Dead Man Dancing

by Marcia Talley

  As I waved Chance out the front door, I noticed that Jeremy Dunstan’s Prius had disappeared from the street – thank goodness – but so had Melanie’s KIA. Sometime while I was doing the dishes, Melanie Fosher had slipped quietly away.

  Twenty-Two

  With help from Ruth, I managed to track Melanie down on her cell phone. Without saying why I wanted to chat, I arranged to meet her for lunch at Galway Bay, the Irish pub and restaurant around the corner from our house on Prince George street that had long-ago become the regular Ives family hang-out.

  When Melanie arrived, the hostess, Peggy, seated us in an alcove just inside and to the left of the vestibule, handed us green, leather-bound menus, and took our order for iced tea with extra lemon.

  ‘Everything’s good here,’ I told Melanie as I opened my menu to check out the insert that described the daily specials. ‘I’m particularly fond of the salad Kinsale and the seafood pie, but don’t let that influence you.’

  Melanie studied me over the top of her menu. ‘Thanks for inviting me. After all the excitement running up to Shall We Dance? it’s been a little too quiet around our apartment.’ She laid down her menu with a sigh. ‘Don isn’t due back from Iraq for another ten months. Sometimes I’m so lonely I want to scream.’

  As the tables around us began to fill up – with dark-suited legislators from the Maryland State government, rumpled professors from St John’s College, and smartly uniformed naval officers from the Academy – she reminisced about the previous summer spent with her husband and his family on Martha’s Vineyard. Melanie, as it turns out, was an only child from Lawrence, Kansas, and she’d bonded at once with Don’s boisterous, fun-loving brothers and sisters, two of each.

  The waitress made a timely arrival with our tea just then, and we both ordered the seafood pie with a side order of soda bread. ‘Paul’s never been away from home for more than two weeks,’ I said, slipping the paper wrapper off my straw. ‘I can’t imagine being separated for more than a year.’

  ‘I’ll have plenty to occupy my time once Hutch and I start preparing for the competition in New York, of course.’ Melanie paused to sip her tea before continuing. ‘I just hate to think of Don having to watch the program on television rather than in person, but what can you do?’

  ‘He must be busting the buttons clean off his uniform.’

  She grinned. ‘I texted Don right away, and you should have seen all the smiley- and kissy-faces he sent back.’

  Melanie was tapping the contents of a pink Sweet’n Low packet into her glass when a cell phone began to play ‘Anchors Aweigh’ at the adjoining table. A naval officer – from the stripes on his sleeves I knew he was a lieutenant commander – silenced the ring, apologized to his table-mates with a hasty ‘duty calls’, and rushed past us out of the restaurant.

  ‘Can’t even let the poor boy eat,’ I muttered, noticing the plate of half-eaten corned beef and cabbage the officer had left behind.

  ‘When duty calls, Hannah, we are obliged to go.’

  I felt my face flush. If I’d hoped to distract Melanie from thoughts about her husband’s situation in Iraq I was failing miserably. Talking about Jay certainly wouldn’t lighten the mood, so I decided to steer the conversation back to the previous weekend’s triumphs. ‘I would have liked to see Tom and Laurie compete in DC,’ I said. ‘Laurie showed me one of her costumes, and it was simply gorgeous.’

  ‘Nobody from the studio was there, I guess.’ Melanie spread butter on a slice of soda bread.

  ‘So what did they win, exactly?’

  Melanie shrugged, looking bored. ‘Who? Tom and Laurie?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, biting my tongue, thinking, Who else could we possibly be talking about?

  ‘Plaques and vouchers,’ Melanie said. ‘The plaque is an engraved, Plexiglas kind of thing you receive for participating, then you get vouchers for first, second, and third places that are worth dollars off at next year’s competition.’

  Plaques and vouchers didn’t seem like much of a return for all the time and money that Laurie told me she and her partner had invested in the Sweetheart Ball Championships. ‘At least you and Hutch stand to win a substantial prize,’ I commented, thinking about the New York apartment, the cash and the car.

  Melanie smiled. ‘Well, yeah.’

