And She Was

by Jessica Verdi

  “What do you think, Monique?” Ruth says. “Is our girl ready?”

  Monique looks at me appraisingly. “I think she’ll do fine.” After today’s critique session, I’ll take it.

  On the walk back to the house, I ask Ruth if she would mind showing me Mellie and Celeste’s wedding album. We’ve both been so busy over the past couple days that there wasn’t really a good time to bring it up. But the catering vans in the driveway and the uniformed staff bustling around the property, bringing in glassware and hanging lights, make me think of what the Cherry Hill house must have been like on the day of the wedding.

  “Is it important that you look at it today?” she asks, her tone clipped.

  I shrug. “I guess not.”

  Our footsteps seem to get louder in the silence that follows. I’m beginning to think it was the absolute wrong question to ask, or the absolute wrong time to ask it, when she sighs. “Yes, all right. Come, I’ll show you where it is.”

  The album is in one of the many guest rooms I hadn’t yet stepped foot in, in a drawer at the base of a shelving unit. Not exactly prime real estate for such a valuable memento.

  But when I go to take it from her, she holds it back.

  “I want you to know,” she says, “that the only reason we kept this is because they’re some of the most recent pictures of Celeste that we have. She was happy and beautiful that day, and that’s how we choose to remember her.” I nod, but she keeps going. “Otherwise I would have burned this entire book long ago. I will never forgive him for convincing her that his … affliction was normal. He made a mockery of the affection she had for him. It makes me sick every time I think about it.”

  I stare at her, my heart pounding in my ears. I’ve never heard Ruth speak like this before. The last time she spoke about this book it was with fondness. At least I thought it was. I knew she hated Mellie for taking me from them, and I knew they weren’t on board with Mellie being trans, but what she’s saying now is different. Deeper. And after the way she treated Derek at the store yesterday …

  “Oh, also,” Ruth says, finally relinquishing the book. I hug it to my chest. “It’s best if we keep our … family history quiet tonight. The people coming to the dinner wouldn’t necessarily understand about Marcus’s … situation.”

  Seems like you don’t understand, either, I think.

  Things tilt a little in that moment. The family portrait in my head becomes singed at the edges. Could this be how Ruth and William felt all along, but they’re only starting to show it now that we’re getting more comfortable with each other? Now that I’m finally under their roof?

  I think back to Mellie’s last email, the one where she came out to Celeste. The way she told it, it didn’t seem like she’d had to “convince” Celeste of anything. Mellie told her the truth, knowing it meant she might lose her, and Celeste stayed of her own volition. They were two adults who loved each other and made an agreement with each other, imperfect as it may have been.

  I thank Ruth for the book, dodge the event staff and their armloads of tablecloths, and escape to the gazebo out back.

  The album is packed with photos from the wedding of two people clearly in love. Celeste in her flowy white dress, walking down the aisle on the arm of her father. Marcus—Mellie—in her crisp tux. The bridesmaids, Catherine included, in pale pink. Ruth in mauve, dabbing the corner of her eye with a handkerchief. The canopy of flowers under which they recited their vows. A wedding-cake topper of a couple playing tennis. And a candid, intimate shot of Mellie and Celeste stealing a quiet moment to themselves while their friends and family dance the night away under the tent. They’re forehead-to-forehead, unaware of the camera, both of them cradling Celeste’s pregnant belly.

  I don’t know if Mellie somehow sensed that I looked at that album today, or if she was just about to get to this part of the story anyway and it’s nothing more than coincidence. But her next email, which comes in as I’m getting ready for the party, hits me hard, punching right through a place that had already been worn thin.

  To: acelove6@email.com

  From: Mellie.Baker@email.com

  June 27 (5:40 PM)

  Subject: You

  Dear Dara,

  What I’m about to write is important. Everything I’ve written so far has been important, but what’s in this email is going to be crucial in answering some big questions for you. I’m scared to write it, though, because I don’t want you to take any of it the wrong way. I want you to know that you are the best thing that ever happened to me, and you were from the start. Even while you were still baking in Celeste’s belly. You have always been, and will always be, my everything. Please remember that as you read.

  Okay, here goes.

  Celeste getting pregnant was, like I said, the best thing that ever happened to me. But it was also the worst.

  We hadn’t planned on it—we were in our early twenties, and Celeste was still in school. I’d recently qualified for the French Open—my first Grand Slam tournament—and was training nonstop. We weren’t even engaged yet. But despite it all, we were thrilled. I never knew you could want something so badly but not even know it until it happened.

  I proposed to her, and we had a hurried but beautiful wedding at her parents’ house. I was overjoyed to know that I was going to get to be with her forever.

  It didn’t take long, though, for darker feelings to work their way in. Celeste was getting to experience one of the most wonderful, miraculous parts of womanhood … and I never would, no matter what. I was consumed with sadness; it was like puberty all over again but times a thousand. I know it sounds selfish, but I was unable to look at it as simply being a “parent”—instead of “mother” or “father”—and all the wonderful things that come along with that, regardless of your gender. The pregnancy was a glaring reminder that even if I transitioned, I would never be part of this club. It was a reality I’d always known, but had been able to ignore. Now it was front and center, the pivot point around which our lives rotated.

