by Carr, Suzie
“Are you inviting me?”
“Please sit. Have a cup of coffee with me.”
She slid into the chair across from me. “So,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder.
“So.”
“About last night, I’m really sorry if I got too personal with the questions.”
I cupped my hand over hers. “It’s okay. I needed to talk. You’re a good listener. I trust you’ll keep it between us?”
“It’s safe with me.”
I drew back my hand. “I felt bad later because I painted an unflattering picture of my sister. She’s not that much of a devil.”
“I get it.” Ruby waved over the waitress. “She’s just insecure, and you’re just sweet enough to see that.”
The waitress arrived. “Coffee for you, too?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ruby watched her walk away. Peace spread around her, like nothing in the world could penetrate and destroy her positive vibe.
“So, about last night,” she said. “I’m sorry if I acted unprofessionally.”
I stopped her. “We had a beautiful conversation. You massaged me, and we said goodnight. Nothing unprofessional about that.”
She chuckled. “Right.”
The waitress returned with a fresh coffee. “Here you go.”
Ruby and the waitress chitchatted about the weather, and I sat like a dork admiring her beauty. Her smile mesmerized me with its peace and simplicity. Calmness and serenity haloed her.
In that hotel room I changed into a lotus flower, opening up to her sunshine one petal at a time, blooming to life and feeling desirable, beautiful, and sexy. I would love to cuddle under my blankets with her, sweep her up into my arms, and hold her tight. I could see myself sleeping, not afraid of gentle snoring, wrapping my legs around hers, fondling each other’s fingers and kissing them until the night shadows turned bright with sunlight. We’d wake and stretch, blanket each other in soft kisses before we climbed out of bed hand-in-hand, and strolled to the kitchen for coffee and overfilled bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios. I could see myself spoon-feeding her, wiping dribbles of milk from her chin and kissing the tip of her nose.
I could so easily fall for someone like her. Someone fun, sweet, different. Someone not in jail, not an embarrassment, not a person I’d have to defend for the rest of eternity.
When the waitress walked away, she turned to me and raised up her coffee mug. “To our new friendship.”
I clinked my mug against hers. “Cheers to that.”
We drank our coffee and chatted on about the hotel, and then about local sights in Rhode Island, laughing and bantering until we emptied our mugs.
“I should go,” she said, lingering her hand over her pocketbook strap, not committing to plucking it up. “I’m late in opening my massage chair.”
“Yeah, I should get to the front desk and see about this convention going on today and tomorrow.”
Ruby slid off of the chair. “Don’t forget about that massage.”
“I’m already thinking about it.”
She strutted away, swinging her pocketbook over her shoulder and flinging me one last wave.
I winked.
Ruby blew me a kiss.
What the fuck was I doing?
* *
“I’m an idiot.” I handed Shawna the new menu proof from the printer.
She looked it over. “I wouldn’t have chosen this particular green shade, but the layout looks clean and fresh.”
“I’m not talking about the menu.”
She sat on the stool next to me. “Spill it.”
“I adore this new massage girl.”
Shawna slapped the table. “I knew it.”
“This is not a good thing.” I stole the menu back from her, needing something to fidget with. “To top it off, Jessica called and told me she’s getting early release in four months.”
Shawna simply arched her eye in quiet solidarity.
I drummed the menu against the cocktail table. “I don’t know if I can do this. She expects me to pick right up where we left off. Of course, she’s different now. I have nothing in common with this new Jessica. She’s too serious, too sensitive, just way too much. I liked her so much better when she drank.”
“Slip her some alcohol every now and again,” she said with a wink.
I slapped her with the menu. “Seriously. She obsesses over my every word and reads into everything. I just wish she could be sweet and fun and attentive without the alcohol.”
“You mean someone more like Ruby?”
“How screwed up am I, huh? I’ve been flirting like crazy with her. She massaged me last night in my room.”
Shawna backed up. “Whoa.” She grimaced. “Did you…?”
“No.” I slapped her again with the menu. “God, no. I’m not going to cheat on Jessica.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Like she’s done to you?”
Jessica didn’t technically cheat on me. She had cheated on her boyfriend, Robby, with me. “I swept into her life and confused her.”
“I know. You rocked her world.” She laughed. “Does Ruby know you’re married?”
“It didn’t exactly come up in conversation.”
“It should.” She stood up. “Better to just get it out there in the open for both of your sakes.”
I didn’t want to tell her. I wanted the dance. I wanted the mystery. “I will.”
“Good girl.” She patted my arm and grabbed the menu from me. “I’ve got a bar to get ready.”
Chapter Ten
Ruby
What a gig. People loved ten-minute massages.
I could not screw this up. Rachel and Marcy would be accommodating for only so long before they would surely start to get cramped from my dependence on them.
I brought in over seven hundred dollars of business each day in the garden patio at the Gateway Suites. I would get half of that. Not too shabby for one day of work.
