Ready.
I'm not ready to let him go.
Why the hell didn't he wake me up? I was sleeping through my last hour with Arlen?
“I've got to go,” he says. “Go home, get cleaned up, get to the airport.”
Oh, God. This is it.
IT.
I have no choice. I nod and smile, scooching out of the bed, pulling the comforter along with me.
Chapter 52
ARLEN
Arlen made his way down the stairs to the front door as Lola trailed behind him, wrapped in nothing but her soft yellow comforter. Not that he could see anything but her sleepy face and tousled hair sticking out. She pulled the cushy fabric so snugly around her shoulders that she looked like she was trying to get warm and dry after an icy tumble in the surf.
He wanted to remember her looking just like this.
Remember her?
Why the hell was he thinking this was the end? He didn't want to have to remember her. He wanted to see what she looked like, waking up, first thing in the morning, again and again. He didn't want to have to remember it.
He opened the door. Lola wasn't saying anything, which made his gut seize up with the fear that this really was it.
IT.
But how could this be it? After last night, this couldn't be the end. He wouldn't let that happen. The kids were coming, but Lola wasn't going anywhere. He might not be able to see her again for months, but this wasn't the end. This could NOT be the end.
He turned toward her before he left.
“I am so happy for you,” she said with a big, soft smile. A smile that was at least three feet away and not making any attempt to come closer.
“Lola,” he said. But he couldn't think of anything else to say. There were so many things he was feeling. So many. But he couldn't say any of it out loud. Not now.
“Arlen,” she said, and smiled again. “Go be happy with your kids.”
Chapter 53
COLIN SCOTT 15 years ago
I can't sit here like this for much longer. Everybody thinks I'm some dumb fuck who's knocked up his girlfriend. Gross. I mean, me and Lola? We're, like, practically identical. The brother/sister thing is just about tattooed across our foreheads. And this isn't some sick Flowers in the Attic shit. She needs me. That's it.
So everyone can just stop looking at me. I'm not like all the schmucks out there who don't use condoms then have a baby before graduation.
Jesus, what's taking so long? We have a frigging appointment. For THE RESULTS. Oh, please. Please please please please please. Please don't let there be anything wrong with Lola.
What the hell am I saying? Of course there's something wrong with Lola. She's twenty and she's never gotten her period. College is half over for her and still … nothing. I don't think it's cancer. Would Lola still be around if that were it? And it's not like she's wasting away or anything. But maybe it's something weird and deadly like that guy in the second Ender book—all his insides turned to fat and he died. What if Lola's ovaries turned to fat and this is a sign of the end?
No. No fucking way. It won't be ANYTHING like that.
Damn! Why does our mom have to be such a douche? If she weren't, we could all have gotten this figured out years ago. What if it's too late now?
No way. No way.
God, my mom is such a bitch on wheels! Lola's been faking getting her period for five years. FAKING. GETTING HER PERIOD. All so my psych-ward mother won't go ballistic when she finds out there's a glitch with her beauty queen daughter. Beauty queen? Right. Lola might be queen of the world someday, but beauty queen? Never. She's a looker—come on—she looks like me—but all that girly vanity stuff? As if. Is my mom freaking blind? Of course she's not. It's like the two of them just like to egg each other on. Our house is like freaking war on Venus.
And now the appointment. Because Lola couldn't have the clinic calling the house with THE RESULTS. Jesus H. Christ, will they call us in already!
Lola is sitting beside me, but we're both all isolated and jittery and not looking at or talking to each other. I look at her hands, clasped across her knees as she leans forward. Then I see it. A drop hits her hand. Then another one. Oh, fuck, Lola's crying. She's silent and stoic, but the tears are falling. Jesus! The waiting must be killing her.
I grip her knee and shake it. “It'll be okay,” I say, just before I get up. I go across the room to the receptionist's window, and I swear I want to drag the bitch through and throttle her. Our appointment was scheduled for thirty-five fucking minutes ago.
