The Lakers had just won Game 1 of this year’s NBA Finals. Half an hour after the 4th Quarter ended and the home crowd erupted in joyful, raucous cheers and chants, I was seated in a booth in The Palm Restaurant on Flower Street, two blocks from the curiously named Crypto.com Arena. It was packed with post-game diners and almost as noisy as the arena we’d just left.

I was sitting across from Alastair Knowles. It wasn’t clear who was the other’s guest at this highly sought-after game. Alastair was the Head of Production for GlobalNet, the world’s second biggest streaming service (NetFlix being the biggest). GlobalNet had a corporate skybox, but we had sat in the players’ family section. So, I guess I was the one who invited him. My stepson, Eliot Bradshaw was a “sixth man” for the Lakers, a 6’4” shooting guard. I’m sure Alastair enjoyed sitting closer to the court and ogling the wives and girlfriends of the Lakers players.

The Palm (or Downtown Palm to distinguish it from the newer Palm in Beverly Hills) had the décor of a cowtown steakhouse that was already quaint when it opened in 1926. Your mind could see wealthy cattle ranchers from the Palos Verdes Peninsula smoking cigars and sipping brandy, checking their gold-plated pocket watches from time to time as they shot the breeze with their friendly rivals. Alastair looked askance at my Chef’s salad while he inhaled his 16-ounce Bone-In Filet.

“Coming up for air, Al? You’re eating like you just played 4 quarters yourself.”

“All that cheering worked up a big appetite.”

“Cheering? You’re a Knicks fan. You hate the Lakers.”

Putting his finger to his lips, he shushed me. “Hey, we’re in enemy territory here. I’d like to survive dinner. These fine Angelenos root, root, root for the home team.”

“You know I’m not a sports fan, Al. If it wasn’t for Eliot…”

“By the way, where is the young lad? How long does it take to shower and dress, then walk two blocks?”

“He’s bringing his latest girlfriend. He met her here so I’ve yet to lay eyes on her. Would you believe she’s a doctor?”

“Could be serious. Bringing her to meet mom?” Alastair winked at me mischievously.

“Well, I’m his stepmom—”

“You raised him from the age of seven with Emily.”

“He was already in college when Emily passed. I’m more like a favorite aunt than a real mother—”

A hand landed on Alastair’s shoulder and we both looked up to see James Corden standing there in a Lakers hoodie. His eleven-year-old son Max was similarly attired, his arms folded over the Lakers logo.

“Alastair? You old reprobate. I saw you in the family section. Are you a wife of a player or...” He laughed. “…a husband?”

“Neither, James. I was the guest of my friend Joanne Prentiss. Joanne, James Corden and his son Max.” We exchanged friendly nods. I winked at the tow-headed Max, who made no secret of being bored by this inane adult chatter. “I say, old man, Max is the spitting image of you.”

“Don’t I know it. That’s why we keep well out of his way at the dinner table.”

“Ba-rump-bump!” Max interjected to everyone’s amusement.

“Everyone’s a critic. Excuse me if I offend. You’re not a member of the fourth estate are you, Joanne? A TV critic?”

“Oh, no. I used to actually work for a living.”

“Joanne was VP of Brand Strategy at our old place of employment,” Alastair proudly announced.

“I’m retired now. I figured I’d skedaddle before they pushed me out for a younger fool.”

“You’re retired? Alastair, for a moment, I thought you were up to your old tricks. Robbing the cradle again. Young lady, you look at least twenty years younger than this hoary, old bastard. No offense, Al.”

“None taken, James. By the way, you’re looking rather svelte yourself. Whatever regime you’re on, it’s working.”

“Well, let me put it this way, Al and Joanne, my wife Julia is fucking tired of me wearing her Spanx.” With that, he and Max shuffled off to their booth. I think I heard another “ba-rump-bump” as they receded into the distance.

“We thought of James to play Willy Wonka in a re-make of the old classic with Gene Wilder. And he was perfect for it. But Paramount owns the rights…”

“Alastair, that was my idea! Not James Corden but re-making the movie and bundling that with a chain of kiddie restaurants called The Chocolate Factory. We could have made billions!”

