A few weeks ago, I was sent a card in the mail, requesting me to come to a restaurant called Silff Top Closet Mawr. It was somewhat off the beaten track, but my GPS was able to find it. The interior had a plain tone to it with soft reds and purples. The floor was made of tiles with stones in the middle laid out in circles to the bar and the main dining area.
“Please let the hostess know you are a member of the party at table 42.”

The hostess acknowledged me, and we walked through the archway leading to different quarters or zones of the establishment. I had to wonder how massive the waitstaff would have to be in order to accommodate everyone accordingly. We silently walked into a small quadrant with one table in the middle. There were four women and one who looked about seventeen already sitting at the table, two chairs were vacant.

Whatever conversation they were having abruptly stopped.

The hostess pulled a chair out for me. “Can I get you a drink? She asked.
“Just a water with lemon for now. Thank you.” I replied as I sat down and looked at the others. They were stone-faced, one was looking at her phone while the other looked down at her drink. I took out the card and laid it on the table.
“Does anyone know what this is all about?”
“We were kind of hoping you would know,” the young one replied.
It took me a moment or two to realize all of us had red hair. Everyone’s shade was different with their differing style and length, but we looked like an impromptu club or at least a sit-down version of a police line-up.

“I admit I am just as clueless as all of you,” I said with a sigh. “But you know, I am going to treat this situation like I treat a client whom I have never met before. My name is Keri Riley-Powell; originally from Seattle but now I live in a small town in Nebraska—so small in fact I had to help finance the push to get Google to install a fiber line so I could work more from home. My husband is wonderful he helped me get through a sad chapter in my life.”

“How was it sad?” Another lady at the table asked. She had a tall glass of wine and judging by her expression I assumed that it was not her first glass.

A waitress arrived with a glass of water with a lemon wedge, and I thanked her with a deep nod as I tried to focus on answer the question put before me.

“Well, I think everyone at this table will agree that life has tried to throw everything at us and at times it has hit its mark. For me, I loved this boy, and he abruptly left, without ever showing he loved me.” I stammered for a moment and cleared my throat. “I met him again, thirty years later at a high school reunion and when I saw him all the memories flooded back as they do at reunions, and I remembered everything through rose-colored glasses. He was my soulmate and even though he left all those years ago there was a chance we would get together.”

I stopped to look at my audience” three were listening, but the wine connoisseur looked like she was going to fall asleep.

“Anyway, I learned at that late hour that he was never going to be the one for me. He said he had a sickness and needed to be healed and that I could healed too.”
“Healed?” the young woman to my far left asked. She had long hair with black and blond streaks. “It never heals, it always with you.
“Only if you let it,” the second to the youngest said.
“I think it would be best if we introduced ourselves. I mean, I don’t want to be the one calling the shots—”
“Somone had to break the ice,” the fruit of the vine expert said as she tipped her glass to me. “I’m Alannah Moore and I’m still confused on why the hell I’m here.”
“Joanna Rieshce,” the one sitting to my right said. “I’ll say it’s nice to meet everyone, again, since Keri has arrived.
We all turned to look at the young girl to my left.
“Roslyn Gold, but I go by Rose.”

The one at the other end nodded and then stood up. I wanted to think she was as old as Rose but the lines and scars of pain on her face made her look older. “Rikki Davis. I got nothing really to say except I’m going to agree with Alannah over there. I have no idea why I’m here. We all receive a card in the mail and blindly come to this place?”
We all nodded in response.
“It’s kind of strange, isn’t it? And like there’s this empty chair here. Are we expecting to have one more redhead walk-in?”
“Maybe she’ll be blonde,” Joanna said as she twisted her hair.
“Whatever,” Rikki replied as she drummed her hands on the table. “Okay, Keri, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Did your husband know you were transgender when he met you?”
“I knew him since high school.”
“Yeah, but did he know then? Did he know you held a secret between your legs?”
“That’s not very appropriate,” Joanna replied.
“Appropriate or not, it’s something that’s always present or were you able to get bottom surgery.”
“I chose not to,” I replied.
“Choices. Yeah, swell.”

