It was the second day of winter and the afternoon sun was already waning in an overcast sky when Rafe and I entered Tompkins Square Park. After his daughter Harlow had gone home to get herself ready for an early dinner and a special showing of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at Lincoln Center, Rafe proposed that we stroll through the park. As this might be the last chance for us to spend time together for a possible span of years, I acceded to his wish.

Rafe stopped at The Temperance Fountain and pointed out the sign board standing some feet to its side. A poster announced nighttime walking tours of the East Village that commenced at 6PM, Mondays through Saturday, right here at the Fountain.

“Do you have any plans for tonight?”

I shook my head no. He plucked his phone out of a coat pocket and looked at the screen.

“It’s almost 4. Let’s have afternoon tea at The Palm Court in the Plaza and take the walking tour tonight. It’ll be fun. It’s been 30 years since I’ve seen this part of the city after sundown.”

“The Palm Court? Even for afternoon tea, you need a reservation—”

“I confess, Joey. I made the reservation earlier this morning before we picked you up for lunch. It was Harlow’s idea—”

“What if I had plans for the afternoon?”

“I guess I like to live dangerously? In any case, I’ve never been so maybe I might have gotten lucky and met an attractive, unattached blonde who reminded me of you there.”

“You cheeky bastard!”

“Seriously, Joey, we’d better hurry. The reservation is for 4 and that gives us half an hour to get uptown—”

“You didn’t plan ahead and order an uber in advance?”

“Actually I did.” Looking at his phone. “In fact, our uber just turned left off the FDR Drive onto East 10th Street. It should be here in…2 minutes.”

“You planned an entire day out, didn’t you? Under the pretext of showing Harlow apartments in the East Village…”

“She is moving here after graduation and you did live here for a while…”

Afternoon tea at The Palm Court in the Plaza Hotel is not an ordinary coffee break at Starbucks. Indeed, it’s tantamount to afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace with the Monarch. The interior of the Palm Court resembles an outdoor café in Tangiers, with its ceiling-high palm trees, trellis detailing, and custom furnishings with cane accents. The stained-glass dome allows sunshine to highlight the sumptuous items on the menu.

We ordered the Plaza Signature Tea. A pot of Earl Gray from China, with bergamont and safflower petals. A selection of sandwiches including salmon, English cucumber, honey ricotta, and foie gras macaroon. Cherry and truffle scones. Pastries and sweets such as lavender macaron, strawberry and cream delice, lemon verbena egg custard, and chocolate Manjari black forest sable. All for $125 per person. For an extra $30 per person, a glass of Brut champagne could be added. I vetoed that, even as Rafe nodded devilishly.

“I don’t know if you recall, Joey, but Sara and I stayed here at The Plaza for two nights before we flew to Paris for our honeymoon—”

“I do remember that. Your mother and sister repeatedly mentioned your honeymoon in Europe during the welcome dinner. In fact, Sally made a point of telling me your entire itinerary, with details of your hotel accommodations. She even regaled me with a minute-by-minute account of how the women from both families took Sara shopping for her trousseau on Fifth Avenue.”

“I apologize for Sally. I didn’t know she’d been such a bitch to you at the wedding—”

“Well, you were kind of busy…”

We tucked in and, for the first 20 minutes, we allowed the classical music being piped in to accompany our meal and provide us with an excuse to not speak. Our eyes did a furtive dance and I felt myself blushing like a teenage girl admiring the cute dimples in her date’s whisker-free cheeks. Even now, forty years later, Rafe could make my heart melt when he flashed his goofy grin at me.

“I had serious reservations about accepting the invitation, Rafe. I was shocked that you’d even invited me in the first place. You hadn’t seen me since I had the surgery—”

“You looked even more beautiful than I imagined. I was so stoked to see you…finally as the woman I’ve always known you to be.”

“I was shocked your mom allowed you to invite me—”

“Well…she wasn’t happy about it. But you know who convinced her? It was Sara. She wanted to meet you. I guess I talked about you a lot.”

