I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

– Ecclesiastes 9:11.

A Work of Fiction

This is a work of fiction. All incidents are imagined and not based on real people or events. For a full disclaimer see the postscript at the end of this novel.

~o~O~o~

Mike Check. Check One Two.
Mom and I were standing in the kitchen of my parent’s house in Lincoln, Nebraska, crying, as I tried to explain the mess I had made of my 24 year old life.

“I’m not a criminal, Mom. I would never do anything illegal.”

“Do you need money?”

“Of course not! Mom, I have lots of money.”

“Illegal money.”

“No, legal money. Perfectly legal money. I haven’t broken any law.”

“So, why? Why did you do this to yourself?”

“Because I’m an idiot?”

“I’m not going to disagree with you, if that’s what you’re hoping.”

“I’m not going to disagree with me, either, Mom.” I gathered myself together. We looked at one another, both of us in tears. Eventually I realized there was no easy way to begin to make her understand, so I stood up and walked over to the bench to put some coffee on. “If you’ve got time, I can tell you the whole story. It’s not a good story. I’m an idiot. I know.”

“Make three cups. I’m going to get your father. He deserves to hear this, too.”

“Okay, Mom.” I started to make the coffee, knowing it would be the most difficult conversation I would ever have. Or so I thought, at that time.
 

~o~O~o~
 

In 1996 I was 23, newly graduated from Harvard, with a low-paying job as a sysadmin at a biotech company called Gene Systems, Inc. I figured I would eventually go to graduate school, but I wanted a year or two out in the world before I tried that.

Life away from the stress of college was good socially, but it wasn’t easy financially. The cost of housing in Cambridge had always been high, but as the tech boom of the mid 1990s began it accelerated out of all proportion to the ability of the local population to pay. The area was full of students and recent graduates but a lot of them were subsidized by their parents, or had high-paying jobs, or had partners who had high paying jobs. Locals didn’t stand a chance.

None of these things was true in my case.

I was living in Somerville, near Davis Square, in a three bedroom apartment which was the upstairs half of a large house. I lived with my former Harvard roommate Pete, who was almost always around, and a lesbian friend Talia, a fellow sysadmin/database administrator who actually worked at Harvard, but who only seemed to be home once a month. All of us had crippling student loans, and none of us had family wealth to fall back on. I had started at college on a scholarship, but after a little personal meltdown in my sophomore year I’d had to pay to finish my degree. Final year tuition had been $24,880. That doesn’t sound like all that much money now for Harvard, but it was hell back then. Mom and Dad and my grandmother had helped a little, but I was still buried under a mountain of debt.

Relative poverty aside, my friends and I had a good time. The presence of half a dozen of the nation’s finest academic institutions in or around Cambridge, and the more than one hundred thousand or so undergraduates attending, makes the city and its surrounds an unusual hotbed of youthful sexual tension. The party scene was hot. In the mid-90’s geeks were suddenly almost cool. It seemed as though everyone (except me) was working for startups, or knew people who were. Even undergrads were being poached if they could write code. Young women could still afford to pick and choose the guys they went out with, but increasingly they started to go out with guys based on their personalities and intelligence instead of their personalities and looks.

Which was fine with me. I wasn’t the next Bill Gates, but most of the girls in town didn’t know that, and, while there were gold-diggers everywhere, a lot of the girls were smarter than the guys they were chasing anyway.

An added bonus on the dating front was that in Cambridge there wasn’t the stigma attached to the Big H that there is in the rest of the country. Girls in Cambridge are happy to date Harvard geeks. It’s no big deal. Elsewhere you have to deal with the usual annoying mix of envy, resentment, and social-climbing. Drop the H-bomb in a conversation in Nebraska and see where it gets you.

Not that Harvard is anything like the way it’s presented in the movies. Oh, maybe it is for the 10% or fewer that belong to fraternities, but for the vast majority of students it’s a college like any other. None of my friends belonged to fraternities or came from wealthy families. Obviously there were students there that did – if you’ve seen that movie The Social Network you’ve heard of the Winkelvii — but I never met them, or any of the other wealthy students. I never comped for Final Clubs (“to comp“ is Harvard-ese for “to compete“ — everything at Harvard is about competition). None of the women I met seemed particularly concerned about the wealth or social status or otherwise of any of us. We were mostly kids from middle or working-class homes, and many of us were the children of immigrants. We worked hard in school, maintained a great GPA, took lots of AP classes and did all the other things that got us selected to one of the best educational institutions in the world.

Not that we liked it all that much once we got there. I mean, we knew we were lucky. Sure, we worked hard, but there’s still something of a lottery aspect to getting selected to many Ivy League schools. It’s not enough to have good grades, and write a great admissions essay: your essay has to be read by the admissions officer at the right time of day, hopefully on a good day, when they’re feeling well disposed to nobodies from an underwhelming high school in Nebraska. Maybe they got laid that morning, or they had an especially good Danish with their soy moccaccino. Whatever. My friends and I all recognized our good fortune and we didn’t think it made us better than people we knew who went to other colleges. If you're part of the great mass of people who know about Harvard from movies, you probably don’t believe that, but it’s true. We were mostly the geeks, the outcasts, the intellectuals. We weren't used to feeling superior to anyone.

While we felt lucky, I don’t know that any of us liked living in our respective Houses at Harvard that much. College can be a lonely place, until you find friends, and geeks and outcasts and intellectuals often find it difficult to do that.

I’m digressing. A lot of this story might contain digressions. I hope you’ll bear with me, because I’m not digressing to make excuses for what happened to me. I’m digressing to try to explain how I came to be in a certain place, at a certain time, and got offered a certain set of opportunities and problems that — in hindsight — I should have been smart enough to avoid because I’m smart. Everybody has always told me I’m smart. Except when I’m spectacularly stupid. Is there such a thing as an idiot-savant, but in reverse? Someone who’s exceptional at everything except for one thing where they’re extraordinarily defective? If so, I’m it: as functionally skilled as I choose to be at most intellectual things, with an inexplicable and profound deficit in the area of understanding relationships.

On the subject of relationships, and Harvard, and avoiding digression; by 1996 none of the women in Cambridge, so far, had dated me. No girl had agreed to more than one date with me since Lisa Hemphill in the tenth grade, when we were both young and I guess I was a safer choice than some of the ugly goons at our school. Truth was, I wasn’t really boyfriend material. At 5’6” I was three and a half inches under the national average height for men, more than one standard deviation from the norm (I’d looked it up), and I was wafer thin, like those kids who had sand kicked in their face in the old Charles Atlas comic book ads (did I mention some of us were Rocky Horror tragics?). I wasn’t just thin, I was really thin. I had a metabolism that worked five times harder than everyone else’s. It was great for being able to pull all-nighters, but not much good for developing a manly physique. Thin arms, small hands and feet, thin torso. On top of everything else I had lousy eyesight. I couldn’t see more than about five feet in front of me without glasses.

Plus there was the fact I looked about ten years younger than my real age. It might have been due to excellent skin – unlike other kids I never had any meaningful acne – or it might have been my size. Whatever it was, I got carded absolutely everywhere. Everywhere. And most people who didn’t know me well thought I was still about sixteen.

Apart from all that (if you can dismiss “all that”) I wasn’t bad looking, so long as you weren’t looking for someone built like Dwayne Johnson. A friend once described me as “exotic in an offbeat way”. I was the product of a Jewish American father, improbably named Benjamin Jones, and a Japanese mother whose own parents were French and Japanese. Dad had been drafted into the Marines in the last year of the Vietnam War, and met Mom when he was stationed on Okinawa during his time in the Corps. He was tall and broad shouldered, she was the classic tiny Japanese girl. Even as a kid I thought they looked kind of funny together.

I got my mother’s DNA, because I had an Asian set of features, although my skin was quite pale. My thick dark brown hair made me look even paler. My friend and college roommate Pete once told me that if he’d had to guess where I was from he would have said Siberia, because I had that peculiar mix of features balanced between Caucasian and Asian often found there. My roommate Talia told me I should move to Japan and start a boy band. “You fit the classic profile for ‘non-threatening boy’,” she said. In her defense she was drunk at the time.

The delicacy of my features had been a problem where my family lived in Nebraska, and despite having short hair from age fourteen, I had been called “Miss” a lot until around my seventeenth birthday, when I moved to go to college. It hadn’t done wonders for my self-esteem, but fortunately it had ceased when I moved East. Perhaps people in Cambridge were more used to seeing foreigners, since both MIT and Harvard were both full of Asian kids. I’d become comfortable enough to let my hair grow almost to my shoulders, which saved on haircuts and fit in better with the geek crowd I ran with.

At 23 I didn’t get “Miss” any more from sales clerks, but I wasn't a babe magnet, even in Cambridge, and I was still inexperienced at sex. Of the seven women who had ever agreed to the one date, only two had ever gone so far as to “invite me in” afterward, and I think I had disappointed both. The result was that I had something of a fierce inferiority complex regarding my chances with women. So I was surprised one Saturday night when Alice Kim spent so much time talking to me at our friend Henry’s birthday drinks. Alice was beautiful and smart, the daughter of Korean immigrants who’d worked their asses off and instilled in her the same drive to succeed. We knew each other, vaguely, through a mutual friend. She was an MIT graduate, doing postgrad work in something related to artificial intelligence at MIT. It was an expanding and exciting field. She could have been talking to any guy at the party, but she chose to spend most of the evening with me. I was, of course, entranced.

When Alice began speaking to me, I first thought she was only interested in my connection to my best friend, Pete. She kept looking at him, across the room, where he was deep in conversation with our friends Dave and Michael. She even asked me how I knew him. So I was pretty sure, to begin with, that she was just gathering intelligence to make a play for him later. But our conversation quickly turned to other things: music, food, books. She drank water, and fruit juice. No alcohol. Her voice was sweet and musical and her eyes were clear and sparkling.

Toward the end of the night she made her pitch, but subtly, so at first I didn’t realize it was a pitch. After a few more hours of talking about study, travel, her family and relaxation, she asked me whether I knew anything about card counting.

“Not a thing,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t gamble much.”

“It’s not really gambling,” she said. “It’s just math. You’re good at math, right Alex?”

I looked at Alice, one of the prettiest girls I’d ever met. I knew I was being sold something, but I couldn’t resist hearing what that something would be. Truth be told, she could have read me a book on introductory macramé and I would have been fine just listening to her voice.

But Alice got to the point a lot faster than I thought she would. “Do you want to come to Connecticut with me next Friday night to play some cards?” She asked. “There’s a new casino there. You don’t need to get off work early, we’ll leave around six.”

I would have followed Alice past the gates of hell. I didn’t know anything at all about playing cards, but I was sure I wanted to spend Friday night with her.

The week passed slowly. Work was a drag – Dilbert squared – and I was bored at home, too. I reorganized my CD collection, tidied my room for the umpteenth time, listened to music, tried to read, and did nothing. It meant I saw more of my roommate, Pete, than usual. At some point I must have said something to him about meeting Alice and her inviting me out.

“Alice Kim?” he said, when I told him. “Dude.”

I blushed. Despite being Asian I blush obviously, on account of my pale skin.

“Well, it’s just going out with her and some friends.”

Nevertheless Pete was impressed. He knew Alice from classes, but had barely been able to bring himself to speak to her. “Alice” Pete said, unintentionally mangling both The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Say Anything, “has a brain the size of a planet in the body of a Korean game show hostess.”

Pete and I met when I was a freshman, in the first week I was in Cambridge. Both of us were living in Matthews, albeit in different rooms, but we were both trying to get involved in the student radio show called 'the record hospital' (yeah, they were precious about the lower-case thing back when Pete and I were involved) at WHRB, and we had shown up at a session where they were explaining the station to freshmen. WHRB, which was more or less the Harvard radio station, gave over the entire night shift to the record hospital, which had a very competitive selection and training process called “comp”, somewhat like the “comp“ process for Final Clubs. The comp directors were two guys who were basically assholes. They poured scorn on anything that fell outside their own indie punk credo.

We clicked on that first night even if the comp directors were completely dismissive of our musical tastes, which ran too close to pop for their determinedly lo-fi tastes. I remember we had a really pretentious discussion with them about the decline of Bob Mould as a serious songwriter. It was a stupid conversation, but neither Pete nor I seemed to mind, and because we were dismissive instead of enthusiastic — one-upping them in the disdain stakes — we got to do a show, a very late show, together. We spent a lot of very long hours in the studio playing anything that was in the “heavy rotation/new“ bin at the station, interspersed with random bits of Pixies, Alex Chilton, Iggy Pop and as much old pop and soul as the station would let us get away with.

We were polar opposites looks wise: Pete Johanssen was your basic 6’4” blond blue-eyed Wisconsin boy genius, a former high school basketball star in Madison before he wrecked an ankle, and as confident and relaxed around people as I was shy. Why he didn’t have three hundred girls chasing him at any given time was a mystery to me, and to him, too. He was co-founder of an online startup he’d begun with a Russian math geek friend when they were in their sophomore year. It had something to do with a kind of limited artificial intelligence through pattern recognition. I knew what it was about in the abstract, but we’d never discussed the key aspects of his business in detail.

Since freshman year, Pete had become easily my closest male friend. One of the reasons I liked him so much was that, mostly, I never had to think about anything when we were together. He was completely low-maintenance, without being slack. The two of us just worked well together on some unconscious level, could make decisions about doing things without having to talk about them, and could finish each other’s sentences. We liked the same music. We mostly liked the same food. We both felt completely lost at Harvard, and weren’t afraid to admit it. I didn’t need to act macho around him. We didn’t have to try to impress each other. We could just be.

Pete and I hit a local bar, listened to some music from a wannabe indie pop act, and bumped into his partner from their startup, a Russian named Vassily who looked almost like a parody of a young engineer, with thick-rimmed glasses and a bad haircut. He was a nice guy though, at least as far as I could tell from the few times I’d met him. He was with his wife that night, a pretty blonde named Yana who would have been model material if she’d had better dental care as a teenager. She was at least three inches taller than Vassily, closer to six foot. She danced with a friend for most of the evening. Pete, Vassily and I all did the white man’s overbite thing grooving along with the music. When it was closing time we said farewell to our Russian friends and stumbled half drunk into the night afterward.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Up until I was about fifteen I didn’t really notice girls. For that matter, I didn’t notice guys much, either. I existed in my own little cocoon, in which sex wasn’t an issue. Yes, I was a late bloomer, as far as those things go, and maybe it was my hormones, or lack of them, but I didn’t get all totally distracted at every girl who looked at me, like most of my peers did. I was going to write “like most of my friends did” in that last sentence, except that I didn’t have that many friends, and if they got distracted by girls it was always short-lived distraction.

There was Carl Choi, one of the only other Asian kids at my school, and Hal Donovan, who lived just a few doors from me and had been my companion to and from school on many occasions, although we weren’t exactly soulmates. Carl was smart, but he lived in his own little world of math and computing. I think these days he’d probably have been diagnosed with Aspergers, but at the time we put his obsession with math down to his driven parents. Not that I had anything against math – Carl was my only competition in class – but it wasn’t my life the way that it was Carl’s. He could make a math problem out of just walking down the street. He ended up at Cornell, in some kind of elite PhD fast-track, but I didn’t know much about him since because we drifted apart in senior year of high school.

Hal was a different kind of friend. The kind of friend you get from proximity instead of shared interests. We didn’t have much in common, but he was an alright guy. Not smart like Carl, or even me, but not totally stupid. Even so, I could pretty much get him to do what I wanted, just by thinking a few steps ahead in any situation, and it seemed like Hal couldn’t reciprocate. I sometimes felt guilty about that, but evidently not guilty enough to stop.

Hal’s Mom and my Mom were friends, and we spent a lot of time together when we were kids and our Moms were together, and I didn’t dislike him, but I couldn’t have said he was my best friend, either. I didn’t really have a best friend.

If this sounds like a familiar story, it is. For every popular kid at high school, there must be a dozen that have only a few friends, and there are always one or two kids in every class that have almost no friends at all. Such is the misery of the American high school experience. Does it happen that way in other countries, or is it some special variety of torture we cooked up all on our own? When I won the scholarship to Harvard, all of a sudden the years of torment seemed, if not negated, then at least greatly diminished. I had a ticket out.

Of course, once I was at Harvard, surrounded by people who were – quite obviously – much smarter than me, I had to overcome different feelings of inadequacy. But Harvard, at least, was not the horror that high school had been. Odd then, that it was at Harvard that I had a breakdown.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Friday I washed my hair and packed a change of clothes and took them with me to work so I could meet Alice outside The Brattle. I didn’t know what to expect, but I had dressed neatly in what passed for standard Harvard Square attire: ironic logo t-shirt, thrift store black jacket, and khakis, with my hair tied back in the standard geek ponytail. I looked like hundreds of grad students and junior faculty.

A long white Toyota van pulled up and Alice slid the rear door open. “Get in.”

Obviously, Alice wasn’t alone. Inside the van I recognized a few faces, all of Asian or Indian origin. My friend Henry Yang was driving. He’d been in my stairway at Matthews and, while we weren’t close, he’d always seemed like a straight-up guy. It had been at his party a few days earlier that Alice had invited me to come. In the front passenger seat was an Indian guy I knew, and didn’t like, Arun Kapoor. Great. If I’d known he was involved in Alice’s adventure I’d never have come. Arun and I had fallen out a few years earlier when we were both in the chess club, and he was being a dick about some strategy. I had beaten him five times straight, and it was clear he was a very sore loser. It was no big deal, really, but he acted like I had impugned his honor or something, and for the remainder of the year he rode me on every single thing I ever said at the club. We almost had a fight one afternoon after Dan Koh, a mutual friend, complimented me on a game I had played the week before. Eventually I left the club, because the atmosphere at the club just wasn’t fun any more. Now here he was again, four years later, as was Dan, in the back of the van sitting next to Alice.

As I climbed into the back of the van Arun turned to introduce himself, it seemed as though he’d forgotten our history together, such as it was. “Arun,” he said, offering his hand. I tried to shake it but since I was trying to balance as the van took off that was a little tricky. I wondered whether pretending not to know me was his way of trying to avoid unpleasantness.

Apparently Arun suffered from Prosopagnosia, which is an inability to remember faces. It seemed that although he knew my name was Alex, he didn’t remember my face, so he didn’t know I was Alex Jones. I wondered how long it would take for him to make the rest of the connection.

Alice introduced me to the rest of her friends. In the three seats in back were Lucy Huang, Emily Zhang, and James Gee, all MIT students I’d met through a computing club I’d belonged to when I was an undergrad.

I smiled at Dan, who had been in Matthews my freshman year, and was also in my second year Astronomy class. I liked Dan. We’d never been especially close during our time in Matthews, but he was the one who was in chess club with me and who witnessed the almost-fight with Arun. He was quiet, like me, but the few times we’d got to talking I'd liked his extremely dry sense of humor. I was never entirely sure when he was joking, but his humor was never malicious. Unlike most of us, he was enormous, with a significant weight problem he put down to too many pizzas and too much Mountain Dew while coding. With his broad Han face he looked very Buddha-like whenever he was seated. He took up most of the seating in the second row of the van, and so Alice and I were scrunched together. I couldn’t say I minded that at all.

As we pulled up at the Mohegan Sun Casino a few hours later Arun turned to me before I got out of the van. “Enjoy yourself,” he said, as he handed me a roll of bills. “You can talk to Alice but you don’t know any of the rest of us. If you speak to any of us, we’ll all be leaving.”

“Just watch and learn,” said Henry as he got out of the van.

I looked at the cash Arun had given me. It was around $5,000. I had never held that much cash in my hand in my life. I was immediately suspicious. Why would a guy who was such a dick hand me $5,000? Looking in his eyes I could tell he had remembered who I was, but Alice reached over and closed my hand around the money, and shoved it in my jacket pocket. I looked at her, surprised, and she shrugged and pushed me out of the van.

The team members went into the casino in ones and twos. Alice and I entered before Arun. I tried to follow her lead without making it look like she was in control.

“I wish you’d told me Arun was involved in this,” I said quietly, as we moved through the slot machines to the blackjack tables.

“I didn’t know you knew Arun,” Alice said. “What is it between you two?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Put it this way: no love lost.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. You don’t have to love him. He probably doesn't remember you, anyway.”

“He will.“

Alice motioned to me to get out the money Arun had given me. “How much cash should I change for chips?” I whispered to her.

“All of it,” she said calmly. “We’re going to be playing the high stakes tables, and we’re probably going to lose all of it. And don’t whisper. Give me a kiss.”

Of course I kissed her. It wasn’t my first kiss, nor my last, but I remember it very well. There wasn’t anything particularly special about it, except that it was Alice Kim I was kissing, so there was an element of “I’ve won the lottery,” and she was sweet smelling and sweeter tasting. I was glad I’d eaten a mint on the way down in the van.

The kiss was done, though, and so together walked to a table. We had no sooner approached than a large man appeared beside us. “Evening, ladies. Sorry to bother you. Can I see some ID please?”

I turned to face him and he did a small double-take and I think he suddenly realized his faux pas. “Sorry.” He said. “From the side you, uh …”

“It’s okay,” I said, offering him my driver’s license. I was embarrassed to have it happen in front of Alice, but I always had to show ID when Pete and I went out drinking, and I knew that making a fuss just made the embarrassment last longer.

He examined our ID’s, and after we got them back we played blackjack for a while. I forgot about Arun completely. We won some, we lost some, playing for the table minimum of $50. There were only two other people at the table, in the fifth and sixth positions, an older couple who looked like they might have been locals. After about a dozen hands I noticed Alice sit back, and then stretch her arms above her head. Then she went back to the game. Less than a minute later Henry came and sat immediately to her right, and got ten thousand dollars worth of chips from the dealer. I remembered we weren’t supposed to know one another, but like everyone else at the table, I stared.

“How is everyone?” Henry said to the table in general, laying a thousand dollars worth of chips, half the table maximum, out front before his first card.

“I’m not kicking any goals here or anything,” Alice said. I was puzzled. I’d never heard Alice talk about football before, and the comment seemed out of context.

Henry immediately split the two aces he was dealt. And then, in the next ten hands, I watched Henry win tens of thousands of dollars.

While we were playing I kept stealing glances at Alice. Apart from being gorgeous, she was an extremely graceful woman. I could have watched her hands gliding across the felt and around her face and hair all night. Her neck and wrists were impossibly slender, almost like a child’s, but her movements were confident, poised, anything but childlike. In her simple black shift dress she looked as elegant as a young Audrey Hepburn. I was entranced.

Alice and I stayed at the table for about three hours, and lost about fifteen hundred dollars. Henry stayed 16 hands, won at least twenty thousand, and left the table as soon as the dealer reshuffled the cards and began to deal a new shoe. After another hour or so Alice did her stretching routine again, and this time Arun came to the table.

I almost didn’t recognize him. He’d changed into a dark blue silk shirt and white jeans, and had slicked his hair back. He looked every inch like a Bollywood movie star. “I’m bushed,” Alice said to me as he sat down, more loudly than I thought was necessary, and Arun immediately moved a large pile of chips out front.

Like Henry, Arun won, and won big. He walked from the table with tens of thousands of chips. I noticed him a half hour later with a gorgeous blonde woman at his side, as he was cleaning up at another table. He was a very handsome young man, impeccably groomed and better dressed than the rest of us, and as he was scooping up chips he looked every inch like the son of a very rich man. I loathed him, but I had to admit he had style.