“I had two pre-determined choices growing up: live in my sister’s shadow or die in my sister’s shadow. She was the popular one, she got to go to parties, she had our parents wrapped around her finger. I started transitioning in junior high, but I was able to hide it in my grunge-era style over-sized jacket and hoodie. No one knew what I wore beneath that zipped up jacket and the only hint anyone could have seen was my pink and blue pin on my backpack.”
Joanna raised her hands and gave a thumbs up.
“I was ignored in high school. I was fine with it. It gave me more time to concentrate on my music and play my guitar in one the music rooms in peace. No one knew about me until one evening when Justin Clarke sat next to me at a basketball game. Justin was the shit and in time he became a piece of shit.”
Rikki paused and took a sip or a drink from a large glass. I had hoped it was just Dr. Pepper or Pepsi as she chugged it gown.
“So, we hit it off at the game and just when we’re getting close it all hits the digital buzzfeed on MySpace and text: Rikki and Justin, sittin’ in the tree. Doing more than k-i-s-s-i-n-g. We were doing more, but the rabble didn’t know all that at first.”
She stood up and walked in front of the table. “Then…then the clouds parted for Justin.” Rikki moved her hands over head as if moving the clouds in the air herself. “The talent scouts loved him. You see, we performed a song together at a competition with Justin singing the lyrics to a song I wrote and played on my guitar until my fingers blistered up and bled. They loved him and signed him up for a helluva good deal…and they wanted him to sing that song. They wanted the song I breathed life into, and I was forced to give it up by Justin.”
“He was going to expose you?” Alannah asked.
“Oh yeah. The mouth that kissed me all over my body was the same one that tied me up and emotionally raped me.”
I was taken aback a little by the mental picture she had painted.
“If I didn’t sit down and shut up then my secret would be known. High School’s a bitch and it wanted to slap me around so bad, and it did one Justin’s album came out.
“‘All I Want is You’? I had that album,” Rose piped up but then sheepishly lowered her head.
“It was a kick-ass album, wasn’t it?” Rikki asked and then stepped further away from the table. That being said, Justin decided to let the school kick my proverbial and literal ass by letting it be known that little Rikki Davis was once little Richard Davis and had the little dick to prove it. Oh, he was the big dick who had a tiny one. What I’m saying, ladies, is that I wasn’t given a choice. The die was cast, and I had crapped out before I ever knew.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied.
“No, don’t apologize, because I got back at him by writing a few tracks about him and putting them on the internet. His label was pissed.”
“Is that why his TV show was cancelled?” Rose asked.
“Oh yeah, the network for kids wasn’t ready to explain to the parents who’d buy a Justin doll about the freshly discovered truth. I told myself that one day I knock him down a few notches. I was girlfriend and I became his damn girlfoe!”
“I know that album, Joanna said. “You’re the Rikki of Razor’s Edge?”
“In the damn flesh!”
“How did you feel when you able to make that choice?” I asked.
“It felt dark and kind of evil but, you know, if I had to relive it, I’d do it the same way. Beauty from the pain,” Rikki replied as she walked back to the table, sat down, and drummed on it once more.
“Did he deserve to be crushed?” Rose asked.
“It’s a kill or be killed world,” Alannah mused. The ones who are supposed to love us are the first ones to toss us overboard when it gets uncomfortable them. It’s their feelings, not mine, I mean ours. If I want to go to the restroom, why do I have to think someone’s going to walk in and peer over the stall. I’m just trying to pee! What did they have against me? What did I do to them?”
“I know that feeling,” Joanna mused and closed her eyes.