“Sara was a sweet girl. You made a great choice, Rafe. She gave you two wonderful children. And she was head-over-heels in love with you. I could tell.”

Rafe pulled out his phone and scrolled to a picture of his family of four in a gondola, on vacation in Venice, at least a decade ago.

I held Rafe’s phone in my left hand and took in the smiles on the faces of his family as they sat in the gondola, leisurely drifting down a canal in Venice. For a brief moment, I saw my own face in Sara’s place, laughing with joy, my arms around Rafe and Harlow. My husband and my youngest child. I had to take a quick sip of tea to clear my head. I didn’t want to start to cry.

“You must know how I feel, Joey. When you lost Emily. I wanted to come to the funeral but I was swamped with business shit. Sara offered to go in my place—”

“I understood, Rafe.” I returned his phone. “It’s not even five. What do we do for an hour before the walking tour starts?”

Rafe placed his Amex Black Card on the tray on which our check had been proffered. Our server almost clicked his heels when he saw it and gave Rafe an admiring glance.

“Are you a billionaire yet, Rafe?”

Laughing, Rafe answered my jab. “A few years ago, I would have said I’m working on it. Now, I’m looking at selling the firm—”

“What are you thinking of doing?”

“Traveling. Seeing the world. I looked at some brochures online for around-the-world cruises recently. I’d start small. Maybe a Mediterranean cruise. I might even buy a seat on one of Jeff Bezo’s spaceflights. Of course, it’d be a tragedy to travel alone.”

“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble meeting someone new, Rafe. You’ve probably got half the single women in D.C. in cold sweats right now trying to figure out how to snag you.”

“The only woman I’m interested in is spoken for.”

“Rafe…I…” Rafe took my hand in both of his.

“I’m not a fool, Joey. I know my chance with you ended 30 years ago. I just wanted to spend some time with you before you absent yourself from my life again. Maybe in another 30 years, Joey, we’ll find each other in the same nursing home.”

“Or another life. One in which I was born female instead.”

“Do you believe in the multiverse, Joey? Do you think somewhere in another universe, Joey and Rafe are living happily –”

“With two kids, a two-car garage, a paid-up mortgage, nice neighbors named Bill and Sue, and a house convenient to shopping, medical care, and good public schools?”

“I’d like to believe that.”

“I hate you, Rafe Metheny! You paid $300 to see me cry my eyes out, didn’t you?” I shot up from my seat. Before I started to really blubber, I hurried to the Ladies’ Room. I ended up comically zigzagging through the room as one of the servers pointed me in the right direction.

We decided to wait for our uber back to Tompkins Square Park in the lobby of The Plaza Hotel. After refreshing my makeup, I had gathered my emotions enough to sit silently on one of the Chesterfield sofas in a corner of the lobby, to one side of a wall-length fixed window. Rafe was reading texts he’d received during the day while I listened to my “calming” music – Satie and Debussy. We avoided looking at each other but Rafe’s hand gently nudged mine and we interlaced fingers.

The music spurred memories of the time after Rafe left New York to take over his dying father’s architectural firm in Washington, D.C. I had moved to that tiny apartment on 2nd Avenue and was doing well at FOX, advancing from analyst to manager to director of Programming Research. Rafe and I tried to stay in touch but our work and his family issues made it difficult to physically get together. Over time, our contact dwindled to a phone call now and then and, perhaps, a semi-annual visit, specifically when Rafe’s business presented the opportunity to come to New York.

About a year in at FOX, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that our employee health insurance package had newly added transgender issues to its coverage. Rumor had it that this came about because the child of one of its highest-ranking executives was MTF trans. With some trepidation, I approached our HR department with my own situation. I was relieved to find that they were more than professional about it. They set me up with a therapist (who I found much easier to work with than my previous one) and an endocrinologist who prescribed a regimen of HRT for me. I began to undergo the Real-Life Test, gradually presenting in a more feminine mode. While it was not all smooth sailing, most of my co-workers and bosses accepted me as a transwoman. The best moment came when our owner’s son rode the elevator with me alone and did a double take when he saw me in a skirt and floral blouse. He invited me to lunch one day soon after and encouraged me to transition, saying that, unlike his father, he believed in the axiom, “live and let live.” I walked back to the office with a decided strut in my step. A little bit of acceptance goes a long way.