  Suddenly the waitress appeared at my elbow with two hot mashed potato-topped casseroles and set them down in front of us. I poked a fork into mine to help the steam escape. While I waited for the dish to cool, I said, ‘Tell me something, Melanie. Last night at dinner, you made a comment that some folks were more deserving than others. What did you mean by that?’

  Melanie scooped a bit of mashed potato on to her fork, swirled it around in the light tomato gravy. ‘I feel strongly that people ought to abide by the rules.’

  ‘What rules are you talking about, Melanie?’

  ‘It’s really none of my business, but sometimes I overhear things that I’m not supposed to.’ The potatoes disappeared into her mouth.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’m not sure I should say.’

  The way Melanie looked at me then, blandly and without blinking, made me want to scream, but I decided to try a bit of light-hearted bribery. I rustled up a super-sized grin and said, ‘Bread pudding with extra rum sauce for dessert?’

  Melanie stared thoughtfully at the county map of Ireland etched on the window glass behind me before answering. ‘I guess it’s OK. I already told Jay.’ She put her fork down, folded her hands on the edge of the placemat in front of her and leaned across the table toward me. ‘One evening when I was waiting for Hutch, I overheard Tom and Laurie talking. Do you know what SRS is?’

  I thought for a moment, running through a myriad of possibilities. Sound Retrieval System? Student Record Services? Scoliosis Research Society? I gave up. ‘Do I have to play twenty questions?’

  Melanie didn’t smile. ‘It’s sexual reassignment surgery.’

  I took this information in, turned it around a few times, but it didn’t go anywhere. ‘So?’ I took a sip of my iced tea, waiting for Melanie to answer. She was taking her time.

  ‘Laurie is a man.’

  I sucked iced tea into my lungs, and began coughing so violently that nearby diners turned their heads and whispered to one another behind their hands as if deciding who’d be the first to get up and save me with the Heimlich maneuver. When I finally regained control of my lungs, I laid down my napkin and croaked, ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘You can think that, but you’d be wrong.’

  My mind reeled with images of Laurie, svelte, glamorous Laurie, gliding around the dance floor, sharing beauty tips with me in the dressing room. ‘But I’ve seen Laurie in her underwear! She’s got bigger boobs than I do! Are you sure that you heard correctly?’

  Melanie nodded. ‘This was a bit more serious than my mistaking “where there’s life there’s hope” for “where’s the lavender soap”, so before going to Jay with what I suspected, I confronted Laurie. She admitted it.’

  I must have managed some sort of gasping denial because Melanie continued, ‘Laurie has been living as a woman for three years, Hannah. She’s supposed to have SRS next month in Singapore.’ Melanie leaned closer. ‘But SRS or no SRS, nothing will change the fact that she is still a he.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I simply can’t believe it. Laurie’s so feminine. How . . .?’

  ‘Depilatories, hormones, surgery. You know.’

  Hormones and hair removal products aside, what really blew my mind was I’d seen Laurie in the raciest, laciest panties in the Victoria’s Secret catalog. If Laurie were a man, and she hadn’t yet had her surgery, where did she hide her, oh gawd, privates? When I got home, I’d have to ask Paul. Maybe he’d know.

  When I eventually remembered my seafood pie, I was amazed the dish was still hot. After toying with my entrée for a few minutes, I looked up and said, ‘Excuse me, Melanie, but I don’t see where you’re going with this. So what if Laurie is
actually a man living as a woman. What harm is there in that?’

  ‘“It’s an abomination before the Lord.” Deuteronomy 22, verse 5. “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment.”’

  The words of a song from Porgy and Bess swam immediately to mind: ‘The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, they ain’t necessarily so.’ Up until a few moments ago, I’d always liked Melanie, but then our conversations had never strayed into the landmine-strewn territory of politics or religion. Now I was having wickedly unchristian thoughts, like suggesting to Eva that she introduce Melanie to Jeremy Dunstan.

  ‘Melanie,’ I said at last, trying not to let my exasperation show. ‘Surely you recognize that there are laws in the Old Testament that simply don’t apply to modern life. How to sacrifice animals, for example, or sell your daughter into slavery. And for some silly reason, we’re not allowed to stone people any more.’

