by Renee James
Our first outdoor demo is attracting a crowd. Our Craigslist hair model is tall and thin and sexy even though she isn’t beautiful. She has chestnut-colored hair in great profusion and she sits erect on the stool we set up just outside the salon’s front door. Maggie, a gorgeous young stylist, is doing the demo. She is wearing a short dress that flashes some cleavage and spike heels that show off her shapely legs. She is being assisted by Jalela who brings her own sultry flair to the tableau, tall and feminine, with graceful movements.
Maggie is trimming and shaping the model’s length, then adding layers to create more shape and movement. She finishes by attacking the hair with texturizing cuts that produce short hairs among the longer locks, adding still more fullness. Maggie performs the technique theatrically, hair flying, shears flashing like the baton in a maestro’s hand at the climax the 1812 Overture. Passersby stop on the sidewalk to watch. More take in the show from a sidewalk café across the street. When Maggie finishes cutting, she does the blow dry with dramatic flair, the brush flying and rolling, the dryer swooping and diving, her body posing and flexing as she works the head.
By the time she’s done, everyone who has seen any part of the demo knows this is a fabulous salon that combines beauty and pleasure with sheer artistry.
Samantha is working the crowd, handing out literature touting special discounts for first-time customers. She is a natural. She strikes up conversations easily, sings the praises of our salon with the sincerity of a preacher, establishes personal contact with each person, and doesn’t get bogged down in serious flirtation. The last point is important. We are showing some flesh here, but we’re marketing glamor, not a house of prostitution.
In the next few weeks we’ll find out if the sidewalk demo got us any new customers. Whether it does or doesn’t, we’ll keep doing them here and maybe in other locations if we can. I’d like to do them in the subway station during rush hour, but the CTA is nervous about someone getting pushed on the third rail or maybe impaled on the stylist’s shears, so for now we’re just passing out the promo sheets.
* * *
SATURDAY, AUGUST 9
From the salon I dash to the visitation, which is like waking up in a foreign country. I’m surrounded by more straight white people than I’ve seen in one place in months.
Betsy sees me enter the room and breaks off her conversation with two well-wishers to come greet me. Her eyes are no longer red, but her lovely face is clouded in a weary melancholy. Her almond-shaped eyes that smolder with personality and sex appeal in normal times are beacons of grief.
She smiles as she approaches, but when we throw our arms around each other, she sobs. My hopes of an inauspicious North Shore outing are dashed, but it doesn’t matter. What’s important is my brokenhearted loved one.
Betsy thanks me for coming in a voice still trembling and raw. She recovers her poise. We face each other and smile.
“I should get the parent thing over with,” I say. Her parents have been staring at us since she came to me. Her father’s face is painted in disgust, lips downturned at the corners, jaws rigid, eyes blazing. His only child is showing love and affection for a transgender freak.
Betsy’s mother tries to avoid eye contact when I glance in their direction. She didn’t like me when I was a man. I’m sure the vision of me as a transwoman is just as disgusting for her as it is her husband. I walk toward them anyway, humming Onward Christian Soldiers in my mind. I get to the words marching as to war when we reach them. Timing is everything in life.
“Hello, Bob,” her dad says, sticking out a hand for a handshake. It’s pro forma, not a gesture of friendship. “My, you’ve changed.” He says it sarcastically, like I’m a joke.
“Hi, Al,” I reply, extending my own hand as daintily as I can. “It’s Bobbi now.” He shakes hands as if I am a man, tight grip, up-and-down movement. When I say my name his face wrinkles like he’s sucking on a lemon.
The name and the male handshake are deliberate, of course. A way to put down someone you don’t understand. Five years ago, such acts of bigotry were devastating to me, but time has eroded their effectiveness. Plus, Betsy’s parents are not the kind of people whose approval I value. They hail from a small city in central Wisconsin and believe in whiteness and Christianity and think the only thing wrong with the Ku Klux Klan is that they desecrate crosses.