In 1994, after more than three years of HRT, I had GRS done at St. Francis Memorial in San Francisco. I spent almost a month recovering from the surgery in San Francisco. It was a painful time, made tolerable because my Aunt Lori came up from Los Angeles to stay with me and act as my caregiver.

Lori wasn’t really my aunt. She’d been my father’s girlfriend during the years he’d lived in Los Angeles after my parents separated. Lori was an unrepentant hippie chick, 20 years younger than my dad. My father demanded I spend summers with him and, early on, Lori discovered that I cross-dressed. She kept my secret from dad and we had loads of fun shopping for clothes and generally acting like two teenage Valley girls, although I was the only one under the age of 20. Even after dad died when I was in college, Lori and I stayed in touch, exchanging Christmas cards and being steady pen pals through the years. She lives in Riverside nowadays. She and her daughter are yoga instructors.

In the Spring of 1995, almost 4 years since Rafe and I had parted ways, I was shocked to receive a wedding invitation from Rafe. He was marrying a woman named Sara in June. From the looks of it, it was going to be one of those ballyhooed society weddings that receive a ton of column inches in the Sunday lifestyle section of The Washington Post. As I surmised, the wedding was being held at the D.C. Harriott Hotel, just a few blocks from The White House.

My first instinct was to politely decline. I was certain Mrs. Metheny would be relieved to know I wouldn’t be showing up to ruin her son’s gala wedding. I was also reluctant because Rafe had yet to see the “new” me. He had planned to visit me in San Francisco the year before but had to cancel due to “business” conflicts. I took his excuse at face value but wondered if he was ready to close the door on my chapter in his life. Certainly, I knew he felt I had rejected him when I declined to accompany him to Maryland four years before. But it was for the best. For him and me.

Alastair Knowles was a recent addition to the FOX universe. After winning an Emmy for his work with Ed Bradley on CBS’ 60 Minutes, the 28-year-old wunderkind had been recruited to be in charge of Non-Fiction Programming for our primetime network. Friends at CBS warned me he was a skirt-chaser. I scoffed and said he’ll do a 180 when he discovers I’m a transwoman. That is, if he even gives me a second look. But after six months working in the same building, seeing each other at meetings, running into each other in hallways and kitchens on several floors, we became…I guess the proper term would be…buddies.

It began with discussions of industry topics while filling our mugs with the bilge that comes out of those k-cup coffeemakers, moved to popular movies, comic books, strips, anime, music and finally graduated to our personal lives. At least once a week (when he was in New York and not in his office away from the office in L.A.), he’d drop by my tiny office to invite me to lunch. Sometimes it would be a hotdog from the street vendor across the street; sometimes it would be The Russian Tea Room or a pub like The Playwright on West 49th Street if it was a nice day for a longer walk.

The day after I received the invite to Rafe’s wedding, for whatever reason, it ended up on top of my desk when Alastair sauntered in just before noon.

“That’s a colorful envelope. Party invitation?”

“Oh, hi, Alastair. Yeah, sort of a party. It’s a wedding invitation.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Rafe Metheny.”

“Oh.” In exchanging our life stories, I had told Alastair all about Rafe. Sometimes I felt cheated because what Alastair told me about his life wasn’t all that dramatic. Basically, he was the only child of an English father and a French mother, who had moved to the States just a year before he was born. Alastair’s father, Robert Knowles, had been a political reporter for ABC and CBS until his death in an airplane crash in 1988. After an exemplary scholastic career culminating in a degree from Harvard, Alastair went to work at CBS News as a writer-producer, ending up as Ed Bradley’s right-hand man. He dated a lot of women but he didn’t deign to talk about his conquests. At least not with me.