  Melanie speared a shrimp and popped it into her mouth.

  ‘And contrary to Deuteronomy, you are wearing pants today.’

  ‘The men in ancient Israel didn’t wear pants.’

  Oh, Lord. Where was Pastor Eva when I needed her? She could quote chapter and verse with the best of them, using the Bible to prove or disprove just about any point. This conversation with Melanie was going nowhere fast.

  I pushed aside my seafood casserole, no longer hungry. ‘OK, so let’s take it as a given that Laurie Wainwright is biologically a man. So what?’

  ‘The Sweetheart Ball Championships that Tom and Laurie just took several firsts in?’

  ‘Yes?’ I’d read all about it. The results were already posted on the Sweetheart Ball website: First place. Waltz, Tango and Quickstep. International Standard Advanced. Thomas Wilson with Laurie Wainwright. Second in foxtrot and Viennese.

  ‘The championships are sanctioned by the National Dance Council of America,’ Melanie continued. ‘They have very strict rules, and one of those rules is: “a couple is defined as a male and a female.” Page four.’

  I was beginning to think that Melanie could tell me on what page of the white pages my telephone number appeared. But I could see what she was getting at. According to the NDCA rules, Tom and Laurie were not qualified to dance as a couple. Oh-oh. ‘So, what will the Sweetheart people do if they find out? Take away their vouchers and plaques?’

  Melanie shook her head. ‘It’s probably too late for that now, but they’d certainly be barred from future competitions, if they continue to dance with each other, I mean.’

  ‘Maybe after Laurie has the surgery—’ I began, but Melanie cut me off.

  ‘As I said earlier, it’s really none of my business.’

  ‘But you told Jay.’

  Melanie shrugged. ‘He didn’t believe me, either. So I suggested it might be something he’d like to look into, that’s all, if he was concerned about protecting the reputation of the studio.’ She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. ‘But it’s a moot point, now, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Apparently Jay never said anything to the organizers, or to the judges. Tom and Laurie danced. End of story.’

  I sat back, stunned, thinking, You self-righteous little fool. Do you think you can open a Pandora’s box of trouble, and simply walk away? End of story? No way.

  I managed to finish my seafood pie, but when the waitress came by to refill our tea, I asked for the check. In spite of the tempting treats on the menu – crème brûlée cheesecake? – Melanie took a rain check on the bread pudding. Neither one of us was in the mood for dessert.

  Twenty-Three

  ‘Well, that explains the scarf,’ Paul said when I told him about Laurie.

  ‘It does?’

  ‘Adam’s apple,’ he said, touching his throat. ‘Women have them, too, but they’re far less prominent. Laurie wore the scarf to hide it.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, feeling stupid. I took a few deep breaths. ‘OK,’ I continued. ‘Adam’s apples, I get. But how on earth did she hide . . . you know?’

  ‘Her sexual organs?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, the testicles could be tucked up into the body where they originally came from, I suppose. Whenever they get cold, they tend to migrate northward anyway.’

  ‘They do?’ In spite of sex education classes in high school and decades of marriage, this fact was news to me. ‘And the penis?’

  ‘Having little experience wearing ladies’ underpants, I really haven’t a clue.’

  ‘That’s reassuring, darling, but not particularly helpful.’

  ‘That’s why God invented the Internet.’

  Logging on to the Internet in our basement office a few minutes later, I discovered that what Paul told me about the testicles was true; they could easily be persuaded to disappear within the body. As for what ‘transwomen’ did with their inconvenient penises, well, let’s just say that I now know one hundred and two uses for duct tape.

  I also learned about breast augmentation, facial feminization surgery, tracheal shaves, androgen blockers, and laser hair removal, not only on the face, but on the chest and arms as well.

  Ouch!

  I clicked around a bit after that to read about sexual reassignment surgery, but when I landed on a south-east Asian site featuring colorful before and after photos, I decided Too Much Information, and switched the computer off.

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ I told Paul that night over dinner. ‘Laurie is feminine in almost every possible way. We were comparing fingernail polish, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘She’s had a lot of practice, Hannah. She’s been passing for, what did you say, two years?’

