Surely the police would understand wanting to take a shit without an audience. Can’t you even try to understand my view at all?
But Robert had been angry. More than Andrew had seen him before, as either himself or Natalie. He breathed in quickly, letting out tiny bursts of steam to keep from erupting.
“I’m sorry, Robert, I didn’t mean to.”
Please don’t hurt me. I could’ve handled it better. He annoys the fuck out of me, but I didn’t mean for this to happen. Please, please don’t hurt me.
Did the entreaty come through on his face? Robert released a long sigh, his shoulders easing.
“Nat, if you can’t handle him, you need to call me.” He’d knelt and smoothed the child’s hair. “He’s been through a lot.”
So have I.
Now, lying back on the couch, Andrew shut his eyes to block out the crying parasite.
I do feel like shit because of what happened and because you’re stuck with me. You’d be better off being raised by a fucking dingo. We’ve both been through a lot. But I’m sorry, I’m just so drained from you.
“Mom’s not going to die, Simon,” Robert said. “Be a good boy and go get the thermometer.”
The sniveling trailed away.
“I’ll call my mom to come get him, and I’ll take you to the ER.”
Ah, Robert’s mother. Andrew had spoken less than two words to her since he’d been released. While she’d never been very warm with Natalie either, the woman now made it a priority to stay a healthy yard away from him. The cryogenic reanimation idea was still uncomfortable for some, and Andrew was pretty sure Robert’s mother regarded him as a type of unnatural monster.
Which I feel like regularly anyway, so it doesn’t matter. She’s still one of my favorite people in that she gives me a break from Simon.
But if the reprieve was conditional on an ER visit—
“I’m not sick, Robert. I’m tired.”
“We can’t be too careful.” The whimpering returned, and Andrew felt the plastic cap pressed into his ear. “Ninety-eight, three.”
“See.”
“Headache? Chills? Congestion? Muscle—”
“No, I’m tired.”
“We’ll still go to the ER to be sure.”
“No. Just let me sleep. Take him to your mother’s and let me rest.”
Robert paused briefly. “I’ll call you every hour on the hour to make sure you’re okay.” Andrew opened his eyes and watched him lead a reluctant Simon away. “Simon, you’ll go to Grandma’s house today.”
“But Mom—”
“Will be here when you get back. Grab your bag.”
*
The exhaustion faded at almost ten in the morning, just in time for Andrew’s other daily activity. He went to the bay window and pulled aside the heavy drape.
Across the street, a large Spanish colonial bustled with mid-morning energy. He thought it was probably a frat house due to the droves of college-aged men who came and went through its doors. And since his visit with Shelly, the goings-on at the house had become more than a distraction. The certain revelation that he wasn’t female had caused him to start thinking.
Maybe this could be me.
He got a better feeling watching the young men exiting the house – laughing and punching each other in the shoulder – than he had in The Natalie Files. It was more inspiring than the sweatshirt and jeans had been. The idea of being one of them captivated his afternoons and the solid lines of Beta nu felt less like insurmountable barriers.
His cell phone buzzed. He dug it out of his sweatshirt pocket and answered without checking the number: “Ninety-eight, four.”
“When did you take it?”
“Two minutes ago.”
“Any other symptoms?”
“No, I was tired. I feel a lot better, and you can stop calling.” Andrew squinted to make out one of the faces in an upstairs bedroom of the frat house.
“You really feel better, Nat?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“I’ll call you at eleven. I love you.”
“You too.”
He ended the call, tossed the phone over on the couch, and dreamed.
I’ll look kind of like him. With the thin face and short blond hair. But I’ll dress like that one. Or him.
Andrew was grateful for the baggy sweatshirt and jeans, but that’s not what these young men wore.
I’ll wear dark ties and tan khakis. Polos and suits. Cargo shorts and ribbed shirts without sleeves. I’ll put a button-up shirt under a sweater and let the collar branch open.
The man he’d spotted in the window walked out the door and down the porch steps. He took them two at a time, swinging a red bag over his shoulder. As he strolled across the sidewalk, he shoved a hand in his pocket, and Andrew marveled at how crisp the pleats were in the back of his shirt.
You know, there’s nothing that prevents you from dressing like that now, Andrew.
He thought of the one neutral sequence in The Natalie Files, freezing the image in his mind. As if it were a paper doll, he visualized the young man’s shirt in place of the fleece fabric. A pair of pin-stripe slacks overlaid the jeans, and the painter’s pole was the red bag.
Perfect.
And it had to be a sign that Simon was gone and he had hours to try on Robert’s clothes and maybe, finally feel at home in the body.
Andrew let the drape fall and made his way to the bedroom. He folded back the closet doors and pushed Natalie’s clothes to the side. He trailed his fingers down the stiff sleeve of one of Robert’s cotton shirts.
This could be mine.
He selected a blue button-up and unpinned a pair of Robert’s slacks, which he put on first.
He pulled the straight slacks up on his legs. The waistband was tight around his hips, but by bucking his knees together he was able to get the slacks zipped.