“I know, Jo. I always said you were a marketing genius. Too bad the old Australian thought the price was too dear to acquire the rights. I voted to do it, remember?”

“So you just decided to steal my idea and take full credit for it? What a friend.”

He took my hand and squeezed. “It didn’t come to anything anyway. But if it had been greenlighted, I would have shared credit with you. This was before you retired. It would have been dicey, seeing we worked for rival companies. I was going to suggest you leave them and work for us as a special consultant. Maybe be one of the executive producers.”

I looked into his “lying eyes” as the song goes and knew he was spinning a fable. But I forgave him. After all, we’d been friends for over twenty-five years, colleagues for almost fifteen of those. And, to be honest, he was damned good looking. For an older man, that is. (Actually, he’s three years younger!) I remember when he first came over from CBS as a junior staffer in the programming department. He’d been a news producer for CBS News, had even worked with Ed Bradley for a year. I had just transitioned and was admittedly self-conscious about my appearance. Surprisingly, within a month of working together, he asked me out. I declined in my mousey way, scared of dating a man or a woman for that matter. Just scared basically. Recently, Alastair showed me a photo of me from that time. He’s the long-haired, bearded guy behind me, his face in profile.

I made it a point to not deceive anyone who wanted to get to know me. So, I told him I was a post-op transwoman. He shrugged, smiled his million dollar smile at me, and declared he already knew. He was still interested in dating me. But I wasn’t ready. The years passed and we both moved on. I met and partnered, then married Emily. He met and married an actress famous for starring in Quentin Tarantino movies. But we remained very close friends. And now—

Several of the Lakers came ambling into the restaurant, wives or girlfriends on their arms. As they passed our booth, a few stopped to exchange greetings with Alastair. Lebron James, towering above our booth, shook our hands and promised to give Alastair a call after the Finals. He has his own production company and had several projects on the front burner. As if a cartoon lightbulb had lit up above his head, he stopped listening to Alastair and stared at me, a wide grin on his face.

“You’re Eliot’s mom! He introduced you at The Garden in New York. January, right?” I nodded and smiled in reply. “From what he’s told me, you’re a way cool mom. Are you in LA just to see him play in the Finals?”

“I’m here for a while. Alastair, here, has hired me to write a movie script. Silly man…”

“You’re a writer now? Hey, I’ve got a bunch of TV projects in development. Maybe you can bounce some concepts off my group. Let’s set up a meeting—”

“Hey, Lebron, don’t go poaching my talent, will ya? She’s going to be writing this script for the foreseeable future.”

“She’s a free agent, isn’t she? You got her locked up in your basement or something?”

“Well, Alastair’s putting me up in his guest house. It’s a little more comfortable than a dungeon—”

“My ex had it fixed up in Modern Dungeon so don’t complain, Jo,” said Alastair with a straight face. It took Lebron a second or two to realize Al was joking.

“Did you see Eliot before you came out?” I asked Lebron.

“Oh, yeah. He had to meet up with his lady. He’ll be here in a few. The guy scores twenty-two off the bench, the media’s all over him. It’s all good. Best trade we’ve made since I’ve been here. Hey, my family’s waving at me. Gotta go. Al, Joanne, nice to meet you…again.”

A parade of industry types stopped to chat up Alastair and pretty much ignored me. It’s times like these when being a woman in Hollywood has its drawbacks. It’s still a business dominated by men. Maybe not as much an old boys club as in years past but, unless you’re a box-office magnet on screen or a producer/creator, they tend to dismiss you as either arm candy or the “little woman.” So, it was the perfect opportunity for my life to flash before my eyes. Or, at least, the last six months.

