What To Do about Rita

by Tara Brench

  The high heels on which George posed were silver glittery things. They weren’t mine, I realised with a shock, he had purchased these himself. Walking past a store he must have spotted them, there in a window, and he had thought: ‘I must. I must.’ And I bet he shared a joke with the shop assistant as he tried them on: My wife has the same size feet, or, we’re having a fancy dress party. Then he snuck his treasure home in that pearly pink box and found a place to hide it, some place I’d never think to look or clean. Where would that even be? The shed, maybe. In the ceiling. Under the floor boards.

  If I’d left the window then, and pretended that all was right, we might have stayed the same. George had become someone else. Someone I didn’t know. Someone only George could see. He greeted this stranger in our mirror with a low curtsy, slightly crooked. How absurd! I began to giggle, a girl’s laugh. I giggled until I was rocking myself backwards and forwards and began to cry. When I had composed myself, and wiped the tears away, I met his gaze through the glass. He had heard me and he had turned to face me. He was naked. The dress had been torn from his body and it lay in two frail pieces on the floor. He was standing with his legs firmly shut and his penis hidden between them, so that the fold between his legs resembled a vagina. He held himself as if cold or frightened; his eyes shone with an odd mixture of fear and defiance.

  Part two

  A door slams in the house next door and I am present. The pencil I had been twirling in my hand drops and lands without a sound. The paper I was supposed to be marking has Rita’s name scribbled over and over again in my own careless handwriting; I’m disgusted with myself.

  I pick up the phone on my desk and dial my sister Kate’s number. While it rings I stare at the wedding photo on the bookshelf: two happy and hopeful smiling faces, the groom in black and the bride in white.

  ‘Jennifer!’ Kate’s voice practically shouts down the line. ‘It’s uncanny, I was just thinking about you.’

  ‘Were you?’

  There is a muffled sound—a hand covering the phone—and I can hear Kate talking to one of her daughters in her ‘mummy’ tone.

  ‘Have I caught you at a bad time?’ I say.

  ‘No darling, not at all.’

  I cringe whenever someone says darling, it’s a word favoured by Rita.

  ‘I’ve just been tidying up around the house.’ She clears her throat. ‘How are things?’

  I open my mouth to lie and the sobs gush out, catching me by surprise.

  ‘Oh Jennifer, don’t cry.’ Kate’s tone is both gentle and alarmed. Such a display of emotion in her sister is out of order. ‘What can I do? How can I help?’

  I don’t know how to answer. What was I thinking, calling Kate like this? ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ I keep repeating it over and over.

  ‘You can’t go on like this. This is miserable for both you and Rita. You both need to sit down, and.—’

  ‘I can’t! Oh Kate, I’ve tried.’ I pause and sob heavily for a moment. ‘But I just get so angry. And I’m so confused. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’

  ‘What would Jesus do?’ Kate says, without thinking. Kate’s not religious, but she likes to throw the question now and then to gage my moral position.

  I can’t help but smile inwardly, and the lighter mood reflects in my tone. ‘About his transgender ex-husband he’s still living with?’

  We both laugh at the humour. The spell of sorrow has lifted.

  ‘Seriously though, Jennifer, you can’t go on like this. If you can’t make Rita leave than you should come and stay here. I know someone who would be happy to have her aunty around.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Kate, I do, but I can’t give up the house. It’s my house! If I leave, Rita will have no reason to sell it.’

  ‘You’re being silly. Rita wants to be out of there as much as—’

  ‘No Kate, believe me, she doesn’t.’

  ‘But she wants to move on too.’ Kate is insistent. ‘Living there reminds her too much of George. She’s trying to erase him, remember?’

  Perhaps that’s true. Rita was meticulous when it came to packing up George’s clothes and belongings, stuffing them into bags and boxes and sending them to charity. Still, reminders of George keep surfacing, like the dressing gown she managed to dredge up and the comb I found in the drawer. Rita is trying hard to change her habits, to avoid doing things the same way George did. She has her coffee a different way in the morning, as if adding milk and sugar and drinking out of a different mug can make her a different person. It works to some degree. It convinces me, in any case.

