Crossing

by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

I follow him up to the reservation desk. The host looks up at us from the seating schematic, his gaze flicking to Liam and then to me. He quickly gains his composure. “Do you have a reservation?”

  “Yes,” Liam says. The host makes direct eye contact and doesn’t look away. “Lee Garrett?”

  “Ah, yes. Here it is.” He crosses the name off a list and makes a note in grease pen on the laminated seating chart before picking up two menus. “Right this way.”

  Our table is dead center in the restaurant and the place is packed with locals – mostly older people enjoying one last quiet dinner before all the students take over the town again.

  The host continues to be kick ass by pulling Liam’s chair out for him first and then coming around the table and pulling my chair out for me. He grabs a pitcher off of a nearby tray and fills our water glasses. “Will you be having wine this evening?” he asks, his hand hovering over the stems, waiting to whisk them away.

  “What do you think?” I ask Liam.

  He laughs nervously, his eyes shifting around the dining area. “We probably should.”

  “Excellent. Enjoy your dinner.” The host smiles and goes back to his command center.

  I open my menu and peer over the top of it at Liam. “So far, so good.”

  He nods and chews his lip. “What are you going to have?”

  “I came here with my parents one time and had the manicotti. That was good.” I scan the menu. “The chicken marsala is supposed to be yummy too.”

  Liam closes his menu with a snap and sets it down on the table. He reaches for his water glass with a shaking hand.

  I hug his ankle with my feet under the table. “It’s gonna be okay. Deep breaths.”

  Our server walks up, order pad in hand. She smirks at Liam. “Was the bet worth it?”

  “Come again?” I say, staring at her point blank.

  “Oh,” she says, taken aback. “I thought his getup was a lost bet or something.” She pins her eyes to the order pad and mutters, “Sorry.” She looks back at me. “What can I get you?”

  “We’ll start with a bottle of the ’09 Rex Hill Pinot.” Acting!

  She scribbles that down. “Sure, I’ll just need to see some ID.”

  Panic flares in Liam’s eyes.

  I hand her mine. “Mine should be good enough, don’t you think, since you insulted my girlfriend?”

  She sighs, doesn’t even look at my ID and hands it back to me. “Are you ready to order now or should I give you another minute?”

  “Chicken marsala,” Liam pipes up and shoves his menu at her. She takes it and tucks it under her arm.

  “Same here.”

  She takes my menu and I watch as she goes up to the host and jerks her head back at us. The host shrugs and greets the next customers walking in the door.

  Things go pretty well the rest of the evening and we’re in a good mood, deciding to splurge on dessert even though we both cleaned our plates.

  Liam leans back and pats his stomach. “I’m about to bust my buttons.”

  There’s a large party of businessmen two tables over that starts getting rowdy, the wine flowing freely. One man glares at Liam and clears his throat, saying “fag.”

  Liam sits up straight and puts his hands in his lap, his good mood vanishing.

  I can’t help but want to give him a dose of insta-happy, so I stand up, practically climb across the table, grab his chin and give him the open mouth kiss of his life.

  His shoulders relax and he swipes the pad of his thumb across my lower lip before gazing into my eyes. “Thanks, beautiful.”

  Our server clears her throat and I slide back into my seat.

  Liam picks up his fork and stabs at the dessert. “Mmm, I love pie,” he says loudly, so everyone in the room can hear.

  An old lady at the table on our other side leans over and smiles at us. “I do too and the chocolate cream is the best here, in my opinion. You kids should get that next time.”

  We smile at her.

  She leans even farther toward us. “Honey, if you don’t mind my asking where did you get your handbag?”

  I glance down at mine. It’s nothing special. “Target, I think.”

  “No, sugar, not yours.” She points her fork at Liam. “Yours.”

  He grins, his eyes lighting up. “In Portland, a place called Uptown Clothing Emporium.”

  She nods. “Oh, wonderful. One of my sons lives in Beaverton. I’ll have to ask him to make a trip into the city.” She smiles at us again and then goes back to eating her dessert. Meanwhile, her husband just shakes his head.

