by Cynthia Dane
Clyde grinned at me in the mirror. “Would be something else, wouldn’t it? Kicking out every other person who had planned to go today… the busiest day of the country club week.”
“He reserved the whole club?” No way. There was no way they let him do that.
They did.
We pulled up to every staff person on hand, their pristine white outfits standing to attention on the steps. The valet parking was empty.
“Welcome.” A man with an ivory white cummerbund and hair as gray as his jacket awaited me after Clyde opened my door. “You must be Ms. Chen. We’ve been expecting you here at Blithedale Estate.”
I released Clyde’s hand and brushed the driveway dust off my skirt. “Is Mr. Mann here?”
“He’s awaiting you out back in the dunes.”
“The dunes?” I knew a part of Blithedale’s grounds was dedicated to the dunes sweeping across the outer valley. Most of it was State Park area, but Blithedale had purchased a chunk of it back in the ‘70s to help out the state with its economic turmoil. The fact the groundskeepers could turn it into another attraction for its club members helped. “How am I going to get there?”
A familiar face, dressed in a black that starkly contrasted the white uniforms lining the front steps, came forward. “I’m taking you in one of the estate’s vehicles.”
I grimaced at the full sight of Sherman Smith. “Mr. Mann’s orders, I presume.”
“Only our team is allowed beyond the outer boundaries.”
“Of course.” It made sense. Eric reserved the entire estate for the day, but he wasn’t going to risk anyone finding out his secret. We were supposed to be whoever we wanted to be today. That meant he took greater risks, and his team would pursue every measure to keep certain things a secret.
So if I wanted to see Eric, I needed to go with Sherman.
We stepped through the grand atrium of Blithedale Estate. The manager in the ivory cummerbund mentioned that the founder named the location after Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, and that the library boasted the largest first-print collection on the west coast.
Sherman didn’t give the man much time for more of a tour. He was too busy ushering me into the back courtyard, where an off-road Jeep demanded our attention.
This was going to be a bumpy ride.
“Mind your dress,” Sherman grumbled, swinging the steering wheel sharply to the left. We lurched onto a one-lane road leading into the private dunes.
It was a splendid sight to behold even when my stomach wasn’t churning in anxious anticipation. The golden dunes didn’t bow to the seasons. Summer, winter, it didn’t matter. They would be the same beige, orange, and gold speckling the air and blighting the sun in the strongest wind gusts. I gripped the handle above my head and minded Sherman’s warning about my dress. He didn’t slam on the breaks until we reached a leveled clearing. A racetrack curved through the towering dunes.
Eric’s freshly washed Lambo emerged.
The Jeep came to a complete stop next to an identical vehicle. Nick, the second-in-command of the security team, sat behind the steering wheel of that Jeep while other men in dark suits patrolled the perimeter of the racetrack.
So much for our private date! I would’ve guessed that a sniper hid in one of those dunes!
“Where’s Eric?”
Sherman slowly turned his head toward me. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No?”
He pointed to a figure near the Lambo. “Right there. Your date in flirty Saint Laurent.”
Of course I had seen someone hovering near the Lambo. But from that distance, I assumed it was another member of Eric’s team. My eye had searched for the man I was used to seeing around the office. It was not interested in the markedly female figure talking on her cell phone until she noticed that we had arrived.
The moment she leaned against the Lambo, arms and ankles crossed, I realized it was my date.
Saint Laurent was right! Where the fuck had Eric stashed these clothes in his closet? Behind the Dior dresses and Chanel purses? Because I barely recognized the man gazing at me from behind a pair of Versace sunglasses. Nor did I recognize who made those tailored denim jeans that fit those hips and legs so flawlessly that there was no looking away.
Not even to the Valentino silk shirt and the Saint Laurent jacket hugging Eric’s pronounced bodice. Or the golden Valentino heels digging into the race track!
Someone wasn’t binding that day. No wonder there was so much fucking security! No. Fucking. Wonder.
The only remainder from the Eric I recognized was the masculine Philippe Patek watch on his left wrist.
No.
The person I gazed upon wasn’t a man.
Like I’ll never forget the unusually warm weather of that day, I’ll also never forget that toe-curling moment. With my hand slammed over my heart, I realized that the Eric I thought I knew was not the person truly lurking within that body.
I had been prepared to accept a date with a female-bodied person. That didn’t shock me nearly as much as realizing that Eric…
The person I looked upon… was Erica.
“You finally made it.” That was the same voice I heard on the phone. I had no idea that was how he… she… truly heard…
Himself? Herself?
Can I even convey how confused I was? When Eric said he wanted us to feel comfortable with who we were that day, I wasn’t expecting this. I was expecting relaxed clothing, posture, and language. I expected relaxing by a lake and getting to know each other all over again.
I expected to still be on a date with a man.
“Natalie?”
I snapped out of my shock. “Uh… Eric?” My approach wasn’t as chipper as I had originally planned. “Or is this Erica?”
She didn’t look away, although I couldn’t make out the intent behind her eyes. “Would it bother you if I was Erica?”
Perhaps I shook my head a little too emphatically. Could I be even faker? More offensive? Could she blame me?