We didn’t stay in Connecticut that night. We left around 4am, and Dan drove the van back. Alice, who was exhausted, fell asleep resting on my shoulder. I loved the drive back. The moon was out, the blue moonlight coated the Mystic River as we headed back up I-95, and I had a beautiful woman resting on my shoulder. I wasn’t completely sure what the night had been about, but I had seen Arun and Henry pass Bob bundles of cash at the end of the night — more cash than I had ever seen. I hadn’t seen Alice counting the cards. I had tried counting, but I gave up, because it was too hard. I didn’t know how Arun and Henry had won the way they had won, but I knew I had seen something extraordinary.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Arun waited for a couple of days to follow up on the weekend, and when he did it was through Alice, again. She invited me to meet at a coffee shop just off Harvard Square, and when I got there Arun and Henry were with her. We made a bit of small talk, during which it was clear he now remembered our past history. He seemed as though he had grown up since our time in chess club, and in fact he was quite gracious. Since I was interested in Alice, and in what had happened at the Mohegan Sun, I tried to be gracious in return.

After we'd exchanged a little more small talk, Arun got to the point.

His team – I was only just beginning to realize it was his team – had been around for about three years. That made them newcomers by MIT standards. There were at least two other teams in operation, and another that had been in business long enough to actually retire. Like the other teams, Arun’s was composed entirely of first or second-generation Asians or Indian immigrants. My grandmother’s genes allowed me entry into the group, because I looked Asian enough. “One of us, one of us, one of us,” chanted Henry. I thought he was kind of deranged for a few moments, but it turned out to be a reference to an old movie called “Freaks,” which was fitting given the kinds of things that had been said about people like us – nerds and geeks – during high school.

As for choosing Asians and Indians, I found out later it was because the casinos thought most card counters were middle-aged white guys, and in fact it’s true that the typical card counter does fit that profile. Of course a typical card counter is no threat to a casino, but the casinos didn’t manage risk that way in the 1990’s – they were focused on threats that were so minor they didn’t see the really big ones coming.

One of the other benefits of using Asians in the teams was to take advantage of the innate racism of many white Americans, who think – or used at least to say, in an earlier time – that “they all look alike to me.”

“So what do you think?” Arun asked.

“I don’t know anything about card counting,” I said. “I still don’t know how you won the other night.”

“Good,” said Henry, pleased.

“You do know about counting, though,” said Arun. “And Alice and Dan say you have the patience for it.”

“Isn’t it illegal?”

Arun ordered another coffee. “No, Alex. It’s not even gambling.”

I must have looked perplexed.

“A lot of people think card counting is gambling, or that it’s somehow cheating at cards,” Arun said. “It’s neither. It’s the simple application of mathematics to a popular game, and it’s perfectly legal.”

“I’m not sure I believe you, but go on.”

“The first thing you need to know, in order to understand why blackjack can be managed with card counting, is that blackjack, unlike poker, is a game in which each new hand dealt is affected by the hands that were dealt before it. As cards are dealt from a deck – “

“ – Those cards can not show up again until the deck is reshuffled,” I nodded. What he was saying was easy to understand. “And the value of cards remaining influences the odds of the game.”

“So you get it.” He looked pleased. “This makes the game different from other casino games such as roulette, where the chance of the number 20 coming up on any spin of the wheel never changes, or to poker, where the deck is shuffled between hands.”

“And the skill of your opponent is often a bigger factor than the cards you have in your hand.” I said. “I get it. It’s still gambling.”

“Technically, yes, but it’s so easy to work out that there’s very little risk involved. Look, crossing the road has risk involved. But you don’t think of it as gambling, do you?” He paused for effect. I could see Alice and Henry had heard this spiel before, but they were intent on my reactions.

Arun continued. “For example, if you see three tens come up in one round of blackjack in a single deck game, you know there is only one ten left, and so the probability of someone being dealt a ten in the remaining hands before the shuffle is lower. If you are good at counting, you can remember this.” His eyes flicked to Alice before coming back to me. “You’re good at counting.”

He bent closer across the table, probably sensing he was winning me over. “The other key thing to understand about Blackjack is – and this is where most amateur players, especially those trained on other card games like poker, come unstuck – you don’t have to have a good hand in order to win. You simply have to have a better hand than the dealer. You can sit on any combination of cards that adds up to more than 12, and if the dealer busts, you will win.” He smiled. “In your favor is the fact that the dealer can’t sit on less than 16.”

Arun produced a deck of cards from his pocket and began to shuffle the cards while he talked. “Of course the casinos are not run by dummies. They don’t run 6 or 8 decks of cards together for convenience sake. They do it to make it hard to count how many tens, or aces, or nines, or whatever, are left in the deck.” He held up the deck he was using. “They use multiple decks. It makes counting that much harder. Even Stephen Hawking would find it hard to keep track of 24 aces, 24 tens, 24 nines, 24 eights, 24 sevens and 72 face cards, let alone the low cards, amid all the distractions, and there are many, in a casino.”

“So? I sure won’t be able to.” I said. “I tried it when I was playing the other night. How do you?”

That was what interested me. Not the idea of winning. I’ve never been particularly drawn to competition. What drew me in was the mechanism of the system. I loathed Arun, and although I liked Henry and Dan, and was infatuated with Alice, I didn’t much enjoy the thought of being on his team. What intrigued me wasn't Arun — I wanted to understand how the system worked.

“Card counting isn’t about counting the number of twos or aces. Instead, it involves keeping track of how many high cards or low cards are in the deck. In the simplest system, called ‘Hi-Lo,’ cards are assigned very simple numerical values instead. Cards from 2 to 6 are scored minus 1. Cards 7 to 9 don’t count at all. Cards 10 and above, including aces, are scored plus 1.” He sat back and smiled. “What does that mean?”

I had followed his logic. “It means a single deck of 52 cards has a total count of zero, because all of the high and low cards cancel each other out.”

“Exactly,” Arun said. “Exactly.”

As I later found out, the ‘Hi-Lo’ system was originally invented at MIT by a lecturer named Edward O. Thorpe, who subsequently wrote a book on it. If you’re really bored, you can go look up his Wikipedia entry. The methods used in the 1990s – the ones Arun described – are no longer possible, because the casinos changed one rule, and that made it much harder to beat the house. But in 1995 the system was beatable.

As Arun described it, in its simplest forms what card counting is really about is keeping track of the relative weighting of the remainder of the deck. A counter subtracts for the low cards, and adds for the high cards. The count goes up and down, card by card, until the deck leans one way or another, as either high or low cards come out early. If the count indicates a lot of low cards have already been dealt then – by simple math – the remaining cards must be high value cards. The more high cards within the deck, the better the player’s chance of hitting blackjack, or at least of beating the dealer, who will likely bust out because – unlike the player – they can’t sit on 16 or less.

“It’s all just math,” Arun said. “Provided you never lose track of the count. Since most casinos use 6 or 8 decks at a time, it’s a lot of counting. But the entire system is based upon probabilities, and if you can maintain the count over time, then you have a chance of beating the house. It’s not gambling. It’s math.”

“Again, casinos aren’t run by dummies,” Arun said. “If they so much as suspect you are counting cards, they’ll bar you. Contrary to popular belief, card counting isn’t illegal, unless you use some form of aid, mechanical, electronic or whatever. But obviously the casinos don’t want that widely known.” He shrugged his shoulders. “In any case casinos are private property, so they can bar effective counters from playing simply by refusing them access to the premises.”

“If it’s so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?” I asked.

“Unfortunately,” Arun said, “even if you’re an expert counter, the most you can hope to gain from counting is about a 2 percent advantage over the house. In order to count, you have to be in the game, and in the early hands after a shuffle, before the count can be meaningful, you’re likely to lose, because you have no way of calculating what cards are likely to come next.”

“So … There’s something I’m not getting. How did you do it?”

“If you’re a solo player, you have to have a big bankroll, and be prepared for a small return on your risk, relative to the money you’re staking. For a 2 percent return per night, you’re probably better off playing the short term money market, or stocks. Making only one mistake per hour eliminates your statistical advantage, and making two in an hour puts you further behind than not counting at all, so it requires discipline and nerve.”

“It’s why most card counters are lonely single white men,” Alice said, smiling, “With delusions about their abilities and lots of free time.”

“I saw what you won at the Mohegan Sun. That had to be better than 2 percent.”

“You have no idea how much better.” Arun leant back, obviously pleased with himself. “That,” he beamed, “is where our scheme comes in. Come for a walk. We’ll talk about how you can fit into all this. That is, if you’re interested.”

I looked at Alice. Of course I was interested. I didn’t like Arun, but I was three quarters in love with Alice, and I was beginning to understand how they did it. It was the use of a team, and the way that Henry had been able to come to the table at the right time, instead of losing in those early hands.

Apart from being able to hang out with Alice, the thoroughness of Arun’s argument appealed to me. It was elegant.

“Okay, I’m interested.”

Arun smiled at Alice as if to congratulate her. “Thought you would be.”

“But why me?”

“Pardon?”

“Why me? It’s not like we’ve ever been friends.”

Arun hesitated before responding, and dropped his eyes briefly, and I reflected that it was the first time he’d acknowledged any bad blood between us. “Alice speaks well of you,” he said. “So do Henry, and Dan. And I never let personal feelings get in the way of business.” He looked me directly in the eye, as though he was waiting for me to dredge up the past. Coward that I am, I looked away and said nothing.

“But let’s not discuss the details here,” he continued, turning back to a more positive tone. “If you’re going to be in, we have a lot of training to do.”

Of course, before we walked, he made me swear to secrecy.

So we walked back to Henry’s apartment on Highland Avenue. Henry opened a bottle of Bordeaux and Arun outlined the way the system could be beaten. He hadn’t invented the plan to use a team. It had been developed by Ken Uston, a Harvard grad, more than twenty years earlier. His idea was to use teams of players, with different roles, who always appeared to be independent of one another. Various teams from MIT and Harvard had been playing in teams ever since, refining their techniques.

In Arun’s team, the grunt work was done by the smurfs, whose job was to place table minimum bets all night while maintaining the count at their table. Alice had been a smurf that night at the Mohegan Sun. Smurfs play, count, and try to attract as little attention as possible. In Arun’s team, they were supplemented by the elves (these guys were geeks, okay?), who were erratic in their play, making random bets and flitting from table to table, to provide distraction to the dealers and the pit bosses. Elves talked a lot, made sure to lose enough never to seem like a threat, and kept watch for security guards, pit bosses, and anyone else who might be a threat to the team. They never counted. Never. Their job was simply to come and go in the same way the real key players in the scheme did, but winning and losing so randomly they wouldn’t pose a threat to the casino. Acting like tourists or even honeymooners, they paid very little attention to the actual gambling. They never gave any intimation that they even knew the smurfs.

Each team also had one or two wizards, whose role was to bet big, coming to a table only when surreptitiously signaled by a smurf that the count was favorable and the dealer was at a disadvantage. Like the elves, their job involved no counting. Wizards would often act as though they were drunk to disguise their extravagant bets, and they dressed in a manner that was designed to attract attention. The look wizards usually went for was ‘spoiled child of foreign business mogul’. Even though they were the big winners, their flamboyance, couple with the comings and goings of the elves, meant that the smurfs, who did the hard work of maintaining the count, were almost never noticed. But it was wizards who could bet five or even ten thousand on a hand, without seeming out of character, and make up for any of the losses by smurfs and elves in just one or two seemingly lucky hands. In six or seven hands, they could make tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, before the team relocated, in ones and twos, to another casino to play for a few more hours.

Our team didn’t just play straight hi-lo. We also used an algorithm that tracked where the count was in the six-shoe deck. If it went positive very early, it was still good for play, but there was more risk. But since all of us were good with numbers – it was pretty much the reason we were involved – it wasn’t too hard to do some division and multiplication on top of counting. It was still, when all was said and done, counting. And a bit of math.

In a good night, at a big casino where they could spread a lot of money around a lot of tables, Arun claimed the team could clear $150,000. In 1995, that was about the price of a good apartment in the inner Cambridge/Boston area. And that was, give or take a thousand, what they had taken from the tables at the Mohegan Sun on a single night on the Casino’s second weekend of operations.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The training process, as Arun called it, consisted of practicing endlessly with decks of cards, multiple decks, until I was familiar with the idea of adding or subtracting 1 for each appropriately high or low card, and could apply our algorithm on top of the count. Counting is surprisingly difficult to do, when there are hundreds of cards involved. If you miss even a single card your count can be off. The trick is to be so practiced that the casinos can’t tell you’re counting, and that means never being seen to pay that much attention. But if you’re not paying attention, you can be distracted.

In addition to the card counting, I had to learn the signals the team used, and the peculiar language to describe the state of the deck at any time:

“Revolution” meant 9, from the Beatles song
“Dime” meant 10, for obvious reasons.
“Goals” meant 11 — two sticks standing up.
“Monkeys” meant 12, from Twelve Monkeys, a movie the team had all seen and liked.
“Bush” meant 13 — the number of the Vannevar Bush building at MIT.

There were a bunch more, including the signals to come in to a hot hand, the signals the hand was cooling, or cold, the emergency signals, and the signal to call it a night. It took me a while to get the codes right, but the actual card counting was easy. Hiding the fact I was counting was even easier.

Fortunately, I’ve always been good at multi-tasking. My sister Susan used to joke, before the joke wasn’t funny any more, that I must have been bathed in the wrong hormones in the womb, because I was the only guy she knew who could do several different things at the same time.

At that time – the time I started with Arun’s team – Susan was the person I was closest to in the whole world. She’s a year older than I am and probably smarter than me. As our lives have proven, she has a heck of a lot more common sense. She was valedictorian when she graduated from Brown, and she has a job she likes at the Museum of Fine Arts, something to do with art restoration. It was a total coincidence we both wound up living in Boston.

We shared most things, our foibles, failures, fears, triumphs and joys, but since I had graduated I had seen her less, even though I had more time. We were both busy with work, and we lived on opposite sides of town, and I knew she had met a guy she really liked, Tom, a lawyer, who seemed to be taking up all her free time. I hadn’t met him yet.

I decided I needed to see Susan to share the details of Arun’s scheme – secrecy be damned. I’d never successfully kept anything from Susan and I knew if I didn’t at least consult her up front I’d do irreparable damage to our relationship later.

Coincidentally, Susan phoned me, the day after the meeting with Arun, to ask me whether I wanted to come to dinner at her place. “A chance to meet Tom,” she said, and how could I refuse that?

Tom wasn’t what I expected. I’m not sure exactly what it was that I expected, but I remember thinking as I first saw Tom, ‘you’re not what I expected’. Maybe I’d expected a lawyer to look more refined, or more buttoned-down, or at least more Ivy League, but Tom was none of those things. He was very tall and solid, probably big enough to have been a pro footballer if he’d had any speed, but he had a severely receding hairline that made him look a lot older than he actually was, and a lot older than Susan. That, with the moustache he sported and the scarring from acne he’d obviously had as a teenager, made him look a little like one of the bad guys in a crime thriller. Maybe like a younger, heftier, James Gandolfini. He certainly looked more like a mobster than a lawyer, and while I could see the chemistry between he and Susan as I watched them together he just didn’t look like the kind of guy who would snare my sister. Obviously I wasn’t a good judge of character.

Dinner was pleasant all the same. Tom looked like the kind of guy who would kill me as soon as shake my hand, but when he smiled it was obviously genuine, and it turned out he had a wicked sense of humor. And I could tell, just from the body language between them that he and Susan had definitely clicked.

While dinner was good, the fact that Tom was there made me reluctant to approach Susan for her advice about the team, and Arun’s proposal. Despite Arun’s assertions that there was nothing illegal in what the team was doing, I definitely didn’t want to discuss something like that in front of a lawyer. When I called her the next day to ask whether we could have coffee, she was pleased, but suspicious. “What is it you want to discuss?”

Because I had to try twice to explain it to her, it was a hard sell. She wasn’t buying several aspects of Arun’s proposal: that it wasn’t cheating; that it wasn’t dangerous; and that it was in any way necessary.

“You have enough money,” she said. “You’re not rich, but you’re certainly not poor.”

I had never gone against Susan’s advice before. But I hadn’t told her the whole truth this time. The ingredient in the proposal I had left out was the chance to get closer to Alice Kim. For some reason I couldn’t tell Susan that. But it was a powerful ingredient. Well, that, and the money. The money was attractive. And so was the idea of winning with math, after years of being tormented for being good at it. It was all attractive. So long as it didn’t turn dangerous, what was there to lose?

 

~o~O~o~
 

Two weeks after we had met for coffee, I accepted Arun’s offer. He once again stressed the need for secrecy – everything the team did had to stay with the team.

“One other thing,” he said after I agreed to join. “You think you could get contacts? Your glasses are distinctive. We try to make sure smurfs are not distinctive if we can help it.”

At first I was pissed at him. Typical of him to be a dick. But on reflection it didn’t seem like a big deal. I’d been half thinking about it anyway over the preceding year. Only memories of some unpleasant incidents from my high school years had held me back. I said I’d consider it.

Arun told me I would be working with the team the following weekend. We were going to Vegas, on the 4pm flight on Friday. I had to make excuses at work, but I managed to swing it. Arun even offered to pick me up from work and take me to the airport.

Arun had sprung for a car service. In the back of the car on the way to the airport he handed me a plastic shopping bag. I opened it, and saw it was full of hundred dollar bills, neatly bundled. I almost said something, but mindful of the driver I simply raised my eyebrows.

“You have some, I have some, Henry and Alice and James and Dan have some,” Arun said. “It minimizes risk.”

“Risk?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot, then looked at the driver before deciding to speak anyway. “If you were manning an X-Ray machine at the airport and saw that, say five times that, in someone’s hand luggage, wouldn’t you say something about it?”

“Won’t they say something about it anyway?”

“Yeah, but small amounts are not unprecedented for one person on the way to Vegas. This is unusual for someone your age, but it’s not going to be a problem.”

It turned out not to be a problem at all. In those pre-911 days, airport security was still very lax. I stuffed most of the money in my carryon, and put a few bundles in my jacket and pants. Nobody at security gave me a second thought. I did think, as we boarded the flight and all sat in separate rows, that Arun was mighty trusting giving me what looked like a hundred thousand dollars in cash. He didn’t even like me.

Once we were in Vegas, we met at the MGM Grand. We were going to be playing a range of casinos over the weekend. The Grand was where we’d be holing up, which meant we wouldn’t be playing there.

In addition to the team I’d met that night at the Mohegan Sun, there were a number of other members. Ziyen Cai and Bob Kwak were both MIT students, recruited by Arun recently. Eliza Hong was a friend of Lucy’s from Radcliffe, and the third woman on the team after Alice and Lucy. Apart from Ziyen, who would be doing security, all of them had been assigned to smurf rank like me. Since the team was expanding so much, it meant we didn’t all need to work every single weekend. It also meant Dan could move up to elf rank.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Looking back on all this now, I think I always had more than one objective when I signed up with Arun. At the time, I rationalized to myself that I was accepting because of the challenge, and because of the lure of getting closer to Alice Kim. In retrospect, I think that's not it, entirely. Even then I didn't really believe I had a chance with Alice, but like the moth and the flame I liked the proximity to her brightness, even though I distrusted it and knew it might be my undoing. And sure, there was the math challenge — it’s not often you get to foreground calculations on Expected Value in daily life.

The main thing, though, was what had driven me mad that sophomore year. The truth was, I didn't like myself much. I had been handed a great life on a plate, but it didn't feel in the slightest bit authentic. Every day, in countless little ways, I somehow felt like an impostor. Maybe it was the Asian-American thing. Maybe I was making excuses.

While the evidence suggested otherwise, I felt like I hadn't really deserved to go to Harvard. I thought I hadn't really deserved the friends I had. I believed I didn't really deserve the life I was leading. There was no obvious reason for any of these feelings, other than a feeling of disconnection from the world, and a solipsistic worldview that came from being wrapped up too much in my own mind and not enough in the cares of others.

I had tried other things to overcome this: volunteering at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter throughout my senior year and then continuing on after I had graduated. But while I felt better about 'giving back', I still didn't feel like I was part of the Shelter Team. That was no reflection on them — the volunteers were all lovely people. It was something wrong with me.

When I joined the Blackjack team, I distrusted Arun but I got to feel like part of a team in a more meaningful way than I had ever felt before. I had never played team sports, apart from cross country which doesn't really count as a collaborative team sport, and I never felt completely accepted at the record hospital or any of the other campus groups. But I could do Math, like few people could. Through Alice, and Arun, I got to feel like a part of something.

I was looking for acceptance. I was looking, although I didn't know it at the time, for an authentic, real existence. It’s more than a trifle ironic that I found it by pretending to be someone else.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The first time I entered a casino as a full member of the team, I was really nervous. The first time at the Mohegan Sun, I’d had no idea what we were doing, so it had all seemed like fun, especially with Alice leading the way. But Arun’s pre-game briefing had been brusque and to the point. He had especially stressed the need for our lookout team of Lucy and Ziyen to ensure we were warned if security looked like they were about to approach one of our players. In the remote chance that one of us was accosted, we were to leave immediately. Under no circumstances, Arun said, should we agree to “talk somewhere private,” which was casino code for back office treatment, usually including a physical work over. Ziyen and Lucy would be circulating within eyesight of each of the teams, and if they folded their arms at any point, we were to get up, take our chips, and head for the exits without cashing in. Arun stressed again we were to leave immediately.

I understood that Arun’s briefing was just part of the discipline of running the team, but I’d begun to worry exactly what it was that I was getting into. I still didn’t trust him.

Fortunately Arun had assigned Dan as an elf to take care of me that first night. Dan was really the oddest choice for a card counter. Huge, he made an impression wherever he went. While he’d done time as a smurf, he was so recognizable it made a lot more sense for him to work as an elf, since only by betting wildly, without any pattern, could he hope to escape suspicion. He would never make a wizard, since he lacked the ‘glam’ factor necessary to pose as one of the rich and famous, but his skill and knowledge of casino operations made him perfect as a lookout. Just having him around made me feel safer. Even if he wasn’t willing to hit anyone, his sheer bulk would be enough to block any security guard and give me time to get away.

I liked Dan enormously. We had a shared interest in computing, although I was better at chess and he was better at coding. He got into trouble while we were at Harvard for hacking into an administration server “just for fun.” It was a mark of Dan's integrity that he didn't actually change his own grades while he had access. At least I assumed that was why he wasn't actually expelled from Harvard.

Mostly, he was just a big, calm, soothing presence whenever I was with him. He once told me, when we were both drunk one night after seeing Pixies play, that he thought of the two of us as the elephant and the mouse. “You scare me, dude,“ he had said. “I always want to, like, feed you or something.“

As we entered the Luxor I smiled. It was so over-the-top. It had only been open for a few years, and was still quite the draw for tourists, but since the old Hacienda next door had lain dormant there was still a lot of traffic that didn’t make it to this end of the strip. We had taken rooms at the MGM Grand further down the strip, and as we entered in ones and twos we each had the time to measure up our surrounds. The atrium was huge, but the faux-Egyptian theme made the whole building seem very silly. Disneyland for grownups who hadn’t really grown up.