  On our way out, the host slips me a card for half off our next dinner bill. “I hope you come back. Sorry about your server.”

  Liam shrugs. “Thanks for being so cool, man.”

  This time Liam holds the door open for me, taking my hand as we walk outside. The clear weather from our walk to the restaurant has flown the coop and the sky is now sprinkling down rain. Instead of hurrying back to my house, though, Liam stops me in the middle of the sidewalk and draws me into a kiss.

  He twists his fingers in my hair, gazing into my eyes. “I couldn’t do this without you.”

  “I know,” I tease, encircling his waist with my arms. “Aren’t you glad you almost smashed my face in on the first day of class? Just think where you’d be if that’d been India.”

  He bites his lip and gives me a half-cocked smile. “Serendipitous, indeed.” Liam touches my cheek, his eyes going sad behind his thick lashes. “It’s too bad break has to end and we have to go back to being the girl who thinks she’s invisible and the boy who wishes he was.”

  I cover his hand with mine. “What if we didn’t? What if we just carried on this way? It seems dumb to move backward.” I squeeze his fingers. “Also, you should move in with me and Elizabeth. You’re at our house all the time anyway. If we’re doing this, let’s go ladyballs out.”

  He takes a stuttered breath and tears up. He moves our hands over his heart and leans his forehead against mine, closing his eyes. “I couldn’t love you more, Dani. You’re the perfect woman for both halves of me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Our first walk across campus to the theatre building is accompanied by a lot of curious stares and covered-mouth giggles. I hold onto Liam’s hand and keep my eyes on the path in front of us. His shoes tap out a hurried rhythm as we walk.

  His sweaty palm squeezes mine. “If this is too much…it might be too much.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “I have a change of clothes in my backpack.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” I tease, pretending like people’s mouths aren’t dropping and they’re not giving us a wide berth on the sidewalk.

  “I’m meeting a prospective student before my shift at RUMORS tonight, and it just didn’t seem fair to distract poor Johnny with my appearance.”

  I chuckle. “I can see your point. I find it hard to do my homework when you’re around, too.”

  Liam smiles. “Yeah, but I like driving you to distraction.”

  We both relax a little bit as we near the theatre building. Something about being surrounded by people who aspire to play dress-up for a living – I get the feeling that they’ll help make Liam’s transition to Lee a lot easier.

  “Hey, JellyBean,” Ursula says, coming up opposite of Liam and linking arms with me. “Who’s your fri—” She stops cold, dragging us to a standstill. “For. Fuck’s. Sake. Liam Garrett, you’re a hot tranny!”

  Liam closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I actually prefer to be called a cross dresser, Ursula, but, uh, thanks for the near compliment.”

  She slaps me on the arm, with a level of excitement only she can muster. “You know I love you, Dani, but you just got a whole hell of a lot more interesting.” Ursula finally releases my arm and mimes pulling her hair out. “Gah! What a couple of pervs you two are. I love it! So surprising.”

  I reach out and wrench her into a hug with my free arm. “Now, if everyone else can react in this
exact way, our day is going to be awesome.”

  “I could maybe do without being repeatedly called a perv,” Liam says, smirking.

  I roll my eyes at him. “Pick your battles.”

  Ursula rests her head on my shoulder. “I want to know everything.” She blatantly eyes Liam’s crotch. “Where you packin’ your package is the first question that comes to mind.”

  Liam starts walking, pulling Ursula and me behind him. “C’mon, Dani and I are going to be late for class. Urs, I promise to let you get me drunk and ask all the questions you want on another day when I’m not, y’know, unveiling my alter ego.”

  Ursula whistles. “Your ass looks fab in that skirt.”

  X

  I almost get my wish. Most of our classmates in the theatre department not only embrace Lee, but they rally around the idea of such a popular, attractive guy living an “alternative” lifestyle. Less is said about me, to me, in regards to my participation in that lifestyle, but India, blunt as usual, sums it up by looking us up and down, smiling and then saying, “Of course.”