“Hi,” I say, smiling to her as I approach the window. “I'm Colin Scott. Lola Scott and I had a two o'clock appointment.” I lean in closer, all concerned and conspiratorial. “She's having a rough time. Any idea how much longer?”
She smiles up at me after consulting a chart. “Mr. Scott. You and your wife are up next.”
I force myself to smile again. “Thanks,” I say before heading back to Lola.
When I sit down, Lola nudges me. “Thanks, hubby.”
“NOT funny,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Lighten up,” she says, sniffling. “At least I've never made you go buy me tampons or anything like that.”
“Freak,” I say. “What girl tells her little brother to go buy her tampons?”
“Just sayin'.”
“Just saying what, exactly?” I laugh, trying to keep the banter going.
The door to the sacred hallway that leads to the cloistered rooms in the back opens. “Lola Scott,” a woman in pink scrubs calls.
“We're on,” Lola says, and we get up in unison. We go back into the recesses of the clinic, but the woman in scrubs doesn't take us to one of the tiny examining rooms. She brings us into an office and has us sit in two comfortable chairs in front of the desk. The doctor's desk, I'm guessing. Jesus shit. IN FRONT OF THE DESK? This is a set up for getting bad news if ever I saw one. I really feel like I'm about to hurl, quite literally and pyrotechnically, all across that nice blotter.
“Ms. Scott?” The woman in scrubs beckons from just outside the door. “Come out here for just one moment, we need to get your weight.” Lola flashes me a confused look but goes.
Her weight? When she's here to get results?
The door closes with a click as Lola leaves. In a shot, I race silently across the room to press my ear to the door to hear what I can hear.
“Are you sure you want your husband in there with you?” Pink Scrubs asks quietly.
But I can totally hear her through the flimsy door.
“He's my brother,” Lola says. “And yes. I need him. And you're making me think I need him even more than I thought.”
“It'll be okay,” Pink Scrubs assures her.
I dash back to my seat just as Lola comes back in. She sits in the chair next to me and grips my hand with the force of a crocodile bite.
“Well, hello.” A fit, middle aged woman with short dark hair bustles into the room and takes a seat behind the desk. “I'm Dr. Traynor.”
“I know,” Lola says in a ghostly voice. “I remember you.”
“Right,” she says, her big smile absolutely fastened in place.
Holy fuck, she's nervous. The DOCTOR is nervous. THIS IS NOT GOOD.
I must look as bad as Lola—white as milk with big, blue eyes bugging out of my head.
“Relax, both of you,” she says with a smile. “Lola is healthy. There is nothing injured, malformed, tumorous, or cancerous. Everything is perfectly healthy.”
Lola's face crumples in frustration. I can tell she is about to lose it. This CAN'T be a freaking dead end.
“There's got to be something,” I say. “Some reason she's never gotten her period.” I say this uber-quietly because I know the whole damn waiting room will hear me through these flimsy walls otherwise.
“There is,” the doctor assures us with a smile.
A SMILE?!
“But,” she continues, “it's nothing bad that will make Lola sick.”
�
��Please tell me.” Lola says this quietly and evenly, but I can tell she's about to go ballistic if someone doesn't fill her in.
I close her hand in both of mine.
“You have no uterus,” the doctor says. “You were born without one. No ovaries, either.”
Lola stares at her. “Then where does my vagina go?” she blurts. “I know I have one of those.”
“Where does it go? Well, nowhere. It just tapers off and ends. I'll show you.”
Jesus, I'm about to look at a picture of my sister's vagina. Jesus.
Dr. Traynor flicks a switch and a light box comes on just behind her, with X-rays already in place. “This is a film from Lola's ultrasound.”
Sure enough, the, uh, vagina doesn't go to a uterus or to anything else. It just kind of peters out and closes off, looking like the tail of an elephant. “But what are those?” I ask, pointing to two roundish looking things on either side of Lola's … fuck. Lola's vagina-tail.
“Testes.”
Lola and I both jerk our heads toward the doctor at the same time.
“Lola, you have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or AIS.”