After reading the invitation, he stroked his bearded chin and exclaimed, “Accept it. Go! You know you want to.”

“I don’t think so. I told you about Rafe’s mom. And his sister Sally. Oh my God. The other thing is…who would I get to be my plus one?”

“It’s a two-day thing, right?”

“Yeah, the welcome dinner is Friday night, the ceremony and reception are on Saturday.”

“No problem then. We’ll miss one day of work—”

“We?”

“Of course. I’m your plus one.”

“No, Alastair, I can’t ask you to come with me. I’ll check with my sister and she if she can trust her husband to watch the kids for a couple of days—”

“Nah. We’ll take my car. Your bucket of bolts will probably die somewhere west of Philadelphia.” He stared me down before I tentatively nodded yes, o.k., you win.

“Won’t your current girlfriend – what’s her name again? – be upset to see you going to a wedding with another woman?”

“Who? Amanda? We broke up. Last night. She was fun but exhausting. You know?”

“Spare me the details, Alastair.”

He handed me a pen and prompted me to reply to the invite. “Be sure to check the box for bringing a guest. Otherwise, I’ll have to share your hotel room. And my back is problematic so sleeping on the floor or in a chair just won’t do—”

Friday, June 16th, 1995, was a hot day in New York City. At 11AM when Alastair picked me up at my apartment on 2nd Avenue, it was already in the mid-80s Fahrenheit. He whistled when I emerged from the building in my summer frock, carrying my overnight bag. I was shocked to see Alastair had shaved off his beard. I whistled in return.

“So what’s with the no beard look, Alastair? You think these society girls will swoon over your clean-cut looks—”

“They normally do. But I’m not hunting big game. I’ve got the first prize right here in the passenger seat—”

“Save the sweet talk, mister. We’re just wedding buddies this weekend.”

“You’re a hard nut to crack, Joanne.”

“Legumes are that way, Alastair. Now, how long will it take to get to D.C.?”

“It’s 4 hours give or take 10 minutes on I-95. We have time to stop for lunch in Princeton.”

“You know places for lunch in Princeton? And I’m not having a hotdog, Alastair…”

Sitting in a booth in PJ’s Pancake House on Nassau Street in Princeton, New Jersey, about two hours after we left Manhattan, I remarked to Alastair that we were probably the oldest patrons in the room.

“Yeah, well, the university’s just a few blocks that way.”

“How do you know about this place?”

“My high school girlfriend went to Princeton. Whenever I visited her, we’d have breakfast here. The pancakes are really good.”

“Suppose I’m not in the mood to have pancakes for lunch?”

“I’m still trying to figure out what your real appetites are—”

“We’ve had lunch dozens of times—”

“Not talking about food.”

“Hand me the menu, will ya? Maybe I can get a green salad.”

“I’m really looking forward to meeting this Rafe character. Sounds like a real jerk. One of those rich kids full of entitlement. How could he even think of dumping someone like you. I mean, you’re the most remarkable woman I’ve yet to meet in this industry.”

“Some people would beg to disagree with you.”

“That you’re remarkable?”

“No, that I’m a woman.”

“None so blind as those who will not see, Joanne. Fuck ‘em. And fuck Rafe for dumping you.”

“I dumped him, not the other way around.”

“Technically. But he didn’t put up much of a fight, did he?”

“Alastair, you don’t know all the facts. It’s not all Rafe’s fault.”

I ended up throwing caution to the wind and had the burger and fries. I’ll go light on the welcome dinner tonight to make up for it. Rafe actually ordered a stack of pancakes. He said it was nostalgia.

It took us another two and a half hours to reach The Harriott Hotel in Washington. On the way, Alastair insisted on playing his mix-cds. Insisted because, after all, it was his car and he was doing all the driving. Some of the songs were, in my opinion, straight trash. A lot of Beastie Boys and hip hop and rap. But then there was a stretch of decent pop stuff I could actually enjoy listening to. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes.