As I made my way to the high-stakes section I easily spotted Alice and Ziyen at one table, and Henry and Bob at another. I couldn’t see Lucy and Eliza but they were around somewhere. I made my way over to a table with a few vacant seats and purchased some chips. The table minimum was $50, and the maximum was $10,000 per hand.

After a couple of hands Dan came to join me, but I showed no sign that I knew him. After only 40 minutes I was beginning to think it was going to be a long night. The dealer was inexperienced, and was cutting near the bottom of the deck, but the count still wasn’t going much over +4 at any time – nowhere near high enough to call one of the wizards in. I tried not to think of the team and just play. Sure enough, in the second hour of my play, after I’d had a drink of lime and soda, the count started to rise. When it hit 11 I yawned and stretched my hands over my head – the prearranged signal. Within moments Henry had settled at the table in the number 2 position and had placed what looked like $40,000 in chips on the felt.

“How’s it going?” Henry asked the table in general.

Dan grunted, with a look of disgust, and stepped back from the table to watch rather than play. The thin guy with the string tie next to me muttered, and I said, as casually as I could, “This dealer is making a monkey out of me, but otherwise it’s all good.”

If I’d done my work correctly, the count was +12. That was a big 'if'. Even if my count was correct, there was still the possibility the cards could come out badly for Henry, or at least worse for him than the dealer.

Fortunately, over the next dozen or so hands, Henry cleaned the table like he was using a dustbuster. He drew two aces which he split, and got blackjack on one and twenty on the other, for $12,500 on a single hand. By the time he’d walked away he was at least $45,000 up, and the table was getting cold, with a +5 count. From the corner of my eye I saw Bob signal him, and Henry meandered over to his table, getting a drink along the way.

The rest of the night went quickly. We moved down the strip, to Ceasars Palace, before calling it a night just after dawn and retreating back to the Grand. As Arun and Henry assessed the totals – up $210,000 for the night – I felt elated. We’d worked as a team, as a well-drilled and efficient unit, without ego. Each of us had done their job – and how hard had it been for any of us?

$210,000 profit!

I slept like a baby.

After almost a year of playing regularly in Vegas, the team was working well. We were cautious. We never hit the same casino twice in a month, and most times we never stayed in one place more than a few hours. Because another MIT team had learned it wasn’t safe to stay in the same casino you bet in (in case security got suspicious), we spread ourselves around, and paid for our rooms rather than take advantage of the “high roller” perks our Wizards could have obtained from the casinos. Arun was the consummate card counter, calculating risk at every turn, and he never took risks he didn’t need to.

Arun had been an effective team leader. Over time he overcame most of my reservations about him. I didn’t think I’d ever actually be friends with him, but we had moved on from wanting to scream at one another.

I’d finally gotten a prescription for contacts, but I wasn’t a regular user. No matter how often I tried, there was always something about the act of putting something in my eye that totally squicked me. I got to where I could do it, and play cards for up to 12 hours before the contacts started to irritate, but each and every time I went to put them in was a small challenge. My sister Susan thought I was nuts, especially after the first few weeks. “How hard can this be?” she said. “You wanted contacts, you got contacts. You were expecting LASIK surgery in a can?”

There were times when I thought Susan got all the Jewish genes and I got all the Japanese ones.

There was one additional deterrent to wearing contacts, apart from the squick factor, that I never mentioned to Susan that time, which was that I’d noticed – during the few weeks I’d had them – that whenever I went without glasses there was a possibility, every now and again, that the “Miss” problem I’d had a few years earlier would recur. It wasn’t frequent, but it was enough to send me back to my glasses whenever we weren’t playing the casinos. In fact I felt like investing in a pair of old-school Buddy-Holly glasses, except that it would have seemed too post-ironically hip and I couldn’t have stood the teasing from my friends.

Meanwhile I was no closer to a relationship with Alice. If anything, we’d become firm friends, rather than advancing to boyfriend/girlfriend status as I’d originally hoped. We hung out together a lot, going to movies and having dinner regularly, but I was too cowardly ever to try to turn it into anything more, and Alice never gave any indication of being sexually interested in me. From time to time she hinted at a guy she was seeing, which was a pretty big sign she wasn’t interested in making moves on me, or having me make moves on her, but she kept the identity of the guy secret. She never mentioned him by name, but I got the impression the two of them were very close, and saw each other a couple of times a week. I was mildly curious about who it was, and why she wouldn’t talk about him in detail, but I figured it wasn’t any of my business and she’d tell me when she was ready. In my heart of hearts I clung to the fantasy that she wasn’t talking about him because she didn’t want me to feel jealous, as though there was a possibility I might have some claim on her affections if things didn’t work out with him.

Anyway, the two of us spent a lot of time talking about our respective families, and about the pressure to succeed at our studies, and just generally gossiping about life in Cambridge and the extended social circle of the Harvard and MIT geeks we knew. Looking back on it, it seems like we talked mostly about the kinds of things she talked about with her female friends.

Along the way I’d invested in some stocks, got in on a couple of IPOs. All things considered, I was one of the richest 24 year olds I knew. I had paid off my student loans and credit cards, had about $15,000 in the bank, and more than $35,000 in bundles of cash taped to the back of the refrigerator in my apartment. I owned almost $50,000 in stock investments in companies that had great growth prospects. I even had $10,000 in Microsoft.

I wasn’t as rich a 24 year old as Henry, who had been on the team much longer and was making a spectacle of himself in a red Porsche. One thing about the Harvard community, you can have a lot of money, but showing it around is a faux pas.

Apart from not getting closer to Alice, or any other woman, life was going okay. I'd had to drop the volunteer work at the Shelter because I was out of town so much, but I'd been donating a bit more to charity to try to compensate. I felt vaguely guilty about leaving, but the nature of the Shelter is that it relies on the assistance of volunteers from the student body, and I rationalized to myself that it was time to make way for a new wave now that I was no longer a student. If I gave some money, that was some compensation. It didn't feel like enough, but it was better than just turning my back on the place.

There was something else in the back of my mind that was bothering me, a dissatisfaction that I couldn’t pin down, not related to relationships or the Shelter or work or family, but I was too busy to give myself much time to drill into it. It was the first beginnings of some kind of self-realization, but I shoved it back down in my subconscious in the hope it would go away. Anyway, what with work, blackjack, and my limited social life with Alice, I hardly ever had an hour free, and I was almost never home in Somerville except to hit the mattress, grab some clothes, shower and head out the door again. I barely saw my friend Pete. We still got along okay whenever we did happen to be in the house together, but in earlier times we mostly used to grab a beer and listen to music at some bars on the weekends. Now I wasn't in town on weekends we occasionally crossed paths in the evening during the week, but that was about it.

I hadn’t spoken to my parents in Nebraska in a long time either, on account of spending every weekend at the blackjack tables, but I saw Susan pretty regularly, going across town one night each week for dinner. She and Tom were serious, and I thought there was a real prospect of something long term there, which made me happy. I loved Susan. I liked Tom, and I really liked that he made her happier than she’d ever been.

In order to get to Susan’s more often I had bought myself a car, a modest Volkswagen Jetta. It gave me more mobility, even though parking near my house was a bitch. I began to think of moving out of the shared place we had in Somerville and finding a place of my own, and began to look at listings in nearby Alston.

Arun decided we might be hitting Vegas a little hard, especially since we had expanded the team, so he decided we should spend a month hitting Atlantic City, some New York State and Connecticut casinos and some smaller places in the South.
 

~o~O~o~
 
It was in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that we had our first trouble.

It was never going to be an easy place for us to play. It’s small, and most of the people who play there are middle-aged white people, or guys off the oil plants in Port Arthur across the border. A bunch of Asians and Indians stood out, even when we pretended we didn’t know one another.

But the cards fell well. I called Henry into a +10 hand pretty early in the evening, and even though the table cooled he moved off, to something Alice called soon after, with a healthy profit.

I didn’t see it coming, but after only a couple of hours of play I noticed Lucy run her hands through her hair – the signal to abandon ship, and quickly. We had just finished a round and the dealer was about to offer me the cut, but instead I gathered all my chips together as quickly as I could and made for the door. As arranged, I didn’t look for anyone else, but caught a cab from the casino to our motel in Baton Rouge, some 60 miles away. The cab driver was happy with the enormous fare and the generous tip I gave him.

Dan beat me to the motel. He’d driven one of the rental cars we’d taken to the casino, with Lucy. We sat in one of the motel rooms, waiting for the others. I didn’t need to ask what happened; Dan volunteered the information as soon as the cab driver pulled away. “Four of them,” he said. “They were definitely on to us. You get your chips?”

I nodded, and walked into the motel room. Inside Lucy, Eliza, Alice and Ziyen were watching a Christian news channel. They all looked slightly glazed. I decided to stand by the door with Dan, waiting for Arun and Bob and Henry.

Arun and Bob showed up not long afterward in the other rental, but there was no sign of Henry. After a grilling from Arun, who wanted to be debriefed on everything, I stopped waiting by the door and went and sat on the bed with Alice and Lucy. Eliza sat in the chair near the door. After verifying that everyone had retrieved their chips, Arun said he was going to make some calls to the team’s lawyer, and he, Bob, Ziyen and Dan went into the other motel room.

Lucy, Alice, Eliza and I zoned out for at least a half hour. I took my shoes and socks off and put my legs up on the bed, stretched out. There wasn’t much to say. We were all assuming that Henry had been taken to one of the back rooms, and each of us imagined it vividly enough without talking about it.

“Want to go into Baton Rouge?” Alice asked, during a break in shows on the Christian channel.

“What’s in Baton Rouge?” Lucy asked.

She had a point.

We watched on. In the room next door I could hear Arun and Dan arguing. Lucy began to paint her nails. When she finished she offered to do Alice’s, then Eliza's and when she was done with Eliza she started in on mine. At her first touch I was about to pull away, but I realized any distraction was better than none, and it wasn’t like Susan hadn’t painted my nails at least once when we were kids. I agreed to let her do them, provided we could switch to watching something other than Christian current affairs shows pillorying Bill Clinton. We settled on an old Burt Lancaster film on TBS and I ended up with a nice set of electric blue toenails.

After about two hours of phone calls and arguments Arun came back into our room with Dan. “Well, they have got Henry,” he said, confirming what we all already knew. “Our lawyer Jeff knows someone local who’s making some calls to the Casino. We’ll see.” He looked over at me. “Nice pedicure, Alex.”

A few hours after that, as it was getting closer to dawn, Jeff’s lawyer friend drove up to the motel with Henry, who was badly bruised and swollen from the beating he’d received. Dan and I put Henry to bed. Then Garrett, the lawyer, met with Arun and Dan and outlined what he’d learned.

The Casino knew everyone on the team. They’d figured out four of us before they got Henry, and he gave up the rest. None of us could blame him considering the way he looked.

Dan was incensed about the beating and wanted to file charges against the Casino, but the lawyer advised him against it. “This is Louisiana. Things are different down here. And besides, admit it, y’all were counting, right? No matter what we argue, it’s going to be a bunch of Ivy League smart asses against casino owners who make it their business to know most of the politicians, and all the judges, in this state.”

He paused, for effect. “The problem y’all have isn’t with the casino. Those guys aren’t the sharpest pencils. It’s the security agency they’ve hired to run security for them, Whitwell Investigations. Those guys are connected, and they work all over. If you’re busted here, you’re going to get busted other places.”

Just after dawn the lawyer left and we gathered in the room Henry wasn’t sleeping in, to discuss a way of dealing with the chips we had. There was about ninety thousand in chips. Alice, Lucy and Bob were for writing it off as a loss, and just quitting town. Dan, Ziyen and Arun weren’t keen on that idea.

“I don’t see any way for any of us to go in there and redeem them,” I said, as the last to volunteer an opinion. “It’s not like we didn’t stick out last night.”

“True,” Arun said. “But I don’t like the idea of just leaving all that money. If nothing else, we should give the profit from last night – that’s about thirty thousand – to Henry. He’s going to need some time off.”

“Is there anyone local we can ask?” Henry asked. “What about Garrett?”

“Already asked,” Arun said. “It’s not something he can do. They know him there. He has to live here. Being a lawyer is one thing. Being a bag man is another.”

“Well, what else? Fly someone in? Jeff?” Dan asked.

Arun dismissed it out of hand. “We need to move quickly. The overnighters will have finished. There will be new staff on by now. They won’t know us. There’s a chance, for that kind of money, if they know how much we have, the Casino will change out a set of chips some time today. One of us has to go back, before they change up.” He paused for emphasis. “For Henry.”

I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. “You know,” he said more to Lucy, Eliza and Alice than any of the rest of us, “if one of us looked different enough, it could work.”
 

~o~O~o~
 
Two hours later I was walking through the doors of the Lake Charles Casino in one of Lucy’s casual dresses, my hair loose, my eyebrows thinned, my legs shaved, clopping on Eliza's two inch summer heels I made an annoying sound in. I felt completely ridiculous.

Dan had driven me there, but for obvious reasons had stayed with the car. “You look good, dude,” he said.

He was trying to reassure me, but I wasn’t buying it. When Arun had first suggested it I had thought he was joking. “Why not put a moustache on Lucy instead?” I joked.

But it was no joke. “Luce, what do you think?” Arun said.

Lucy was already circling. I felt Alice take my hand in sympathy.

“Alex is the least foreign-looking,” she said. “He has pale skin. And he’s small. With the right look …”

“It would have to be completely different,” Alice said.

Everyone seemed to be in agreement about that.

The “for Henry” part was what got me. “You’ll really give thirty thousand to Henry for last night if I do this?” I asked Arun.

“Absolutely”.

After the kind of transformation Lou Reed used to sing about, I was looking at myself in the mirror, simultaneously revulsed and curious. A big part of me had always been trying to prove what a man I was. I had always tried to compensate for my size by trying to convince myself I looked at least adequately masculine. As a teenager the times I had been called “Miss” had stung, and I’d been determined, ever since I arrived at college, to put that behind me. I wasn’t really trying to be macho, but I didn’t ever want to endure the kind of ridicule I’d had in high school in Nebraska again.

So I had protested very, very loudly when Lucy had started plucking my eyebrows, because I was sure that it would look ridiculous. But she had merely refined them, made the arch slightly more pronounced. It opened up my eyes. And the really scary part was, I didn’t look all that bad.

I looked a lot more like my sister Susan. Not exactly like her. My nose was just a little bigger, my forehead maybe ever so slightly broader, maybe my mouth ever so slightly different. But I looked a lot more like her than my masculine self-image was comfortable with.

Lucy didn’t help by commenting on how good my skin was. “You have no beard, Alex,” she said. Another sore point with me. My father was hairy as a goat, but none of that had been passed on to me. It can’t just have been my Japanese genes, because a lot of Japanese men have heavy beards. Whatever it was, I had some faint hair on my legs, but almost nothing on my face. Apart from some minor fuzz on my lip, a dozen or so hairs on my chin, and a couple on the sides of my jaw, I had no facial hair at all. I probably had less than a lot of women. I could probably have plucked them out, but I diligently shaved every day, anyway, almost to prove to myself I had to. Like Alice and Lucy, my skin was smooth and evenly toned, if paler than theirs. While I didn’t inherit Asian skin coloring, I did lack the freckles or blemishes that often characterizes Caucasian skin. One of the side effects had been that people always thought I was younger. Now it meant they were going to think I was more female.

My hair had about ten pounds of product in it, and had been teased out to make my face look so much smaller by comparison. While she was drying it Alice made jokes about me fitting right in with the Dolly Parton School of cosmetology. Fortunately Arun had nixed the idea of the girls dying my hair – they had wanted to bleach it – on the grounds there wasn’t enough time. But still – I had big hair, for an Asian chick. Big.

Wearing lipstick was the strangest thing. I could feel it on my lips, every time they touched together. When Lucy first got me to apply it I immediately went to rub it off, because it felt so odd. But she insisted I leave it on, and showed me how to blot it. Then she made me practice reapplying it so it would look okay by the time Dan and I got to Lake Charles.

“I just have to remember not to open my mouth,” I said.

“Why?” Lucy asked.

“My voice will give me away.”

“Your voice isn’t deep at all, Alex. If you’re worried, just try to be a little more musical when you speak. But really, you have a nice tone already. Just talk normally, you’ll be fine.”

Great. One more strike against my ego.

The dress they put me in wasn’t too bad. It was pale blue and white, and came down to my knees. Before we left Dan took a photograph of me with a little disposable cardboard camera he’d picked up at the convenience store while Lucy was getting me ready. I’ve seen that photograph many times since then, and what strikes me most about it is how awkward I look. For some reason the thing that bothered me most about wearing the dress wasn’t that it was a dress – it was that I couldn’t figure out where to put my hands.

As Dan drove I wasn’t sure what to be more nervous about: being beaten by casino thugs, or arrested as a transvestite. God only knew what that could mean in a place like Louisiana. When Dan said “you look good”, the part of me that was worried about being arrested went into overdrive, and I guess that was enough to get me out of the car, away from him, and into the casino.

Walking into the casino I had a different surge of panic – the kind of panic about whether or not I was going to be dragged to the back room. I was sure everyone was looking at me. Sure enough there were several people looking at me, and I looked away to avoid meeting their gaze for more than a moment. Instead I went straight to the window and cashed the chips.

The Cashier was startled – it’s not often, in a small casino, that someone redeems almost one hundred thousand in chips at 10am on a Sunday morning. The Cashier went and fetched her supervisor, who looked me up and down suspiciously from his office door, but okayed the transaction. Then they had to get another, more senior supervisor because the Casino didn’t have that much cash in the cage, and they had to get it from the vault. I watched as two security guys carried some metal tins into the cage. Surely these guys would be suspicious of me? It was only a few hours earlier that a team of Asians had been run out of the joint, and now an Asian “girl” was redeeming a huge pile of chips. It occurred to me that the guys carrying the cash probably weren’t connected to the guys from the security agency who beat on Henry, but it didn’t make me any less nervous.

I stood at the window, nervous, trying to hold myself together without shaking, sure that the delay was actually something they were staging so they could get someone from the security agency back. I took the time to fill out the requisite IRS declaration.

After about eight or nine agonizing minutes that I spent trying to avoid making eye contact, shuffling from one heel to the other, tugging nervously at my purse and twisting my hair with my finger, the cashier handed over the money to me in large stacks. I signed the slip in the name “Alex Jones” with my male driver’s license as ID, but the cashier didn’t seem to read too much of the detail on the license and anyway the photo on it wasn’t all that different than the way I looked, if you ignored the big hair and makeup. I stashed the bills into the oversized purse Alice had lent to me and made for the door as fast as I could without running.

Dan and I were halfway to Lafayette before I stopped shaking.
 

~o~O~o~
 
I can’t remember the very first time I was mistaken for a girl. Maybe I was two or three. I don’t remember. I know from looking at old family photos that Mom used to dress Susan and me pretty much alike when I was very young. Not that she dressed me as a girl, exactly, just that we were often dressed in unisex clothing. There’s one photo, which Mom and Dad still have on the mantelpiece, that shows Susan and me in matching white parkas with fur around the hood, jeans and snow boots, which I think was taken when I was three and she was five. You can’t really tell the sex of either of us, but since both of us had longish hair at that age, and the parkas were white. I guess most people would assume it was a photo of two little girls. And there’s another, taken when I was twelve, when I also had long hair. I’m wearing a pale blue t-shirt – I think it was something I got from school after I aced the AHMSE (American High School Mathematics Examination), because I remember Carl Choi had the same t-shirt – and looking back over my shoulder at the camera, with my hair partially tucked behind one ear. It’s all very soft focus, taken in the back yard by my uncle Aaron on a beautiful summer evening in that golden hour before dusk in late summer, and I do look like a girl in that shot. It’s probably the way I put my hair back like that. And, you know, the fact that my prepubescent face still had that kiddie softness, I guess.

Anyway, notwithstanding the photographic evidence, I did get mistaken for a girl quite a lot when I was a very small kid. At the time, oddly, it didn’t bother me. I remember being with Hal once, when we were walking near his house, and some kids I didn’t know, but who obviously knew him, teased him about having a girlfriend. I think we were both about nine. I think Hal was going to correct them, to spare himself embarrassment, but then he obviously thought about what being seen with a boy who looked like a girl might invite in the way of embarrassment, and he and I just walked on and tried to ignore them.

After we were out of earshot of the other boys, he said to me “Why didn’t you say something?”

All I could do was shrug. “It didn’t seem like such a big deal. They obviously have bad eyesight.”

“I couldn’t bear it,” Hal said.

“What?”

“If someone thought I was a girl.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“I know that, dummy … But … if they did … I would have hit them.”

“You still could, you know,” I said to him, gesturing back behind us to where the boys had been.

“They didn’t think I was a girl,” Hal said.

“I know that, dummy.” I said, and laughed at him. Sometimes my friends were a little out there on the normal-o-meter.

“You don’t mind?”

“Why should I mind if someone else is an idiot?” I said. “If I was the one who made a mistake …”

There were a few other occasions, at the mall, in a cafe with my family, at a Huskers game, where there were mistakes made. But the first really humiliating time had to have been at school.

It was the start of 10th grade, the first week of our sophomore year, and there was a new girl at school, Kelly. I’d seen her in the corridor the previous day, looking slightly lonely, but when I noticed her later in the day she appeared to be in conversation with Anne Sorenson, who I most certainly did not get along with, so I never got around to saying hello to Kelly properly. Not that I did it regularly with other girls at school anyway, but, you know, my mother had raised me to be polite. Anyway, the following day, Fall Sports Picture Day, we all had to get ourselves over to the bleachers on the baseball field. Usually they did the photos in the football stadium, but not that year. I don’t know why.

It was a hot August day. I had tied my hair up under a cap, an Angels baseball cap, but as we were walking over Bob Gatenby stole it right off my head, destroying the elastic that held my hair back in the process. “Can’t wear anything except Huskers, Jones, you know that,” he said. I would have protested except I knew it would lead to worse. Bob Gatenby was even less evolved than your regular high school bully. Pleistocene, maybe.

The result was, I had no hat on, in the hot August sun, and my hair was loose. It was long enough it fell down past my shoulders. I only got my hair cut about once a year, and even then I left it long.

It turned out once they got all of us out to the field, that they were nowhere near ready to take photos of the cross country team. That was my sport. My one gesture toward something physical. I was pretty good at it. Not good enough to be a star, but good enough not to disgrace myself my freshman year in the under 14s. Running doesn’t take a lot of hand-eye co-ordination, so I found it pretty easy. Anything that involved something like natural grace – that was right out of the question. But running I could do.

Because my hair was out, the new girl that year, Kelly Gatzenmeyer, mistook me for a girl. That got the mean girls started on me. “Hey Jones,” Anne Sorenson called across the bleachers. “Don’t you belong on the girls’ team?”

The catcalls started. The noise built to a fair crescendo before Mr. Bartlett got them settled again.

Leaving the field, heading back toward the south entrance after the photos were done, Anne approached me, holding out a crimson ribbon, the kind that all the girls on track wore. “If you still want to put your hair up,” she said, smiling. It was a vicious, cruel smile. Behind her I could see Kelly the new girl and a dozen other people, laughing like it was the funniest thing they’d seen. Standing behind all of them was John Ostermeyer, who until then I had counted as a friend. He wasn’t laughing, but he wasn’t defending me, either. He was looking at me in an odd way, as though he had only just noticed me for the first time.
 

