“Good friend, eh?” I teased Alastair. As Joanne Prentiss approached our Prius, I scooped up Alice in my arms and grabbed the door handle. “Maybe I should sit in the back and let you and your good friend sit up front.”
I stepped out of the car and greeted Joanne, Alice in the hook of my left arm, her tongue wagging.
“Hi, Joanne. I’m Cherry. We’ve never met but—”
The pretty blonde lady dressed in a holiday bright white dress shook my free right hand.
“I’ve heard a lot about you from Alastair. And who is this?”
“This is Alice. Alice, say hello to the nice lady.” Alice barked once, panted, and barked again. Joanne petted the top of her head.
“Now that we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries, get in, Joanne. No standing on this block.” Alastair pointed to the sign some yards up the block.
“Alastair, that seersucker suit! The perfect summer outfit for country club functions. You’re missing the straw hat to go with it,” Joanne joked as she took up my former shotgun position.
“Cherry, show her,” Alastair requested, turning his head toward the back seat.
I opened the rear door and reached in, lifting up Alastair’s straw boater to view.
“Ahh, the complete Southern Gentleman,” sighed Joanne. “And, Cherry, I love your stars and stripes sundress. Very chic.”
“Jo, I hope you’re a neat eater with that white dress you’re wearing. Ottilie and Sylvère love to slather their special sauce rather liberally on the Merguez. Maybe I should phone ahead and see if they can find a fashionable bib for you—”
Joanne gently swatted Alastair, who put up his hands in mock defense.
I expected them to kiss when I settled into the back seat, placing Alice on my lap again. They didn’t. They did smile widely at each other though. Is she Alastair’s new girlfriend? Are they just bashful in front of Alice?
We resumed our journey to the wilds of suburban Westport, Connecticut to feast on grand-mère’s 4th of July barbecue. The last time I’d been at her annual 4th of July barbecue was before Mom and Alastair divorced, 5 years ago, the one time in years Mom was not away on some film shoot. I was Jerry then. I wonder how grand-mère will receive me now that I’m Cherry. She’s French. They look at life differently, don’t they?
While Alastair drove, he and Joanne chatted about things I had no knowledge of or interest in. So I decided to take out the vintage CD player Alastair had gifted me from his own collection of anachronistic electronic gadgets and play one of the jazz albums he wanted me to develop an appreciation for. I blindly chose a compilation of Chet Baker’s vocal recordings. The picture of him on the cover in an over-sized pullover sweater with a collar that encroached on the lower part of his face made me giggle. I pressed play.
I had not seen grand-mère since beginning my transition, though, of course, she knew I was Cherry now, not Jerry. I was pleasantly surprised when she immediately hugged me tightly when Alastair, Joanne and I emerged from the house and were greeted by her and her second husband, Sylvère (Alastair’s father, a correspondent for ABC News, had been killed in a plane crash in the early ‘90s).
“My beautiful titian-haired granddaughter!” Ottilie cried as she threatened to squeeze the life out of me. “You’ve grown and in the most delightful way! I love your dress, ma chérie.”
Sylvère kissed me on the cheek and held my chin in his fingers. “We were going to come out to California to see you this summer but here you are! If you go to school in New York next year, your grand-mère and I would love to have you live with us. It’s a short commute to the city.”
“Thanks, Sylvère, but I haven’t decided where I’m applying to yet. Chances are I’ll stay in California. I’ve just made a new friend who goes to Stanford. She says it’s the best in the west…”
There were already a dozen or more guests milling about the big backyard of grand-mère’s house. In the far corner of the yard, a man with a chef’s hat was fussing over a grill, a metal table replete with lamb sausages and skewers of meat and vegetables stretched out next to him. He smiled at us, waving his giant tongs in our direction. It was Sylvère’s nephew Bradley, an amateur grill master who had taken over barbecue duties some years ago when Sylvère relinquished his tongs after a bout of sciatica.
“The feast won’t be ready for a while. Why don’t we start our annual 4th of July badminton tournament?” Sylvère excitedly asked. “Alastair and me against you and Bradley’s son Carson. Okay?”