Betsy’s mom averts her eyes when I turn to greet her. She extends a hand, her eyes locked on the floor, and murmurs a hello, no name. We exchange a feminine handshake, fingertips, no pressure, gentle squeeze from me, limp noodle from her. She will run to the lady’s room soon and wash her hands, I’m sure of it. I’m not repulsed by her, but I still don’t know how someone as warm and compassionate as Betsy came from the union of these two shallow stiffs.
The situation gets worse. Robbie returns from a snack break with two other kids. Betsy’s mom squats low, arms outstretched to welcome the toddler and shower her with grandmotherly love and affection. It’s a socially acceptable way to avoid any further contact with me and to exert her superiority as a genetic woman.
Robbie begins an enthusiastic toddler run toward us, arms up-stretched, face smiling. Five feet away it’s clear she is ignoring her grandmother and making a beeline to me. “Aunt Bobbi!” she squeals.
As her grandmother teeters in a painful squat, the child wraps her arms around my leg and hugs me. Ordinarily, I would have caught her as she ran to me and lifted her in my arms for a big hug and kiss, but I didn’t want to upstage her grandparents. She only sees her grandparents every couple of months, and I’m sure the time together is formal and cold. These people have the human warmth of a plastic Jesus.
Robbie and I hug. Betsy’s mom struggles to her feet and walks off. Betsy’s dad follows. Betsy and I make eye contact. I mouth the words, “I’m sorry.” She shakes her head as if to say, forget it.
When Robbie and I finish our love ritual, I encourage her to give her grandparents a hug. I can’t stand the assholes, but they are Robbie’s family.
Robbie looks at them hesitantly. They’re standing ten feet away from us, side by side in silence, two sourpusses having a bad day.
“You could make them very happy if you give them a hug and a kiss,” I say.
Robbie looks at me, looks at them, looks at me. She smiles, eyes dancing. The fact that I’m watching seems to help. She toddles to them and lights up their lives with innocent affection.
I pay my condolences to Don’s parents, who I know from dinners at Betsy and Don’s place. I also meet several of Don’s friends. They react like a lot of people do when they meet me. They are pleasant but uncertain what to say. I tell them that I was a friend of Don’s and Betsy’s and that Don was a consultant on my business venture. “We all lost something when that fine man was taken,” I tell them.
They smile sadly. We establish eye contact. I offer a dainty handshake to each person in the group. Don’s father and friends return it. His mother and I exchange hugs. “He admired you, Bobbi,” she says. “I don’t know if you knew that, but he did. And he and Betsy used to worry about you when you were transitioning.”
This is news to me. I knew Betsy was concerned, but I always figured Don’s involvement was just supporting his wife’s feelings.
I hang around for another hour, making sure Betsy is okay. I kneel in front of the open casket without looking at Don. This open casket stuff creeps me out. But this is for Betsy. She knows it’s an act of love, as is the silent prayer I issue. An atheist’s prayer wishing for Betsy and Robbie to have rich and full lives, and an atheist’s promise to Don that I will do all in my power to make that happen and to make sure Robbie grows up knowing that her dad was a good man who loved her. I linger another few seconds as I wonder if Don’s concern for me might have motivated him to follow me the night Strand was killed. I dismiss the thought as fast as it comes to mind. Don wouldn’t have known anything about me and Strand. And besides, he was not a person who could kill someone, not unless they were
a threat to his family.
I engage in a few conversations. It turns out that North Shore people are a lot like people everywhere else, just richer. Some let the trans thing throw them, but a lot don’t.
A half hour before closing time, I make my farewells. This is a night Betsy will spend with her parents. Tomorrow, I will attend the funeral but stay in the background and leave when it is over. It will be easier for Betsy that way, and a lot easier for her parents.
* * *
SUNDAY, AUGUST 17
It’s Sunday and Cecelia has pulled her Cadillac out of mothballs to drive out to Northbrook where we are babysitting for Robbie while Betsy has a session with a therapist.