~o~O~o~
 
John was my best friend. Pretty much my only close friend at High School, for that matter. It hadn’t started out that way. For a long time, he kept his distance. He was one of the favored few, a defensive back on the football team, which granted him immunity from everything. Unlike the rest of the football team, he had a brain, and he had good looks on his side as well. It was probably his brain that contributed most to his attitude. Unlike Bob Gatenby, for example, John was quiet, well-mannered, and modest.

We didn’t see much of one another until late in my freshman year. It was the day after Veteran’s Day, and the first really cold day we’d had since school started. At morning break, I tried my usual ‘be invisible’ routine in the corridor, and walked toward the south entrance. I had discovered early that to be noticed was to invite trouble, and I believed I’d perfected some kind of stealth routine that made me invisible to the three species of real bully and twelve lesser bullies that inhabited the school. I knew them all. The first week they had ignored me, but I discovered late that it was because they had assumed I was a girl. I missed out first gym class, so it wasn’t until the second week they discovered the truth. And then, of course, I was fair game.

Bullying is a strange thing. There’s a fine line, somewhere, between the kind of talking back to a bully that destabilizes him, and the kind of talking back that further enrages him. At that stage of high school, I hadn’t learned how to do the former, so every word I uttered made my situation worse.

That day after Veteran’s Day, I was skulking down the corridor toward the south entrance, stealth mode on, when something went wrong and I found myself face to face with Bob Gatenby. The usual exchange of pleasantries took place, culminating in me, in an attempt to disarm him with my cleverness, impugning the size of his manhood. He proceeded to try to stuff me into the trash can positioned just inside the door. He was quite good at it, had my head inside in a flash, but he had some difficulty getting the rest of me to follow. I was making ‘unhpsf unf humnf’ noises when I felt myself being lifted out again. Instinctively I flinched, waiting for the punch to the gut that was Bob’s trademark closer, but it never came.

Instead, it was John Ostermeyer holding me. He had lifted me, completely, into the air by my waist. He moved his hands about as he tried to set me upright, but he got me down to the floor without too much trouble. Beside him was his friend Jim Brauch, someone I didn't know well at the time but always stayed clear of on account of he was a football player and thereby tainted by association. Behind John and Jim I could see Gatenby and two of his confederates, scowling. Instinctively I moved behind John and Jim to shield myself from them. John turned around to face Gatenby again, and said the thirteen sweetest words I ever heard in my whole school life.

“Leave him alone. Anything happens to Alex, anything, I’ll come looking for you.”

They skulked off, mumbling whatever it is that bullies mumble when they’re unhappy.

John turned to me. “You okay?” Man, he was so much taller than me. And massive. Huge. At least twice my weight, but then any football player was. My freshman year I weighed maybe 90lbs.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He turned to go.

“Uh,” I said, and he turned back.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked.

He didn’t pause to think. “Because it was the right thing to do.”

That was my introduction to John Ostermeyer. He defended me, on and off, for the remainder of my school life. He didn’t make a thing of it, exactly. He never interfered in any verbal exchange I got into. But in anything physical, he always stood for me.

 

~o~O~o~
 
The full impact of what I’d done at Lake Charles didn’t kick in until we got to the airport in Baton Rouge for the flight back. I had scrubbed off the makeup, brushed my hair flatter, removed the polish on my fingers (but not my toes) and changed back into black jeans, a t-shirt and a denim jacket, but at the check-in counter the attendant called me “Miss,” then did a double take when she saw “Jones, Alexander” on the ticket stub.

“Is this your ticket, uh –“ I watched her eyes go to my face, then my chest. An Asian named Jones always seemed strange to people. My complete lack of breasts seemed to confuse her more.

“Yes. Yes, it is.” I sighed. In those pre-911 days it wasn’t always necessary to show photo ID at check-in, but I pulled my wallet from my back pocket, where I always kept it, and waved the ID at her.

Alice and Dan had checked in with me, and they thought this was hilarious. “Dude,” Dan said. “I told you, you looked good.” His laughter subsided when he could see I wasn’t particularly happy. But then at the security checkpoint I got another “Miss”, and a “Ma’am”, which I guess was almost better since at least they weren’t confused about my age, and Alice tucked her arm into mine, giggling, as we walked from the X-Ray point.

Dan thought better of laughing again, and departed for the men's room. Alice dragged me over to some chairs in the lounge and we sat together. She was still smiling. We had another thirty minutes until our flight.

“It’s not funny,” I said. “This hasn’t happened in a long time …”

“In a long time?” Alice looked at me curiously.

“I used to get mistaken for a girl when I was younger.”

“It’s the eyebrows. I’m sorry. I thought Lucy was going overboard. They’ll grow back.”

“How fucking long will that take?” I said. I was going into a deep funk.

She tried another tack. “Alex, you did the right thing. You did a good thing.”

“I’m going to pay for it.”

“It was for Henry,” she said.

“Well I hope he fucking appreciates it.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. “I need to get these contacts out,” I said. “So I can put my glasses on.” I wondered whether I should go into the restroom to do that. It seemed somehow unhygienic. But there didn’t seem to be an easy way to do it in the departure lounge.

“It’s probably not a consolation,” Alice said, obviously giving up on trying to cheer me up. “But you really do make a very beautiful woman.”

“No,” I retorted. “It’s not a consolation at all.”

“Well, if you were ugly … I’m just saying …”

“What, exactly?”

“You’re a good looking person, Alex. Regardless of which sex you are.”

“Thanks. I think. You win the Jerry Lewis award for backhanded compliments.” I retrieved my glasses from my backpack and put them on. Wearing them while I was still wearing contacts was obviously not going to work – everything looked blurry. I took the glasses off again and tucked them in the top pocket of my jacket.

“I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

“It’s not working.”

On the flight I tried to catch up on some sleep, which was easy. The lack of sleep overnight, combined with the episode at the casino that morning, had drained all the energy out of me. I took off my jacket, placed it in the overhead locker with my backpack, and settled back with a blanket. Next thing I knew we were landing at Logan.

It was very late on a Sunday night when I finally got in the door, and the house was quiet, for which I was grateful. I didn’t want to deal with the whole eyebrow issue with either of my housemates, and especially not with Pete.

It was only as I was readying myself for bed, and had taken my contacts out, that I discovered my glasses were no longer in my jacket pocket. Frantically I searched all my bags, pockets, everything. They must have fallen out of my jacket when I stowed it in the overhead locker. I phoned American Airlines to see if they’d been turned in, but at 11.30pm I didn’t get the world’s most helpful response.

The next day at work was awful. Without glasses, I needed to wear my contacts, so I knew I’d have to try to find some way to make myself look less sexually ambiguous. It was our first really cold Fall day, so I was wearing several layers under my coat, and my clunkiest, manliest boots, but on the T I got lots of looks I’d never noticed before — from men.

When I came into the office Chloe, our receptionist, did a double-take. “Alex, you’re looking so fresh. Did you do something with your hair?” Then Matt, one of my co-workers and probably the biggest asshole in the company, wolf-whistled at me.

I rode it out in silence, but by lunchtime I had a wicked tension headache, and I was cranky as all hell to anyone that came near me. I made a phone call to my ophthalmologist to get the prescription for my glasses so I could get a new pair. The woman who answered the phone told me I’d have to come in to collect it, and that Monday was a huge day of suck because there were some serious issues with one of the servers that proved very difficult to diagnose. So I didn’t get to the ophthalmologist on Monday at all.

The second morning at work, before I picked up the prescription, was about the longest morning of my life. Matt was being conspicuously unpleasant, and in the weekly status meeting he made more than one really stupid joke about the company’s policy on sex changes. He was so bad, in fact, that Justin, our boss, reprimanded him in front of everyone else. “As it happens, Matt, the company does have a policy on gender reassignment. And it’s a policy of tolerance and compassion. So if I hear anything but tolerance and compassion from you it will be referred to HR.” As he said this Justin looked over to me as though he expected me to be grateful for his support. I was, but not in the way he thought. I appreciated that he stuck up for me in front of Matt, but not that he stuck up for me because he thought I was becoming a woman.

At lunchtime I finally managed to make it to the ophthalmologist. Then, prescription in hand, I went to get a pair made. Right from the start I could tell the sales clerk in the store thought I was a woman, because the styles she started suggesting were all very pretty. Sighing, I steered over to some more masculine styles.

I found a heavy-rimmed pair that looked about as butch as a pair of glasses could look, and the sales clerk looked doubtful. I was insistent, and she wrote the order up. “It will take until next Monday.”

“Monday!” I shrieked. “Monday? How can it take that long?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s just what the computer tells me. Maybe it’s the lenses you selected.”

I went back to the office prepared for several days more torment.

I stopped for takeout Chinese on the way home and got “Miss” again. Then, when I got home, Talia was there. That was unusual. Talia was almost never home. Mostly she stayed at her girlfriend Jill’s. When she saw me she raised an eyebrow in a question, like “what the fuck?”, and I sighed, and shrugged, and didn’t say anything except for “Hi Talia. Don’t ask.” I was going to offer to share the Chinese with her but I could see she was already onto Pizza, so I grabbed the takeout cartons and went straight to my room.

After a few minutes of fruitless pre-Google searching on the Web, I phoned Susan. “Susan, is there a way to make eyebrows look thicker?”

“Why do you ask? Do you need to look like a caveman all of a sudden?”

“It’s complicated. Let’s just say I let someone pluck mine, and it’s creating problems for me.”

“You let someone pluck your eyebrows?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Is there something I should know?” Susan asked.

“Huh?”

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Like what?” I snapped.

“Well, like why?”

“Can I come over?” I sighed. I needed someone who could help. Or sympathize. Sympathy would help a little.

“Of course. Have you eaten?”

I looked at my Chinese. I’d only taken a few bites. I didn’t really have an appetite. “Yes.”

“Okay. Well, come over anyway. See you soon.”
 

~o~O~o~

---

 
The thing I hadn’t counted on was Tom being at Susan’s. He was the one that opened the door. For a moment I could see he was about to ask me what I wanted, then he did that strange, quick reassessment I’d been seeing in other people, and said. “Alex. What the fuck?”

I shrugged. What was I going to say? “It’s a long story, Tom. Can I come in?”

He ushered me in. “Man, I thought you were Susan for a moment. If I hadn’t just seen her in the kitchen …”

“Thanks, Tom. Makes me feel great.”

“Well … There’s something different, right? Makes you look like a chick?”

I took my coat off and hung it on the rack in the entrance hall. I patted my chest. “No boobs, Tom.”

He looked embarrassed. “Uh, yeah, whatever … Susan’s in the kitchen.”

I found Susan in the kitchen plating some stir fried beef and steamed rice. She glanced sideways when she saw me come in. “Sure you won’t eat?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I said. “I sure could use a drink, though.”

She finished shaking some of the stir fry from the wok and looked up through her hair at me. Then she straightened up and looked me over more closely. “Jesus, Alex, what did you do?”

“Eat your food. We can talk over dinner.”

Susan carried the food to the table, then fetched another glass and placed it next to the bottle of red wine that was already opened. “So,” she said, motioning both Tom and I to sit, “You look quite … interesting, Alex. I think interesting is the right word. Tell me how this little fashion contretemps came about.”

I looked warily at Tom, then at Susan. “You remember I told you I was going to play blackjack?”

“Blackjack?” Tom said. It was obvious Susan only told him some things, not everything. That was reassuring. Sort of. Then I remembered Susan had told me not to join Arun’s team, and that I’d never really got around to telling her I’d ignored her advice.

So I took a large slug of the wine in my glass, and started the long tale that led to where we were, sitting at the table …

 

~o~O~o~
 

The next day, I called in sick rather than go into work. A braver man than I would have gone in, on the principle that any day had to be better than the two days before, but after the evening at Susan’s, when I’d drunk too much wine and had to end up on her couch because I was too drunk to drive, I thought a day off for better behavior was in order.

Tom had been helpful. I had figured out, over dinner and wine, what it really was that Susan saw in him, apart from the beefsteak body and winning smile: he was really good at listening, and he never missed a chance to inject some humor into the situation. In fact he gave me a mercilessly hard time, sending up my ambitions with the team, comparing us to bad television shows like The A-Team and Charlie's Angels, and rolling around in his seat with laughter during the description of my feminization at the hands of Lucy and Alice, but it was levity I needed, because I was feeling particularly sorry for myself after a whole two days of being called “Miss.” After his initial double take at the door, Tom didn’t make me feel like it was a huge burden. If anything, he got Susan and I to laugh about it too. And I was really, really glad about that, because despite all the laughter I could tell, right through the night, that Susan was really pissed that I had ignored her advice about joining Arun’s team.

Susan hadn’t been able to offer any advice on how to thicken my eyebrows. She didn’t have an eyebrow pencil – as she said, nobody had used those things much since the 1960s – but she tried sketching in some extra brows using eyeliner and it just looked silly. I supposed eyebrow pencil would look equally silly. Or gay. And while I wasn’t sure I liked being mistaken for a woman, it seemed safer, or at least less uncomfortable, than being mistaken for gay.

“Why do you think that is, Alex?” Susan had asked me. I was embarrassed to admit I didn’t have a good answer.

“Because one of them is obviously a mistake,” Tom had said, and both Susan and I had looked at him like we had no idea what he was talking about.

“Being a woman,” Tom had said. “Once you find out it’s not the case, it’s like, ‘stupid me’ because it’s a case of misunderstanding. If I think at first glance someone is a woman, and it turns out they’re not, then I just think ‘boy I’m stupid’. But thinking someone is gay … It’s not something that’s easy to get out of your head, or disprove. So I get where Alex is coming from. It’s less embarrassing, somehow, to be mistaken for a woman, because you can disprove that one.”

It gave me something to think about, all through the day off work. I was embarrassed – stung even – whenever someone called me ‘Miss,’ but it didn’t make me uneasy, at least not in the way the “gay” taunts some of the kids at school had thrown at me did. Being mistaken for a woman was probably transient – my eyebrows would grow back.

But I had to leave Nebraska for the gay taunts to go away.

I guess the taunts didn’t go away, come to think of it. I did.

All in all, whether or not people thought I was gay actually wouldn't matter all that much. It seemed like at least a third of my graduating class was gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Several people were into the poly scene. Nobody would give a damn what I did.

If I had demons to face about being mistaken for a woman, or being considered gay, they were my personal demons. They had nothing to do with my life in Boston. And I could never see myself moving back to Nebraska.

I let myself out of Susan’s house around 11:00am and drove home. Parking in Somerville was such a bitch that I couldn’t find anything close to home, which didn’t improve my mood any. When I got home, I collected the mail, and let myself in. Nobody else was home, which was good. I had been back three days but still wasn’t ready to face my housemates looking the way I did. I wondered what Alice was up to. Maybe I could avoid seeing the housemates by hanging out with her that afternoon. So long as we didn’t drink. My hangover wasn’t ready for that.

“What are you up to?” I asked when I called her.

“Looking at information on PhD programs,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve got enough money I can keep going in school next year without killing myself. I’m debt free, and then some,” she said. “You must be okay too, right?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Why a PhD? Aren't you like super-educated already?”

“Blackjack’s not my life, Alex. You know that.”

“I never said it was … but you’ve got the whole Artificial Intelligence thing going on.”

“It’s not enough. I’ll never get ahead unless I do at least a Ph.D. With my Masters I can get perhaps a mid-level job in Information Retrieval.“

“Really?“ I had no idea what went into being an expert in AI. For that matter, I wasn't sure what a mid-level job in Information Retrieval meant. Writing algorithms?

“You need to consider your future, too,” Alice said.

“I am. I was thinking of maybe buying a house, though.”

“Really? You don’t think you’ll ever go to grad school?”

“Haven’t thought about it,” I said. I guess by not thinking about it I was putting it aside for good.

“You should. You’re too smart to work as a sysadmin all your life.”

I snorted. “No way that would ever happen.”

“Well, plan for something, then.” She obviously sensed the need to change the subject. “How are you coping with the eyebrows?”

“I could use some help. Any ideas?”

“Nope. I was thinking about it last night.”

“It’s driving me mad,” I said.

“You look cute when you’re mad,” Alice giggled.

“Ack! I don’t want to look cute!”

This made her laugh out loud.

“Seriously, Alice, I need help. Really. I feel like a walking freakshow.”

She stopped laughing. “I’m sorry, Alex. I know. I could see it was bugging you on Sunday. Why don’t you come over and we can talk about it?”

A half hour later I was at Alice’s. She lived in a nice, upscale apartment in Kendall Square. I’d been there a couple of times, but never for very long. She had been there when she was an undergraduate, and I wondered how she could afford it on the small allowance from her scholarship. Her parents must have been loaded. I never wanted to ask, because Alice seemed to guard her privacy very closely. When she talked about her youth, it was in very general terms. I knew she had been to a pricey prep school before getting into Harvard, and that her parents lived in an upscale part of Connecticut, but beyond that, I didn't know much at all.

“Thanks for having me over,” I said, after she’d made some green tea. We sat on the couch together. Alice reached over and flicked my hair.

“You could cut your hair,” she said. “That might be a start.”

I weighed it up. Most of the reason I kept my hair long was actually just laziness – I really didn’t like the experience of having it cut. Maybe it was because most hairdressers in Cambridge had no idea how to cut Asian hair anyway. But I wasn’t really attached to the idea of having long hair. I had cut it years ago, to avoid precisely the same kind of problem I was having now.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” she said. “Besides, it might be nice to see your face a little better.”

Alice moved into “take charge” mode, and within a few minutes had made an appointment for me with a hairdresser nearby. “You can trust her,” she said. “I’ve been going to her since I got here. And she said she can fit you in at the end of the day today.”

“She cuts guys, right?”

“Of course,” Alice said. “You think I want to make the problem worse?”

So we sat and talked for a few hours, while I waited to leave for my appointment. She showed me brochures on some of the Doctoral programs she was looking into. Most of them had something to do with A.I. They looked interesting, if you were into that kind of thing. I said as much.

“So what are you planning to do with your brain, Alex?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “Poetry?”

“Well, there’s a good MFA program in Baltimore,” Alice said. “No, really, there is.”

“Alice,” I said gently. “I was joking.” I thought she would know that. My favorite subjects at Harvard had been in physics. I had been one of Feldman’s favorite pupils. I had no real experience with English, or any other language, as either prose or poetry. I did take 'Rebirth and Karma in Indian Literature and Ritual,' in my junior year, but that was mostly because I was in lust with Amrita Roa, one of the TAs in my house that had recommended the course, and because it was all I could take to complete Harvard’s infamous Core. Not that my lust for Amrita ever went anywhere. Whatever. Core Core Core. Sanskrit is actually interesting.

On the core core core comment just there: I think Harvard is unique in having a “core“ of subjects that you have to complete regardless of your major. It’s all part of the idea of a balanced education. As an undergraduate I hated it, as most students hate it, because the range of subjects available seemed to have little to do with what I was actually interested in. In retrospect I was kind of glad I had done them. But if you ever meet a Harvard grad, all you need to say is “Core“ and you’ll notice a kind of twitch immediately.

I poured us both some more tea and looked at one of the pamphlets Alice had from the Office of Career Services at Harvard. It had a checklist for people considering further study. Alice had obviously been through this for her masters at MIT, but it was all new to me. The fourth question, which was supposed to discourage applicants who weren’t committed enough, asked: “Do you feel ready for graduate school or are you responding to expectations from family, friends or peers?” The question immediately after that was “Are you considering graduate school as an exciting intellectual and professional challenge or is it a way to delay entering the ‘Real World’ or avoid a job search?”

“Well?” I asked her, holding the pamphlet up and pointing to the questions.

“I’m considering an intellectual challenge,” she said smugly. “What about you?”

“I honestly don’t know, Alice.”

“You don’t have any idea what you want to do with the rest of your life? No ambitions?”

“Not really,” I said. “I mean, I know I’m supposed to have some. I used to have.” I shook my head as though I was trying to clear it. “I think Harvard got me all messed up.”

“It’ll do that,” she said.

We sat and drank tea and talked about nothing much, and then it was time for the appointment she had made for me.

The salon was only two blocks from Alice’s, so I walked.

The hair stylist, Stella, was in her mid-thirties, a pretty woman who reminded me vaguely of Winona Ryder, if Winona Ryder had been Scottish. It was late in the day, and she was the only one in the place. I figured she’d sent the other staff home already. I introduced myself. “I’m Alex Jones? Alice Kim made the appointment for me?”

It turned out Stella was an incessant chatterbox. I didn’t mind, since it meant she didn’t seem to expect me to say very much. After instructing her to “cut it off” and reassuring her that, yes, I was sure, I wanted to have short hair again, she went at it with a vengeance. First I had the shampoo, then the cut, then the blow-dry. I think I probably said about ten words the whole time, but Stella more than made up for both of us, prattling in a near-intelligible Glaswegian accent that took me a few seconds to process every time she spoke.

When she was finally done with the blow-drying I looked in the mirror and didn’t much like what I saw. My hair was shorter. Short. But I didn’t seem to look all that masculine. Fucking eyebrows. Now that my hair was gone, the fact that my eyebrows were plucked was actually more obvious.

I was a good cut. I could see that. But it was still, somehow, very feminine. Gamine.

“What do you think?” Stella asked.

“It’s good.” I didn’t quite know what else to say. “Thanks.” I had very short hair, now. Short, wispy bangs over my forehead. Short on the back of my neck. And yes, still, it was undeniably not masculine.

Stella seemed to sense my doubt.

“Easier to take care of, too,” I added. For some reason I didn’t want to disappoint her.

“It suits you, I think,” Stella said. “Brings out your eyes.”

It did that. I realized suddenly, with a sickening pit in my stomach, that there was every possibility that Stella had assumed, all through the process of cutting my hair, that I was a woman. Alice had made the appointment for me, but she’d just said “for my friend Alex.” Stella probably figured Alex was short for Alexandra.

I paid for the haircut and left the salon determined to give myself a number 2 buzzcut when I got home. I wondered whether I should actually shave my eyebrows entirely. Would looking like Marilyn Manson be better than looking like a woman? Probably. Anyway, first I had to go back to Alice’s to retrieve my car keys.

As soon as Alice opened her door I could tell she had the same feeling about the haircut that I did.

“Well?” I said.

“I think it’s more than just the eyebrows,” She said gently.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a nice cut.”

“Yeah. What do you mean ‘more than just the eyebrows’? I mean … I think I know what you mean, but –“

“Maybe we should discuss this over dinner?”

Alice grabbed a sweater and we went around the corner to a small Italian place that she liked. Of course the first thing that happened as we walked in was that the hostess said “good evening ladies.” If Alice hadn’t put a steadying hand on mine I probably would have bolted.

I settled down over dinner. Alice was always good at relaxing me. But eventually, after we’d eaten and discussed friends and were onto zabaglione for dessert, Alice got serious again. “So, Alex …”

“Yes?”

“You said, back in Baton Rouge, that when you were younger …”

My appetite for dessert was gone. “Yes.”

“I can sort of see that.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew now, that even though there had never been anything sexual between Alice and I, there was absolutely no possibility of it now, or ever. When she put her hand on mine, across the table, I knew it was the kind of reassurance she’d offer to any of her 'other' female friends. It was not a romantic gesture.

“It must have been hard.”