“Carson?” I replied tremulously.
“You remember Carson. He’s grown into quite the young man since the last time you two saw each other.”
And I’d grown into quite a young woman. I searched for a reason to excuse myself from playing when a tall, long-haired boy, holding a badminton racquet, approached us. It was Carson Gabriel.
“Dad said you guys want to start the tournament.” Carson did a double take when he saw me. “Jerry? You look…different.”
“Carson, I told you Cherry had started transitioning,” Sylvère reminded him. “Don’t you think she makes a beautiful girl? You’re not offended if I say so. Cherry?”
I bowed my head, embarrassed by my well-meaning grandfather. I avoided meeting Carson’s eyes. I had to admit he was really cute. Not knowing what to say, I blurted out, “Nice tee shirt,” pointing to the “Vandal Savages” logo across his chest.
“It’s the name of my band,” Carson declared proudly. “We play local clubs and colleges on weekends right now but we’re planning to go full-time next year, after I graduate.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea, Carson,” his uncle asked in an exasperated tone. “Let’s pick up some racquets and shuttlecocks. You two serve first. You’re the away team.”
Grand-mère took Joanne’s arm and led her back toward the house. “Come on, Joanne. It’s cooler in the sunroom. Let’s catch up while they play their silly games.”
Sylvère displayed nary a sign of suffering from sciatica as he and Alastair thoroughly smashed their teenage opponents, Carson and I, 21 to 9. As Alastair and grand-père high-fived each other and another pair of combatants lurched forward to play them, we handed our racquets to them, moving off to the side of the house.
“Sorry about that, Cherry. I’m not much for sports. But I’m a pretty good guitarist,” Carson said, leaning against the house, unintentionally blocking my way.
“It’s alright. I’m bad at sports myself.”
“Say, your mom is…uh…dating Trent Foster, right?”
“What? Where did you hear that?”
He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his phone. Tapping his YouTube app, he found the video he was looking for and turned the screen toward me. It was footage of Trent and Mom driving into the parking lot of the infamous Hollywood tryst retreat The Chateau Marmont, an hour after Trent’s concert at The Hollywood Bowl ended.
Oh the shame I felt. My face must have turned beet red. Quickly I turned away from Carson’s gaze. But apparently he didn’t read my reaction the way I thought he would.
“That’s so cool. Man, what I wouldn’t give to have Trent listen to some demos me and the band put together. I could text him the addresses for our social media accounts. I’ll text you. Let’s exchange numbers.”
“You just want me to get you an in with Trent? I have very little to do with him, especially now that Mom is mixed up with him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a sleazebag.”
“No, it’s not that way. Not that way at all. I was just trying to find a way to ask you out, you know. Forget about Trent—”
“Then just ask me for a date. Maybe I’m available. Maybe not.”
“Well, my band is playing at The Bowery Ballroom, Saturday and Sunday, this weekend. I can get you in as my guest. We’re really good. We’re opening for The Master Builders. You’ve heard of them?”
“Oh, yeah. They’re on my Spotify playlist. If I decide to go…and I’m saying if…can I bring a friend?”
“Uhh…a friend?” Carson seemed dumbfounded by my request. “Sure. Sure, I can swing another comp. I’m tight with Blake, the manager.”
“I’m not sure but, hand me your phone, I’ll type in my coordinates. Call me by Friday. I might have plans for this weekend so…don’t expect a yes answer.”
“I’ll try my luck—”
“Gotta go. Grand- mère’s calling me from inside.” I walked quickly away.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Carson shouted after me.
Joanne and grand-mère were amicably chatting on the couch in the sunroom, grand-mère tenderly patting the back of Joanne’s hand, when I rushed into the room, closing the door behind me. They looked up at me and smiled in unison.
“Cherry, I was just telling Joanne that you should change your name to Cherie. After all, it rolls off the tongue much better than the name of a fruit and…it’s French!”
“Was that the name you’ve always had in mind for yourself from when you first realized you were a girl and not a boy?” Joanne asked.
“How did you know?” I replied, slightly stunned by her prescience.