  Kate has taken my silence as agreement. ‘Pack your things and come live here. We have plenty of room. And when the house sells, which it will, we will find you a nice little place of your own. Somewhere you can do up exactly as you like.’

  I sniff. ‘Maybe you’re right. I will think about it, but not today.’ I rub my temple with the palm of my hand.

  ‘You need to take better care of yourself.’ Kate keeps talking, but her voice is fading into the background.

  I interrupt her to say I need to go. I promise to call tomorrow and to think about her offer. I hang up the phone.

  I want George—my husband George—I don’t want to have to move on and start over. I had wanted him from day one. I worked hard on securing him.

  My sister watched on in disgust as I paraded myself in front of George in my best clothes, giggling and flattering him, coaxing his ego. My best friend Deborah was my ally, she taught me all her tricks. Tricks learned from soap operas and movie stars. I tempted him over with homemade meals, and sent him home with sweet treats. I lead him on short adventures around New South Wales. He took me to the drive-in cinema and for picnics by the river. This is him—this is The One—I thought to myself. Marriage and family was what I wanted. What a great adventure it would be, to live in Italy, to inherit a vineyard. I could see our sun tanned children running up and down the rows; pulling grapes from the vines and putting them into wicker baskets. How detailed such fantasies can become! So detailed that you mourn their loss.

  ‘We are not going to live in Italy.’ George announced on our honeymoon. It was morning and we were lying in bed. I was still half asleep. ‘I have decided we shall stay in Orange. I have spoken to the owner at Canobolas Wines and they need a new manager in a couple of months. He thinks I will fit in well.’ He got out of bed and started pulling on his clothes.

  I had to repeat his sentences in my head to make sense of them. I needed coffee and breakfast before I could start thinking clearly. ‘But darling,’ I said, ‘what about your father? Who will run the vineyard when he retires?’ What about me? It’s true we had never discussed these things before we marriage. I thought everything would fall into place. I had plied him with questions about his family and the vineyard and what life was like in Italy, and he was animated enough with all his answers, amused by my great interest. It was certain: we would go to Italy and take over the vineyard, that’s what his family expected. I always did what was expected of me. But none of that mattered to George.

  ‘My father has other sons who can do the work, it doesn’t require a degree. And I don’t think they would really approve of you.’ He had his back to me now. He couldn’t even look me in the eye when he said it. Bloody coward! We were staying at a hotel in Bondi Beach, and he was looking at the view of the ocean from the window. ‘This is such a beautiful country.’ He said it in the same soft way he told me he loved me: low enough so only I could hear.

  ‘What do you mean!’ I sat up, clutching the sheet against my chest. ‘Wouldn’t approve of me? But you said they wanted you to marry a good Christian girl. You said they would get a nice surprise!’

  ‘They wanted me to marry a good Christian Italian girl. Mama will be cross when she hears about you.’ He turns, sees my horrified expression and his tone softens and becomes placating.’ Don’t worry darling. I will take you to Italy one day when the timing is right and everyone has had a chance to c
alm down.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and tilted his head. ‘I thought that you would be happy. You get to stay with your friends and family. You always said how much you loved Orange, and would be sorry to leave it.’

  This was true enough, but I felt my eyes well with tears all the same. He climbed back into bed and put his arms around me. I should have felt secure. I was married, my husband would take care of things.

  ‘Besides,’ said George. ‘I think you should finish your degree and work in teaching for a while. It’s a shame to start things and not finish them, and we will need the extra income to save for a home.’

  This turned my silent tears into a loud ugly bawl. I didn’t want to be a teacher, or anything else! I wanted to be a mother. George knew, I had told him so many times, I wanted to start having children right away. But I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, I couldn’t talk through the choking tears. He just rocked me back and forth and whispered cooing noises as if I were a child stung by a bee.

  That was the first of many disenchantments. My mother and my father had never complained of their hardships; my father used to say that those who complained didn’t really know God, or didn’t want to know God, or something like that. So I did not complain. Not even after the first stillborn. Or the second. Or third. Not even when the doctor told me it was impossible, out of the question and dangerous. I had a defective womb. I was only half a woman. I never complained to anyone—I took all of my problems to God.