“The whole school knew I was trans since eighth grade. My dress ripped apart at a school dance. Stripped down to my maroon-colored underwear by a boy who had asked me to dance. He was so kind when he asked me. He has stepped across the no-man’s land to approach me and ask me. He was cute, and I may sound like I’m making sound like he was perfection, but I was a fresh thirteen-year-old girl who wanted to be accepted for me, and I thought I found my dream guy. But I woke up thanks to a living nightmare named Tony.”
I gave a small shudder at the mention at the name ‘Tony.’
“I got better, took a lot of therapy with countless sessions of my doc telling me that Tony was not going to come back and finish his emotional killing spree. His family moved shortly after what happened, leaving my parents unable to do anything about it. His parents said it was just a joke and reversed the blame back to me for being a boy wearing a dress. Saying that I had it coming to me, pretending to be a chick.”
Joanna looked at the table and then glanced back and forth between all of us.
“He did come back to our school, so I think my doctor owed my parents a bit of a refund. He had the nerve to walk up to me and call me ‘Jo’, something I only allowed friend to call me, and Tony Rieshce was no friend of mine at the time. No, my friend was a guy I had known since forever, Frank Russo. He was kind of a hothead about things and always wanted to look like he was calm, cool and collected. The James Dean look, you know? His biggest hang-up was that he was looking for “the one”. Tragically, I could not be the one due to our history…there were a few times that I thought I felt something from him and if he had said the right things I would have wrapped my arms around him. However, he was infatuated this girl named April.”
Joanna rolled her eyes and took a deep breath.
“April hated me. Flat out, she hated me, like I had killed her dog, puppies, or some fluffy little kittens. I had no real idea for her hatred. She sent two morons to pummel me, but I was saved by Tony.”
I closed my eyes and tried not to scream at the mention of that name once again.
“Frank said he was in love with April, and he wanted to take things further after the Winterfest dance. It always seemed to start with dances, and I didn’t know it, but April was the devil and Frank wanted to dance with her while she wanted something to happen to me. At Winterfest, things came to a head when April stole Frank’s truck and real boyfriend showed up to ruin the evening. He damaged Tony’s car and tried to attack all of us when we walked into to see April dancing with him.”
Joanna fidgeted with a bracelet on her wrist, and I clenched my teeth.
“I asked her what she had against me. I wanted an answer that made sense. Like in the movies and books where we learn why the villain became who they were. I wanted the question answered. She only said: ‘You exist, that’s what you did! Someone should have taken you out a long time ago.’ I didn’t want to accept that she just hated me for no reason. I didn’t do a thing to her. I think she may have hated me because of Frank, but if she hadn’t been so stupid and just asked then I could have told her that Frank was my friend and that I didn’t trust her. I still think about it, and I used to ask Tony what he thought, and he told me that sometimes people’s hearts are cold and their minds are closed so we have to be…” She stammered for a second or two and started to cry. “Tony.”
I closed my eyes again and clenched my fists.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked me.
“I’m sorry…my…my old boyfriend’s name was Tony…so the name kind of…haunts me.”
“Same,” Joanna replied as she sniffled and wiped her face.
“And you’re married to him?” Rikki inquired.
“He gave me this bracelet on our one year anniversary, which was our only one.”
The room fell silent for a moment.
“I don’t really want to…to talk about that right now, I- I’m going to just sit and stay quiet.”
There was a silence in the room as no one really knew what to do. Rose walked over and gave Joanna a hug, which caused a new gully washer of tears.
“I, as well, lost the someone who told me life was worth living, but sometimes you had to take the first step…or in my case, you had to someone to push you out of the nest. Oh, this all so reminds me of the SWEET conference I attended, it’s been about three years and a few months, I think. I learned so much from my older sisters. I still keep in contact with Rose…well she said to call her Rosheen.”
I snapped to attention at another name that set me off. “Did you say ‘Rosheen’? Did she say it with a slight accent?”
“Yes, O’Ceallaigh.”
“Wow, small world. She’s my boss,” I replied.
“I wish she was here,” Rose said with a smile.
I wasn’t sure if I should nod in agreement or shake my head, knowing that a stranger had the ear of one of the most powerful women in the world humbled me to my core.