After Christmas dinner with my sister’s family, I drove home toward the southeast tip of Long Island to my house in Southampton. The night sky was clear enough to show off its blanket of twinkling stars. I reflected on the day that was soon turning to Christmas Day. It was a day to put Christmases past, present and future in perspective. I thought of my sister, her husband and the three generations of a loving family with whom I had just shared a wonderful dinner. I thought of my partner Emily who must be waiting to reunite with me in whatever the afterlife is, if there really is one. I thought of Jocelyn, who had had the great fortune to be supported and championed by a good mother who, this time, chose to heed her better angels. I thought of Elizabeth, who redeemed herself by being selfless in giving her child unconditional love. She didn’t have to apologize to me. I hope she is in a place in her life where she can forgive herself. And finally, I thought of Joseph Prentiss, that lost soul who discovered herself after 30 years of confusion and frustration, becoming Joanne Prentiss.

The new year rolled into the Eastern Seaboard with record snowfall and low temperatures. The entire month of January was a desert of snow piled two feet high in some places as snow fell almost every other day. It was a good month to stay indoors. And I had so many things to repair, paint, and patch around the house I had purchased the summer before but had barely lived in. I had taken on a consulting assignment with a cable station relaunch in Boston that lasted from September to Christmas. That’s how I got to meet Jocelyn or Joey as she likes to be called, Elizabeth’s transgender daughter, now a doctor in her second year of residency at Tufts Medical Center. It was Joey who implored me to visit with her mother Elizabeth, my long ago first and greatest love. It had been 30 years since she abandoned me to pursue her medical ambitions and savaged my self-esteem, almost destroying my self-image. Five years later, after counseling and hormone treatment, I elected to have the gender-affirming surgery that turned my life around. A brief visit with Elizabeth on Christmas Eve and that’s where I decided to leave it. To bury my past. To only look forward from now on.

It was morning on the last Saturday in January, and I was applying some varnish on a couple of wicker chairs I had picked up for cheap at an estate sale in neighboring Northampton last summer. I was dressed comically like Lucy Arnaz in dirty, torn jeans, a paint-stained plaid shirt, and my hair was wrapped in a kerchief. A colorful kerchief, mind you. The doorbell rang. Wiping my hands as well as I could on a convenient rag, I rushed to the front door, thinking it was an Amazon delivery. I didn’t want the delivery guy dropping it in a puddle of melted snow and waltzing away.

I opened the door, breathless, and saw Alastair Knowles standing there all dapper and dry in his favored Burberry. He burst out laughing uncontrollably as I turned a shade of burnt orange.

“Is the madam of the house in?” he managed to ask between guffaws.

“Alastair! I must look a mess. Come in. Come in. It’s freezing out there.”

“What brings you to the wilds of Long Island in the middle of winter?” I asked as I hung his coat on a hook on the foyer wall.

“Do I need a reason to see my best girl?”

“You’re a comedian. Didn’t I see you at the Golden Globes with that young thing who’s starring in that sci-fi series on GlobalNet?”

“Strictly business. You know she actually asked us if she could bring her mother from Bakersfield instead of me. I reminded her too much of her stepfather. He’s doing 10 to 20 in Victorville for armed robbery.”

I motioned Alastair to sit on the couch and I almost sat on one of the wicker chairs. Just before I got varnish all over my backside, I sidestepped the chair and tried to gracefully lean against the dinner table. But my hands were uselessly trying to reach behind me to grip something, anything, and I stumbled backwards. Alastair leapt from the couch and caught me before I landed on the floor. I looked up at his handsome face, graying beard and all, and blinked. He held me like that for a long moment before he stood me upright. His arms still around me, I thanked him wordlessly. My eyes flashed on his.

“I asked you out almost thirty years ago, Jo. Do you ever think what would’ve happened if you had simply said yes?”

We moved to the couch, sitting at either end, facing each other.

“Al, I just had an encounter with my past that was unexpected and ultimately unwanted. I’m not going to dissect my past choices or those of others anymore. It’s a waste of time. I’m almost 60. I realize how precious time is now.”

“You saw Elizabeth in Boston, didn’t you?”

“Yes, her daughter Jocelyn asked me to see her. It was a brief, uncomfortable visit. I kind of regret agreeing to see her. But Jocelyn was…persuasive.”

“Daughter? But you told me she had a son. They even named him after you. Joseph is a common name though—”

“She’s transgender. Had the surgery when she turned 18.” Alastair whistled.