  And I thought that God had answered my prayers by making George my comforter. My husband softened. He grew gentle. He made less demands of me. We became friends. Time, as they say, heals all wounds. I could not be a mother—but at least I was a wife.

  For our tenth anniversary we went out to celebrate. We had booked a table at the most expensive restaurant in town. George had said we needed alcohol to help us get ready and opened a bottle of champagne. We were out of practice at dressing up. All George had to do was put on a suit, and then we invaded my wardrobe together. George did a very funny impersonation of a gay stylist, making me try on various combinations of clothing until he’d discovered the crẻme de le crẻme. I had to exchange the ‘chosen’ high heels for flats because I was finding it too hard to balance. George even tried to do my make up, but his fifties cinema inspired look made me look like a serial killer, I shooed him away in order to fix it.

  By the time we were ready to go the bottle was empty, George was happily tipsy while I was outrageously drunk. He had to shush me several times between bouts of laughter before I stopped singing, ‘Strangers in the Night,’ in the taxi.

  At The Golden Dragon we were shown to our favourite table and George immediately asked for a bottle of water and a plate of prawn crackers for ‘the inebriate’. I can’t remember what we talked about, but I remember we talked with real zest. We often did. In reality, George and I didn’t have a lot in common, but we loved having conversations. George was an excellent talker and I was an excellent listener; George found me interesting, and could draw me out with questions when I grew too quiet.

  Service was slow. The restaurant was full. When the waitress came over to take our orders I realised I hadn’t even looked at the menu. ‘You order for us, George.’ I was very happy at times like this, when someone else could take charge and I didn’t have to worry or fuss. George, being outgoing, could be a dear and funny thing in the way he took care of things, with flamboyant and exaggerated actions; he ordered a selection of things we both loved, and their finest wine, with his boisterous Italian accent. He drew the attention of other diners when he stood up to announce that this lovely lady was his wife and he had been married to her for ten years. I covered my eyes with my hands, cheeks growing hot, but I peeked through the fingers and smiled when I heard clapping.

  ‘Sit down. You are an embarrassment.’ I pulled at his jacket to get him to sit. I nodded at a couple I recognised across the room, parents of one of my students. The families and couples turned back to one another and the room filled with the steady hum of many people talking. We had to talk much louder than usual to be heard over the noise. ‘I want to give you your present now,’ I said. ‘Before the food comes.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said.

  I pulled out a carefully wrapped box. There was no hiding that it held jewellery of some kind, the box was the right size and shape for it. George was grinning with glee before I’d even handed it over. He took the box and unwrapped it like a child: ripping the paper instead of peeling back the tape. He pulled the ring from the box and beamed. It was a men’s simple white gold ring with an oval diamond as its centrepiece. George looked at it like it was the Queen’s jewels.

  ‘Oh Jennifer, I love it! I simply adore it.’ His voice was soft and lush.

  ‘I’m glad you like it. It was hard to decide between that and the cuff links you had circled in the Zamels catalogue.’ Yes, it was true, George had adopted the women’s trick of circling things he liked in catalogues. He circled a great variety of things: objects for the house and garden; men’s, women’s and even children’s clothing; small electrical gadgets and expensive entertainment systems. It was funny when friends came over, and finding catalogues on counter tops and coffee tables, would comment on the extraordinary things George wanted.

  He put the ring on and admired it for a few moments longer before reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out an envelope. ‘This is for you.’ He handed it over with a mischievous wink.

  I turned the envelope over in my hands, it was thick and heavy—tantalising. I opened it and pulled out the card; something threatened to slip out the bottom but I held it in check. It was a humorous card, with a picture of a very old bride and groom dancing cheek to cheek and a message saying: Happy 10th Wedding Anniversary, this will be us in another 50 years. I opened the card and took out the bundle of papers; unfolding them to find brochures, printouts, receipts and plane tickets. ‘Oh George,’ I said, feeling breathless. ‘Oh George!’

