“Kissy is out, and Davey can't put her back in again.”

Part 2 - Wilshire

Chapter 12 - Home

"I want you to take me home," I told her.

She nodded.

"Mom is going out with friends, and if I get home before her, I'll have time to get all—get rid of all this—stuff. And go back to being D-Davey."

She shook her head and pulled me against her. "You can't," she said.

I flared. "The hell I can't," pushing her away, or trying to. "You can't make me do anything I don't want to do."

She let me push her away, standing there with her hands hanging by her sides. "No, I mean, you've opened the box. Kissy is out, and Davey can't put her back in again."

"Damnit!" I wanted to hit something, but all the surfaces within reach were hard metal and glass. "You can't just come into my life and turn me upside down and tell me I'm not me anymore!"

We were both crying again.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she repeated. "I knew I was wrong." She hung her head. "But I saw you were really a girl, and you're so beautiful…."

I went back into one of the stalls and threw up. I think it was from swallowing so much mucus produced by the crying. I throw up when I have a cold, too. Don't try throwing up wearing a corset. You can't bend over right, and it hurts, and the wrong muscles have to do the pushing. Marjorie's fault I was wearing such a torture device, I raged.

I didn't play fair, though. From inside the stall, I shouted, "You make me sick!"

She didn't say anything, and I thought maybe she had left. I used a lot of tissue to clean up, flushing it down. I'd managed to avoid getting anything on my—my dress or shoes, and really, my throwing up was hardly more than a mouthful. A sour mouthful that fit my mood.

I left the stall to go to the sink for water to wash out my mouth. Marjorie hadn't moved. She had a collapsible cup from inside her purse that she offered to me, and I took it. She took the cup back when I finished, filled it again and swallowed some pills from a small bottle.

"What's that?" I asked, calm again, but she shook her head.

"Couple of raccoons," she said, indicating the mirror.

We looked…horrible. It was actually funny that we looked so bad. Mascara streaks down to our jawlines, and eyeliner smeared every direction. I started to giggle, and then we were both laughing and holding each other again.

"Oh, boy," I said. "Let's wash our faces, so we don't get this stuff all over us." We did, using lots of paper towels and some wipes from Marjorie's magic purse. When we'd got all the makeup off, she handed me a tube of something else, after putting a dollop of it in her own hand.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Moisturizer, nourishes the skin."

"Marjie, don't start—" I began.

"Just use it," she snapped. "It won't kill you, and we just stripped all the oil out of the skin, and you got your face waxed and it—look, you need it."

"Okay, okay," I said. I put some of the moisturizer on, following her directions on how to make sure I got it where it would do the most good. It did feel good.

I looked in the mirror. Even with no makeup, I saw Kissy looking back. "Shit," I said. "Those ladies did a real number on my eyebrows." They were shaped arches instead of just hairy strips above my eyes.

Marjorie put a hand over her mouth, and I knew she was laughing.

I couldn't unsee the changes. I had less than half as much eyebrow as I used to have. "How could I let you do that? And besides, it hurt!"

"Using tweezers is worse and takes lots longer," she said.

"Thanks," I said, trying to sound sour instead of whiney. "I don't feel better at all."

She managed not to laugh out loud and straightened her expression completely when she suggested that we re-apply some makeup. "Nobody wants to see our naked faces in public."

I watched while she did a minimal application, just a little powder, some mascara and lipgloss. It made her look less like she had been crying or through some sort of trauma.

I sighed, looking at my own face in the mirror. My contacts were still in place, easy to tell because of the color, but Kissy looked forlorn, and I still couldn't see Davey at all. The urge to open the repair kit I'd gotten at Venus Collection was strong. I pushed my purse around on the shelf above the sink, waiting for Marjorie to be done. I snorted.

"What?" she asked.

"Don't they make waterproof mascara?" I asked.

"Sure," she said. "But the high-end brands are always conservative about some stuff. They came out with waterproof first, but now that every drugstore label has it, they've gone back to traditional formulas. We could replace the runny stuff in your kits…."

I stopped her with a glare.

"Or not," she conceded. She hung her purse on her shoulder and handed me mine, which I handled as if it might contain a tarantula.

In the elevator on the way down, I asked. "Do you know my address?"

"I've seen it on your ID, but you'd better tell me where to turn. It's a few blocks off Western, south of Los Feliz?"

"No," I said. "It's close to Vermont, like two blocks from Hollywood Boulevard. It's a fourplex up-and-down on a would-be cul-de-sac, they have these vicious speed bumps." I described to her how to navigate the turns. From the shelf near the door, we retrieved our hats, which I had completely forgotten about.

When we got to the lobby, the guy at the desk took one look at me and asked, "Is everything okay, miss?"