  ‘Three.’ I served myself some green beans. ‘I’m still flabbergasted. If you put ninety-nine women and Laurie in a room and told me to pick out the one who’s a guy, I never would have picked her, not in a million years. The teller at the BB&T drive-through, maybe, or that woman who makes the sandwiches at the snack bar in Dahlgren, but not Laurie.’ I plopped some mashed potatoes on my plate and garnished them generously with butter. ‘Truth or consequences. You danced with Laurie. Didn’t you pick up any vibes?’

  Paul blushed. ‘Not even a hint.’ He chewed thoughtfully on a piece of his tuna steak. ‘Are you sure Melanie’s being truthful?’

  ‘Why on earth would she lie?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Jealousy?’

  ‘Of what? Besides, Melanie told me she confronted Laurie, and that Laurie admitted it.’ I shook my head. ‘No, it’s probably true.’

  We ate in silence for a while until with a contented, well-fed sigh, Paul laid down his fork and leaned back in his chair. ‘Frankly, I admire the hell out of her. Imagine all she’s endured just to get this far. And after the surgery, it’ll be too late to change her mind.’

  I thought about what I’d learned about SRS from the Internet and said, ‘Pretty drastic, and needless to say, irreversible.’

  Paul rose from his chair and started to clear away the dishes. ‘Melanie’s probably one of those fruitcakes who believes all it takes to be ‘cured’ is constant prayer and a hefty dose of theologically-based reprogramming.’

  Carrying the wine glasses, I followed my husband into the kitchen. ‘How could Melanie possibly understand? Melanie wasn’t born a man in a woman’s body.’ While Paul rinsed the plates, I tipped the wine glasses over pegs in the dishwasher. ‘Why would anyone go through all that heartache, soul-searching, counseling, pain and considerable expense involved in a permanent sex change if they didn’t deeply believe that they were born into the wrong body?’

  ‘Did you notice,’ I said after the dishwasher began surging away, ‘how we keep referring to Laurie as “she”? Even Melanie didn’t use male pronouns when she was talking to me about Laurie.’

  Paul smiled. ‘I would say that Laurie’s made a success of being female, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t worry abo
ut her.’

  ‘But I do. I really like Laurie and Tom. And I hope Melanie’s big mouth doesn’t make trouble for them.’

  Paul gave the kitchen counter a final swipe with a damp sponge and tossed it into the sink. ‘You said she told Jay Giannotti?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And he didn’t do anything with the information?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  Paul gathered me into his arms. ‘Hannah, you worry too much. Give it a rest.’ He kissed the top of my head.

  So I stopped worrying.

  For a whole minute.

  ‘I wonder what Laurie’s name was before it was Laurie?’ Next to my nose, his shirt smelled freshly of Tide.

  ‘Hannah!’

  I looked up. ‘Lawrence? Laurent? Luke? Leonardo?’

  ‘Laurie can be a boy’s name, too,’ Paul reminded me as he released me and headed in the direction of the living room. ‘Remember Little Women?’

  ‘Oh, right.’ I was addressing his broad, navy T-shirt-covered back. ‘The boy next door. The one who marries Amy when Jo jilts him.’

  I was still mulling over names – a totally pointless exercise – when Paul and I settled down in the living room to watch a new episode of Law and Order.

  He pointed the remote at the screen and began clicking through the channels, searching for the station in hi-def. ‘You know what, Hannah?’ he said as the screen pulsed with quick-cut images and the familiar theme began to play.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Male or female, Laurie Wainwright is prettier than most, and a damn fine dancer.’

  The next day I called ahead, and since Jay was still in the hospital, I decided to visit. I doubted that the subject of Laurie’s gender would come up, but if it did, I planned to mine the opportunity. If Jay planned to use the information Melanie had provided to make trouble for Laurie, at least I could be a good citizen and give the girl a head’s up.

  When I got to Jay’s room I found Kay standing by the bed, picking food off an insulated, compartmentalized plate with her fingers. ‘How about a green bean, Jay? It’s overdone, just the way you like it.’