As clients filtered in, tired from their business meetings and long flights, I rejuvenated them. They tipped me generously and walked away breezy and redefined. Yesterday Shawna fed me clients all day. I would do the same for her today, and hopefully they’d tip her just as generously because they’d come to her relaxed and happy.
On this morning, so many clients poured through the garden patio that I actually had to take time for a break around lunchtime. I headed over to the lounge to check in on Shawna.
She wore a pretty skirt, low-cut blouse and high heels again. “You are torturing yourself.”
“I love heels.” She slid an iced-tea in front of me.
“You’re so beautiful. I just can’t understand why someone hasn’t snatched you up yet.”
“Honey, look around.”
I scanned the cozy lounge. A sea of men blanketed every nook and cranny of it.
“Even you’d be dateless working in this place.”
I plopped my face in my hands. “So no interest in men, right?”
“I love me some curves. You can keep the beard stubble.”
I laughed and sipped my tea. “So what does that mean? Are you straight or a lesbian?”
“I guess it depends on who’s forming the opinion.”
I needed to understand. “I’m confused.”
“Don’t you have massage clients waiting for you?”
“I’m not on a schedule. That’s the glory of it all. So, can you stand here for five minutes and explain, please?”
She filled a glass with ice and poured some Sprite into it. She took a good long sip, eyeing me. She emptied it and poured herself another. She gulped that one back too. She went to pour herself a third.
“I’m not judging. I just want to understand.”
Her eyes filled, and she twisted her mouth to the side. “I’m just used to people mocking me. No one’s ever really asked to get a real answer. I surmise they just want a good laugh. I’ve been caught in that trap a lot.”
I placed my hand over hers. “I’m not going to l
augh at you. It kind of hurts me that you think I would.”
She stared at me. “I’ve been through a lot.” She bit her lower lip and stared out over the lunch crowd. “The short answer to your question is this – I’m a woman stuck in a man’s body. That has nothing to do with my sexual preference. I identify with being a woman more than a man, even though I have the man parts.”
I nodded assuring her safe ground. “Go on.”
She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes, testing me.
“Go on.” I reassured her with a squeeze to her hands.
“I view myself as a lesbian because I’ve always considered myself a woman, and one who adores women.”
I squinted trying to understand.
“And just in case you are questioning this, a transgendered person’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with his or her gender identity. The two are unrelated. Trans people are lesbians, gays, bisexuals and straight too.”
“So, the women you’ve been with, how do they identify with you? I mean are they lesbians, bisexuals, straight?”
She exhaled, twirled her glass, and then volleyed it back and forth between her hands. “Ruby, dear, I’ve experienced sexual encounters with all kinds. As you can see, by my single status, it’s not easy for them. If I’m having sex with a woman, she might be viewing me as either a lesbian or straight.”
“Why don’t you just get an operation?”
She picked up the glass and placed it into the bin behind her with a laugh. “You know what I am growing to love about you?”
I arched my eye waiting.
“I just adore your innocence. You’ve got no filter, and I surprisingly take no offense to that. Most people I’d want to slap for asking me such an invasive question. It’s not invasive coming from you.” She leaned back on the bar counter.
“I’m just trying to understand, that’s all.”
“We can pick up on this later. You should get back to work.”
I peeked around the side lounge door to my private oasis and didn’t see anyone standing there waiting. “I’ve got about five more minutes to chat.”
She scanned the room. “No one is flagging me down, either.”
“Then tell me more.”
She studied me, then leaned in and spoke lower. “Surgery is a serious commitment. So much has to happen before that is even considered.”
“Like what?”
“I have to go through a period of time where I’ve been documented as living what’s known as the real-life experience. This pretty much means fully adopting my gender role as a woman in everyday life.”
“Well, that’s easy. Aren’t you doing that already?”
“It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve been living as a female here for about nineteen months now, which is the longest ever for me. Usually in the past, when someone harasses me, I freak out leave town and start over again.” She pushed a napkin around in front of me. “It’s just not an easy process. I’m lucky here because people are just really cool about it all. This has definitely not been the norm for me.”
“So, you’ve been running around for most of your life?”
“I’ve lived in ten different cities running away from this decision. I run to get away from the transgender life. It’s easier sometimes to just be male, even though sleeping on a bed of sharp nails would hurt less. I don’t get the stares, the abuse, the ridicule, or the funny looks that I do as Shawna. You should see when I have to use a public restroom as Shawna. The stares are crazy. Being Shawn is easier in that respect. I don’t have to put up with any of that crap. However, I hate being Shawn. So, I always get pulled back into needing to stay true to myself because the urge to live as I am truly intended never goes away. So, I start the process all over again. The psychotherapy, documenting the real life experience, all of it.”
“So you haven’t been tempted to run this time?”
“This time is different.” She scanned the room as if taking it all in for the first time. “This place is home. I belong here.” She landed back on me and smiled as peaceful as if she just stepped out of church with me and my grampa.
“You like bartending, don’t you?”
“I don’t like it.” She paused dramatically. “I love it.”
“It’s not confining being behind that bar all night long?”