“My great, wonderful and awesome aunt Donna rescued me from my family when I was young. I had my eyes on a blouse, and I wore it in the, I found was not really privacy of my own room. My brother came in and ratted me to my parents. So, I chose to run away from home…but, being a kid meant I had so very survival skills and I had no idea on how to hotwire a car so I spent the night hiding from the police but I returned home the next day, thinking maybe I could talk with my family. That abruptly failed. They even had the police there, perhaps assuming I’d be ‘scared straight’ and listen to my parents about being little Robbie and not the name I wanted, which was Rose.”
Rose stood up, reached to the back of her head and removed a rose-colored clip from her hair. Her locks cascaded down her back like a waterfall.
“Aunt Donna gave this to me. She told me it was from a remarkable woman named Meridia, who was my other great aunt. I never got to meet her, I only knew of her from the letters she wrote to my aunt Donna and the portrait in the living room of my aunt’s, well, my house.”
Rose gracefully laid the pin on the table like it was a baby.
“Aunt Donna drove me away from what was a prison. I don’t exactly mean a real prison, although my dad dropped several hints that bars would be placed on my windows. No, it was more like a mental prison, a re-education camp if you will. Like it’s been said, we’ve all dealt with the emotional abuse in one way or another and I wanted to think that was all behind me. I could forget about my parents. I did send them a Christmas card that first year, but I broke contact with them after that.”
Rikki looked to the hallway and then back to Rose.
“When Aunt Donna passed way, she left her estate to me. Not a palatial estate, just a late antebellum two-story home in what was once a quiet corner of a small Alabama town.”
“Alabama? I think you won the distance to get here award,” Allanah said with a laugh. I couldn’t glare at her for interrupting because it looked like she slowing moving out of her stupor.
“I know. I still haven’t picked up on the accent. My aunt Donna died shortly after I arrived at her house, and it freaked me out. I had one night to feel calm about my decision to embrace Rose and with her passing everything was thrown into limbo. Would I have to go to live with my parents or be an orphan, shuttling around from foster home to foster under my deadname, Robbie, forever?
Rose sat back down and stared at the clip on the table.
“I frantically called 911, thinking William Shatner would be at the other end of the line to help and comfort me…but the comfort did not arrive. Instead, the police came and took me to the station as I had no guardian. I think I spent about two hours there, which to a ten-year-old is forever to be held in a cold room like a criminal. I was freed by a young woman named Maureen, who was my aunt’s lawyer and the grand daughter to Merida Rose. Aunt Donna had left specific instructions for her as she called Merida that night. My aunt knew she was dying.”
Joanna too looked at the archway to our small room. No one was there. I had no idea whether to order a shot or two of tequila or to have a séance.
“Now, as strange as this sounds, and yeah, in any other place in the world it would never happen, but my aunt had some clout in my small town, so I was allowed to live by myself, with minimal supervision of Merida. I didn’t have a ‘Home Alone’ Kevin experience, I had a Merida experience. You see, Merida and my aunt were too intimate for the time they lived and had so little time before Merida’s parents found out and forced her to walk away. It broke my aunt’s heart as they still loved one another, and each successive rendezvous became more and more turbulent as one day Merida shared the news she was getting married to the mayor of our small town.”