We stroll to the playground, Robbie pushing the stroller that will carry her home when she wears herself out. We’re an odd sight, a toddler with two oversized women. If anyone else used the sidewalk, we’d draw a lot of attention. But this is also a town where no one walks anywhere. What would be the point of having a Mercedes?
“I hope this means something to you, Bobbi,” Cecelia mutters as we turn into the playground area. Two women watching over kids playing on the fixtures stare at us like herd dogs guarding lambs. “I am remembering why I live in the city. Good God, don’t these people get out? Look at them stare!”
She pointedly waves and stares back at them until they avert their gazes.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I say. “I love it when you do that. Plus, when you’re with me I get to be petite.”
Cecelia mutters something but smiles. It’s an old joke between us. I do love Cecelia’s company. She reminds me to be proud of who I am and to regard those who disapprove as the limited human beings they are. Having her here frees my spirit to play with Robbie and not worry about the judgments of the other women. I help her climb monkey bars and slide down the baby slide. She loves the merry-go-round and the seesaw. Soon we are frolicking about in a game of tag. Cecelia is into it, too. It is good to see her laughing and prancing like a kid.
The North Shore matrons leave. Their body language says they were offended by our presence. My favorite t-shirt slogan flashes into mind: Eat shit and die, yuppie scum.
When Betsy gets back, she finds my note and joins us at the playground. She is trying to be merry and join in on the fun, but sadness radiates from her entire being. I ask her about it on the way home. It’s nothing, she says. Just the usual. Which means she is mourning Don and she’s fine, stop asking questions.
Back at her house, as Cecelia and I get ready to leave, Betsy asks if she and I can have a private word. Cecelia graciously sweeps Robbie away to her toys while Betsy and I retreat into the kitchen. We sit at the breakfast table and Betsy blurts it out with no fanfare or stumbling.
“Bobbi, I’m bankrupt.”
“What?” I say. “How could that be?” Don was a numbers guy, a fiscal conservative. He would have had ironclad security for Betsy and Robbie.
“We put everything we had into this house,” Betsy says. Her voice is quiet and thin, but she is dry-eyed. I think she is too overwhelmed with grief to express her profound heartbreak anymore. “All our savings, every cent we made from our other house. We could just barely make the mortgage payments along with everything else, but we thought we’d flip it when the market came back and use the profit to invest in something easier for us to afford. We figured the real estate market would come back in a year and if it took a little longer, I could always go back to work to help out. Get us over the hump.”
“What about Don’s life insurance?” Even $100,000 could give her a chance to ride out the storm.
“We dropped our life insurance policies so we could make the mortgage payments.”
We stare at each other in silence for a time.
“Can you sell the house?”
Her lips tighten. “Maybe for about two or three hundred thousand less than we owe on it.”
“Surely it has more value than that, even in this market.”
“Not if you have to sell fast.”
We lapse into silence again. I can’t put together coherent thoughts.
“My parents want me to move in with them. They have good schools there for Robbie . . .” Her voice trails off.
I’m struggling to keep my selfish interests out of this, but it’s hard. Her parents live six hours away. I could only get there by car and I don’t own a car. And I would be as welcome in their home as a burglar. But even worse, I see them dominating their heartbroken daughter and trying to infuse Robbie with the social conscience of a Hitler Youth.
“What would you do there?” I ask. I put the emphasis on you. She would be much too far from Milwaukee or Madison to find a marketing job.
“What choice do I have, Bobbi? I’m going to lose my house, my car . . . everything. All we own are our clothes and the furnishings, and I don’t have any place to put those things. I can’t even afford a storage payment.”
“But you can get your old job back, right? They practically begged you to come back after Robbie was born.”
“They’ll take me, but at a much lower salary. The profession has changed a lot. It’s all websites and click-throughs, which I know nothing about. I don’t have much value. By the time I paid for day care and rent, I don’t think I could make a car payment and buy food.”
“Then move in with me. Take your time figuring everything out.” It just pops out, but it makes sense.
“I can’t move in with you, Bobbi.” She says it like it’s a ridiculous idea.