She pauses for a moment to let us take it in as our brains catch up.
“As you probably know from biology,” she continues, “Men's chromosomes are XY and women's are XX. But that's not all. The reason why men develop physically as men is because their cells have androgen receptors. Androgen is a male hormone. The testes produce the masculinizing hormones that make a male develop outwardly as a male. But the cells have to be able to receive these hormones. Following so far?”
We both nod, and I know my mouth, at least, is hanging open. I can't tear my eyes from the doctor to look at Lola.
“An XY baby with AIS has no androgen receptors,” Dr. Traynor continues. “And with cells unable to recognize the male hormones, the baby develops female outward genitalia.” She turns her gaze directly onto Lola. “Lola, your chromosomes are XY, but your body has always lacked testosterone receptors. So you have developed physically, socially, and mentally as a woman. But because your chromosomes are XY, you do not have XX gonads. You have sterile testes.”
Lola swallows. “So, inside, I'm a guy.”
“Technically, yes.”
“Could I grow receptors one day, and turn into a guy on the outside too?”
“No.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“So, I'm like Jamie Lee Curtis or Kim Novak?”
What? What the hell does Jamie Lee Curtis have to do with any of this? “And who the hell is Kim Novak?” I shout.
Lola turns to me, her face all pink and her eyes shining. “Remember that video about the witch and the cat we used to watch at Gramma's? Bell, Book, and Candle? Kim Novak was the main blonde witch.”
My head is spinning. Lola's a guy? Lola's a guy? With witch powers? And something about Jamie Lee Curtis. Holy fuck, does Lola have Freaky Friday powers, too? This is all too insane! “You're, like, a witch now?”
“No,” Lola says. “They're both famous actresses who have the same thing. They just can't have babies.”
She looks up to Dr. Traynor. “Right?”
“Some people think that they might have AIS. In fact, many super models and female athletes are rumored to have AIS. Its existence can be determined with a gynecological exam, but the results are seldom touted. Though it is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. And it's nothing that can prevent you from leading a healthy life. Physically, emotionally, and sexually healthy.”
“Lola never had a an exam before,” I explain, feeling like I need to defend Lola for reaching twenty without knowing. “When she was sixteen, our mother asked her if she'd gotten her period yet, but she was all accusatory, like there must be something wrong with Lola if she hadn't. So Lola lied. Even said she'd been to the gyno. Lola actually faked results and reports to show our mom. Lola's been petrified for years.”
Dr. Traynor melts with oozy compassion and she smiles all warm and loving at Lola. “Well, no more fear,” she says with a smile. “Just information and a healthy, happy life.”
Dr. Traynor went on to explain a lot more about physical development, mental development, social development, and sexual development. But do I really want to know if Lola is a secret man-dyke? Would that be cool? Have some cachet to it?
“Cool it, Colin,” Lola says as we head to the parking lot almost two hours later with an armful of brochures. They actually make brochures for this! “I'm not a lesbian. But if I were, please tell me you wouldn't be a fuckhead about it.”
“Nah, I'm cool,” I say. “Live and let live.”
“Right!” Lola says and turns to me. “Live! I'm not dying!” She hugs me so hard I seriously wonder if I'm going to be benched all next season with crushed ribs. “I'm taking you to Rory's Steakhouse to celebrate. Woo-hoo!”
She starts dancing and jigging all over the parking lot. “I'm a guy and I'm not gonna die!” she chants. “I'm a guy and I'm not gonna die. I'm a guy and I'm not gonna die.”
“Hold up, Cinda-fuckin'-rella. What are we going to say to Mom?”
“Fuck Mom,” she crows as she continues shaking her booty all the way to the car parked next door in the Macy's parking lot.
###
Mom's still mad. I leave for college tomorrow and Mom's still mad at Lola. Her damn daughter graduated from an Ivy League with honors three months ago and Mom barely thawed. Lola packed her brand new bug and drove off to Los Angeles to make it big as a TV writer and Mom almost took the time to say good-bye. I guess Mom kissed off her perfect daughter the night Lola showed her the ultrasound films and explained that she was a guy on the inside.