“Talk about cosmic irony. What did she want?”

“Forgiveness, I suppose.”

“And did you forgive her?”

“I didn’t need her to apologize to me. If thinking I forgive her gives her peace of mind…”

“I forgave you” Alastair quietly said.

“Alastair, you’re a dear but I did nothing to apologize for. I wasn’t ready for anything romantic at the time. I had just transitioned. I’ve always treasured you as a friend…”

“But you never wanted to have sex with me,” he said with a bitter sadness.

“I feel like I’m talking to a teenage boy. Come off it, Al. You’ve been married, had dozens of affairs, with some beautiful women. Some a bit too young for you but nevermind—”

“You shut me down, Jo. Then you got together with Emily. I’m a normal man. I need…companionship. Lulu was exciting, beautiful, carefree. I was smitten. But I never would have married her if we had developed a deeper relationship.”

“I didn’t know your feelings for me were that intense.”

“Oh, you did too. It’s what you women do. Play with men’s hearts.” I laughed and pointed at the smile that started to grow from the corners of his mouth.

“Okay. That’s purple prose from one of our latest movies. Piece of crap but it draws eyeballs. Mostly women 25 to 54.”

“Well, that leaves me out. That crap won’t work on me, mister.” I laughed again.

“Let’s get down to brass tacks, Jo. I had to fly in for a meeting yesterday and I’m not expected back in the office until Monday. I’m like a sailor on shore leave with a whole two days to explore New York City with my best gal. So, what do you say? Get yourself prettied up and let’s hit the town. I got tickets to “The Katzenjammer Kids” at the Schubert tonight. You don’t want to know what I had to do to get those tickets on such short notice.” He winked at me.

So, I excused myself and took a quick shower, picked out a nice warm outfit, and put my warpaint on. When I finally emerged, I discovered Alastair had rolled up his sleeves and finished varnishing the wicker chairs. Carefully, I avoided the brush in his hand and gave him a peck on the cheek. He dropped the brush and gave me a long, deep, swoon-worthy kiss. And that’s how it all started.

---

For the rest of that winter Alastair would spend every other weekend in New York and we spent a lot of time together, going to shows, high-toned restaurants, smokey, badly lit jazz clubs (and a couple of hip hop concerts just to experience them – a bit of a disappointment really), art galleries in Soho, and cocktail parties with the hoi-polloi of New York society. At every venue I was on his arm. New York just assumed I was Alastair Knowles’ woman. A reporter from NPR even asked to interview me for a piece they were doing on important entertainment figures—Alastair being the famous one, me as the long-suffering domestic partner. I demurred, stifling a laugh, as she walked away, shaking her head at me.

It’s equally hilarious and disturbing to see “candid” photos of yourself in The New York Post while you’re simply walking to the corner bodega or drug store, dressed in comfortable, everyday clothes, without makeup. Of course, in most of the photos, I was walking with Alastair and seen exiting his West Village apartment building. The only good photo opportunity they took was the weekend Alastair and I volunteered our time to help The North Shore Animal League semi-annual pet rescue drive. Still, I despise the paparazzi.

I will admit we appeared to act like a couple of newlyweds. In public, we often displayed the easy affection of young lovers in the full bloom of passionate romance. Of course, in reality, we were both in our fifties, at the age when most other humans are doting grandparents, eagerly anticipating those early bird dinners in sunny South Florida. And speaking of full bloom, it wasn’t until late in April, a month into Spring, that the specter of sex between us reared its ugly head. Well, all right, it’s not ugly. It’s kind of cute, really.

You might think it’s weird or at least abnormal for a 58-year-old woman to act like a virginal teenager, but I had never had sex with a man. And the only sexual partners I ever had were all women…I could count them on the fingers of that turn of the 20th century baseball pitcher Three-Finger Mordecai Brown’s right hand. Alastair was very keen to have sex with me, you can imagine. I wanted to as well, but at my own pace. So, we started sleeping in his bed at his flat, a practical measure since I was staying in the city all weekend when he was in town. Just sleeping together. Maybe a little cuddling. Just a little.