“I’m transgender myself, as you know. I knew I was a girl when I was 5 years old. It just took me half a lifetime to get it right. You’re so much luckier than I was.”
“I suspect the two of you have much to talk about.” Grand-mère pointed to the bench next to the grand piano in the corner of the room. “Sit down, Cherry. My, my, you certainly have that Hibernian blush. It makes you just radiant now that you’re exulting in your femininity.”
“Apropos of that, grand-mère…” She giggled at my use of one of the few French phrases I knew. “Did my mother ever tell you who my biological father is? Alastair says he could never get it out of her.”
“Heavens, no. I barely spoke half a dozen sentences to that woman in all the time she was married to your stepfather. Forgive me but I could never stand her. You’re the only good thing Alastair and I ever got out of that relationship.”
“Maybe it’s better if you never find out, Cherry. I wish my own father had been left out of my life. He did all he could to keep me imprisoned in the wrong body. Thankfully, he and my mother separated while I was in high school. Otherwise, who knows where I’d be now. Or if I’d even be…” Joanne nodded to herself and grand- mère.
“Have you kept up with your piano lessons, Cherry?” grand-mère asked.
“Not really. When I started going to Mirage Canyon, I kind of dropped it. They didn’t need another pianist in the school orchestra and I didn’t want to play one of those electronic keyboards in the solitude of my room.”
“Play something for me, ma chérie. Play…play some Chopin. My favorite.”
I turned myself around on the bench to face the keyboard. Chopin? I remember his most famous short piece, his Prelude in C minor. But my fingers had a mind of their own and they decided to play a composition based on that Prelude – “Could It Be Magic” by Barry Manilow.
“Oh you cheeky girl! Trying to put one over on your grand-mère? Bravo, Cherry. I loved it. You’re so talented.”
“Yes, Cherry, that was very nice. It’s a shame if you don’t pick up the piano again. All that talent going to waste,” Joanne said, shaking her head.
“I think I could get a gig as accompanist for Maris Lafferty. I’d have to stay in New York and forego college.”
“Well, don’t do that, Cherry,” grand-mère objected. “A university education is a must for every modern woman. There’s more you can do with your life than raising babies and being a housemaid.”
“Very little chance of that happening to me, gran,” I pointed out.
“I saw you talking to Carson outside. The way you blushed when he showed you something on his phone—”
“It wasn’t because of Carson. It was…oh, please drop it.”
Grand-mère got up from the couch. Peering out through the windows at the backyard, she moved toward the door of the sunroom.
“Oh, it’s getting late. I hope Bradley is almost finished with his grilling. I’ll leave you two to have a nice cozy chat. We’ll probably eat in 15 minutes.”
After grand-mère left, Joanne patted the cushion on the couch next to her. “Come, Cherry. You have questions? Alastair thought it would be good for me to exchange notes with you on transitioning.”
“Alastair told me you didn’t transition until you were in your thirties. How did you manage to cope with your dysphoria for so long. Especially since you just told me you knew you were a girl when you were five.”
“Times were different then. I’m 53 years old. When I was your age, most people couldn’t conceive of a transgender person. Even when I grew up on Long Island in the ‘70s. It was extremely difficult to find a doctor who would perform gender affirmation surgery, much less having the funds to afford it. I knew I was a girl but without a viable alternative, I just had to grit my teeth and keep my issues to myself. Believe me, it took something emotionally devastating for me to finally act and damn the consequences, become my true self. Stop trying to adjust to a sad reality.”
“When you were my age, did you imagine life as a girl? Imagine it as a real possibility?”
“I had no conception that a true Male-to-Female transition was possible. Of course, I dreamed of it. I think what established the necessity of it in my mind was the time I was cast as The Ghost of Christmas Present in our town’s holiday production of A Christmas Carol.”
“What was so pivotal about that?”
“The director of the play cast me as a female Ghost of Christmas Present! A fifteen-year-old boy dressed in the gossamer threads of a female spirit. The town was scandalized. Until the reviews came in. They all made special mention of me as a highlight of the production. It was embarrassing yet strangely thrilling at the same time. For the next two years, my schoolmates treated me like a freak. Some parents even wanted me expelled from school for my ‘perversion’. That didn’t happen because ticket sales for the play were record-breaking. Because of my presence. And most of the revenue went to the school system. They even cut me a stipend check for what was voluntary on everyone else’s part.”