The shirt sleeves were long, the cuffs coming over his fingertips, but that wasn’t a problem. He’d seen his neighbors roll their shirtsleeves to the elbows, and he probably would’ve done that even if the sleeves hadn’t been long. He thought the trick looked cool and relaxed. Like he was walking along a beach and couldn’t be bothered by something as trivial as rolling down his sleeves.
He buttoned the shirt starting at the collar as he’d seen Robert do. And when finished, he pushed the ends into the snug waistband of the slacks. He didn’t know how to tie it, but he looped a darker blue tie around his neck and let the fat end dangle to get the effect.
And he was ready.
Almost ready.
In trying to be Natalie he’d looked in that damn mirror so many times that he knew it’d spoil everything. So he approached Natalie’s vanity from the side and draped a pillowcase over the top of the mirror to hide his face.
And now he was ready.
Andrew stepped in front of the mirror just as he had before the makeup incident. He opened his eyes and looked for the first time at the body.
It wasn’t Natalie.
It wasn’t Andrew.
It was a woman wedged into a man’s clothing.
The slacks were so tight around his thighs they looked like they were bursting at the seams. The crotch strained to encase his hips and stretched to where it was painfully apparent he was missing a penis. The pockets puckered, the inner lining poking out of them.
The shirt was horrible too. He didn’t look cool and relaxed. The fabric around his armpits hung like wings, and the lower half pooled at his waist, making him look bloated. The proportions of the shirt were off – the pocket on the right side was far lower than it should’ve been, with the bottom only five inches above his waistline. And they were there too – those God-awful tumors sticking out of him, pushing the fabric of the shirt out so it dropped like a fucking tent after pulling over the highest peak.
Andrew staggered away from the mirror and tore the clothes from the body. In a fit of tears, he ripped the shirt apart, buttons flying across the room.
He pulled off the slacks and threw them into the mirror, the force causing it to tip unsteadily.
The whole body shivered as he put his customary outfit back on. He tried to catch his breath as he marinated in the oversized sweatshirt and jeans. These clothes were safe, and he tried to concentrate on that golden frame of The Natalie Files when they’d worked their magic in hiding the feminine features underneath. But he couldn’t focus.
Another dive. Andrew approached the platform.
It’s hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless!
A handstand with his front facing the pool. He could see it. He could smell it. He knew the water was real this time.
I’ll never find my way, and there’s no purpose to any of this shit!
Launch and somersault.
I can’t be Natalie. I’ve tried, and I can’t do it. I can’t even fake being her. How am I supposed to go on for the next forty or fifty years living this lie? I can’t survive her! I can’t!
Somersault.
I feel like I’m Andrew, but I obviously can’t be him either. I’m a freak! I’ll always be stuck in this body unable to be free.
Beta nu’s lines pushing tighter and tighter together.
Half twist.
There is no escape! I should call it quits. Right now. Right the fuck—
Human skull direct to pavement at thirty-five miles an hour accomplished exactly what one might imagine – it stopped Andrew mid-thought.
He gathered the ruined clothes, carried them to the dumpster, and returned to the couch to wait for Robert’s eleven o’clock call.
Chapter 10
When he’d first seen the woman sashay into his pharmacy, he remembered thinking that in another place and time he would’ve been attracted to her.
I’d have been all over that, was his exact thought.
She’d worn a skirt above her knee, and a sleeveless silk blouse that revealed the ivory skin of her neck and upper chest. Her fine facial features had been perfectly accentuated, and her golden hair curled thick and luxurious around her shoulders.
He’d pictured himself with his friends, elbowing each other in the ribs.
“Now that is a Georgia peach.”
And she’d held the hand of a small boy, who pushed open the door for her. In the crook of her other arm, she’d supported the handle of a car seat. He would’ve liked that too. Once upon a time, he’d wanted to be a father.
Where were you when I was straight? Jesus Christ.
It’d been difficult to keep his bitter thoughts in check and concentrate on filling the prescription for her baby. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But which of the many injustices was he referring to by “it”?
That something I deserved to have can parade itself before me and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I guess I could put up a sign: No service to attractive women with babies. I’d have much more room without that feminine product shelf. I could put in an air hockey table. Or a skee ball game.
But he’d somewhat worked through the hostility by the time the woman returned after an absence of over a year. His thoughts didn’t immediately jump to dreams of gender segregating his pharmacy, maybe since he could tell that something about her was off. Significantly off.
She came in with the same boy, which sealed her identity, otherwise it might’ve remained a puzzle. She wore large jeans and a baggy hooded sweatshirt, her blond hair tied in a messy ponytail. There was no makeup on her face, and her eyes were dull with dark circles underneath.
What the fuck ran over you?
He watched from behind the counter as she went to the drop-off window. Before, she’d had a way of walking that could make a person dizzy if they were only looking at her feet. She balanced on her high heels and took tiny, carefully placed steps as if she were a fairy dancing from flower to flower. Now she was a giant. If there’d been a miniature city in her path, she would’ve crushed it under her boots.
After the technician advised her to take a seat, she tromped to the bench on the side wall. When she sat, she absorbed twice the space a woman of her size normally would. With her legs open and her arms on the back of the bench, she looked defeated, as if she’d run a marathon and finished in last place.