“I don’t really …”

“I’m not trying to embarrass you, Alex. You know I care about you, right? We’re good friends.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“So it’s tough for you to deal with this now.”

“You have no idea.”

We were both silent for a few moments.

“Here’s the thing,” Alice said. “It doesn’t matter what people think.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“No, Alex. You are who you are. How people perceive you doesn’t change who you are.”

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

“Of course it’s true. How can what people think impact on what’s inside you?”

“It just does. I don’t know …” I paused, looking down at the tablecloth. I couldn’t explain to myself why it mattered, but it did.

“Maybe,” I said, “it matters more to men than it does to women.” I took a sip of wine.

“In fact, I’m sure it does.” I took a much bigger swig of the wine. “Men really care a lot what people think about them. The worst thing that can happen to a guy is to have his masculinity impugned.”

Alice squeezed my hand. “Not the worst thing, surely.”

I shrugged and withdrew my hand. “Pretty bad. Bad enough to make me think I was going to crack up when I was sixteen.”

“Back in Nebraska?”

I nodded. “I didn’t exactly have the best time in high school.”

“So, what are you going to do now?” Alice said.

“I figured I could try shaving my eyebrows, shave my head.”

“I have a suspicion – and please don’t take this the wrong way, Alex – that it mightn’t help. You know, you have feminine bone structure.”

“Did you not hear that thing I said earlier, about men having their masculinity impugned?”

“Lying to you isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

“Try me.”

“You might end up looking like Sinead O’Connor.”

“I might take that chance. Could it be worse?”

“Well, there’s one other thing,” Alice said.

“What?”

“If you shave your head, Arun is going to bar you from the team. You’ll stick out too much. Like Sinead O’Connor.”

“Well, if I can’t play blackjack, I guess there’s always graduate school,” I said. Alice had the good grace to laugh.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Back at home I ran into Pete as I came into the kitchen. He was drinking orange juice straight from the carton. As soon as he saw me he spilled it down the front of his t-shirt. “Alex!” he gulped. “What the fuck?”

“Do not fucking start,” I growled.

“What –“

“I know, Peter.” He always knew I was angry when I called him Peter.

“Know what?” he said.

“What?”

“What the fuck?”

We both stood facing one another, unsure what to do next. Pete was spilling more OJ onto the floor from the carton.

“Uh … Is this deliberate? Did you lose a bet? Is there something I should know?”

“It’s a long, long fucking story,” I said, straightening the carton in his hand to prevent all of the juice flooding across the kitchen floor. “If you want to hear it you’ll have to get me drunk.” Considering I was half toasted from dinner with Alice, that wouldn’t be hard, but Pete didn’t know that.

“Oh … kaaaay,” Pete said. I could see his eyes roving over me, as though he was looking for further evidence of my weirdness.

“Arggggh.” I said. “Fuck, Pete.” I sat down at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands.

Pete reached into the refrigerator, put the juice back, and pulled out a couple of beers. I immediately stood up, got a sponge from the sink, and mopped up all the orange juice from the floor. Then I sat back down.

“Alex, how long have we known each other?” Pete said as I sat back down.

“Four, five years?”

He set a beer on the table in front of me, and cracked the ring pull on his own. “So, you want to tell me what’s been going on this past year?”

I opened the other beer, and began to tell him the story of how I’d started playing blackjack. I was getting good at the story — it was the second time I’d told it in two days. I felt better telling it, even if I was breaking the team’s vow of silence by doing so. At least I could stop living a secret life in front of the people closest to me.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Pete was good at helping me get my head together. His advice seemed pretty sound. “You should nix the job at Gene Systems.” he said.

He was right. I did hate it, and it wasn’t like I needed the money, so long as I stayed on the team. Even if I left the team, I had enough money that I could live for at least a couple of years, comfortably. More than comfortably.

I called up work the very next day and spoke with Justin, my boss. It was a quick conversation, but when it was done I was free. I might have had freaky eyebrows, and chick hair, but I no longer had a corporate job, and I didn’t have to deal with going to the office and explaining myself to anyone.

 

~o~O~o~
 

With no job, there wasn’t much of a reason for me to get out of the house. So I stayed in. It was fall, the weather was getting cooler, I was afraid of looking like a chick.

I was semi-serious when I mentioned to Alice that I might shave my eyebrows and my head, but I was actually too depressed to do anything about it. She was right. If I did, Arun would kick me off the team and, now I didn’t have a job, blackjack was my sole source of income.

Income aside, I wasn’t regretting leaving the job. Pete and Alice had both said some things to me in the past few days that rang true: I was wasting my life, or at least my brain, working at Gene Systems. If I didn’t need the money, there was no point continuing there, especially since being a Unix sysadmin ranks on the job-satisfaction scale right up there with air traffic controller: your job is critical, but nobody notices your work unless you screw up and the servers or airplanes go down.

Pete had also talked to me in an unfamiliar way on that Wednesday night. I wasn’t sure whether it was because he was freaked out by the way I looked, or because it had been so long since we’d exchanged more than three words, or because he was just pissed at me for blowing off our friendship for blackjack, but he made a point of asking me some deep personal stuff.

That wasn’t Pete’s style. He and I never talked about deep stuff. The whole point of our relationship had been that — as best buds — we never had to. But when he asked me what I wanted, and I answered that I didn’t know, he told me, pretty bluntly, that at my age that was a pretty fucked up thing. “How can you not know what you want?“

“So what do you want from life, Pete?” I responded.

“A second round of funding for our business. A new laptop.” He paused to drink. “A woman who’s not going to treat me like I’m disposable. It’s not a grand plan, but I’m not running for president.”

“It doesn’t sound like a plan at all.”

“Well, I don’t want much. Really. Startups are kind of fun, and we could use the investment, but I’m not going to give the business away. I can wait for a new laptop – next year’s one is always better. I really could do with a woman in my life, but you know me, I only seem to attract the ones who are looking for someone who’s going to be rich. You’re probably going to be rich, if this cards thing continues. Maybe I should hook you up with Linda.”

Linda had been Pete’s previous girlfriend, who had turned out to be an expert in psychodrama. The fact that Pete even mentioned her in relation to me suggested that he wasn’t all that happy with me.

“The point I’m trying to make, Alex,” he said, now sounding more than a little buzzed from the beer, “is that I know what I want, and I’m not throwing away friendships to get it. You understand?”

I understood. The “throwing away friendships” part of the sentence was hard to miss.

I thought the lessons of the evening had been learned, then. I had been given sage advice by two friends about needing to actively plan my life. That I had allowed myself to be distracted by playing blackjack, without a plan for what would happen when, inevitably, I stopped. And I’d been reminded by one of them that friendship requires at least two people. I thought that was enough for one night, but there was more.

Pete downed the rest of his beer and then looked me straight in the eyes and asked, “How long have you known you wanted to be a chick?”

I just looked at him blankly.

He stared back at me.

“You don’t?” he said.

“No.”

I was a bit stunned. I knew I looked like a girl. I mean, I’d looked like a girl for most of my adolescence, and I looked even more like a girl now. But Pete knew me as well as anyone, even if we hadn’t seen much of each other lately. He knew I was sensitive about my masculinity, or lack thereof. Now he was sounding like Justin, my boss at Gene Systems.

We suffered through what was probably the first really awkward long silence the two of us had ever shared in our five years of friendship. It was me that finally broke it. “Pete. Why would you say that?” I said.

“I, uh …” Pete looked down at his beer, then back up at me. Then he laughed. “It’s a pretty fucked up thing to say, then, isn’t it?” He laughed. “Man, alright, I fucked up. Big time. I’m sorry, dude.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “Be certain.” I took hold of his hand, across the table, unconsciously mimicking the way Alice had taken mine earlier in the evening. “Why would you say that? Because of the way I look?”

“No. Yes …” Pete had stopped laughing. “No.”

He was going to withdraw his hand, but then obviously changed his mind and left it in mine.

“I really don’t know, Alex. Yes, you look like a chick. You really look like a chick, right now … and, you know, the very first time I saw you – it was at Adam Hirschfeld’s party, remember? – I thought, don’t hate me right now – I actually thought you were a girl with bad fashion sense, or maybe a lesbian geek.”

“You never told me that.”

“Well, because then we started talking, remember, and eventually I realized you were a guy, and I liked you, and, you know, I don’t really think about things all that much, but I’m usually not completely insensitive. Just tonight.”

“You’re not being insensitive,” I said softly. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Then there was the Halloween thing.”

Three years earlier, I dressed up as a woman for Halloween. I hadn’t really wanted to do it, on account of my sensitivity about being mistaken for a woman at the best of times, but the theme of the party had been gangsters and molls and while Pete got to go as a gangster, Talia convinced me to get dressed up as a moll, and I entered the party on Pete’s arm. Talia dressed as a gangster, too, and her girlfriend Jill went as a moll. The depressing thing about the night was that everyone thought I was a woman, and a couple of people thought I was prettier than Jill. I never set them straight, but it was an unpleasant reminder of my high school years, and I vowed not to do it again. The experience was so unpleasant I think it was one of the contributing factors to my sophomore year breakdown. Thinking about gender, and me, and where I fit in, did bad things to my head.

“Anyway, Alex, it’s not like I think you’re gay, or anything,” Pete said. “Not that it would matter,” he added quickly. “I’ve just thought, you know, sometimes the way you do things, you sort of act like a chick.”

“Say what? Like what?”

“Like holding my hand?”

I withdrew my hand as though I’d been bitten. Pete laughed, and I realized he’d been teasing me.

“Bastard,” I said, smiling again.

“But seriously Alex … you never thought about being a chick? You do act like one sometimes.”

“You keep saying that. How?”

“I don’t know, man … The way you sit down?” he shrugged.

“The way I sit down? That’s it? That’s all you got?” I was mildly outraged for a moment, until I thought about it. “Wait, how do I sit down?”

“Like a chick,” Pete said. “You slide into a chair the way a girl would do it.”

“And based on this, you think I want to be a woman?”

“You always keep your hair long. Until now, I mean.”

“So does Aaron.” Aaron was a mutual friend from our days together in Matthews. He wasn’t a big guy, but there wasn’t anything feminine about him.

“Yeah, but yours always looks beautiful.”

“Uh.” I really didn’t know what to say to that. What could anyone say to that?

“You never raise your voice,” Pete continued

“That’s ridiculous. Lots of women raise their voices. Linda used to scream at you.”

“I meant … you know, you often sound like a chick, too.”

“Thanks, Pete. You’re making me feel really great.”

“Sorry. It’s not just that. I guess I was jumping to conclusions. Sorry. This past year where you’ve kind of been absent from your entire life … I don’t know, when I saw you tonight, you looked, uh, pretty good. You look beautiful, Alex. I guess maybe I thought you were going over to the other side, and that was what all these changes in the way you’ve been acting have been about.”

“Changes in the way I’ve been acting?” I was trying to let the comment about “you look beautiful” slide by me.

Pete thought I was beautiful?

“Just, you know, being absent. Ignoring me. Then the haircut. I mean, I get the story about the casino and all that, but it seemed like there might be more. I figured maybe you didn’t know how to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“That you wanted to be a chick. Except you don’t.”

“This conversation isn’t making a whole lot of sense.”

“No, but that’s why it’s starting to feel like old times, dude.”

“Yeah.” I smiled. It was feeling like old times. Both of us were tired, and drunk, but we were spending time together. I realized how much I had missed Pete, this past year. My sudden onrush of sentimentality might have had something to do with the fact I was drunk for the second night in a row. It was a habit I was going to have to break.

“I tell you what, Pete,” I said.

“What?”

“I’ll forgive you for thinking I want a sex change if you’ll forgive me for being a shitty friend this past year and more.”

Pete weighed it up: “Seems like a fair trade.”

“Good.” I shook the empty beer can in front of me and three-pointed it into the open trash bin beside the kitchen bench. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”

I went to bed, but it took me a long time to get to sleep, drunk though I was. Pete, my very best friend in the world, thought I was beautiful. I had seriously mixed feelings about that.

 

~o~O~o~

 

We were supposed to have a team meeting Thursday night, but it had been postponed until next Monday, and the planned work on the weekend had been cancelled. I wasn’t sure whether we’d even work the weekend after that, after what had happened to Henry. We had planned to head to Atlantic City, since we were still trying to stay out of Vegas. But in the interim, until that meeting, there didn’t seem to be a good reason to leave the apartment. Not if it involved further humiliation.

So I stayed indoors, taking no action at all for a few days. I watched some bad movies, ate cheese and crackers and instant ramen, and listened to Fugazi, Bjork, Husker Du and Pixies on endless repeat. On Friday morning I called Henry to see how he was doing, but I got his machine, and his cellphone was turned off.

Monday I had to go pick up my glasses. The meeting Arun had called was scheduled for 6pm, so I figured I’d swing by the store and pick them up just before closing, but I got caught up watching Goodfellas on DVD, and there’s no way you can turn off that sequence of Henry’s pre-arrest paranoia once you’ve started watching. Then, when I looked up at the time, it was 5.15pm already, so of course by the time I got to the store they were closed. So I went to the meeting without my glasses, and in a foul mood for having missed the one important thing I was supposed to have achieved for the week.

Arun was addressing the team when I walked in, but as soon as he saw me he faltered.

“Nice haircut, Alex,” Lucy said. I glared at her and took a seat. I didn’t know whether she was serious, or being sarcastic. Alice smiled at me reassuringly. Lucy looked mildly chastened.

“As I was saying,” Arun said. “Friday night it’s Atlantic City. We’ll be staying at Bally’s, playing Ceasars and the Tropicana. The Trop is still a bit of a mess with the renovations, but I’m hoping that will work in our favor. There’s a possibility, a slim possibility, that Whitwell will have spread our photos around, and we need to be extra vigilant this weekend. I don’t think anyone needs reminding about what will happen if we don’t.”

“How is Henry?” Dan asked.

“He’s okay,” Lucy said. “I spoke to him yesterday. He’s gone to the Caymans for a rest.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Dan said.

“He said he might not come back,” Lucy added. “To the team.”

“Henry’s welcome back at any time,” Arun said.

“I don’t think he wants to come back,” Lucy said. “I can understand that.”

“Well, he’s welcome if he does,” Arun said sharply. “Now, can we get back to the task at hand? From now on, we’re going to sharpen up our emergency plans. All of you have cellphones?”

There was general nodding. I had just picked up one of those tiny Ericsson flip phones a few weeks ago, which fitted in my pocket easily.

“You can’t have phones on at the table, but you can leave them set to silent and the casinos won’t be any wiser. In addition to the usual lookouts, I’m delegating Lucy here to keep tabs on the security guys, in a discreet way, to see whether we can spot them discussing us before they actually make a move. If she does, she’ll send everyone a text message, which should make your phones vibrate. Make sure she has your number in her phone before you leave.”

“And if we have to leave?” Ziyen asked.

“If we have to leave, don’t go back to Bally’s. We’ll all meet at the Mickey D’s a block away. Everyone know where that is?” He drew a rough map on the whiteboard. “It might not even be safe to go back to our hotel, so make sure everything’s packed and ready to be bumped out in a hurry if we have to.”

Arun ran through the rest of the procedures for the weekend, including who was carrying the money. Eventually we were all done, and it was time to leave.

As I got up Alice came over to me. “How are you?”

“Better, thanks. Sorry I was such a mess the other night.”

“Not at all. Actually, I thought you were pretty good.”

As everyone else was leaving, Arun interrupted us. “Hey, Alex.”

I turned to face him.

“Interesting look you’ve got going on now.”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

Arun at least had the grace to look embarrassed. It was satisfying to see him lose some of his normal composure.

“Sorry.”

I heard Alice chime in on my behalf. “Arun, Alex went all out to help, for Henry, and let’s face it, for you, too. The least you can do is try to sympathize.”

How I loved Alice then, for coming to my aid. I really didn’t know what to say to Arun.

“Sympathize?” Arun was puzzled. “Of course I sympathize. Alex, I was amazed you went through with that last Sunday. I don’t know anyone else who would have. It took guts. I really admire that.”

“You do?” I finally squeaked.

“Of course. Without you, we would have lost a lot of our stake. And everything Henry did would have been for nothing. You were sensational.”

“As may be,” Alice said, “he’s been suffering for it since.”

“Whose idea was it to cut your hair?” Arun asked.

“Mine,” Alice and I said simultaneously.

“Okaaaay.” Arun said, smiling. Alice and I laughed, too. The ice was broken.

“So here’s the thing, Alex," Arun said.

“The thing?”

“Yeah.” He shuffled his feet slightly, like he was about to pitch on a mound. “I have one more big favor to ask.”

“I think I know where this is going,” I said.

“Me too,” Alice said. “Why, Arun?”

“It’s to our advantage,” Arun said. “On the one hand, if Alex plays as a guy, looking like that, he’s going to stick out like a sore thumb. Really.”

“Yeah,” I said begrudgingly. It wasn’t really something I could argue with.

“On the other hand, if he plays as a woman …”

“You’re saying I look more like a woman,” I said.

“Well …”

“You’re saying he’s safer as a woman,” Alice said.

“Yes,” Arun said. “And – and believe me, Alex, this isn’t the reason I’d ask you to do this – if Alex plays as a woman, he’ll … she will … be the only one of us that we can be sure Whitwell doesn’t know about yet.”

 

~o~O~o~
 

After Arun’s speech, Alice and I went out for dinner again at a Thai place on Kendall Square. We talked through the pros and cons of what he’d said. Everything made sense. Everything Arun said was logical, and in a completely bizarre way almost sensible. It just wasn’t something I thought I could do.

“Why not?” Alice asked.

“What do you mean, why not?” I said. “Did everything I said the other night not mean anything?”

“Yes, Alex, of course. But you’re being mistaken for a woman now anyway. How can it be worse?”

“Well for one thing, I could be beaten to a pulp by someone who doesn’t like transvestites.”

“I hate to say it, Alex, but you could be beaten to a pulp by someone who doesn’t know the difference between androgyny and transvestism. I think the people who are inclined to beat up on transvestites probably aren’t that discriminating in terms of who they hit.”

“So what you’re saying is, I don’t have a choice in this.”

“Of course you have a choice. You have a lot of choices. You can play as you are, despite what Arun says. Or you can take his advice and exploit the situation, which actually makes some sense, in an Arun kind of way. Or you can not play at all …” Once again, she took my hand across the table. “But truly, Alex, tell me honestly: if you’ve really been mistaken for a girl so often throughout your life, didn’t you ever wonder what it might be like?”

I was going to lie, but I realized I couldn’t. “Once or twice.”

“At least you’re honest. I can’t imagine there’s a person alive who hasn’t thought about ‘how the other half lives’ at least once.” She smiled. “And who knows, you might actually enjoy it.”

“Shoot me now,” I groaned.

“Watch it!” she laughed.

After our discussion I had thought we might go back for a nightcap to Alice's apartment, which was around the corner from the restaurant. It seemed like there was still a bunch off stuff we needed to discuss — I certainly needed a lot more advice if I was going to continue presenting as a woman — but she begged off. I had the feeling she maybe had something lined up with her mystery man.

Friday morning Alice decided we should shop for some clothes for me to wear while we were in Atlantic City. I had expected the shopping experience to be nerve-wracking, but it was no drama at all. Before we went out she had me try on one of her bras, which she padded out a little with some cotton balls. I still looked like a fairly flat-chested girl, but as Alice said, I looked very much the way most other Asian women my age looked.

Makeup was more problematic. Alice hardly wore any, and wasn’t too expert in applying it. Down in Baton Rouge it had been Lucy that had done all the hard work on my hair and makeup. We both spent a half hour or so with the makeup salesdroid on the Shiseido counter at Neiman Marcus, and came away with a couple of lipsticks each, some mascara, and a bunch of free samples.

“This is fun, Alex,” Alice said. “I never had anyone to do this with, before.”

“You never had girlfriends you went shopping with?”

“Not for makeup. Not back home, no,” she said. “I was the science geek. And the only Korean in a sea of white preppie girls. You can’t share makeup with white girls – their coloring is all wrong.”

“I can’t imagine you not being popular, Alice. You’re so pretty, so smart.”

“I wasn’t exactly pretty when I was younger”.

We talked about what it meant to be a teenage girl and how peer group pressure influenced you. Well, Alice talked about all that. I didn’t talk much at all, mostly listened, but I realized as we were talking that a lot of what Alice was describing was similar to my own school life. Although it was impossible to imagine now, beauty that she was, Alice had been an outsider at school, someone who never fitted in, both because she was Korean, because she wasn’t afraid to be smart, and because she didn’t give in to the Queen Bees at her school. Alice had gone to Farmington (the name Harvard insiders gave to Miss Porter's School for Girls, a super-expensive boarding school in Connecticut that boasted famous alumnae including Jacqueline Bouvier and Edie Beale). I had also been an outsider, and while I hadn’t had beauty on my side I’d had some oddly similar experiences. Listening to Alice, it didn’t sound like my problems as a teenager had been nearly as bad as hers. Teenage girls are vicious. The girls at Alice’s school certainly sounded that way.

For the rest of Friday afternoon Alice schooled me in the subtleties of femininity: how to sit, how to walk, how to talk. The first two I had no problem with; as Pete had said a few days earlier, there were some things I did that weren’t neatly gendered. Speaking was the thing that terrified me. Alice sat me with a tape recorder and made me listen to my own voice, which I thought sounded horrible. She was right, I didn’t have an especially deep voice but — despite what Pete had said to me — I thought it still sounded like a guy’s voice. Alice tried to teach me how to soften it, how to avoid making declarative statements, and how to put more tonal highs and lows into each sentence. I wouldn’t have said, at 3pm before Dan picked us up in the van, that I sounded like the most feminine woman I’d heard, but at the end of a few hours of Alice’s solid tuition I sounded – on tape at least – like someone you had to think hard about to work out whether they were male or female.

On an intellectual level, I was actually kind of fascinated by how I sounded. I wondered what the real signifiers for voice on something like radio actually were, and I thought about it on the whole trip down to Atlantic City in the van.

At a rest stop on the turnpike Arun pressed an envelope into my hand. I opened it in the ladies room. Inside were a bunch of IDs and a note. The note simply said: “For your next W2G filings, and something more personal. A.”

The IDs included a Texas drivers license for Alexandra Leung of Galveston Texas, a California license for Alexa Chin of Redondo Beach California, and a New York license for Lisa Lee with a Park Avenue address. The last ID, which I took to be the “more personal” part, was a new Massachusetts Driver’s License, in the name “Alexandra Jones,” with my current address.

I studied them all closely. If they were fakes, they were excellent fakes.

By the time we actually went through the doors at our first casino in Atlantic City, the playing itself was a total anti-climax. If Whitwell had our details, they hadn’t been passed on to the crews at the Trop or Ceasars. We didn’t make as much as we would in Vegas, but we made a lot more than at the podunk places like Lake Charles.

 

~o~O~o~

---

 
The performance of the team was an anti-climax, but my experience of the trip wasn’t. I noticed, immediately, that the dynamic at the tables was completely different for me when I sat down as a woman. The dealer treated me differently. And at least five guys that night tried to come onto me.

The first time it happened I wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it, and I'm pretty sure I came off as excessively rude. The second time I tried to pretend I was only there for the cards, and that didn’t work because it made me, a smurf, seem too interested in the game. Arun made me switch tables, and I tried just blending in. But truthfully, everything felt foreign. Even the hostesses who came around for drinks treated me differently. Everyone was somehow – I didn’t think of this at the time, but I did the next day – nicer.