“But you’re so pretty. It was easy for you to transition, even if it took you until your thirties to do it. I’m just a plain, red-headed freak with freckles.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Cherry. Alastair tells me you’ve already found an admirer in the week you’ve been in the city—”
“Anders is just an old school friend. He’s had girlfriends much better-looking than me.”
A girl about my age loudly entered the room from the yard.
“Are you Cherry?” she asked me.
“Yes?”
“Is that cute little white dog yours?”
“That’s Alice. She’s a bichon.”
“Well, she just dumped a load of poo next to one of the picnic tables.”
“Oh, god, no. I walked her this morning. Let me go get a bag or something. Someone must have fed her something. She normally doesn’t take food from strangers—”
“I think it was your grandmother.”
During our 4th of July feast, my phone alerted me that I had received a text. Between bites of lamb sausage, I perused the text. It was from Mom.
Sweetie! I’m not going to be back tonight. Staying over until tomorrow morning and taking the earliest flight out of LAX. I’ll probably be a couple of hours late for rehearsal. I’ve texted Danny, so he knows. Have a good class tomorrow morning, honey. I’ll see you at rehearsal in the afternoon. (hearts)
“Oh, good, that means you can stay for the fireworks tonight,” Alastair said when I told him what Mom had texted. He turned to Joanne, sitting next to him. “Are you okay with staying until after the fireworks? If not, I can call a car service for you.”
“Sounds like fun, Alastair. I’m in no hurry to run back to the city.”
Just before I jumped into the back seat of Alastair’s Prius, ready to take the hour and a half ride back to The Carlyle, Carson came running up the driveway, waving his arm and shouting, “Cherry! Wait!”
“Did I forget something in the house?”
“No, I just wanted to give you my number. You gave me yours but I’d like you to have mine, just in case you clear up your weekend plans before I call you. Friday I’ll be in my friend’s studio putting together another demo. Hearing from you would be a real pick-me-up after hours of doing take after take of the same three songs.”
I handed over my phone and watched him as he thumbed his number into my contact list. In the low light of the driveway, his long hair curled around his left ear to keep it out of his eyes, Carson seemed more innocent than I had presumed. Maybe he really liked me, not just trying to use me to get to Trent Foster. I confess I really do want to see his band play. Maybe I’ll ask Philippa to come with me. Ha ha. That’ll confuse him even more.
“Stay pretty, Cherry,” Carson said as he handed my phone back to me. He waved to me as Alastair’s car tooled down the driveway and onto Covlee Drive, heading west.
It was almost midnight when I entered the lobby of The Carlyle Hotel. I was ten feet from the elevators when Philippa Chang and her brother Christopher stepped out of one of the cabs. They seemed to be quietly laughing at some private joke.
“Philippa! Chris! It’s late. Where are you two going?”
“Hi, Cherry. Chris was just visiting me when Annie came home about 8. She’s in a tizzy over Trent and...”
“Your mother,” Chris filled in, smirking.
“Oh, yeah, I saw the videos.”
“She went through the whole epic story and wouldn’t let us leave until she got to the part where the plane landed at LaGuardia,” Philippa said, almost laughing.
“We left just as she started throwing things around the room. Talk about rock groups trashing hotel rooms. They have nothing on Annie tonight,” whistled Chris.
“So where are you going? Isn’t everything closed by now?”
“Chris says there’s an espresso bar up on Lexington and 80th that’s open until 4AM. We’re just going to walk over.”
“Can I come with you? Nobody’s home right now. Mom’s not returning until tomorrow. With Trent, I’m guessing.”
“Sure, the more the merrier. But…,” pointing at my stars and stripes sundress, “wearing that?”
“I can change in five minutes. Wait for me? I want to hear everything Annie told you.”
I almost slammed into a man coming out of the elevator as I turned to rush upstairs to my hotel suite.