“Why can’t you?” I’m a little hurt, to be honest. Because of the way she said it.
“Because . . . you know.” She doesn’t want to say it.
“Because I’m a transsexual woman?”
“Because you’re my ex-husband and a transsexual woman. People would talk. My parents would go ballistic.”
“This isn’t about people who talk or your parents, Betsy. It’s about what’s best for you and Robbie. Staying in Chicago is best for both of you. And who can you trust more than me? We’re there for each other, aren’t we?”
She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. Her face is so sad and bewildered I want to throw my arms around her and save her from the world.
“Thank you, Bobbi,” she says. “I have a lot of decisions to make. I can’t make them right now, but I appreciate your offer.” There is a note of coldness in her voice. I have overstepped my bounds. She needs space.
I manage to shut up and nod, stifling what would have been a long rambling dissertation on what a corrosive influence her parents would be on Robbie, and how Betsy would suffocate in a small city, far from any metropolitan area, and how much I can add to her life and Robbie’s. If she doesn’t think those things herself, me saying them won’t change anything. Plus, she doesn’t need any more pressure. She’s one or two proverbial straws away from a crushed spirit right now.
As we get up to rejoin Cecelia and Robbie, I say, “Promise you’ll let me know how you’re doing and what you decide.”
She smiles grimly. “Okay, but promise me back you won’t pressure me.”
I tell her okay and we hug.
The drive back to the city is a long one for Cecelia and me. The Cubs have a night game and traffic is stacked up on the Edens as if the road is closed somewhere. We listen to classical music on the Caddy’s great sound system.
“Do you think Betsy is okay?” Cecelia asks.
“No.” I feel my eyes moistening. “She’s mourning. And she says she’s bankrupt.” I tell Cecelia about our conversation.
She shakes her head from side to side and tears up. “That poor woman,” she says. “That poor child.”
We lock eyes. I see something in Cecelia I’ve never seen before. She has always projected an aura of defiance and independence that bordered on arrogance. Her face has a certain elegance despite her outsized proportions, large eyes, bright blue in color, feminine lips, surgically enhanced brows. She is pretty the way women who aren’t supposed to be pretty can sometimes be.
But her face has a hardness to it, and even as a woman, she has never been reluctant to dominate the meek. That’s why we tangled so much before I began my transition.
Which is why the look on her face is so alarming. Her eyes almost ache with sadness. There is a softness about her. Her voice becomes delicate as she speaks of Betsy’s financial problems.
“I just can’t believe Don would leave them so vulnerable,” I lament. “He was a careful man. He was careful with money. How could he not have a serious life insurance policy? I don’t understand.”
Cecelia puts a hand on my arm, a consoling gesture. “A lot of successful people handled money and risk that way in the run-up to the crash. The appreciation trend in real estate was so powerful for so long that people were making big money flipping houses. Don was a money guy. He’d have seen it as a great bet.”
“A guy like him would go cheap on life insurance to get a bigger house?” I ask it incredulously, but as Cecelia lays it out I know that for someone like Don the potential for a big profit at low risk would be more seductive than a naked starlet.
“Lots of people just like him did that,” she answers. “Banks are going to be repossessing houses for years because of it.”
I usually try not to cry in front of anyone else because it looks so unseemly, someone as big and butch-looking as me crying like a schoolgirl. But my body chemistry is completely female now and tears come as naturally as curses did when testosterone coursed through my veins. The sadness of the moment, the day, the month, chokes my inhibitions and I sob in Cecelia’s opulent Caddy as we start and stop our way toward home.
6
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
“HI, I’M DETECTIVE Allan Wilkins.” He says it like a syrupy politician asking for votes, trying to hide the fact that they make him sick. Two obviously gay men, walking down the sidewalk way too close to each other, chatting and chuckling like a couple of girls.
As he greets them, he holds up his shield and flashes a big smile, all white teeth and love. It’s an integrated neighborhood, but getting stopped on the street by a burly black guy has the potential to scare the crap out of most white citizens. He doesn’t want that. He wants trust and help.