I had to admit, weird as it seemed to be sitting in a skirt and shimmery blouse, I liked nicer. It felt good.

We played Friday and Saturday night in Atlantic City, then drove back on Sunday. Both nights I was the one who cashed out all the chips, on the principle that if Whitwell was watching the others, they’d find it hard to work out whether the team was winning or losing. Everyone on the team mostly ignored me during the actual play, and Lucy gave me all the chips to cash in the ladies room where there was less surveillance. I wasn’t sure it made any difference. For once, my paranoia wasn’t running full-throttle. Perhaps it was the distraction of playing as a woman.

On the Sunday night when the van stopped at my house, Arun stepped out to have a quick conversation with me. “Alex,“ he said, “I have a favor to ask of you.“

“Of me?“

“Yes. You don’t have to say yes now. But I'd like you to think about becoming our treasurer. We need someone to take over Henry's role. Someone who can be trusted to account for everything.“

“Me?“ I saw no reason not to be blunt. “I didn't think you liked me very much, Arun. Why choose me to take on a responsibility that big, if you don’t like me?“

“It’s not a question of like, Alex. I trust you. More importantly, the rest of the team trusts you. People know you're committed. They will be a lot more relaxed if you're holding all the money than, say, someone like Ziyen. No reflection on Ziyen.“

“What about you?“ It seemed an obvious question.

“I have a lot of other stuff on my plate, Alex. Henry was good at it. I need someone to help.“

“I’ll have a think about it. Does it mean I have to control all the money?“

“Most of it. Everyone will settle with you after each night. And you’ll make sure they have what they need for each round of play. You won’t need to hold all of it – we'll disperse the locations of our holdings – but you’ll be the one who signs for everything.“

“I’ll have a think about it. Is that okay?“

“Sure. Can you let me know by the end of the week?“

“No problem.“

Arun got back in the van and drove away.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I turned to go inside and saw a woman standing on the porch of the apartment downstairs. I knew we had new neighbors, but I hadn't had a chance to meet them yet. She waved, and I walked over.

“Hello,“ our neighbor said as I approached. She had a very broad New York accent, and I guessed (correctly) that she was from The Bronx. “I'm Beverly. Just moved in.“ She was a good looking woman, blonde, a few inches taller than me and maybe four or five years older, but she was clearly tired and she looked like she could use a trip to Stella's. She was balancing a baby on one hip. I guessed the baby, who was dressed in pink, was maybe 9 months old. Perhaps a little younger.

“Alex,“ I said. “I live with Pete and Talia, upstairs.“

“I thought so,“ she said. “I saw you leaving the other day.“ She hesitated. “That sounds wrong. I'm not being nosy or anything.“

I laughed. “It’s okay,“ I said. “It’s a quiet street.“

“You've been away?“

“I go away a lot, for work. How about you?“

“I'm not working at the moment,“ she said. “Since Samantha here.“ She looked down at the baby on her hip, who looked up at her beatifically. I'm not normally big on babies, so I didn't go all cooey and gooey, but I did smile back.

“Just you guys?“ I said, wondering how a single mother could get a lease on an apartment in Somerville.

“My husband is here … sometimes.“ The way she said that made we want to immediately ask her about why she said it at all, but I held my tongue.

“Well, nice to meet you,“ I said, lifting my carryon. “Please let us know if you need anything.“

 

~o~O~o~
 

When I came into the house, Pete was home with Talia, Jill and a friend, Virginia. It was probably the first time that Talia had been home at the same time as Pete and me for about a year.

Talia's friend Virginia was as out and proud as a Cambridge lesbian can be. She and Jill were sitting with Pete and Talia in the living room watching something on cable in black and white starring Merle Oberon. As it happened, at the time I walked in I was wearing a long brown skirt with a cream turtleneck cashmere sweater, brown ankle boots, and a caramel pea-coat Alice had bought me the Friday before.

Both Talia and Pete both stood up and gawked, like characters in a Ren & Stimpy cartoon, their eyes wide and their mouths slightly open. As I took off my coat I could see all three of them look at my chest, which was practically non-existent but padded enough to look realistic for an Asian girl.

“Stop perving on me,” I said, embarrassed, but as though there was nothing unusual about me wearing a skirt.

Talia sat back down. Pete didn’t. In fact he took my coat from me and hung it on the stand in the hall just past the doorway.

“Hey, Alex,” he said. “How was Atlantic City?”

“Boring,” I said.

“You look good” Pete said. I heard Talia snort whatever she was drinking back into her nose. Virginia and Jill laughed.

I looked at him sharply. He was clearly genuine. I blushed.

“Thanks, I guess.”

There was an awkward silence. I noticed all the women had gone quiet, observing the interplay between Pete and me.

“You want a beer?” Pete asked.

“Sure,” I answered.

Pete disappeared into the kitchen. I went and sat on a chair, not close to Talia but close enough that we could both watch the screen without being in each others’ eyelines. On the television a young Laurence Olivier was being dark and brooding.

“Interesting look you got going there,” Virginia said. “Very Saks Fifth Avenue.”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“I’m totally sure,” she said, and laughed, but in a friendly way. On screen Laurence Olivier was saying something passionate. Pete came back with beers for the five of us, and we watched the remainder of the movie in silence.

Eventually the movie finished, and then it was time for dinner. We ordered pizza and, when it came, the five of us talked about the same things we always talked about, as though there was nothing odd at all about me sitting there in a skirt and cashmere sweater and high-heeled boots.

I found myself occasionally self-conscious about saying something in a feminine manner. I guess it was because I was becoming more attuned to it with each hour I lived as a woman. To avoid collective discomfort I ignored it, and so did the others. Around 11pm Jill left with Virginia, and Talia, Pete and I went off to our separate rooms. I don’t know who was more exhausted.

The next day, I stayed home and goofed around on the Internet. I had become mildly addicted to a Usenet group, which was made up mostly of overeducated philosophy majors, and everything everyone else posted there was witty and erudite and made me long for my days at college. It was the first time I’d ever been nostalgic for Harvard. In between posts I browsed a few other websites, and between those activities and listening to music and going to the store for some groceries, the day passed without any effort at all on my part.

At the store, of course, even though I was wearing jeans and my Converse sneakers and no bra and a thrift-store jacket over a black sweater, the clerk called me ‘Miss.' I reflected, on the way home from the store, that after only two weeks it had stopped bothering me the way it used to.

Obviously, I was going nuts.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Thursday evening I phoned Arun to agree to hold the money for the team. If I was going to be part of the process, it at least made sense to ensure I had some measure of control over what I was getting involved in.

All the same, it felt like I had made a big decision, and I decided I needed to relax or it was going to bug me all night. So Pete and I went to the bar we liked best, Grendel's Den. It wasn’t too loud, the crowd was mostly a little older than most dive bars near Harvard, and the music they played was tolerable. I was still wearing my black Converse sneakers, jeans and a dark red tee, but it was a cool October night so I’d grabbed a new black jacket I’d bought shopping with Alice a few days earlier. I hadn’t bothered trying to gender myself in any particular direction, so I wasn’t wearing a bra or makeup, but as I’d observed over previous days, flat chested or no, most people assumed I was female, especially since the jacket made it hard to see my chest. As we walked in a guy held the door for me.

Cameron tended bar most nights we were there, and he was rostered on that night. When we walked in he did a quick double-take, but said nothing as we made our way to a table down the back. I walked over to buy the first round.

“New look for you, Alex,” Cameron said. He was a good humored kind of guy. “Is it still Alex?”

I blushed, and nodded. “Two of the usual, please, Cameron.”

“Benefits of a one-size-fits-all name, I guess.” He pulled two beers for us. “I was wondering why you hadn’t been around.” He laughed. “You look great.”

“Uh, thanks, I think,” I said, as I took the beers and brought them back to Pete. As I was walking back I was aware that Cameron was, uh, checking me out.

“What was that about?” Pete said as I sat down.

“What do you think?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He thinks I’ve had a sex change.”

“Oh.”

“Talkative, aren’t we?”

“Sorry. I’ve got a lot on at work right now.” Pete shook his head like he was trying to clear it, then took a drink when that seemed to fail. He looked a bit like a puppy when he shook his head.

“Good or bad?” I said, happy to change the subject.

“Good, I think,” he said. “We’ve made two more sales. Both security-related.”

“Which means you can’t tell me about them, right?”

“No, I can tell you. I can’t tell you the details. But one is to this English company, does something with security cameras. The English are nuts for that stuff, apparently. The other is a business down in DC, does something with robotic drones.”

“Wow. Sounds kind of scary.”

“It’s all good. It’s a lot of work, though. We’ve only ever done research until last year. Now we have all these extra guys, doing actual product work. I’m not used to having a … you know, actual people working for me.“

“Staff.”

“Yeah, staff. Weird, huh?“

“Are you a good boss, or a bad boss?”

“I’m your classic startup boss, I guess,” Pete said. “I’m working it all out as I go along.”

A woman came past our booth and I watched her give Pete the once over like she knew him. If he knew her he gave no flicker of recognition, but I noticed him watch her ass as she continued on down to the back of the bar.

“So how’s your work?” Pete said.

“Work’s okay.“ I said, and reflected that it was strange to describe playing cards as work. “It’s the other stuff that goes with it that’s driving me crazy. I’m thinking I should see a therapist about some of this stuff.” I said.

“You don’t need a therapist, Alex.”

I waved my hands over my body for effect. “You think normal red blooded guys do this?”

“Well …” Pete swigged his beer. “Drink up, and stop being maudlin. Therapy is for whiners and losers and people who can’t work themselves out.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said. “Mr. Well-adjusted.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean you’re well-adjusted. Properly. You’re one of the few people in the world I know who can and will call shit, shit when it’s shit, but not because you’re cynical.”

Pete smiled. “I think that was a compliment.”

“In a shitty kind of way.”

“I’ll take ‘em where I can find 'em. Seriously, Alex, you really want to get a therapist? What can a therapist tell you that you can’t work out for yourself?”

“Isn’t it the classic Freudian thing that they don’t figure it out, they lead you to it?”

“Freud was a whackjob.” He finished his beer in a gulp.

“Yes, but that’s beside the point. The point is I don’t have the answers myself. And a year ago, I didn’t even have most of these questions.”

“Yeah.” Pete laughed. “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

I poked my tongue out at him.

“You look cute when you do that,” Pete said without thinking. Then, when what he’d just said had sunk in and I blushed, he avoided looking at me and got up to get some more beer.

As I watched him walk to the bar, I wondered what was going through his mind. A lot had changed in our friendship. This was the third time in two weeks that we’d had an embarrassing moment together. We never used to get embarrassed in front of one another. Ever.

I kind of liked being told I was cute. I also completely hated it. And I was worried about what it meant for the way Pete and I related to one another.

Pete came back with two more beers, and sat down. He pushed one of them over to me with a deep sigh of resignation. “What the hell, Alex. You want a therapist, go get a therapist. God knows you can afford it. Maybe if he’s any good I should go see him as well.”

Finally our conversation moved on to other matters. There was only so much time either of us could spend inside my crowded head. And then Vassily and Yana showed up and it was the four of us, talking and drinking, and drinking and talking. It turned out I liked Vassily a lot, especially when he was drinking: he was hilarious. But he was razor sharp, even while drinking. I could understand why he and Pete got on well enough to start a business together.

Yana was even sharper. We didn't talk a lot that night, but what little I did learn convinced me she was more than the equal of Vassily and Pete in the brains department. Plus, she seemed to have street smarts. Her I definitely liked, and as a couple she and Vassily were indomitable.

By the time we left the bar both Pete and I were mildly toasted. So when, after walking a couple of blocks, I started to get this paranoid feeling that we were being followed, and mentioned it to Pete, he told me I was drunk. Looking around, I couldn’t see anyone that actually was following us, so even though it kept coming back to me as we went down into the T, I figured he was right.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The next morning I slept in, but Talia was still in the kitchen when I got up. “What gives?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said, indicating the way I looked. I was only wearing a robe, but I could tell she meant the eyebrows and hair. And, you know, everything else.

I had never been really close to Talia – honestly, she was mostly the housemate that Pete and I didn’t have – but she always struck me as a straightforward kind of woman. I had met her years ago, though the record hospital, where everyone had been so snotty to Pete and me, but Talia and I had bonded in a loose casual way, and it was me that brought her into our apartment as a housemate. She was a terrible housekeeper and completely incompetent cook, which made her a bad housemate, but as she was never home it was never a real problem. She was overweight, under-groomed, and I had no idea what Jill saw in her physically, but I could understand the emotional bond they had. She was super smart, and from the little I ever knew of her, she was reliable, trustworthy, and good humored. She was incredibly knowledgeable about computing, in a really hardcore way. While we had both worked as sysadmins, she was a really good sysadmin. She knew her stuff, and loved her work. I had only been doing it for want of anything else to earn money, and had always treated it as a temporary thing, while Talia was completely immersed.

I wondered whether she had been put off, seeing me the other day on my return. Some lesbians have a problem with transsexuals or drag queens. Not that that was what was happening, in my case. I didn’t think I was transsexual. I certainly didn’t want to be a drag queen. I wasn’t sure what I was, but it probably wasn’t either of those things.

“Does it bother you?” I asked, pouring myself a cup of coffee.

“Not at all,” she said, smiling. “In fact I’m almost impressed, Alex. I didn’t think you had this kind of adventure in you.”

“Thanks, I think.” What did 'almost impressed' mean? I waved the coffee beaker at her but she indicated she was okay.

“So what prompted all of this?” She asked.

I sighed. I was getting tired of telling the story. So I said, just to be contrary, “It’s all about gambling.”

“You lost a bet?”

“Not really. I took on a challenge.”

“I’ll say.”

So I told her the story. Almost all the story. I mean, my vow of secrecy to the team was clearly shot to hell, and I was tired of living a secret life. I let her know about the idea of playing cards, but I reassured her that I was in it for the challenge, not for the money. I wasn’t going to tell her about the team, but as soon as I mentioned Arun, and gambling, she let me know that she knew about the team anyway. Of course Talia knew Arun from Harvard as well, but I wondered whether the extended lesbian mafia of Cambridge was in on our entire operation, and whether I should mention it to Alice, or Arun, or even Lucy. Before I could think too much about that she put her hand on my arm, across the table, and said, seriously, “You need to stay away from all that, Alex.”

“What?”

“I would have thought you’d have learned, that time with Arun in the chess club. That guy’s no good. You don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

I was slightly taken aback. I had no love for Arun, but he’d been true to his word since we’d been playing, and he had certainly made me a lot of money recently. I was surprised by Talia’s vehemence.

“Huh. I think he’s, you know, gotten a little better since –”

“– He’s no good, Alex. Take it from me.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She was deadly serious.

“The thing is, it’s my only income these days …”

“You gave up the job at Gene Systems?”

“Sure.”

“You gave up the sysadmin job?”

“That would be the one.” I wasn’t sure whether she was more upset with me for giving up what she perceived to be a perfectly good job, or whether her primary concern was my financial status. I suspected the former.

“I was getting shit for the way I look …” I said.

“Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. But you look that way because of Arun, right?”

“Well, you know, I kind of volunteered.”

“Kind of.”

“Yeah.”

She smiled at me. “Who would have thought. Alex Jones.” Then she scowled. “Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook. You have to find another job.”

“Where am I going to find one that pays this much?”

“I thought you said it wasn’t about the money?”

“It’s not. It’s just …”

I had no good defense. But I thought she was overdoing the grudge against Arun.

“Find another job. I’ll ask around at work and see whether there’s anything going.”

No way on earth would a job at Harvard pay what I’d become used to. It wouldn’t even make me as much as the old job at Gene Systems Inc. About the only thing that was good about a job at Harvard was that it was almost impossible to get fired, and the health benefits were excellent.

I changed the subject to Jill. Talia and I sat around all morning, talking and gossiping, and we didn’t mention gambling or gender again for the entire rest of the conversation.

 

~o~O~o~
 

A few nights later I went to Susan’s for dinner. It was just the two of us, because Tom was in New York on business. We had a good time, but as had been the case ever since “the eyebrow thing” as she’d come to call it, the conversation turned to being about me. I swear this was her doing: while I’m obviously talking about myself a lot, writing this story down, I don’t really enjoy talking about myself that much on a day to day basis, you know, because I’m not that interesting.

But Susan had a knack for steering a conversation wherever she wanted it to go, and after she’d established that I was confused (when was I not confused?), and that I’d thought about seeing a therapist, she recommended one to me. It surprised me, because Susan had never told me she’d been in therapy.

She shrugged. “I had a bad time in the year before I met Tom. You know that. Dr. Kidman really helped me get out of my head.”

“I am out of my head,” I said, and we both laughed.

“Sometimes,” Susan said, “you’ve got to have someone independent to bounce ideas off. Someone neutral, who doesn’t know you already and doesn’t bring baggage to the conversation.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, before?”

“What?” Susan said.

“That you were seeing a therapist.”

“You weren’t around a lot, Alex. For a while you were studying, then it was the new job, and then most of the time, it seems, you were playing cards.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. But it’s okay, you know? It all worked out. And we’ve seen a lot of one another, these past six months. It’s like old times.”

She handed me Dr. Kidman’s address and phone number on a piece of notepaper from the Museum of Fine Arts. “I think you’ll like him,” she said. “He’s not pushy.”

 

~o~O~o~
 

The streets were relatively quiet as I drove home from Susan’s, and it put me in a contemplative mood, so much so that I was wrapped up in my thoughts and didn’t proceed along when the light at Puttnam Avenue turned green. The car behind me honked, and I waved what I hope was a reassuring wave of apology and thanks as I set off. In the mirror I could see the car, what looked like a black Lincoln Town Car. Or maybe a Crown Victoria – it’s not like they’re easy to tell apart at night from the front.

We were about to cross that threshold from Fall into Winter, and the chill in the air gave the streetlights a clarity they didn’t usually have. Most of the houses were dark now, because it was late. Cambridge looks nothing at all like Nebraska, but there was something about the quality of the light, or the change of the seasons, that took me back to a night in high school, when John Ostermeyer and I had been tooling around downtown Lincoln in his father’s station wagon. I hadn’t thought about it for a long long time, but I remember, that night back perhaps eight or nine years earlier, was the first time I had ever wondered, in a more than abstract sense, what kissing a guy might be like. I was maybe sixteen? I can’t have been younger – John wouldn’t have had his license. I wasn’t thinking, at the time, of kissing John, but I asked him, just out of the blue as we drove along Vine Street, “John, have you every wondered what it would be like to kiss a guy?”.

And him turning to me, and laughing, but in a kind way, and – seeing that I was serious – became serious himself. “Yes,” he said. “I think every guy probably does, at some time in their life. I mean, I know girls who have kissed girls, I guess it’s the same thing, right?”

I thought he was very brave, just to be able to say something like that. How did he know I wasn’t going to turn his admission into a weapon to attack him with in public? The fact that he trusted me, that he would say something like that to me, seemed to me at the time to be the first serious evaluation of me as an adult that anyone had ever made. I felt honored.

He was polite enough not to ask me why I had brought it up. Instead he turned the conversation into a discussion about how good it had been the first time he had kissed a girl. And then about how it was totally different when you kissed a relative. And so we had this abstract conversation, for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, about the aesthetics of kissing, and how context was everything.

Man, we talked about some strange things, he and I. In summer we would sit outside in his yard and talk sometimes, but in winter, so long as it wasn't snowing too heavily, we would just drive around for hours and hours. The streets were almost always quiet in Lincoln, and gas was cheap, and there wasn’t anything much else for two teenage boys to do except talk.

Pete and I had been like that, in our freshman year, before we got enough money and ID together to be able to afford to go to bars and stuff. We’d sit in the WHRB studio, in the middle of the night shift, or in the old un-renovated common room in Matthews Hall, and talk about pretty much anything. I remember one night he and Aaron, our roommate in Matthews, were doing laundry, and we did some impromptu freestyle a cappella in the laundry while our clothes were washing. One of the TA’s had come in and looked at us like we were on drugs. Drugs? We didn’t need drugs.

I was thinking that Alice and I were getting to be friends like that, too. I knew I was lucky to have friends like Pete and Alice.

After I came through Union Square I noticed the Town Car turned onto Stone Avenue with me, and turned with me again when I took a left into our street, but it continued on past me when I pulled over a few doors down from my apartment. An odd paranoia made me wonder whether or not the Lincoln had been following me, but even as my brain processed that thought I rejected it. Why would anyone follow me? And if they did, why would they draw attention to themselves by honking at a green light?

I shook my head to try to clear it. I know, it’s a stupid physical gesture, but sometimes it actually helps, especially if it makes you feel stupid and gets your head out of your ass and into the real world. It was possible the car that drove past wasn’t the car that honked. It wasn’t like I had been watching my rear-view mirror the whole way home. I might have been paranoid, but I wasn’t that paranoid.

 

~o~O~o~
 

As I got out of the car and looked toward our place I noticed a whole bunch of stuff on the sidewalk. It looked like someone had just thrown a mess of stuff from our house, or maybe Beverly's, from the porch onto the sidewalk. I got closer and could see that it was lots of men's clothing, shoes, a few books, a couple of CDs. I guessed the stuff belonged to Beverly's husband Dave. A light snow was beginning to settle on all of it, melting as soon as it hit. I had never met Dave, and now I wondered if I ever would.

 

~o~O~o~
 

After Atlantic City we hit the Mohegan Sun again, without any problems. Of course, I went fully gendered, which is to say in a dress, a blue bias-cut silk thing that clung to the few curves I had and flared out at the hem. On Alice’s advice I had bought some actual proper high-heeled slingbacks to go with it. I was sure, with each suggestion she made, that I was getting in over my head, but I had to admit they were great looking shoes.

The experience was easier than Atlantic City, in part because I was learning, however slowly, how to deal with men. Mostly what I was learning was how much of a young woman’s time is spent repelling the advances of young and not-so-young men. I swear, one guy who was trying to hit on me late on Saturday night was old enough to be my grandfather.

I know it’s naive, but it had never occurred to me, before the eyebrows and haircut thing, the extent of the harassment young women face. On the way back from the Casino in the early hours of Sunday I mentioned this to Alice and she laughed. “Welcome to the sisterhood,” she said, but she meant it in a kindly way.

I noticed that wearing makeup and dresses and going to the effort to provide clues to onlookers of my femaleness resulted in a lot fewer unpleasant stares. There were still times, during the week when we weren’t gambling, that an occasional passer-by would stare unpleasantly at me as though trying to work out whether I was male or female. I could tell what was going through their minds just by following their eye movements. Usually (if the onlooker was male) they’d start with my face and then drop their eyes quickly to my chest. If they noticed that I had no breasts at all their eyes would pop back up to my face, to try to reconcile what they’d just seen, and then their faces betrayed, by turns, uncertainty, anger, even fear. One afternoon when I was down in Newbury Street buying some CDs a young female sales clerk actually asked her colleague, in front of me, whether she thought I was a guy or girl. I didn’t know how to respond, so I just stood there turning bright red. Fortunately the other sales clerk at the counter admonished her and completed the transaction, without a word from me.

When I put on a bra under my t-shirt, even with minimal padding, I got no such looks or comments. Everyone just assumed I was a woman.