  Lee changes back to Liam for his tutoring session, but shows up to work at the club as Lee and naturally, they all think his transformation is epic. Nota claims to have known it all along.

  By the end of the week, our cross-campus walks have improved, although I’m not sure if it’s because we’ve toughened up against the stares and whispers or if the stares and whispers have lessened.

  “All right, my lovelies,” Maren says. “Today I’m going to pair you up with new scene partners, but first one of our directing grad students, Rebecca Bloomquist, wanted to make an announcement.”

  Rebecca gets up from the front row and waves at us. She’s whip thin, with a jet black flat top, and is wearing a leather motorcycle jacket and boots.

  “She’s like a badass Tinkerbell,” I whisper to Liam.

  He makes the sign of the devil and sticks out his tongue.

  “Hey guys, like Maren said, I’m Rebecca. I’m directing a show in the Round this term that I’ve written myself. It’s experimental. It’s weird. I like to think of it as an identity acid trip. Auditions are this Saturday – all cold readings. I’m really looking forward to how each individual actor interprets what I’ve written. Just a heads up, not that I think anyone in this class or this department, frankly, will have a problem with it, but I’m casting all the roles in drag. I was hesitant in this choice until your fellow actor, Lee,” she gestures to Liam who blushes and looks down, “showed courage in her choices. Then I knew I had to respect that vision.” Rebecca leans forward over by the chairs and holds up a sheet of paper. “More info will be posted on the board in the hall upstairs.”

  India turns around and shakes her head at us. “Well, there goes another lead role. Congrats, ‘Lee’.”

  “You did not just air quote my boyfriend’s lady name.”

  She snorts. “Do you even know what you’re still doing with him? He’s repulsive.”

  I go to get up out of my seat and Liam puts his hand on my chest to stop me. “India, you don’t have anything to worry about from me – I have no acting ambitions whatsoever. Now, the fact that Dani will most definitely get the lead again because she’s awesome and beautiful and deserves it, you should probably worry about that.”

  “If you three are done having a pow-wow in the back there,” Maren trills, “it would be great if you could join us on stage.”

  We walk down, India going to one side of the stage and Liam and I to the other.

  “Excellent,” Maren says. She looks at the clipboard in her hand. “Cassandra, you’re with India.”

  Liam ends up with one of the Jakes and I get Old Steve. We line up face to face across the stage and warm up together. I don’t want to make him laugh with my kabuki lion face nearly as much as I did with Liam, but Steve’s not so bad. At least he can act. Liam’s Jake is a nice guy, but also not so interested in acting. He’s a techie too, good with building props. He built an amazing piano for the main stage show last term. After this term, he doesn’t have to take another acting class again. Liam is sure to make it memorable.

  Maren passes out the first round of scenes for us to perform at the end of next week. Steve and I thumb through it and I immediately note the They kiss in the stage directions again. I look up at him nervously, seeing his thumb is under the stage direction, marking his place like he’s just read it too.

  “Don’t worry,” he jokes, “I’ll make sure I’ve had a close shave and borrow some of my wife’s lip gloss on performance day so you can really get into the scene.”

  I glare at him. “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what’s it like? You seem to be a nice girl who’s gotten in over her head.” He holds his hands up defensively. “Just my observation, of course.”

  X

  “I’m getting really tired of everyone questioning our motives for being together. First I’m not good enough for you, and now you’ve somehow taken advantage of my Golly Gee Midwestern innocence or something.” I toss a pillowcase at Liam and he stuffs his pillow in it, propping it up against the headboard on his side. The only piece of furniture that made it into the ’plex from his apartment was the couch. The rest is in storage backstage at the club.

  “I know it’s frustrating,” he says, refolding the quilt at the foot of the bed, “but as long as we know why we’re together, what other people say doesn’t matter.”

  I flop down on the bed. “You really believe that?