“You can call me whatever you want. I won’t be offended either way.”
My fingers gripped the purse strapped across my chest with such ferocity I almost feared my nails would break through the faux-leather. “What would you rather I call you?”
She tipped my chin up. Only then did I realize I had spent an inordinate amount of time staring at her chest. Like I could help marveling over the fact that Eric Mann had a nice rack!
Erica Mann… whomever…
“Call me whichever pleases you the most.”
“But…”
“You were introduced to and have always known someone named Eric. It’s not like I don’t easily respond to it.” He released my chin. “Erica takes a bit of adjusting to for most people. Poor Nick over there nearly had a heart attack when he found out the truth.”
I looked at Nick while Eric opened the Lambo door and insisted I get in. The other bodyguard was on his phone, one hand on the Jeep steering wheel.
He appeared capable and competent. Maybe.
How long did it take someone to come into Eric’s inner circle? How was their loyalty decided? How many people used to be in it before going on to other jobs or deciding they didn’t want to be a part of this anymore?
What happened to those people? What would happen to me if I decided I couldn’t date Eric anymore? Would I be offered a deal like Brooke took, forced to watch the man I once loved go on to date other women… or would I be under surveillance for the rest of my life to make sure I didn’t tell anyone?
A brief fantasy of how good it was to make love entered my head, as if reminding me that the potential was still within the person next to me. But would it really be the same? What was the difference between Eric the masculine persona and Erica the womanly reality?
Could I handle it?
Fuck that. Could I handle a Lambo going a hundred and twenty along a racetrack?
I have to hand it to her. Erica knew how to play up the testosterone-infused bravado that
made men the primary idiots who bought luxury sports cars and sped them around death traps. It didn’t matter that I was strapped firmly into my seat. Once those golden studded Valentino pumps slammed against the gas pedal, we were off like lightning and as electric.
Later, she would tell me that part of the reason she became interested in sports cars like the Lambo was because of how freeing it was to be by herself and flying down the road as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Her security team was always on hand, so she wasn’t truly alone, but she could pretend. Whether she dressed in the clothes that accentuated her female body or the clothes that hid it, she could still be whomever she was inside. Eric or Erica didn’t matter. As soon as the windows were down and her foot was on the pedal, she found the wings to fly.
Meanwhile, I held on for dear life and prayed.
Don’t you dare get me wrong. It was fun as fuck, and once I got over the initial fright, I started screaming as loudly as Erica laughed. What else do you do in that situation? Cry? Beg to stop? No way! You embrace the absurdity and the freedom at the same time! Who knows when you’ll get to feel like that again?
Erica was a competent driver. Perhaps more competent than her persona allowed. How often did Eric get behind the wheel of his Lambo and tear up the downtown boulevards to and from work? Probably not very often. Erica was the one having fun and being herself. The only time Eric was allowed to be himself was when he went shopping for the next car. It was his name on the bank accounts, after all.
We turned the last bend a final time. Eric gradually let up on the gas pedal, eschewing the break so we could coast down from our high. For the first time in ten minutes I heard the stick shift move. The engine had been that loud.
“Whew!” Erica put the car into park and linked her hands behind her head. The first thing I saw was her chest popping out of her jacket. “Ever been on a ride like that?”
My white knuckles still gripped the handle and my seatbelt. “Nope,” I squeaked.
“Good. I’d like to think I’m at least your first at something.”
“What?”
Too late. Erica was already out of the car, her security team surrounding us to make sure we were both fine. Erica told them to back off and helped me out of her car. Sherman stayed a respectful distance away while Nick was put in his place.
I kept forgetting that Sherman was there. Until I saw him again, anyway. Then I remembered how he looked at Erica the other day.
I wondered… was he only in love with Erica? Or would he take Eric, too? Did he see them as the same person?
“I was with a man once, but it didn’t do anything for me.”
My eyes remained on Sherman as I regained my composure. Erica’s arm was around me, her voice babbling to Nick about something she wanted us to do back at the Estate house. Nick motioned to his Jeep. Erica said something about us getting back in the Lambo and driving there so Clyde could clean up dust and sand now splattered across the Lambo’s black paint job.
Sherman glared back at me. Jealousy and resignation sparked between us.
I don’t wish to paint Sherman as a bad person. Nor do I want to imply that he didn’t approve of what Erica did, as long as it didn’t put her in immediate danger. (He had long learned to back off about the driving.) But he was in one of the worst spots imaginable, and that did something to a person. Like being in my position did something to me.
In the end, someone else drove the Lambo back to the Estate house while Erica and I rode in the back of Nick’s Jeep. She held my hand and occasionally yelled something over the wind and engine, but I couldn’t hear her.
I could only focus on my hand in hers, anyway.
Everything was different from my times with someone I assumed a man. Perhaps they had always been this way, but my perceptions colored what I thought true. I don’t know. All I know is that the tender yet firm way she held my hand in the back of that Jeep reminded me that this was a date and she fully intended to continue romancing me – and possibly sleep with me.