Dad is clueless. Mom never told him and neither did Lola. And I've never told anyone. It's not my secret to tell, even though it is a pretty fucking cool secret. I mean, I suppose something like this could really fuck you up mentally, but Lola seems to have really come into her own since the diagnosis. All the fear she'd been living under for five years, wondering what the hell was wrong with her, faded away like Saruman's crusty curse over Théoden.
And thus the superhero Lola burst forth, as if getting some kind of galvanized strength from her super-secret identity. Now she's off to make her living, make her mark. She's going to set the world on fire, I know it. But sometimes I worry about who on earth is ever going to get close enough to that fire.
Chapter 54
PAM
Pam bit her lip as she scanned the crowd. Boy, she loved seeing Arlen. Rachel had started having kids so young that Pam had never quite gotten into the groove of feeling old enough to be a grandmother. And seeing Arlen always made her feel even younger.
There.
She saw him before the tykes did. Tall and lanky, standing by the still baggage carousel, aloof and cool as an ice cube in December. Everyone else was either budging to get close to the conveyor belt or scanning the crowd on tiptoes, eyes all filled with anxious hope or peevishness. Not Arlen. He just stood, waiting, examining the throng in barely perceptible glances.
Arlen.
Pam's heart flooded with such glowing love every time they met. Why the deuce hadn't her knuckle-headed daughter met him first? If there hadn't ever been an infectious Jon, Rachel could have loved Arlen with her whole heart instead of half of it. And Arlen would still have the kids.
Arlen caught sight of Pam then, and the smile suffused his entire face. He loved Pam, just like she loved him.
Pam knew how important she was in the lives of the kids, and that meant something huge to Arlen. He would have gone crawling-the-walls psycho three years ago if it hadn't been for her. Jon had been little more than a stranger to his own children, yet he'd whisked them away. Arlen's kids had been snatched up by a virtual boogie man. But at least Jon had let Pam tag along. And she'd been a constant companion to Katie, Matteo, and Ella for the past three years.
But what if those precious babies had been cut from her life, almost completely? Pam didn't know how Arlen surv
ived. Sometimes she wished Rachel was still alive so she could throttle her.
Other than smiling, Arlen didn't make any overt sign that he saw her. Pam knew he was waiting for Matteo and Ella to notice him. She guessed that he craved hearing their squeals like a NASCAR driver craves that next hit of adrenaline as he rounds the curve.
This was always the hardest part—the actual exchange when they were all together for a few minutes. It was a small stretch of time when Pam was reminded of how things used to be. Of how they should be now.
And there was always that little shimmer of fear. Dread that she might see the barest flicker of resentment in Arlen's eyes.
But she never did.
Arlen had so desperately wanted to follow Jon to Washington as well. But Jon couldn't stand for that, so he'd offered Arlen visitation instead. As long as Arlen stayed miles away in Los Angeles, he could still see the kids twice a year.
While Pam got to see them just about every day.
She snorted. For all Jon's insistence that he was their father, he had never committed himself or his life to the kids the way that Arlen always had. So Pam was there to fill in the gaps. Gaps that Arlen should be filling. Gaps that Arlen never would have left open in the first place.
“Yes! There he is!” Matteo broke from her grip and headed straight to Arlen. Ella followed, screaming the whole way, even though Pam could tell that she hadn't seen him yet. She was just following Matteo, but she'd see her beloved “Lenny” in about a second. Then she'd—
“Eeeeeeee!” Ella launched herself at Arlen.
He swung her up into his embrace, deftly missing hitting Matteo in the arc of Ella's boundless joy. Arlen reached out to Matteo, and hugged both kids at once.
Pam gave them a few minutes before walking up to them. “Arlen,” she said, her smile so big it crinkled her eyes.
“Pam,” he said and hugged her.
The luggage belt jerked to life and Ella turned towards it, hopping up and down. “My luggage is neon pink,” she squealed. “It'll be easy to see.”
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