And not once had she looked at the boy.
Before, the woman hadn’t taken her eyes off him, and she’d treated the baby in the car seat with such a tender affection it made him wistfully sick inside.
The boy was inspecting shelves of candy in another aisle. But he was out of her sight, which the woman who’d come in before never would’ve allowed. She’d struck him before as one of those leeching mothers, who’d be first in line for a man-sized child carrier. She would strap him to her body and carry him in a papoose until he was thirty, if he’d let her.
The child crowed after finding his selection.
“Mom!”
He looked around the corner of the aisle. She didn’t respond.
“Mom! Mom!”
Still nothing. She was awake, but wasn’t focusing on anything.
“Mom! Mom! Mom!”
The boy at last took the candy and went to her. He sat on the bench, pulled his legs up, and snuggled close. She didn’t acknowledge his presence.
“Ma’am?”
Her prescription was ready.
“Ma’am?”
And it appeared the same apathetic scenario was about to replay.
He was intrigued, and stepped from behind the counter.
“Hello, ma’am?” The technician accompanied the call with a wave.
“I’ll take it from here, Barty.” He nudged the young man at the register aside and took the medication bag. It was stapled shut, but a name was printed on the front. He recognized the prescription, having put it together himself. Previously it’d been signed for by a man who looked equally miserable. And unless she was the new delivery person, things had become more interesting.
For the past few weeks, he’d been combining quite the CryoLife cocktail for a Mrs. Natalie Keller.
Not out of the ordinary. Just your usual chemical steamroll.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Keller,” he said.
There was no response. But he was too curious to waste further time.
“Hey, you.” He clapped his hands together. “Get your ass off my bench and come get your pills!”
That caught her attention. She turned and glared at him. He responded with a smile.
The boy stared at him with wide eyes and clutched his mother’s arm.
“Stay here.” She pried his hand off.
When she walked toward the counter, the idea crossed his mind to imitate the distinct way she moved. It was comical, like a person trying to inflate with every step. Or Godzilla. But he relinquished the desire. It might be in poor taste for someone he wasn’t acquainted with, even if it’d be hilarious.
She stopped in front of the register and looked him up and down, as if sizing him for a fight. Her face grew red and the way in which she’d set her jaw made it look broader. She ground her teeth, her hands clenched in fists.
“Like what you see, doll?” He winked at her when she met his eyes after examining his body for perhaps the third time.
She sucked a breath in through her nose, and he wondered if she was going to jump over the counter at him. Wouldn’t that be funny to tell the guys? Attacked by a homeless-looking woman.
But she didn’t lunge for him. She composed herself and held out her hand for the bag.
“Ah, ah.” He corrected with a tick of his finger. “ID, please.”
She gave a loud huff and pulled a wallet from her pocket. He watched her fumble it open and thumb through various cards. Last time, she’d worn a purple purse on one shoulder. When she came to the counter, she hadn’t looked like she wanted to maim him. She’d unzipped the purse and flipped through numerous cards with the tips of her long, shapely fingernails. She’d held out her insurance card with a smile.
Now, though his palm was open to receive the ID, she slapped
it on the counter.
“You have hands. You pick it up,” she snapped.
He retrieved the card. There was the picture of her, looking less grungy with a fake smile. He skimmed her other information before checking the bottom corner.
CRYO. And a five-digit number.
0-3-8-7-7.
“Thank you, Natalie.” He offered the card back coolly between two fingers.
She jerked it away and stuffed it into her wallet as he switched the medication bag from his right hand to his left. When she looked at him again, he’d extended his hand.
“I’m Oz. Like the wizard. Only real, and more handsome,” he said.
“I’m married.”
“Not happily.”
“Give me my pills, jackass.”
Oz hugged his shoulders, giving an exaggerated shiver.
“Ooo, cold, doll. Cold. It’s eighty fucking degrees outside, but it’s freezing in here!”
“I want my medication.” Natalie raised her voice. “If you won’t give me my fucking pills, I’ll go elsewhere!”
“I doubt that.” He handed her the bag, which she snatched away.
Natalie turned and walked toward the door. The boy, still terrified but forgotten, sped after her.
“I think you’ll come see me again!”
He laughed when she flipped him off through the glass door.
Chapter 11
Andrew hated that fucking thing in the pharmacy.
That’s what he is. A thing.
There were so many people to hate in the shit circumstance he was bound to endure. Overprotective and always disappointed Robert. Traumatized Simon whose extreme neediness caused him to alternate between immense guilt and frustration. Plastic CryoLife doctors and therapists that couldn’t be trusted. Even ever-pregnant, good-intentioned Shelly who wouldn’t stop calling him.
The anger wasn’t biased toward specific individuals either. Random strangers also incited Andrew’s rage. He wanted to break the fingers of every man who held the door for him. Who invented the women’s restroom? He felt like a pervert going in there. Fuck that gender segregating dickhead too.
And words were awful. The old world, “polite” phrases with “lady” in them that men said to be charming? Words like “pretty” and “beautiful” and “lovely,” which had a definite feminine feel and context?
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