As a consequence, I started wearing a lightly-padded bra almost every time I left the house. Alice got me some silicon things she called chicken filets, which were more natural looking than cotton wool, although they felt a bit slimy against my skin if I got too warm. And because of Arun’s assertions that I could only play looking either entirely female or entirely male, I maintained the shape of my eyebrows. My hair started to grow out, but kept its layered shape. At Alice’s urging, I got it trimmed about twelve weeks later, so I looked neat enough to be someone with money. To simplify matters I went back to Stella. She didn’t seem to think there was anything remarkable that someone asking for their hair to all be hacked off a short time ago was now talking about growing it out. I guess her business was built on people constantly changing their minds.

 

~o~O~o~
 

We were all a little bit surprised that our lawyer’s predictions in Baton Rouge hadn’t come true, and there was probably a sense of unease for all of us each time as we walked into a Casino. Would this be the one where Whitwell had posted our photographs? Over the next few weeks we hit the few remaining East Coast casinos. We couldn’t make much from any of them without drawing suspicion, so at some point we all knew it would come down to a trip back to Vegas.

I’m sure I wanted to go to Vegas more than anyone, if only to figure out whether or not the game was over completely. If it was, then I wouldn’t need to keep up the charade any more. I could let my eyebrows grow out, give myself a buzzcut, and go back to my old life. God, I might even have to get an actual job. That would please Talia.

As I was now travelling and playing as a woman I was spending a lot more time with Lucy, Emily and of course with Alice. It just kind of naturally happened that in our downtime, between playing, or when we were getting ready to play, that the guys tended to bond with the guys, and I fell into the girl’s camp with Lucy and Emily and Alice. We did each other’s hair and makeup, helped each other choose clothes, planned where to eat, and bitched about the way the guys seemed to do nothing to organize anything. Alice took care of all our travel bookings, and Lucy, as our head of security, took charge of all the timing and logistics around arrival and departure from the casinos. I, as treasurer, took care of the books, and distributing the money.

Every weekend after play I sat with Arun and we deducted the principle, plus forty percent, which he said was our cost of operations and our buffer against losses. The rest of the money got distributed between each member of the team. I liked that aspect of being treasurer; it’s hard to be unpopular when you're frequently dispensing large bundles of Ben Franklins.

I opened a couple of safety deposit boxes to put some of the cash in. It seemed safer than keeping it around the apartment, especially since a good deal of it was officially our stake rather than my own money. Occasionally Arun would take the buffer money and put it somewhere else. I just noted the transactions and didn't ask too many questions. We were making so much money, it didn't even seem worth it to question where that forty percent was going.

I found I was becoming even closer to Alice, without a sexual component to our relationship in any way. She’d seen me in some of my worst moments, and hadn’t judged me. And after a rocky start, I found I was really beginning to like Lucy a lot more. She could be very snarky and bitchy at times, but she’d stopped taking that out on me, and I had realized that her cynicism and snark was mostly a cover for a pretty deep-seated inferiority complex. I joked one night with her that the main reason she liked helping me choose clothes was because she looked better in everything we tried on together, and while it was a joke, it wasn’t entirely untrue. In a quiet moment on a redeye back from McCarran one night, when we were seated together in first class, she said to me: “Alex, you know, you’re becoming almost like the little sister I never had.”

I looked at her suspiciously, to see whether there was a putdown in the comment, but she smiled. “I’m not winding you up. I like it.”

“I like it too,” I said to her. And the truth was, I did. I was still infatuated with Alice, but my relationship with Lucy was different. I felt like I had a real friend in Lucy. Through Pete I was seeing more of Vassily and Yana, too, and I was beginning to discover, with Yana, that it was somehow easier to just hang out with women, than it was with men. When I had been a guy, the only guy I could ever connect with had been Pete. As a girl, I could talk easily with several women, and especially with Lucy and Yana.

It made me wonder what there was about Pete. There was nothing feminine about him, but I had always been able to talk easily with him, too.

The playing itself had become routine, but it wasn’t without the occasional setback. As I mentioned earlier, counting requires concentration and commitment. A single missed count alters the odds. So far, I had a flawless record – I’d never, ever, called anyone in to a bad hand. But at smurf level I was the only one who had that record. Almost everyone else, Alice included, had had a bad night at some point. Because the Wizards bet big on every hand, they had to have complete trust in the count at all times. When the smurfs screwed up, it was costly for everyone. Playing at the small casinos, where we weren’t making as much anyway, meant we didn’t lose as much as we might have in Vegas with each screw up, but there were still several nights where we came home having wasted a weekend.

On the plus side, the fact that we had several bad weekends in three months meant we didn’t build up a risk profile at the casinos. The wizards, in particular, must have seemed like chumps.

Arun came through with some of the money from the forty percent he'd been banking, and we restocked our principle.

The fact that I was performing so well as a counter presented Arun with a problem. On the one hand I was having more problems with men at the tables. They always seemed to want to engage me in conversation, and that sometimes made it hard to concentrate. Following Alice’s lead, I bought an engagement and wedding ring combination for myself, with a beautiful diamond and ruby setting, in the hope this would deter them, but it didn’t have a great deal of impact. More than that problem, though, was that my appearance was beginning to attract attention again. And as Arun said, the one thing a smurf couldn’t be was distinctive.

I didn’t find out about this problem directly, but by overhearing Arun and Alice talking one night as I arrived for a team meeting. They were early, the only ones in the room, and when I walked in they hadn’t heard me enter. I was wearing my sneakers, and I guess I was light enough on the stairs that I didn’t make any noise as I came up the stairs. I could hear them talking, and I heard my name, so I stopped about eight stairs down, my head just below the top riser.

“I know you’ve been encouraging Alex, but you’re doing too good a job.” Arun was talking. “He — she’s looking too attractive now. It’s attracting attention. Can you do something to, you know, make her look uglier or something?”

“Alex chooses her own clothes,” Alice said. “I can’t do anything about the way she looks.”

“Yes you can.”

“No, I can’t. Look, Alex has been teaching me things about makeup and all that, not the other way around. You have no idea of the monster you’ve unleashed there. She’s taken to it like she was born to it.”

It’s always strange to hear other people talking about you in the third person. Especially if you’re a guy and they’re saying “she”.

“You’ll have to say something to her if you want her to change,” Alice said, firmly.

I smiled. Alice always stuck up for me. “Perhaps you should just promote her,“ she said. “Why not make her a wizard? You know we could use a woman in that role. And you have to admit, she’s got the acting chops for it. She can do anything.”

Behind me I heard Dan’s voice, and felt the weight of his footfalls. He’d just stepped on to the lowermost stair tread, with Emily behind him. I continued to climb, pretending I hadn’t been stopped and eavesdropping, and said hi to Alice and Arun as I entered the room at the top of the stairs.

At the meeting Arun decided we would risk Vegas again. All of us felt nervous about it, but we’d become too noticeable in Atlantic City and the other Eastern States casinos, and none of us were that eager to go south again. Arun gave us the standard briefing, but added a little extra at the end about our escape plans, and reinforced, once again, that we were under no circumstances, ever, to agree to go to a back room, or upstairs, or anywhere ‘for a chat’. None of us really needed the reminder. We all remembered what had happened to Henry, and we recognized the need to be extra careful.

At the end of the meeting, almost as though he had been prompted by Alice, Arun made one more announcement. I was being reassigned as a wizard, which meant one of the elves would need to volunteer to step down to smurf in order to keep our requisite number of counters. Lucy volunteered to smurf if someone else would run lookout, for which I was grateful. She was disciplined and resourceful and she always kept a cool head. Bob Kwak volunteered for lookout duty in her place, with Ziyen.

Arun explained to me that as a wizard I would have to dress a little more conspicuously and act more like a spoiled Japanese princess whose Daddy had given her the Black Amex card for the weekend. I wasn’t looking forward to looking more conspicuous, but I was quite excited by the opportunity to do some wild and crazy stuff, instead of the humdrum counting that usually characterized my visits to each Casino.

I carried a lot of the cash for the weekend, in my purse ($20,000), in the lining of my coat ($50,000), in my carry-on ($20,000) and in some pads I had sewn to give me a few more curves in my butt and hips. Stuffing the pads with cash was time-consuming, because it involved folding the money – hundreds – carefully into different shapes, and then wrapping them in a layer of spandex. Each pad held about $3-5,000, depending on whether I put it on my butt or my hips. It was almost like an exercise in origami. If I wore anything too revealing the pads would look very fake, but under jeans, and especially with a coat or long sweater, they just enhanced my femininity. If anything it looked like I had something of a bubble butt. I might even have enjoyed the experience of looking curvier if it hadn’t been for the fact that pads made of money were just plain damned uncomfortable.

Alice thought the pads were hilarious. She never carried more than $20,000 on her, in her purse or coat or backpack, at any one time, and refused to carry more, so it wasn’t an issue for her, but she thought the idea of me wearing them was entertaining even though the whole scheme made me look slightly pear-shaped instead of my usual svelte self. I didn’t ask Dan or any of the other guys where they carried their cash. That fell under the heading of too much information.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Because I had a lot of time on my hands I started seeing a lot more of Beverly, too. It started when she came upstairs one morning because a fuse had blown. I was the only person home, and I really didn't know anything about fuses, but I knew where Talia kept her toolkit. Beverly and I went down to her fusebox and tried to work out how to fix it. I knew enough about electricity to know that we should replace like for like. Anyway, it turned out that the kind of fuses we had in our building weren't the kind that could be fixed with a little bit of wire — at least not in a way that I felt safe about — and since I didn't want to burn the house down I took Beverly and Samantha with me over to Home Depot. It took forever to fit Samantha's child seat to the harness points in the back of my Jetta, and I began to wish our house was modern enough to have proper breakers. But eventually I got it in, and we set off, with Samantha making pleasant burbling noises in the back seat.

The guy we spoke to over at Home Depot could not have been more condescending if he had made a career out of it. Perhaps he had.

The way Beverly turned him around was fascinating. She smiled and nodded and soon he had found what we needed and put the ribbon of copper into the holder part of the fuse for us. We walked out to the car and Beverly grinned at me. “Men have their uses after all“ she said.

“I hate hardware store guys.“ I said. “ I never noticed how much I hate them, until just then.“

“Hardware stores suck sufficient moose wang that there's not an unsatisfied moose within a hundred miles of any of them,“ Beverly said. “But they are a necessary evil. Thanks for the ride.“

Beverly was good at saying things like that. I hoped I had an occasion to use the moose wang saying at some time in the future.

After that incident Beverly started coming upstairs with cookies or cake each morning whenever I was in town, which was most weekdays. Sometimes I'd go downstairs to her place, although I tried not to do it too often because her place was frankly pretty depressing. It was clean enough, she kept it very well, but she just didn't have any money, and it was very spartan. Because it was the downstairs apartment it was also very dark. By contrast our place upstairs was in various stages of decomposition at all times, but it was filled with stuff. Beverly didn't even have cable.

It didn't seem like her husband was ever coming back. They had been married for just over 2 years, she said, and looking back she couldn't understand why she'd ever done it. From the stories she told me it seemed like she was well rid of him: he had only hit her once, but as we both agreed, once was once too often.

I had started to like Beverly, and I was beginning to value her friendship a lot, but I had never opened up to her at all about my real identity. I had grown quite fond of Samantha, and I had the feeling that if I was too forthright about my current situation vis a vis gender that it might mark the end of what seemed like a good friendship. Besides, I felt good that I could help Beverly out from time to time, driving her to the market, and bringing home the occasional small stuffed toy or some clothes for Samantha.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Playing again in Vegas was an anti-climax. It turned out I was a very good wizard. “This Japanese princess thing comes naturally to you,” Lucy said, laughing. She and I had hit a couple of the Vegas stores before we started playing, and I was decked out in a very short red silk sheath, with some staggeringly high black sandals. I found, to my considerable surprise, that it wasn’t actually that difficult to walk in them. In the store I had tried on a pair of wedges, and those were lethal. I knew I would have broken my ankle if I’d walked more than a dozen steps in those. You’d think wedges would be easy, because of more stability on the ground, but if they start to tip you can say goodbye to your ankle. The sandals were fine, even though they did have a 3 inch heel. I could feel my now-unpadded butt sticking further out behind me, as it always did with heels, but I didn’t feel in danger of falling over.

My hair had gotten longer again, and Lucy helped me put it up, with a lacquer hairclip she’d found that looked very Japanese. I had no idea where she’d found it, but it was beautiful. It had elaborate images of cranes in water inlaid in the lacquer. I almost hated to wear it at the back of my head, because I couldn’t see it.

As for acting the part, it didn’t seem hard. I pretended I didn’t speak much English, which limited my conversation, and I made sure to cover my mouth whenever I giggled, which was often. I flirted a little with the dealer at the second table I went to, a charming old guy who looked a little like Grandpa Rousselot, my mom’s father. The other dealers were women, and I was much colder toward them.

We all played well, and didn’t wrap the evening until around 5am. We played again the next night, limiting ourselves to Ceasars and New York New York, which was a place I hated but which we hadn’t taken much from in the past. It was Sunday night, and slow, so we finished at 3am so as not to draw too much attention to the size of our take.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Lucy, Alice and I decided to get the Monday afternoon flight back to Boston instead of the early one the rest of the team took. It gave us a chance to sleep in, and then we all went and got pedicures and hung around the pool at the Luxor, where we had been staying. At the pool I was more covered up than Lucy and Alice, with a T-shirt over my bikini top over my fake boobs, and my lower bits taped securely back, but any anxiety I had about being clad in bikini bottoms soon receded after lying in the sun for twenty minutes. It seemed like a particularly decadent thing to be doing with a Monday.

On the flight back I slept most of the way. I was starting to get used to two things: to the world seeing me as a woman, and to not having to work hard for a living.

I knew at least one of those things wasn't that good for me, but I wasn't ready to stop either.

 

~o~O~o~

 

A few nights after getting back from Vegas I got restless with laying around the house. For want of anything actually exciting to do I grabbed Pete to go roam around the Alewife T station with me. It felt like the kind of thing we used to do when we were both students, when we had free time, and did things without purpose. As undergrads, we had often just wandered around parts of Cambridge. We sat on the Common, talking. We played Nintendo for hours. Took random photographs of street scenes, graffiti, traffic lights, bottles or whatever with Pete's little Kodak digital camera.

I felt like I could capture a little of the pleasure of our undergrad years by having a similarly aimless evening. “Our lives“ I said pretentiously, “Are getting too directed. Waste some time with me.“

We drove over to Alewife, even though it was only about a half mile from our apartment, because getting across the junction of Concord Turnpike with Alewife-Brook Parkway as a pedestrian is atrocious and besides it was freezing cold. An old college friend of ours once said that Alewife is like a life-sized video game, and it really is the best description for the place – there’s the subway, the bus terminal, the gigantic parking station, the concourse, an outdoor bridge underpass, a deserted children’s playground, all massive concrete everywhere. It’s not very user friendly, but there’s something about the idea of a futuristic structure that turned into a dystopia that appealed to me, and Pete was happy to come along.

We checked out the playground and then the bus station, and took a bunch of photographs that seemed oddly arty in their casualness and poor focus, and then went inside the actual T station so that Pete could get a burger. Then we climbed upstairs to the roof of the parking structure, near Pete’s car, and he ate the burger and fries off the concrete wall. It was freezing cold, and every time he took a bite out of the burger he had to put it down again quickly or else the corner of the ketchup-covered wrapper would fly up in the breeze.

In the distance you could watch Route 2 retreating over a hill like an electric river. I pointed at the lights of downtown Boston, in the opposite direction just to the left of the giant housing projects, and observed that we could keep an eye on things from here, in case it blew up. A few years later, when the Twin Towers came down, Pete reminded me of that night. He would remind me of our discussion one other time, too, but I didn’t know about any of that then.

I took a photograph of him on top of the almost empty parking garage. Digital cameras weren't very good back then and it didn't turn out too well, but I still have a copy of that photo and the others from that night.

We retreated to Pete’s car and sat on the hood. He lit up a joint. The carpark was pretty empty, so I wasn’t worried. We sat in silence for a while, just watching the lights, even though it was freezing. We had another joint. Then, out of nowhere, Pete said suddenly, “Alex, how do we fall into the things we fall into?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Love, life, everything.”

“Don’t start on me, Pete.”

He looked sidelong at me, and smiled.

“Do we fall …” he said, after a few more tokes … “No. Wait. Is the process of becoming … something you can strive for, or something that happens?”  

He handed the joint to me. “Or is it jumping into something and then something else happening in spite of the jumping? What is that, then?   Falling-jumping?”

“Are you talking about falling in love?” I asked, drawing deep. I didn’t smoke, didn’t really know how to, so I was never good with weed. I’d only ever tried it a couple of times before, in high school and college, but even though I wasn’t good at drawing it in, I could tell I was getting stoned. I coughed, and gave the joint back to Pete.

I was confused. We sometimes had deep philosophical discussions, especially when Pete got stoned, but usually they revolved around a particular issue I could understand. Was he talking about falling in love with someone?

“Is the active sense of falling, jumping?“ he concluded.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,“ I said. “Were you stoned before you lit this joint?“

It was beginning to snow. Four days earlier I had been sitting around a pool in Vegas. It all seemed surreal.

“Alex …” he said, but he stopped.

“What are we talking about, Pete?” I was freezing, and I wanted to get in the car, but I was puzzled. “Jumping in love? Seriously? Was that actual Heidegger you were trying to quote? While we’re stoned?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Sorry, Alex.” He jumped off the hood of the car and stuffed the last of his burger rubbish into a plastic bag. I looked at him as he came back from trying to find a trash can, trying to work out what was on his mind. I usually knew what Pete was thinking, but sometime in the last few months I’d lost that knack. I didn’t think he was actually thinking of stuff he'd learned in Philosophy 203. There was something else going on.

It started to snow more heavily, and we both had a coating of snow on us before we even got in the car. Sometimes snow comes on you gradually, and sometimes it just dumps on you, and that night it reminded me of senior year in Lincoln, when John Ostermeyer and I got stuck one night, up near the university, when my mom’s car wouldn’t start. We had been freezing, both wishing we had cellphones even though nobody we knew had cellphones, and then the sky opened up and just dumped like an inch of snow in about ten minutes, so fast that it didn’t get a chance to melt off the car. We were alone up on the campus, in the middle of the parking lot that was turning white, just like the Alewife parking lot was turning white in front of Pete and me, and that night in Lincoln my mom’s shitty Neon refused to do anything.

I gave a little cheer when Pete’s hand-me-down Buick started first time, and he looked at me like I was crazy.

Maybe I was.

 

~o~O~o~
 

After three months waiting I finally got my first appointment with Dr. Kidman. The guy sure was popular. His office was in one of those bland buildings on Mass Avenue that usually indicated the doctors had some affiliation with the hospital, and the waiting room was packed. I picked up a National Geographic from the table, and discovered it had a feature on Greece. I looked at the date on the cover – 1972. The magazine was almost as old as I was.

It was a good thing the magazine was a museum piece, because it was sufficiently interesting to keep me engaged for the hour I was kept waiting. I had no idea Greece was so undeveloped in the 1970s. It looked like Cuba does now, frozen fifty years behind the times.

When the receptionist finally called me and I entered his office, Dr. Kidman, like everyone confronted by the discrepancy between my appearance and my full name, did a double take before offering me a seat. It actually unsettled me, that time, probably partly because I was nervous about seeing him, and partly because I’d gotten used to people just assuming I was female. Nobody had taken that second look for months, or if they had it had been because they were guys with one-track minds.

Dr. Kidman had a professorial look about him to go with the nameplate on the door. He was younger than I expected, but he somehow contrived to make himself appear hopelessly out of touch. He dressed older than he looked. He was bearded, with expensive rimless glasses and one of those awkward tweedy jackets doctors seem to go in for over a plain blue shirt and black pants. If I’d had to guess I would have taken a punt that 90% of what he was wearing came from Brooks Brothers.

I sat down in the comfortable chair Dr. Kidman indicated, and he offered me some Evian, which I accepted. “So, um …” he began. He didn’t seem at all like the genius Susan had assured me he was.

“Alex,” I finished for him.

“So, Alex, I uh, I understand you’re Susan’s, ah …” he was searching for a word here. “Sibling?”

“Her brother,” I said. It was alarming how discomfited he seemed to be. I wasn’t sure he was the right therapist for me.

“Well why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself.”

“Well, some of it you know, you know. Susan and I grew up in the same place, same parents, all that stuff.”

“Tell it to me anyway,” Dr. Kidman said. “Something tells me your perspective will be different.” He smiled, and I realized he was making a joke. Maybe I could like this guy after all.

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 
Then one night, as we swarmed around the tables at Caesars Palace, the wheels fell off. Dan and I were teamed up again, and we were seated at the table no more than 30 minutes before he gave me the signal to abandon ship. At first I wasn’t sure he’d actually made the signal, and I hesitated. He was getting up from the table and leaving, but the dealer had just started dealing me a new hand. I looked down at the cards, then up at the back of Dan’s head as he lumbered away from the table. Fuck, what was the count again? Plus 6.

I looked around. Lucy and Dan were gone from the table across the pit. The count wasn’t important. Time to go. Definitely time to go. I scooped my chips up, tossed a twenty-five dollar chip to the dealer, and headed for the exit as nonchalantly as I could, but before I got twenty yards from the table I was intercepted by a large – make that enormous – guy with no neck, who grabbed hold of my arm and practically spun me around to face a smaller man in a suit. The smaller guy was still at least 4 inches taller than me.

“Game’s up, Alex,” the smaller man said.

How did he know my name?

He smiled, a thin, humorless smirk, and as though he’d read my mind, said: “How do I know your name? I know everything there is to know about you.” He laughed then. “Everything about you. And the rest of your team. Please send my regards to Dan and Henry. And tell Arun hello from John Mantonelli.

“But enough pleasantries. More importantly,” he continued, “our software knows you.” He gestured to the ceiling, and I looked up to see the shiny black bubbles where the all-seeing security cameras were hidden. “Any time you step in the door, our computers are going to know, within minutes. Now, why don’t we go somewhere private to talk?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, remembering Arun’s warnings. “I was just leaving.”

“It will only take a few minutes.”

“I was just leaving.”

“Sure you were.” He seemed to weigh his options.

Blackjack isn’t poker, but sitting around a table for hours at a time, and watching people’s decisions, you get to be pretty good at working out what’s going on in their heads while they’re working out what to say. Legally he couldn’t force me into the back room, and I could see in his eyes that he knew I understood my rights. Arun had been very clear about that. He could try all sorts of pressure, but since all they ultimately had was the ability to get me on a trespass charge in the future, forcing me to stay on the premises would have been unwise.

“Look, Alex,” he eventually loomed over me. “I could make this very hard for you.”

He paused, obviously thinking, then deciding.

“But you seem like a decent girl,” he continued. I wondered if the relief was obvious on my face, but he went on. “You’re a little whacky, but decent. Probably in over your head. How about I just get you to pass on the message for me? This place is dead to you, now. Dead. You’re barred. Finished. Tell Arun it doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll never play here again. And if I have my way, the same thing will be true at every other place in Vegas.”

 

~o~O~o~
 

I didn’t head straight back to Boston. I was too unsettled, but I couldn’t stay in Vegas. Nothing could have kept me in the same town as John Mantonelli for the night.