What the hell should I have done? My goal for that day was to have fun and try not to think about the crazy lie Erica lived. In many ways, I was still getting over my shock and moving on from the grief I felt after discovering the man I thought I loved had never existed.
We all mourn the strangest things. I’m neither proud nor disappointed in myself when I say a part of me mourned the loss of that simpler life with a man named Eric. No matter how much I might eventually fall in love with Erica, things would never, ever be simple.
I also didn’t know what my own sexuality was at the time. I assumed I was straight. I had experimented with a woman, but did it do anything for me? Or maybe…
Maybe that woman hadn’t really been my type. Erica was so different from Nadia, that perhaps there was something there after all.
The Jeep pulled into the back courtyard of Blithedale Estate. Erica was the first one out and insisted on helping me. I marveled at how easily she hopped and walked in those Valentino heels. Here I was in my flat sandals, wondering how the hell I was going to get down from the Jeep without twisting my ankle.
This was why Erica stayed home from work so often. Not only to avoid the pageantry of pretending to be a man every single day of her life, but to do as she pleased at home, without the restrictions of the life thrust upon her.
In that moment, I truly admired her. Almost as much as I had admired Eric Mann, but for such different reasons that I almost didn’t recognize my admiration at first.
This was the same woman who ran her family’s corporation. This was the same woman who donated tens of millions of dollars every year to various charities.
And this was the same woman who was attracted to me… wanted to date me.
Eric Mann hadn’t chosen me. Erica Mann had.
“You okay?”
My hand was in hers, yet until that moment I hadn’t noticed. I was too wrapped up in my thoughts to remember I was on a date with one of the richest women in America. A woman most people didn’t know existed.
I knew she existed. While I accepted the gravitas of that knowledge, it was difficult to make amends with it.
“I’m fine. What are we doing now?”
“Lunch by the garden, if it pleases you.”
“Please.” I brushed some sand off her sleeve. She looked at both my face and my hand as if I had crossed some invisible boundary I didn’t even know existed – but she was fine with blurring. “If you keep saying if it pleases you, I’m going to think you’re the most insecure person in the world. I know you’re being polite, but…”
“Sorry. Blame the etiquette tutoring I received until the tender age of twenty. Lady Antoinette would have never let me talk to you otherwise.”
I had a million questions about someone named Lady Antoinette. Had she known that Erica was passing as her brother? Did she tutor Erica in both masculine and feminine etiquette? Or was it strictly masculine and androgynous? If it pleases you sounded polite and considerate from a man. From a woman? I hate to admit it sounded strange. Why was she asking me for permission? Why was she…
I needed to get away from those thoughts. Luckily, we soon came upon a table setting for two on the balcony overlooking the vast meadows that often boasted croquet tournaments and the occasional equine demonstration. (I was assured that we could go horseback riding if it pleased me, but I declined.)
The table looked like it could hold four to six people comfortably, but our two chairs were placed together and facing the railing. The same sommelier from the restaurant Friday night appeared, and it was only then that I realized he was on Erica’s payroll and no one else’s.
That was another person in the inner circle. So far, most of them consisted of male employees, which I found particularly interesting. Brooke and possibly Margot the head housekeeper were the only women that I had met. Beyond that? Doctors, perhaps.
There was so much I wanted to ask my date, but I could tell from her content countenance and the pleasant w
ay she interacted with me that it would be a mood killer to ask a single one. I would keep them to myself until later.
“I much prefer a dining experience like this one,” Erica said. She lowered her sunglasses so she could gaze across the green meadows. I stayed a respectful distance away in my own chair. “Compared to Friday night, that is. It’s always nicer to have fresh air while you eat, as opposed to being cramped in lifeless rooms like that one.”
“You took me there because of how private it is, though.”
She bit her lip. “Yes, I did. I didn’t want Sherman finding us as easily as he did. Damn him for being so good at this job.”
“He cares a lot about you.”
The man in question stood by the balcony doors, hands clasped in front of him and attention seemingly directed at nothing in particular. He may not be able to overhear our private conversation, but he was definitely paying attention to everything we did. Of course, it was his job. If Erica started choking on a chicken bone or suddenly had a crosshairs on her forehead, Sherman needed to jump in as quickly as his powerful muscles could carry him.
I continued to wonder how much Erica knew about her childhood friend’s affections.
“He does. Which is why he’s so valuable to my team.” Erica grinned. “It also helps me keep tabs on him. That way when his wife asks me where the hell he is at two on a Tuesday night, I can say he’s stuck in traffic with me.”
“His… wife?”
The sommelier brought us our red wine. He also informed us that he would be the intermediary between the regular server and our table, since Erica’s team didn’t want any of the staff to see her in her natural state. This reservation was under Eric Mann, after all, and that was who people expected to see. Better for them to assume the person sitting next to me was a masculine specimen instead of the femme fatale making eyes at me.
I was still getting used to it.
“Yes. You didn’t know? Sherman’s been married for a couple of years. It’s hilarious. His wife is one of the quietest mice I’ve ever met. Older than him, too.”
“That is interesting, yes.” So, did Sherman’s wife know about her husband’s extra fondness for his client? “Does she know about…”