns this little second-hand clothes shop in the garment district. She’s been studying to be a shrink like you. She got a new job over at the Windover rehab clinic. You know where that is?”
“As it happens I’ve had a couple of clients about your age admitted there.”
“OK. So she’s going to be working there and she wants me to take over the store for her.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“I don’t know. I really like being there, around Grace and Maddy.”
“Maddy?”
“Madison. She’s my…friend.” I always have to resist the urge to call her my daughter. “She and Grace live together. As a couple, you know?”
“They’re lesbians. There’s no shame in it. Is there?”
“No, of course not.”
“You’re just not comfortable talking about that.”
“Well no offense, but this is only our second session.”
“I see. You’re trying to spare my feelings.”
“It’s not like that. The way I was brought up, we didn’t talk about stuff like that.”
“Your parents didn’t tell you about sex?”
“Not really. My dad tried to give me the whole ‘bird and the bees’ thing once. He was so embarrassed he didn’t make a lot of sense. And my mom, she would ground me if she heard me so much as mention a woman’s breasts.”
“Are you attracted to women?”
“What?” I don’t realize until then that I’ve slipped up. I’ve remembered Steve Fischer’s adolescence in the ‘60s instead of Stacey’s adolescence thirty years later. “Oh, well, some women.”
“So you’d say you’re bisexual?”
“I don’t know.” Like at
the karaoke bar I feel so embarrassed I’m ready to pass out.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Stacey. A lot of girls your age aren’t sure about their sexuality yet.”
I remember what I said to Seth in the car about experimenting. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Are you a virgin, Stacey?”
My head snaps up. The doctor stares at me so calmly I’d like to punch him in the face. “Why are you asking me that?”
“It’s just a question. There’s no right or wrong answer.”
“No, I’m not a virgin.”
“How many partners have you had?”
I remember to answer as Stacey and not Steve this time. “One.”
“Was that partner male or female?”
I can’t stop myself from crying. “It was Grace. We’d already kissed once and then after Maddy’s dad’s funeral, we went back to Grace’s apartment and…did it.”
“You made love?”
“Yes.”
“And you enjoyed it?”
“Yes.”
“But you and Grace aren’t still together, are you?”
“No. I decided—we decided—it was better for her to stay with Maddy.”
“Why is that?”
“Because Maddy is my friend. I can’t hurt her like that.”
“You value her happiness over your own?”
“Maddy and Grace were already together. What happened between Grace and me was just a fling. It was a mistake.”
“But you still care about her, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You love her?”
“Part of me does.”
The doctor smiles at this. He reaches over to pat my knee. “Stacey, in my experience love is never part way. You’re all-in or not. So you do still love Grace?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t think of yourself as a lesbian?”
“No.” It sounds crazy even to my own ears. “Look, I might love Grace, but she’s just one woman. There have been others I didn’t care about nearly as much.”
“You didn’t make love to any of those other women?”
Chances Are Omnibus (Gender Swap Fiction) Page 28