One time, returning home after another cocktail party at Robert De Niro’s duplex, ostensibly gathering patrons of The New York Film Festival to “discuss” organizational issues, Alastair tried to take advantage of my expansive mood (there were so many celebrities there!) by plying me with glasses of vodka and Sprite but I fell into a deep sleep right there on his divan. He told me ruefully the next morning that I snored loudly most of the night. Quite unladylike, he sniffed. When I snapped back at him that he could have had the courtesy to close my mouth, he simply replied that he was too drunk to successfully locate my mouth in the dark.

We kissed a lot. In public and in private. But that just frustrated Alastair no end. Sometimes he’d act all pissy about it, briefly giving me the silent treatment. I endured his little tantrums because I knew his mood would pivot on a dime. One moment he’d be a sullen child, the next he’d make me laugh by singing silly song parodies like his version of “Mr. Blue” by The Fleetwoods. He’d gavotte around the flat warbling, “I’m Mr. Blue Balls,” until I begged him to stop. Then he’d insist I sit down at his piano and sing his favorite Linda Ronstadt song, “Love Has No Pride.” It’s funny but that’s when I felt most in love with him. Singing this sad song of unrequited love to him with his puppy dog eyes staring into mine.

One of the biggest social events of the year in New York is The Met Gala. Held on the first Monday in May, it’s a charity ball and dinner that raises funds for The Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute. Everyone who is anyone gets an invitation, not only fashion industry titans. Celebrities as diverse as Britney Spears, Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion and Hilary Clinton show up to get their faces and fashion choices splashed across the pages of Vogue Magazine. Of course, Alastair got an invite. And, of course, he wanted me to be his date. Actually, for the purposes of this event, he was MY date since my fashion choices would be scrutinized, his less so. Every gala has a theme, highlighting a period in fashion history, American or worldwide. One year everyone was supposed to show up in some sort of iteration of Ming Dynasty court apparel. This year the theme was “Gilded Glamor and White Tie.” With that kind of ambiguity, your mileage may vary. Alastair arranged the works for me. Hair, makeup, a fashion consultation, the whole kit and kaboodle. I felt like a Barbie doll the whole day of the Gala as teams of fashion surgeons put me on their operating table. On the other hand, Alastair only had to manage the taking a thorough shower, combing his hair, and putting on an ill-fitting suit that he could have purchased off the rack. This was worse than the red carpet at award shows. But, at the end of the day, I think we looked spiffy. Alastair told me I looked beautiful. He lies a lot.

All the way home in the limo, Alastair nuzzled my neck and kept saying I looked beautiful. The driver was sneaking peeks at the rear-view mirror. I playfully slapped Alastair’s hands, whispering that the driver was ogling us.

“Let’s give him a real show.”

“I think you ought to loosen your tie. It’s cutting off blood to your brain.”

“It’s redirecting it to other parts of the body, babe.” He took my hand and placed it on the front of his pants. “Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Save it for later, honey.” I kept my hand down there.

“No more Mr. Blue?”

“If you’re a good boy, you’ll get a treat.”

“Driver, step on it!”

Truth be told, I was glad to resolve this issue between us. Three months into our relationship, I was ready, willing and able to take the next step. I was pretty sure Alastair would be a sensitive, gentle lover. And I honestly wanted to make love to him. He could be so sweet and caring. I felt treasured. What more could a woman ask for in a man?

Afterwards, amazed by the intensity of my climaxes (plural, yes!), I expected Alastair to roll over and fall asleep. But there would be pillow talk. So, we cuddled and, out of the blue, he asked me what I planned to do with my time now that I was retired.

“I was going to expand my stamp collection.” He laughed. “And then I’m going to have multiple simultaneous affairs with younger men. Just for the sex. You’ve helped me turn a corner.”

“No, seriously.”

“I’m serious. I wasn’t expecting sex with a man would be so…nice. You deserve a slap on the back.”

“I was thinking you should write. Weren’t you a few credits short of a PhD in English?”