"Peachy," I said. "Thanks for asking."

He scooted over to open the door for us, and Marjorie thanked him.

Out on the sidewalk, Marjorie accused me of being rude to the man. "Certainly, nothing that has happened was his fault. He saw a pretty girl who looked to be in distress, and he was concerned."

I sighed. "Don't guilt me, Marjie. It ain't gonna work." I paused. "But I do see why most women wear at least a little makeup when they go out."

She nodded. "Social norms. It varies on where you are, but we're presenting as upper class, and it would fit our roles better…. You don't want to hear the paper I wrote on this in my sophomore year, do you?"

I had to laugh at the thought, and she smiled. We headed uptown toward the valet kiosk. Far ahead of us, a big guy was getting out of one of those Uber Black cars. Funny to see one of them in the daytime, but Wilshire was somewhere someone might hire a limo just to get around. Besides, he was so big, maybe he needed one.

I looked at the building where my mom worked, in the block past that. She'd be getting off soon and heading to the movies with some office friends. She wasn't likely to come out and see me, so I forced myself not to worry about that. We reached the kiosk, and while Marjorie ordered the car brought, I struggled to stand still. Pacing was not going to help.

While we waited, the girl valet asked me quietly if I were okay.

"I'm fine," I assured her. I wasn't walking in small circles, but I felt like I might be vibrating like a tuning fork.

"You look like I do after a bad session with my therapist," but she grinned to show she was probably kidding. Still, almost everyone in LA had a therapist, didn't they? And the Wilshire was thick with their offices. Marjorie was even qualified to hang out her own shingle.

What the heck did that mean, anyway? Hang out a shingle, wasn't a shingle something that went on a roof?

Distracting myself by thinking on such trivia had a downside. When the car arrived, I forgot about and missed the wooden step getting off the too-high curb and would have done a faceplant in the pavement if Paul the valet hadn't caught me.

I found myself looking directly into a pair of the biggest, brownest eyes I'd ever seen. His lashes were long and lush, curly and touched with gold. "Careful," he said, smiling.

"Uh—thanks," I managed to murmur. Damnit!

The car had been stopped for enough from the curb that the door could be opened wide. I squeezed past Paul to get in, remembering to smooth my skirt under me and to sit down before swinging my feet inside. "Thank you," I said again as he closed the door.

Marjorie looked at me curiously as I fastened my belt.

"What?" I asked.

"You realize what you just did there?" she asked in turn as we headed uptown temporarily.

"No," I said. "What did I do?" I had a bad feeling.

"You flirted with that guy."

"I tripped from missing the edge of that step!"

She waved a hand. "He was interested."

"Yeah, well," I said. "I wasn't."

"What did he smell like?" she asked, surprising me.

Even more surprising was that I could immediately call to mind his scent. Clean, with a masculine musk and some citrus spice. "Damnit," I said, feeling myself blush.

"Uh, huh," she said. "Damnit."

"What are you saying 'dammit' about?"

"My girlfriend is flirting with guys."

"I'm not your girlfriend."

"Am I still yours?" she asked.

I didn't answer at first. "I think we have to work that one out."

"Do you—do you think we can?"

"I dunno," I said.

She concentrated on driving for a bit. We passed through Little Armenia getting back to Vermont, and the smells reminded me that it had been hours since a light lunch, and I had emptied my stomach in the bathroom. I didn't say anything, though, figuring I could find something to eat at home.

We turned north and passed the scruffy strip malls near Hollywood before she spoke again. "I think I love you," she said. "I know I could."

I looked out the window, not at her, determined not to cry.

"Do you think you could love me?" she asked.

I had another impulse to be unfair. "With your money? I'm sure I could."

She sighed. "I deserve that," she admitted.

She turned west then north again, following the zigzag as I directed her in how to avoid the speed bumps. She stopped in front of our apartment building. We had the north-side ground floor apartment, and our carport was empty. Mom wasn't home yet.

"Do you want me to come in?" she asked.

"Marjie—I—you," I tried to tell her no and finally just shook my head.

She jumped out with the car idling in the middle of the street and ran around to open my door. She held a hand out to help me out, and I took it, then she pulled me into a kiss. We kissed more than once.

"Goodbye," she whispered, handing me the bag containing my boy clothes and mom's hat, the one I'd been wearing when she first saw me. She put the big green hat on my head, and I let her.

Another car had appeared, waiting in the street behind the Mercedes. She raced around the convertible to get it moving out of the way. I went up the walk to my apartment. I'd ended up with a second bag, too.

I stopped to figure out where my keys were, in my purse, of course. I took them out and looked up to see Marjorie slowly turning the corner at the end of the block. She waved at me, and I waved back, then she was gone.