Now it was Joanna’s turn to look at the same area. I was going to ask if anyone had a tarot deck.
“The engagement shattered my aunt’s heart and as much as Merida said she loved her they both knew their relationship would be impossible in Alabama. There was a fleeting chance they could run away today but that was shattered on the day Merida announced she was pregnant. My aunt vanished from Merida’s life after that. Except she sent letters when she could, all handwritten in such a way that anyone else who read it would not understand the context. The letters were one way only though, as they were kept apart with Merida’s husband, David. Keeping an iron grip on her you, meant she couldn’t do anything like read or write letters. I’m still not sure how she managed to receive them under that demon’s watchful eyes.”
“Wait, wait…she just left?” Rikki asked. “Why didn’t she just kick Dave’s ass?”
“She could probably get one hit in before getting killed for being a lesbian in Alabama,” Alannah commented.
Rose nodded.
“I would have taken the chance that his family thought he was a jackass and deserved it.”
“If Donna was Don, then they could have some kind of pistol duel at dawn and called it day. Mint juleps all around!”
“Some time passed, and Merida and Dave had a daughter who, bless her heart, was oblivious to the loveless marriage her parents and carried on like how any tyke would do…including getting into peril on what was to be the worst day of Dave’s life at the time. The family had taken an extended trip to see kin in Carroll County, Mississippi…which was from where my Aunt Donna was sending Merida letters from.”
Rose picked up her hairpin and held it out, like she was channeling her story through it.
“Merida’s daughter, Mary Beth, fell into a sinkhole near a family gathering. The hole moved swiftly and gobbled up a massive amount of ground before everything appeared settled. There were shrieks and screams from both woman and men as they haphazardly made their way to the side of the gaping hole. Mary Beth was trapped on an exposed rock and Merida made a beeline to try and save her, but she was held back as it wasn’t ‘safe for womenfolk’ to do anything. The problem with that was there was no in that group who stepped forward to climb down. Dave was unwilling or unable to climb in down the hole to save his daughter.”
Rose once again gingerly laid the pin down. I could finally see that it had a butterfly motif to it.
“Aunt Donna saved the young girl in the ravine, risking her life for who would be a surrogate daughter to her. It’s not exactly written how she knew her love would be there, and I want to think that it was fate stepping and placing them back together. She was given an honorary position in Dave’s family, much to his chagrin and added her to the family will, with a clause that seemingly meant nothing to everyone else at the time as it amounted to mere pocket change at time. But that small amount, the only thing my aunt really asked for, lead her to be able to stand up for herself and others. It didn’t hurt that she was an official member of one of the most powerful families in Marion County. I can feel her watching over me still.”
And with that, we all stared at the same spot in the walkway.
“We have a tie, Rose. I also had a member of my family who didn’t treat me like garbage. And Rikki, I like your idea of revenge, kind of wished I thought of it myself,” Allanna lamented as she pushed her drink away and took off her red-framed glasses.