  ‘I promised I would take you to Italy.’ He shrugged like it was no big deal but I could tell he was excited as I was. It was more than a trip to Italy. It was a trip around the world, and we would be gone for nine whole months! Nothing could compare to the way I felt in that moment. It was the pinnacle—the point where expectation and excitement was at its height. I could see the future laid out before me—the view was grand.

  That was an illusion. George became Rita. Nature made a mistake, he said, but doctors could fix it. The doctor sent him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist had training in ‘that sort of thing’. George told the psychiatrist everything, all the things he never told me. He came home one day and said, ‘I’ve told them everything, and they agree—I’m in the wrong body—we’re now going to start.’ I was never consulted. It was not my body. I was only married to the man who wanted to be a woman. ‘You are the lucky one,’ George said. ‘Your body matches with who you are inside. Mine doesn’t.’ But I couldn’t understand what he meant. Didn’t we make love as man and woman? Didn’t we create those sleeping stillborn children? Almost perfect—lacking only life.

  They put him on hormone replacement therapy so that his body would change—I could not keep it a secret for long. I arranged a gathering of my closest female friends. We met at my sister Kate’s house one Sunday afternoon. Kate already knew, George had told her. The women had been told nothing specific, only that they were needed for support. There were seven of us seated in Kate’s living room. The coffee le was covered with plates of desserts: slices, cakes and scones. Bottles of wine were waiting to be opened. ‘George feels that he should not have been born a man,’ I said. Nobody moved. ‘He feels that he is a woman trapped in a man’s body.’ Monica and Liz exchanged glances. Deborah and Rosa leaned forward. ‘And he is going to have an operation to make his body match with his feelings.’ There, it was said. I felt pleased.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Asked Liz. I knew Liz and Monica from church.

  Wasn’t I clear? I thought about what I had said
and how it could be rephrased. I had been reading the pamphlets and printouts that George had given me. I had practise discussing the issue with tact and calm with George and Kate. But I had had enough of tact and calm. ‘He’s having his dick removed because he wants to be a woman.’

  Kate, who had been sipping her wine, snorted and nearly spilt it down her top.

  Liz and Monica gasped.

  Rosa’s jaw dropped.

  Deborah covered her mouth with her hand.

  They were stunned into silence.

  ‘That is my news,’ I said. I reached over and picked up a small piece of chocolate coated fudge. ‘To think I ever worried about getting fat.’ I slipped the fudge in my mouth and moaned. While I chewed I examined the faces in the room, the startled female faces. George would soon be one of these: a female face on a female body, but he could never be like these women, these kind self-sacrificing women.

  ‘Does that make you a lesbian?’ It was Rosa who broke the silence. Little Rosa, the woman who had been too shy to introduce herself on her first day as a teacher. She looked stricken, unsure, perhaps regretting her question.

  I swallowed the fudge, thinking before I spoke. ‘No, George is the only one who is changing. I will be staying the same. I fell in love with a man and I married one; when George becomes a woman our marriage will be over.’ As soon as I had spoken the words I realised they were true; I could not be like the women I had read about, the women who embraced their husband’s changes. I would never call Rita my wife.

  The rain has stopped. The scent of pine is coming in off the reserve. I’ve been staring at the wedding photograph on the bookshelf, lost in thought. I look at the school papers on my desk; I will finish marking them tomorrow. It’s gotten chilly inside. I put my hands in my cardigan pockets to warm them, my right hand curls around the comb I placed there before. I take it out and examine it: Georges comb, simple and plain. I lay it down and stand up. I go to the bookshelf and pick up the wedding photograph. The bride looks so happy in her frame. Poor thing! I lay it face down. The wall clock says it is half-past twelve; I have accomplished so little this morning. The only thing I have done well is drive myself mad with old memories. It is futile to reminisce. I can’t alter the past. I can’t bring my George back. I don’t even know if I’d want him back. There’s nothing I can do about Rita. I can only go in circles thinking about what’s wrong and right. Well, I’m done with it!