  As Celeste’s middle grew, and we heard the heartbeat and saw the sonogram pictures and chose a name and bought little onesies and booties and dresses, the ground beneath my feet crumbled.

  The arrangement with Celeste was no longer enough. I was not okay. I saw now that our agreement had been a Band-Aid, and a flimsy one at that, not a sustainable fix. I don’t think the Band-Aid would have been ripped off quite so violently if not for the pregnancy, but it would have fallen off eventually.

  Things got even worse when you were born. I was at once happy and indescribably sad. (Again, I beg of you, please do not read too much into this. It was not your fault, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.)

  I couldn’t go on like this, drowning and grasping for a raft but unable to clamp my slippery, wet fingers around it. I came to understand that I was going to end up one of two ways: living as a woman or dead.

  The choice felt impossible.

  Transitioning would mean giving up Celeste—like she said, she wasn’t a lesbian. It would mean giving up tennis, because going through the process publicly wasn’t an option for me. There was no way I’d be able to endure what Renée Richards had; I wasn’t nearly that strong. It would mean admitting I hadn’t proved my parents wrong after all. It would mean being poor again, because I had virtually no job experience apart from tennis. It would mean an even shakier relationship with the world—I’d finally be on the raft, but it would be filled with holes.

  But if I didn’t transition, and stayed living as I was, everything would fall apart anyway. Celeste was getting fed up with me—I was making things more difficult for her because now she had two of us to take care of—and I was distracted and unable to train. Either way, I was losing.

  There was only one way out. After all these years, I was finally going to give in. I was convinced it would be so much easier for us all, you and Celeste included, if I ceased to exist anymore. I started to plan how I was going to do it, and began counting my remain
ing time in days, rather than months or years.

  And then, six months after your birth, Celeste was hit by the drunk driver.

  I thought I’d known pain before. I’d known nothing.

  But suddenly I was a single parent. My parents had left me all alone, and I wasn’t going to do that to my daughter. You were my priority now—nothing else mattered.

  I finally booked an appointment with a therapist, and she helped me understand that the only way you were going to be happy was if I was happy. And the only way I was going to be happy was if I at least tried to transition.

  So that’s how I ended up on this road. I quickly realized that transitioning wasn’t merely a necessity—it was an opportunity. To consider who I really was, and who I wanted to be.

  The first thing I did was quit tennis. My trainer was stunned. And very unhappy. I told him it was because I had a baby to take care of now, and that my life was headed in a different direction. Walking away from tennis was even harder than walking away from my family. This time, I was leaving something good behind. The last good thing in my life, besides you. The thing that had saved me when I didn’t know how to save myself. But every time regrets and doubt crept in, I reminded myself what I was getting in exchange.

  My therapist referred me to a transgender support group, and I made friends who were on similar journeys—people who used feminine pronouns for me and didn’t question for one second that I was who I said I was. Kelly Ann, the woman I mentioned to you the other day, had transitioned in the late 1950s, well before the term transgender even existed. She was beautiful and wise and funny and had the most loveable “I don’t give a shit” attitude of anyone I’d ever met.

  Equal parts excited, terrified, and absolutely clueless, I threw myself into cosmetic changes with the ferocity I’d previously reserved for tennis. If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was give something my all. It was nice to be able to transfer that instinct onto a new goal. It made this new journey feel just a little more comfortable—familiar, in a strange way—and made the absence of tennis in my life easier to swallow.

  I grew the hair on my head out and shaved and plucked almost everything else—that part was pretty easy. I started wearing clothing designed for women—that part was not. I needed clothes that reflected my identity, but that didn’t look ridiculous. Wearing an ill-fitting, borrowed dress around the house with no one except the mirror watching me wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I didn’t feel comfortable trying clothes on in fitting rooms or asking for salespeople’s advice yet, so I ended up hastily breezing through stores, grabbing a few things off the racks, and buying them before anyone could ask me if I needed assistance. I’d try them on at home, only to be sorely disappointed each time I couldn’t get a top past my shoulders or a pair of jeans to fit both my waist and inseam.

  It wasn’t only the sizes that were confusing. I’d spent years daydreaming about women’s fashion, only to find out it was a lot harder than I’d expected to settle into a style of my own. I couldn’t seem to figure out what was pretty and age-appropriate and fit me correctly. You hear a lot about adult trans women going through the stages of adolescence all over again after they transition—suddenly, we’re all that girl who desperately wants to fit in, but has no idea what to do with her body. We haven’t had time to figure it out like cis women our age have; we haven’t had a chance to make our mistakes yet. I leaped into the shiny lip gloss and sparkly, ruffly, teenybopper outfits blindly, because to me those things said “GIRL!” I ended up looking for all the world like Barbie’s kid sister with a few extra years under her belt.

  I returned so many clothes to stores those first few months that I had to find new neighborhoods to shop in because the salespeople started to remember me and would groan every time they saw me coming. Eventually, I asked my new friends for help, and they gave me tips on the best makeup to hide stubble, and how to dress my body. I finally found a few pieces that worked: a flowy blouse with delicate blue flowers and buttons near the cuffs. A knee-length denim skirt. A pair of ankle boots with a two-inch heel. This was the first outfit I left the house in.