“I have two words that still scare the literal shit out of me. Ex-lax laden brownies have nothing on these words as they ripped through me: Military service. Look at me and imagine an even geekier, scrawnier, and introverted, kid; fresh out of high school and being told—not asked if I had plans to—but ordered to join the military because every male in my family joined the military. Every single one of them was expected to either die for their country or come home missing limbs for it. The speech the dad gives om ‘Johnny Got His Gun’ was the one my dad gave me. I had issues with a few things: I didn’t identify as a dude, much less one who wanted to go and have some drill instructor barking in my ears so one day I could stand on the front lines and think: “Yes, this is the life! I got nothing against guys in the military…some of them are downright knockout gorgeous but that wasn’t for me. Like Rikki, I was a musician. I was more of a closeted musician since Dad would freak out like the one from that music video by ‘Twister Sister’.”
Everyone but Rose nodded at that.
“So, against the grand glory of my family history I deserted what was to be my post in life, packed some clothes with my bass and took a bus across the country to live in Montana, where my grandmother lived. She wasn’t exactly like your aunt, Rose, she kind of ran her house like a miliary base: keep everything clean, wash your clothes, and keep the noise down. Over a few weeks she relaxed a bit on the noise, and I no longer had to keep my room spotless. I could have it like a teenage girl would have it. Yeah, grandma took me shopping a few times and the first few times it felt like I was on display at a human zoo…Actually, I kind of was, at least to the self-appointed--and I use this next word lightly—purists.”
Alannah picked up her glasses and kind of twiddled them around as she spoke,
“We went to Target, I was kind of surprised the town had one, and I had to use the restroom. I felt that I ‘presented’ as a female. Not like I was going to make an announcement every few seconds, ‘Hey, fyi, I’m a chick! Just going to the crapper, k?’
I was in there, just doing my business when I heard a flush. I’m not worried about someone else is in there doing what come naturally. Who. Cares? A stall door slams, and I hear a girl laughing as she washes her hands.
This kid then knocks on the star door like she’s trying to break it down. She stops and while I take my eyes off of the door this weird little girl crawls UNDER the stall door and stares at me at a pretty vulnerable time as I’m holding me dress up and she screams out: ‘You have a penis. You’re boy!’ I wanted to congratulate her on slightly skewed take on biology and her tenacity to just think it was okay to poke her nose in under a door. She runs out of the restroom like it’s on fire.
I step out and go to wash my hands when the restroom stores swings open and this huge, grizzly bear sized guy stares at me like a crazed bull.
“What the hell are you doing in here you damn pervert!”
I was a trapped deer staring at bright headlights. There was nothing I could or do that would calm this guy down. Anything I said would be shouted down by this bully. I wasn’t sure if we has even going to let me answer before el loco toro charged at me and threw me against the wall!”
Allanna had stood up and stomped to the other side of the room.
“Pummeled and beaten for absolutely nothing! And you know what? That was the second time I had thought about betraying who I was and to put that little mask back on so no one’s fragile, little, pathetic, mind-you-own-damn-business, feelings would be upset. My grandmother got into the man’s face and asked him why his daughter was peeping on others. This little girl was doing the thing that her dad wanted to accuse me of doing to the cops who were obviously called. I’ve lived with this for so long. I don’t have a happy little ending to give anyone. I want to know why I keep tying to stay alive! I want to know why the world is against us!”
Simultaneously the rest of us stood up and raced over to catch a hysterically crying Allanna.
“We each other,” Rikki said as she looked into Allanna’s eyes. “I’ll fight with you.”
“I’ll listen,” Joanna said.
“If you ever want to vent, just give me a call,” Rose said.
“I know a few damn good lawyers,” I said as we all gathered into a group hug.
“Thank you, I-”
“Hiya,” we all stopped to look at what looked like a young teenager wearing a sweater. “I guess I’m pretty late. Kind of got lost on my way.”
She stepped into the light, and we could all see that she did indeed look young with dark skin and dark red hair.
“Guess I wrong about her being blond,” Joanna said, and we all shared a collective chuckle.
“It’s so good to see ya’ll here. I ‘m grinnin' like a possum eatin' a sweet tater.”
“Did you send the cards?” Alanah asked.
“Sure did,” our supposed mystery host replied.
“Why?” Rikki asked.
“We have to find a place where we can be ourselves and feel comfortable. I haven’t known how to feel really comfortable for a very long time.”
Joanna walked over to her. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Joanna.”
“How do you know my name? How do you know any of us?”
“Cause all of you are beacons for others, a voice for the young waiting for the help they need.”
“How are we supposed to help?” Rose asked.
“You did tonight, you helped yourself and you’ll go on to help others.”
“Why are we here?”
“My Papa told me that a lone candle saved his life, it showed him a path through the battlefield. He told me to be that candle, help bring others to a feeling of safety. To be a light, to be that one.”
I looked at the girl as she pulled her hair back. She stood in the middle of a stone circle.
“Who are you?”
“Anna, Anna Joel.”

The plot is based on the following stories available on the site:
When You Close Your Eyes
I Don't Like You
Release Me
Rose Gold (also a part of the "One Dozen Roses" anthology)
Girlfoe (incomplete for now)
Here's to Future Days (incomplete for now)