“I’ve never felt freer.” She looked away wistful. “I like that people need me here. This place needs me. No place that I’ve ever worked needed me like this. No one stares funny at me when I dress up extra girly like they did at my office jobs.”
“Office job?” I shivered. “I’d rather die.”
“Yeah. I earned my master’s degree in computer science while I was Shawn.”
“What? And you’re tending bar? The two are just so different.”
“I hated it. So boring, you know? Sitting in front of a computer all day long killed me. Especially when I became Shawna and wore nylons. Those things just dig into the tummy when I’m sitting. I’d end up with gas pains until the wee hours of the night.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and fanned herself. “It’s getting stuffy in here just thinking about it.”
“What did people say when you went from Shawn to Shawna?”
“They sent me home on my first day dressing up as Shawna. I showed up to work wearing two-inch heels and a pretty, red dress that scooped low in the front and came up to just above my knee. I wore a new wig I had custom-made and strutted into work as me, Shawna. My boss nearly choked on his bagel when he saw me and immediately headed to his phone to call HR. The rep came to me and asked that I follow her down to the administrative offices. They told me I disrupted the workflow and sent me home. Apparently, I had created a wind tunnel so fierce that I supposedly threatened the entire workforce that day, and thus the meltdown of several hundred client accounts. I could come back to the office if I dressed appropriately. So the next day, I didn’t show up. I never even sent them a letter of resignation. I just dumped the big project I was working on into their laps and let them figure it out. That’s when I left town again and headed here to New England. I liked its quaintness.”
“The Gateway Suites shines like a beacon to us in need.”
“Sure does.” She played with her hair. “I just happened to be driving and crying, something I did often back then, and I glanced over at the Gateway. I needed a place to stay for the night and decided to treat myself to something classier than a motel with cockroaches. After I checked in, I went down to the lounge for a drink. That’s when I met Nadia.”
“Nadia to the rescue.”
She chuckled. “I told her I needed a job. She said they needed someone to serve food. So, I put on an apron that very night and started serving nachos, calamari, potato skins, and mixed drinks to the crowd who didn’t care that I wore a wig and high heels. I brought their food to them, and they loved it. So they tipped me generously and chatted with me all night long as they watched football on the big television screens. I found a home that very night.”
“I could sit here all day long and listen to your story.”
“I’ve got a table waving to me.” She waved back to them. “I’ve got to get over to them, and you’ve got to get massaging.”
I stood up and reached over the bar for a hug. Her eyes grew big, and she flagged her arms around not knowing what to do with them. I laughed and pulled her into my embrace. She turned red and giggled.
* *
I once dated a girl named Trellis who knew how to bake the best casserole dishes. She also knew how to bake extremely moist cookies. She would hand me a plate of them on every date, letting me know that I played on her mind as she spooned cookie dough onto baking sheets and melted along with the high oven temperature. At first, I thought this was adorable.
By the fourth time of hearing how much I swept into her mind, though, I began to choke on the confines of her tight focus on me. This girl didn’t know anything about me, yet, she admitted to me that she dreamed of me taking show
ers with her, sleeping in her arms, and spending lazy summer days by the poolside reading magazines together.
She had concocted this entire future for us that required I settle in beside her at every waking hour. She knocked on my apartment door for our fifth date to go to the Performing Arts Center to hear Rascall Flatts in concert. I ignored her. I spied on her through the peephole of my door and watched as she practiced her smiling face all while balancing her cookie plate in one of her delicate hands. She propped her other hand on her hip, then changed her mind and dropped it. Next, she fluffed her hair, wiped her teeth with her finger, and smiled again before she broke into her tenth knock. She knocked a total of twenty times before her smile turned upside-down.
I felt sorry for her, but who had time for such a clinger in life? I would never settle down with anyone who baked cookies for fun. I wanted to live, be daring, be bold, and sample life’s greatest treasures. I couldn’t do that if I lugged around twenty extra pounds from eating cookies every moment she stepped in front of me. She smothered me.
Most girls did. They became obsessed after two dates. They started planning our future together, committing me to endless nights of strolling through city parks hand-in-hand staring up at the moon with love dripping from our bodies. If I held their hand too quickly, love, not lust, rested on their eyes, expecting me to jump into their bed, and ultimately their lives, signing document after document of legal papers announcing me their benefactor, their partner for life, their soul mate.
I just wanted to sip martinis, flirt with no restriction, and allow the euphoric rush of the moment to sweep us up into the heavens. Then, once we landed safely back on the ground, we go our separate ways and agree we had a spectacular, mind-blowing evening together. As soon as strings attached, the fun disappeared. The euphoric ride ended abruptly. The thrill of the chase ceased.
The chase. That’s what I loved. Once I caught up to my object of affection, the adrenaline subsided. Most women craved companionship and that lasting bond. Not me. I just wanted to find someone who could have fun and not get all possessive and start prepping wedding vows and selecting table cloths and curtains and color schemes for a shared condo she envisioned after just one kiss.