  Keeping my head up as much as possible, I pushed your stroller three blocks to the grocery store, bought a few things—though I couldn’t have told you what they were, I was so in my own head—sat on a park bench for a little while watching the dogs play, and went home. We were only out for an hour, but the sense of accomplishment I felt would have been worthy of a climb to the peak of Mt. Everest.

  It wasn’t perfect. I did get looks. I did hear whispers. A couple of parents ushered their kids across the street so they wouldn’t have to share a sidewalk with me. I’d thought transitioning would be easier if I wasn’t in the public eye anymore. What I didn’t anticipate was that it was of course completely obvious to anyone who looked at me what was going on. I didn’t have to be a tennis player to face ridicule.

  But I didn’t give up. That fact, in and of itself, was reassurance I was doing the right thing.

  I put my phone down for a second. I remember one day a few years ago, when Mom and I went to the mall to get some new school clothes. A group of kids was hanging out at the fountain, and as we walked past, we heard several of them harassing three teen girls in headscarves. Words like terrorist and deported. Clearly, they were parroting sentiments they’d heard on TV or at home. The girls were doing a fine job of standing up for themselves, but Mom didn’t keep walking.

  She told me to hang on a minute, and went right up to the bullies and said, “Someday you’re going to be the one in the vulnerable position. You might be misunderstood or mistreated or targeted for who you are. And you’re going to look back on this moment or other moments when you treated your fellow human beings without compassion, and you’re going to be sorry. But by then it will be too late—you won’t have anyone left to help you. So, right now, why don’t you make the choice to add kindness to the world instead of hatred?”

  The kids just gaped at her.

  She asked the Muslim girls if they were all right. They told her they were. And then she and I went to the Gap.

  We never talked about that moment. I never thought about where it may have come from. But now I see. She was the one who was bullied, whispered about, feared. Simply because of who she was.

  I go back to the email.

  Gradually, I became more comfortable. I learned to pay attention to the display mannequins and mimic how the window dressers had put ensembles together. I started to take note of the brands that fit me well, and I developed a light, even hand for makeup. The hormones I’d been taking softened my face some, and I began to develop my curves. More and more often, strangers would refer to me as “she” or “ma’am.” Each time it happened, a warm shot of adrenaline hit my heart.

  I took a name. I’d been kicking a few possibilities around for a long time, but now it was time to decide. I sat you on my lap one morning after breakfast story time and asked, “What should Mama’s name be?” The question was more rhetorical than anything else. You were hardly a year old. The only words you knew were “cup” and “juice,” which was your universal name for all drinks. I just needed a sounding board, and you were my most captive listener.

  But you looked up at me with those big blue eyes, the same as mine, giggled, and reached out to the picture book on the sofa next to us. It was open to a page that featured Mellie, the pink-haired wood fairy, your favorite character. Do you remember that book? I think we still have it, somewhere.

  I knew you had no idea what I was talking about; you probably just wanted me to read the story for a third time. But the moment felt special, and the name felt right.

  Mellie. It was the same beginning initial as my birth name, it was pretty and feminine but not too common, and it was a name you loved too.

  I filed the paperwork quickly.

  We had a party at the day care center for your first birthday. The parents and teachers had watched my evolution from the earliest stages, so they were less inclined
to see me as a woman or call me by my chosen name. They were kind to my face, but I caught their stares and murmurs—I’m sure I provided them gossip fodder for a good two years. But I was feeling good now. Even with all the sadness in my life, I was happier than I’d ever been.

  Shortly after your birthday, six months after walking away from tennis, I applied to nursing school. It was the only other thing I thought I could be happy doing. It reminded me of Joanna, and the doctor/nurse games we used to play with our dolls.

  Hands shaking, I checked the box marked “female” on the application.

  That’s all I’ll write for now. As always, call me if you want to talk. I love you.

  Love,

  Mom

  She did it for me. The phrase is on a loop in my thoughts as I sit for the woman Ruth hired to do our makeup, as I request a cranberry juice and club soda from the bartender, as I stand by my grandparents’ side and say my “hellos” and “Pleasure to meet yous.” As I talk about tennis with guest after guest, because most of these people belong to clubs and have taken lessons.

  She did it for me.

  So she could be able to give me a good life.

  The way she described making that choice, the choice that wasn’t a choice at all, and how she started out terrified and not knowing what to do …

  I’m beginning to think I might not know as much about this stuff as I thought I did.

  I think back to Sam’s and my beer-fueled conversation, when he asked me how much I really knew about transgender stuff, and I brushed him off. And then later, when he corrected my terminology and told me he’d been reading about it.

  Something Mellie wrote comes back to me now too: Google knows all.

  Ruth hurries to my side. The women I’m standing with are talking about which universities their children are hoping to attend—and some of these kids are still in elementary school. “Excuse us for a moment,” Ruth says to the ladies. “I’d like to introduce Dara to the senator.” The women smile approvingly. I’m just glad for an excuse to get away from this conversation.