  He climbs on and curls up next to me, sliding his arm under my neck. “It was two years before I told Ari I loved her, and even then I said it because it was expected, not because I was one hundred percent sure. All that we’ve been through? I never once felt or did anything because I had to. I know that I love you and I don’t need to explain it to anyone.”

  I roll over and rest my cheek on his chest, his cashmere sweater soft against my skin. “But you’d explain it to me if I asked, right?”

  He nods, a grin crawling across his mouth. “You want that in list form, haiku, or rap?”

  “Sonnet.”

  “How do I love thee, let me count the ways. That’s all I got. You really should’ve chosen rap.”

  I pinch the side of his butt. “A list will do, MC Garrett.”

  He kisses my forehead. “You’re smart.” He presses his lips to mine, pushing me onto my back. “You’re funny.” His mouth slides over to the spot on my neck. “You’re sexy.” Liam unbuttons my shirt and spreads the front open. He plants a soft kiss in between my breasts. “You’re kind.” He slides down my body, pushing my shirt up and kissing my stomach just below my belly button. “You’re giving.” He settles his body between my legs.

  I run my fingers through his hair, his real hair not the wig, and wrap my legs around his waist. “No, you’re giving,” I say.

  My stomach chooses this moment to sound like a cement mixer spinning its barrel.

  Liam laughs, unwraps my legs from around his waist and sits back on his heels. “You’re hungry.” He takes my hands and pulls me up to sitting.

  “I have to admit that, yes, I’m starving…but I can wait.”

  “You know I like to take my time,” he says grinning. “Besides, we need to carbo load for auditions tomorrow.”

  X

  I let the door to the Little Theatre fall closed and make a beeline toward Liam. He stands up from the spot where he was sitting on the floor, a smile on his face.

  He pulls me close and I sling my arms around his neck.

  “You killed it, didn’t you?” he asks.

  I nod against his neck. “It felt good. I know I did my best.”

  Liam kisses my forehead. “Awesome. Buy you a celebratory coffee?”

  “Definitely.” I realize he’s been holding my purse for me and I take it from him. “You know the five thousandth reason being your girlfriend is great?”

  He grins. “What?”

  “You aren’t embarrassed to hold my purse and said purse also
matches your outfit.”

  He nods. “Not every woman can say that.”

  “Too true.”

  We head down the hall past other actors meditating and silently mouthing the lines to their cold readings.

  “Lee?” Rebecca says from behind us, poking her head out of the Little Theatre.

  “Hey, Rebecca,” Liam says, giving her a wave.

  “You’re not auditioning?” She’s not even trying to hide the disappointment in her voice. “I was surprised when I didn’t see your name on the call sheet.”

  Liam shrugs. “I’m really more of a behind the scenes guy. Dani’s the actor.”

  Rebecca smiles at me. “A fine one at that, but I’m not going to lie, your coming out was a real inspiration to me and my vision for the show. I’d really like to hear you read.”

  “She’s pretty much telling you that you have a part,” India says, flipping her hair as she walks by.

  I grin and kiss him quick. “Do it. Screw the comfort zone, Lee.”

  Liam takes a deep breath, sets his jaw, and follows Rebecca back into the theatre.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Get pissed, Dani! I need that fire I saw in your audition,” Rebecca says from downstage. She’s squatting low with her forearms resting on her thighs – more like a coach than a director.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, rolling my shoulders. We’ve been working this scene all night and I just want to give up, take a break, take a nap, something. But there’s no giving up in theatre. You dig deep and turn your exhaustion into energy. You act like you’re into it until you are.

  “C’mon, Dans, let’s run it again.” Liam kisses my temple and then slugs me on the arm.

  “Ouch, fucker,” I say.

  He grins and backs away from me making a “bring it” gesture with his hands.

  “Go!” Rebecca shouts and then watches us intently.

  I charge Liam and grab him by the front of his pink cardigan. “Where have you been? I must have texted you a hundred times. Why the fuck weren’t you answering me?”