“I didn’t complete my Doctoral Thesis. I was through with classwork. Write? What, literary criticism?”

“No, fiction.”

“The great American novel? That’s what Elizabeth wanted me to write.”

“Your own life is stranger than fiction. Also more wonderful. Inspirational even.”

“No one wants to read about my life. What have I achieved? What are my successes? I’m just an average working slob.”

“You achieved yourself. You successfully became the woman you’ve always been meant to be. And you’re goddam beautiful.” He kissed me and his hardness pressed against my thigh as he turned me toward him.

“You’re saying all this just to get in my pants.”

“Already done that.”

“Oh, yeah. Got me there.” I stroked him with my left hand as I pushed my tongue into his mouth. He disentangled our lips to speak.

“You’ve told me so much about your life in the last three months. Things you never told me before. You need to write it down. You could do an autobiography…”

“I wouldn’t feel right doing that. Other people’s privacy. I don’t have an axe to grind. That kind of writing is either personal hagiography as if the writer is an absolute angel or a collection of malicious attacks on people.”

“You could do it as a roman a clef. Give everyone fictional names. Just use the outline of your experiences. You don’t have to use real names. If you’re worried about getting sued…”

“Shhh. Make love to me, Alastair. Don’t talk.” I kissed him to silence him. I rolled on top of him and put him inside me. He didn’t utter another word. Nothing intelligible anyway.

Alastair wouldn’t drop the idea of writing a treatment of my life story, despite my stated disinterest in it. I wanted to let the past stay in the past. Why rehash the wrong turns, bad decisions, misunderstandings, and miscalculations that lead up to the present? Celebrate what has gone right, what gives you joy today, what makes you ready to face the day each and every morning. I told Alastair I could write sonnets, plays, novels, Proustian tomes about our happiness, our growing love. But I couldn’t bring myself to write my life story.

Humor me, he said. He sat me down on his divan, having borrowed a lighting kit from a friend at Silvercup Studios, and shot a video of me with his iPhone. Giving me a glass of Chablis, he coaxed me into giving a precis of my life story. He acted as an off-camera interviewer, prompting me for details at certain junctures in my recitation. The wine made me voluble, almost fearless, as the words tumbled out of me. At more than one point, my eyes welled up with tears. Dramatically, Alastair handed me a Kleenex from off-camera. When we finished, he hugged me and carried me to the bed.

“Hey, it’s not even dinner time.”

“We’ll eat later. Much later.”

---

“I’m the Head of Production, Jo. They pay me a lot of money to make decisions on content.”

“I thought you were half-joking about this. I’ve never written a screenplay. I wouldn’t know how to start.”

We were closing up my house, making sure all the windows were shut and doors securely locked. Alastair had arranged to have a security system installed so if anyone tried to break in while I was away, they’d be observed, and the police notified. He estimated it would take at least three months to complete a workable draft of the screenplay I was now contracted to write.

“You’ll have a writing partner. Someone who is intimately familiar with transgender life experience.”

“You mean a transwoman?”

“Yeah, she and her husband are a filmmaking team. She writes, he directs. You’ll meet them next week after you’re settled in.”

“Have I ever heard of them?”

“Her husband won an animation Oscar for “Princess Butterfly” a few years back…”

“I remember seeing that. It was cute. Didn’t know she was trans.”

“Our flight takes off at 11. We ought to get going.” I looked around at the house I’ve barely lived in. Three months in Boston. Alternate weekends in Alastair’s flat in the city. Who knows? I might come back just to sell it. I shouldn’t have bought those wicker chairs. I’ll donate them to some charity shop, I guess.

“Let’s go.” I took Alastair’s arm, walked out of the house and into the future.

“Tired, babe?”

I looked at Alastair, a quizzical expression on his face.

“You zoned out for a minute there.”

“I was just daydreaming.”

“About happy things, I hope. Like your stepson Eliot. He’s coming in through the door right now.” I turned around in the booth to get a view of the front door. “And that looks like the girlfriend in question. Very pretty for a doctor, I’d say.”

“Oh my god, that’s Jocelyn. Joey Petry!”