I didn’t ask him to but Alastair held my hand all the way from the parking lot to the hotel. I suppose he wanted to impress upon everyone that he was my “date.” Which came in handy when we walked into the lobby. Acting as official greeter was Sally, Rafe’s older sister. The look on her face when she saw me and then Alastair was priceless. Her jaw almost hit the floor.

“Hello, Sally. I see you’ve been drafted to be the official greeter—”

“Joey. You…you look…”

“I had the procedure done almost a year ago, Sally. I thought Rafe would’ve told you.”

“Did he? I guess he must have. It slipped my mind?”

“Sally, this is my friend Alastair Knowles. Sally is Rafe’s sister. You’ll meet her husband Martin at dinner.”

Sally took me aside and, in a whisper, asked, “Does he know about you?”

Alastair said in a loud voice, “Yes, I do, Sally. And it makes her extra special to me. I suppose Rafe wouldn’t agree—”

“Alastair, please. We’re guests here. Sally, it’s good to see you. It’s been years.”

“It’s…good to see you too, Joey. Do you still go by Joey?”

“It’s officially Joanne now but I answer to Joey too. Especially if it comes from a friend.”

“You guys should check in. The welcome dinner’s at 7 in the banquet room. You’ve got time to freshen up. Maybe even have a lie down. Are you in separate rooms?”

“Yes, Sally. I checked that box on the invite. See you later at dinner.”

Out of the corner of my eye, as Alastair checked us in at the front desk, I caught a glimpse of Rafe and Sara, apparently just now returning from rehearsal, walking toward the bank of elevators. They were chuckling over some joke Rafe had just made. His head swiveled when he heard Rafe say my name to the desk clerk.

I smiled. He took Sara’s hand and quickly approached. Before I could open my mouth to exchange greetings, he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me for dear life. Sara looked on, a confused look on her face.

“Joey! I’m so glad you came! Sally, look at Joey! She’s…she’s beautiful. You look marvelous.”

“I can’t breathe, Rafe.” He released me. “You look handsome as usual too, Rafe. Is this your bride-to-be? Sara?”

“Oh, yes, Sara. This is Joey Prentiss.” To me. “She knows all about you, Joey. She knows we’ve been best buds since we met in a sandbox.”

“Joey, I’ve wanted to see you in the flesh for years. Rafe can’t stop talking about you. You know, a girl can get a little jealous hearing how highly her husband-to-be regards you. And your back story is remarkable—”

“Remarkable is the word,” interjected Alastair. “Hi, Rafe. I’m Alastair Knowles. I’m Joanne’s plus one.”

“We work together at FOX. He was nice enough to agree to drive us down here. Rafe, you know what a terrible driver I am. 3 to 1 odds I wouldn’t make it past Philadelphia.”

“So you two aren’t…?”

“We’re workplace friends.” I looked down at the carpet, not wanting to look straight into Rafe’s eyes.

“We’re going up to our room and freshen up. You guys should settle in and do the same. See you at dinner. Let’s talk between speeches. O.K.?”

“O.K.? Joey?”

I turned toward Rafe’s voice. We were standing near the Temperance Fountain at the entrance to Tompkins Square Park. Apparently, the last hour since we sat down in the lobby of The Plaza had elapsed with me in a fog of remembrance. I couldn’t recall getting into the uber, the ride downtown to the park, even walking through the crunchy snow to the fountain.

“O.K. what?”

“We’ll do the walking tour on our own. Looks like they left without us. We got here five minutes late. Are you alright, Joey? You look a little dazed.”

“I’m fine, Rafe. Really.”

“You’re cold. It’s chilly after sundown. The wind whips around too.” He stepped close to me and wrapped his arms around me. “This’ll warm you up. Better?”

“Oh, Rafe! I’m sorry…”

“Sorry about what?”

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t answer him. His shoulder muffled my sobs as he held me tight against the dark night’s cold wind. Rafe kissed the top of my head and sighed.