After our debrief the others all headed off to McCarran, but I had a bad feeling about travelling as a group and I felt like I needed some breathing space, so I rented a car and drove. I had been terrified in Ceasars, and it was going to take a while for that to wear off.

I took the back roads North out of Vegas, up into Death Valley. By dawn I was standing at the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, watching the sun come up, feeling slightly more at ease. Death Valley is a scary place in the heat of the afternoon, but at dawn it’s remarkably peaceful, and the clear sky had more colors in it than I'd ever imagined possible. It was orange and yellow and blue and indigo, and maybe there was even some green there somewhere. It went on forever. I climbed up on the roof of my rental car and sat there for a good hour, alone, trying to empty my head of all the thoughts that had been crowding it for the previous few years.

Sitting watching the dawn reminded me of the first time I'd seen a sunrise, back when I was ten on a road trip from Lincoln to L.A. For reasons known only to my dad, he'd decided we needed to leave at 4am “to beat the traffic,“ which might have meant traffic in another city he expected to get to later, but made no sense in relation to driving out of Lincoln. Mom, as was her way, agreed stoically but insisted on wrapping Susan and me in blankets and laying us in the back of the station wagon with the seat folded down so we could sleep. I didn't sleep; I just propped myself up on some luggage and watched the world go backwards through the rear window of our Chevrolet Caprice wagon. As the sun came up behind us I was the only one to see it. That trip had been my first time to L.A., to my grandparents' Japanese-themed Pasadena home, and it had opened my eyes to a huge world with so many more possibilities than Lincoln.

That started me thinking of Sobo (Grandma) Rousselot, the smartest, most down to earth woman I knew. It had been at least two Thanksgivings since I had seen her. She had lived through a world war, emigration, having to learn English and raise two children with practically no help from my mad-scientist engineer grandpa. I admired her immensely.

At 6.30am I looked at my watch. I could easily make it to L.A. by the afternoon, even with a stopover for sleep.

Once the sun was properly up and the dawn gone, I drove over the range and across the Panamint Valley, and hit a motel in a place called Lone Pine, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It’s a pretty town, in the shadow of Mt Whitney in the mornings. I slept there for three or four hours and then hit the road again. Driving was good. Driving stopped me thinking. The radio played old songs that I didn't know well, and the experience felt like a 70s movie.

I arrived at Grandma Rousselot’s house in Pasadena in mid-afternoon. I wondered whether I should have called ahead. I hadn’t seen her in years, and I wasn’t sure how she’d take the changes I’d made in my life. And wasn’t it kind of rude of me to just show up, unannounced? I told myself if she wasn’t home I’d just head for the airport. To be on the safe side I had changed into jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt, which was girly but not unbearably so. I wasn’t wearing a bra, for maybe the first time in 6 months.

I rang the doorbell and waited. There was a small sign just next to the door that Grandpa Rousselot had put there years earlier, which read “This is the home of a Japanese woman. For peace and harmony, please take off your shoes before entering.” I smiled, remembering, and took my shoes off and placed them on the rack next to the door. I hoped I wasn’t being presumptuous and she’d let me in.

I needn’t have worried too much. She was delighted to see me. “Such a surprise!” She hugged me. Even though I am usually described by people as 'slight,' next to Grandma I felt like a giant. She was tiny, maybe 5 feet tall at most, and she had such clear white skin it was almost luminous. As we hugged I couldn't get over how physically frail she'd become since I'd seen her last. She felt so thin and light it was like she was made of papier-má¢ché.

Grandma shepherded me inside her immaculate home. Even though her eyesight was next-to-gone entirely, the house was still spotless.

I enquired after her health, asked her what she’d been doing. How was she coping with Grandpa gone? Did she have enough help around the house?

Of course Grandma had that wisdom with age thing that goes with having raised kids yourself, having taught high school geography for fifteen years, and having looked after a husband who was literally a rocket scientist at JPL but who couldn't find cornflakes in a supermarket. She was a smart woman, and despite her lack of eyesight there was no getting anything past her. She was onto me the moment we first hugged, but she was smart enough to let me dig a whole series of holes to fall into before confronting me with her questions.

For someone with next to no vision she knew her way around her house, and she started to make tea before I insisted on doing it. “Jouzu dayou ne,“ she said (“I'm quite capable“), but she let me take over. “Gwen comes in most days in the morning, and does my shopping for me, but otherwise I cope just fine. They wanted to put me in a home,“ she scowled. “Don’t ever let other people make those choices for you, Alex.“

Grandma had taught me the proper way to make tea when I was a child. Unlike Mom and Dad, she was a natural born teacher, and so almost everything she ever taught me stayed with me. So I made tea, as best I remembered, using an actual teapot and sen-cha, the kind of Japanese green tea that's mixed with roasted rice. Just the smell of it made me remember my childhood visits here in Pasadena, listening to all the adults talk. Proust was right.

Grandma asked after Mom and Dad, and Susan, but it seemed like she'd spoken to Mom on the phone much more recently than me, so I ended up asking her a bunch of stuff instead of the other way around. And then I told her about Tom, and about Susan and how well the two of them clicked and how pleased I was about that, so at least that was some news I had.

“And what about you, Alex?“ she said. “You certainly sound like your life has taken a different direction. You smell that way too.“ She smiled. “I think I bought that same body lotion for Susan for her birthday this year.“

“Uh, yeah. Maybe.“ It was not one of my more articulate moments.

“Susan mentioned to me that you were going through some changes in your life.“

“You spoke with Susan recently?“

“She calls me almost every week.“

“Oh. So you knew about Tom, and everything …“

“Yes, but it was so lovely to hear your perspective on it. I so seldom see you. It’s good to know what you're thinking about.“

“Well …“

“Do you remember, Alex, how alike you and Susan were when you were little? People practically couldn't tell you apart.“

So I knew, at least, that Susan had been talking to Grandma about what was going on with me.

“Uh, Grandma, um … You know, talking with Susan, do you talk to Mom about me, too?“

“What Susan tells me in confidence, stays with me, Alex. You of all people, as the descendent of a Sasaki woman, should know that.“

“Yeah. But you just told me.“

“Only the things I knew about you. Which, by the way, we haven't even begun to talk about yet. And I would never tell you what Susan thinks about you. You'll have to ask her that yourself.“

So we had a long, long conversation over tea, about what had been happening in my life. Minus the stuff about playing cards. Which meant we mostly talked about gender.

If it sounds strange that I was able to talk to a seventy year old woman about gender confusion, it shouldn't, really. Grandma Rousselot was probably the most open-minded person I knew. When my cousin Antoine was sent to a rehab clinic at age fifteen, it was Grandma that persuaded his parents to do that instead of just kicking him out of the house. She even had Antoine stay with her for five months when he was trying to get his life back together. She never tried to ingratiate herself with her grandchildren by trying to be 'hip,' or by throwing money at us. She was just solid, reliable, and not always inclined to side with our parents. I loved her to bits.

The other thing that went with not being judgmental was that — unlike my parents — Grandma almost never offered prescriptive advice. “I'm sure I wouldn't know what to do“ was a common refrain. But because she didn't have actual answers, she made a great sounding board for discussing difficult issues.

It turned out she hadn't told my parents what was going on with me. “For one thing, you hadn't told me yourself, and I wouldn't betray Susan's confidence with your mother. And for another,“ and here she smiled, a wicked little smile that hinted at the disciplinarian in her, “you are not going to get off that lightly. You are going to have to talk with your parents, and nobody else can have that conversation for you. Judging from the way your voice sounds, I would guess that you haven't spoken to them on the phone for some time. Is that right?“

“Yes.“ I had really been neglecting everyone important to me. I felt ashamed of myself for that.

Grandma probably sensed that, because she changed the subject. We talked, and talked some more, and eventually I got the impression I might have been wearing her out. She was so much more frail than I had remembered.

Just before I left, Grandma disappeared into her spare room and came back out with a cardboard box, about 18“ on all sides. “This is for you,“ she said. “I would have wrapped it, but I didn't know you were coming, and I didn't know you needed it.“

On the top of the box was some text in Japanese script which said: “nana korobi ya oki“. I'm not great at reading Kanji, but I knew enough to get that. It means “seven times down, eight times up“ – a call to never give up.  

I opened the box. “It“ was a Daruma. If you've never seen one, a Daruma is a kind of Japanese icon, a head, shaped almost like a barrel or cask, mostly red with a white face, and blank spaces where the eyes should be. It comes with no eyes, and you only start using it when you add one. The idea of the Daruma is to constantly remind you that you have a task to undertake. The empty eye glares at you every day, reminding you of your failure to achieve your goal. Reproach is a very Japanese thing.

“You know how to use it, don’t you?“ Grandma asked.

“I think so,“ I said. “I fill the first eye in when I figure out what I have to do, and the second eye in when I've achieved my goal. Is that right? Ryouhou no me wo akete iru.“ (Both eyes open).

The phrase is from an old Buddhist koan, and refers to the realization of a goal. I remembered it from when Grandma had congratulated Susan at her high school graduation.

“That's it, exactly.“ She was pleased. She went to take my hand, but rather than grasp it I set the Daruma in its box on the floor, and swept her into a hug again instead.

“Hisashiburi obaa-chan,“ I said. (“I don’t see you often enough, Grandma“).

“That's true,“ she said, hugging me back tightly and obviously pleased I tried some Japanese. Although I usually thought of her as Sobo, the informal term for one’s own grandmother, I hadn't called her Obaa-chan since first grade.

“But whenever I do see you, I'm so glad. Thank you.“

“Well, thank you, for coming. You're my most interesting grandchild, Alex. And I mean interesting in the very best sense of the word. Life would hardly be worth living if it was dull.“

“I can think of a more moderate approach to take,“ I said. “But thank you. And thank you for the Daruma.“

“You realize now I've given it to you, you’ll have to bring it back here, when you've accomplished your goal?“ Grandma said. “I'm not completely altruistic. I get to see you again.“

It was true. Fulfilling the custom meant returning the Daruma to the temple it was bought from, in this case the Pasadena temple, after the goal had been attained and the second eye filled in. It was customary to burn the Daruma at the temple, buy a new Daruma, and set a new goal. But I had yet to figure out what my first goal was.

 

~o~O~o~
 

After leaving Grandma's I sat in a bar on Melrose, wondering whether or not it was too late to call Pete. Or maybe Lucy. I didn’t feel like talking to Susan or Alice. But it was getting late in Boston. The sun was only just going down in LA, and a few people had begun filing in to the bar after work. I’d gotten changed in the car and had a hint of breasts under my t-shirt now, and I had been through the customary carding ritual before I sat down. I was nursing an imported beer, looking at the Daruma which I had placed on the table in front of me. A young Asian woman had begun playing guitar in the cafe, and it was oddly soothing to listen to her mutilate Video Killed The Radio Star, slowed down, with only her acoustic guitar. When she moved on to treating Abba’s Dancing Queen like it was a torch song I was less soothed, but I guess re-interpreting pop songs in a melancholy way was her shtick and by god she was going to shtick it to Los Angeles until it noticed her.

The bar was pleasant. If I'd been in Cambridge, in Grendel's or another dive near Harvard Square, drinking on my own, I'd have been besieged by young male slackers or Harvard students. In L.A. it seemed like I was just a casually-dressed girl, in a bar, early in the evening, with a Japanese religious idol on the table in front of her. An everyday thing in L.A., no doubt.

Once alcohol becomes involved my thinking processes become less linear, and so I was alternately wondering 'how did I come to be sitting here in Los Angeles in a padded bra with an identity crisis?' and 'what kind of goal did I have to work with, to use Grandma's gift of the Daruma properly?'

Common sense finally won out over alcohol and I stopped drinking and thought about the Daruma itself. The whole idea of a Daruma was to begin a process of evaluation. It’s like the Japanese way of pre-empting the need for therapy. First, you figure out what you need to have as a goal. For most people, that's easy — everybody has wants. For others, like me, it’s harder. I really didn't know what I wanted from life. I had money. I had a few good friends. I had my health. But I had no real direction. What did I want?

Seeing Grandma had made me feel good. Seeing Susan made me feel good. Seeing Pete made me feel good. My goal would be to be true to my friends and my family, to put their interests before my own for the next year. For at least the next year. it wasn't really a goal directed at my own life, but it seemed like trying to do better by other people was more noble than focusing on myself.

I checked into a hotel in Century City and booked myself an afternoon flight home for the next day. In my beige hotel room, with its view of the building that had served as Nakitome Tower in the first Die Hard movie, I didn't sleep very well. The warning from John Mantonelli was still in my mind but over on the table in the hotel room the Daruma was colorful and meaningful. I had missed so much these past few years by not paying enough attention to my friends and family.

I got up from bed and went and sketched in an eye on the Daruma. When I got back to Boston I'd do it properly, with a sharpie or maybe a brush and ink, but for the time being I had a goal to better myself, and an icon to reproach me when I failed.

 

~o~O~o~
 

There was still an April chill when I arrived back at Logan, and I wrapped my coat around the thin red dress I’d been wearing when I left LA. I’d travelled enough to know that a dress is about the least practical thing you can wear on a transcontinental flight, but I’d put myself in first class and loaded up with blankets to compensate.

Coming in from Logan I couldn’t even be bothered arguing with the cab driver over the route.

I dragged my bag up the steps to our apartment. There was a light on in the window. I had never been so pleased at the thought of seeing Pete. I opened the door, dragged my bag inside, calling out “Pete, I’m home!”

I hung up my coat, and walked into the living room. As I did so I could see some arms waving above the top of the couch, which faced away from me, and then I saw Pete’s face, slightly flushed, rise above the back of it. And then, immediately afterward, a woman’s arm, raised up, and then her face, too. Her hair was mussed.

“Uh, hi,” Pete said nervously. “I wasn’t expecting you back until tomorrow.”

“What is this?” the woman on the couch said.

“Uh,” Pete looked embarrassed. “Debra, this is Alex, my, er, roomie.”

“Your roomie?” Debra looked unimpressed.

“Uh, yeah. You know, I live here?” I said. I don’t know what expression was on my face, but I probably looked about as unimpressed as Debra.

She had stood up, and I could see her blouse was in serious disarray. I had to hand it to Pete, he knew how to find good looking women. She had gorgeous dark hair, mussed or no, and, as Pete would have said to me two years earlier, she had a serious rack on her.

He’d stopped making those kinds of comments about women to me recently.

Debra looked at Pete. I figured he had about ten seconds to clear the air. I had no idea what he’d told her, if he’d told her anything. But a woman in an expensive silk dress intruding into what was obviously a bit of foreplay was clearly not something she’d been expecting.

For that matter, Pete making out with a woman on our couch wasn’t something I’d been expecting, either.

I didn’t know whether I should help clear the air, or burst into tears. Instead, I said, “I’m going to bed. Nice to meet you, Debra,” and went to my room. It seemed the safest thing to do.

Why was I upset at Pete being with a woman? Was I jealous? Was I going mad? All I wanted from him was some reassurance after what had happened in Vegas. I didn’t want anything else. Debra had nothing to fear from me.

And yet, I also had formed an immediate impression, without so much as exchanging three sentences with her, that she was no good for Pete.

I was jealous. What was wrong with me?

 

~o~O~o~
 

Next morning, I was up uncharacteristically early, before dawn. I’d had a rough night’s sleep again, still full of images of my encounter in Vegas. I wasn’t sure whether or not Debra was still around, so I dressed in a skirt and sweater. I nodded to the Daruma before I left my room, then made coffee, cleaned up the glasses in the living room Pete and Debra had left from the night before, and read the paper. Around 7.00am I heard Pete get up and go into the shower. I wondered if Debra was still with him. But less than ten minutes later he was downstairs, solo, clean but with stubble, wearing his standard CEO-startup outfit of blue jeans and black t-shirt with a well-cut jacket.

“Morning,” I said, neutrally. Of course I wanted to ask about Debra, and in times gone by, when Pete and I were just guys hanging out, I wouldn’t have hesitated, but now I held back. It shouldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that I’d actually worn a skirt that day, but somehow, the dynamic between us had changed. I wasn’t just Pete’s best friend any more. I was something else.

Pete, of course, acted like nothing at all had happened the night before. “Morning. You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” I handed him a cup of coffee, which he accepted gratefully.

“It’s not like you’ve ever been a morning person.”

“I have a couple of things to do today,” I lied. I had nothing.

“Me too,” Pete said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. We closed our mezzanine round.”

Immediately any residual grumpiness I has toward him was extinguished. “That’s fantastic news, Pete. Awesome.” Mezzanine finance was what Pete’s business needed to grow from its small startup status to exploit their patents properly. With the money they were raising, they would be able to continue development on their pattern recognition software, but they’d also be able to explore marketing it properly.

“So don’t you want to know how much?”

“I guess. You know I don’t know much about finance.”

“Ten million. It values us at forty-five.”

Forty-five million dollars. It was an insane amount of money, especially for a company with fewer than twenty employees. I knew that before the deal Pete and his two co-founders personally held at least 75% of the business. This deal had probably diluted that substantially, but even allowing for dilution, Pete was, on paper at least, a millionaire many times over.

He was grinning like I’d rarely seen him grin before. Without thinking, I wrapped him in a hug. “Congratulations!”

Reflexively, he hugged me back, both of us also trying to hold on to our coffees. The hug only lasted for a few moments, and then I pulled back, embarrassed.

“So when’s the Lamborghini arriving?” I joked, trying to brush over the awkwardness.

“It’s all going into the business,” Pete said. “Although I did think we could think about maybe buying a house instead of staying in this sweatbox another summer.”

We. He said we. Why would he want to buy a house with me? He must have meant he would buy the house. Or he meant he and Debra would buy it. If Debra was more than a one night stand. I’d hadn’t heard him talk about her before.

“So is the deal all closed?” I asked. I really didn’t want to know about him and Debra.

“Signed on Friday night. You were out west, or I would have called you.”

“I’m really pleased for you, Pete. Really pleased.”

“I’m pretty fuckin’ pleased, too.” He handed me his empty coffee cup. What was I, the maid? But it was hard to be cross with him, he was so full of energy and enthusiasm.

“Well, don’t spend all of it on the first day after the deal,” I said, and waved him from the kitchen. Pete never ate a proper breakfast, always grabbed a bagel and coffee on the way to the T. He was going to be late if I didn’t push him out the door.

Forty-five million dollars. It made my biggest nights in Vegas look insignificant.

 

~o~O~o~
 

It took a week after we had separately slunk back to Boston for Arun to finally call a team meeting. I think we were all relieved to have the breathing space. I certainly was. While I was relieved to have escaped the terrors of the back room and the kind of beating Henry had enjoyed, I wasn’t exactly thrilled at being told by John Mantonelli that my income stream had suddenly dried up.

We all met at a cafe in Alston, just after it had officially closed for the day. As usual, I was the first to arrive, and from my vantage point next to the window I watched the others park on the street and trickle in. Dan, predictably, drove an enormous Dodge pickup. I wondered how on earth he found anywhere in greater Boston to park something so huge. Arun surprised me by arriving in a new silver Acura 2 door, together with Alice. I’d have picked him for sure as the kind of guy to buy something European. I knew the Acura wasn’t hers, since she didn’t have a car.

“Fucking face-recognition software,” Arun said, when we were all finally seated. “Computers are ruining the world. All of you computer geeks, you’re killing the business.”

“What’s this 'all you computer geeks' stuff?“ Dan said.

Arun waved dismissively. “Whatever.” He looked around at the seven of us remaining in the team. Dan, Alice, Bob, Lucy, Emily, and me. Ziyen had left a few weeks ago, after deciding a few hundred thousand was all he needed to go back to China and start a new business. The rest of us had all adjusted our lives and relationships around the work. Which I should rephrase: the rest of us had essentially all abandoned our relationships, and whatever other work we had, to focus on blackjack. And now here we were, at this impromptu meeting, having been barred from Ceasar’s, and probably most of Vegas.

“There’s a way back from this, guys,” Arun said. “we just have to find ways around the software. You all know how software works, you know there are always ways around it.”

“This isn’t our software,” Lucy said.

Arun shot her a sharp look.

“Of course. But all software works on rules. We just need to change the rules. Or the parameters the rules work on.”

“You want us to hack the software?” Emily asked, incredulous.

I was surprised. In the year or two I’d worked with Emily, I’d barely heard her say a dozen sentences, even when she and Lucy and Alice and I were hanging out together. But she was clearly pissed at Arun.

“Hey,” she continued, “if we’re going to be hacking, why not just get into wholesale bank fraud. I hear SQL injection is all the rage.” She stood up and grabbed her backpack to leave. “This is ridiculous.”

“Nobody’s talking about hacking,” Arun said. “Sit down.”

Emily hesitated.

“Sit the fuck down,” Arun said. The language sounded odd coming from someone as polished and poised as Arun. “You know I’m not an idiot. I've spoken to Jeff Orgun, our lawyer. We’re not going to break the law.”

Emily looked at all of the rest of us sitting passively, then sat down again. But she muttered: “It’s not like you can even recognize a face. So what do you care?“

I'm sure everyone heard it, but Arun at least pretended not to.

“So let’s just recap.” Arun continued. “We’ve been barred.” He paused for dramatic effect, and I idly wondered whether he’d considered a career as a trial lawyer.

“We can keep playing in Connecticut, Atlantic City, the regions,” he said, “but it’s only a matter of time. I figure we have ten, twelve weeks before our photographs are in every security room in the country. We have to change up.

“Anyone feel like chancing their hand in Macau?” He looked at all of us in turn. Nobody said anything.

“I didn’t think so. Fuck a casino in Macau and you won’t be in the back room, you’ll be underwater near the Ponte de Amizade. Monte Carlo? The Amphibians will narc us out.” The Amphibians were a rival MIT team that had left Vegas a year ago to work in Europe. They were very protective of their turf, and they had some big money backing them that enabled them to pay off local law enforcement.

Arun looked around at all of us, surveying our faces.

“No, we’re going to stay local. Stay in the USA,” he said. “We’re just going to have to change up.”

“Change up,“ Bob repeated, in his best Inigo Montoya accent. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.“

“Funny,” Arun said, with some sarcasm. “I mean really do something different. Fool the pit bosses as well as the software. And there’s only one way to do that.”

He stopped, as though waiting for us all to figure it out.

“The hell with this, Arun,” Lucy finally said. “What? Disguises? Wigs? Dan dresses up like Dolly Parton? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Plastic surgery,” said Arun, smiling, like he’d just provided a theorem for quantum chromodynamics.

 

~o~O~o~
 

“Plastic surgery? Isn’t that a bit … extreme?” I was glad Lucy said it – it was just what I was thinking.

“We have to change up,” Arun said. “The new face-recognition software is very slick. It looks for patterns like the distance between your nose and your lips, the shape of your eyes, the relative position of your chin to your eyes – a lot of different variables.”

“So how does plastic surgery help?” This time it was Dan asking. “Can’t we just use prosthetics?”

“Maybe, but makeup is easy to spot at a table, so that's not going to fool the pit bosses, and the problem is they only allow you to add to dimensions, not reduce them. From the research I’ve done, it seems like both adding and subtracting might be necessary in some cases.”

Arun could obviously see that some of us were less than convinced. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Says you,” said Emily. I thought I knew what she was thinking: Arun couldn't remember faces at all, so the idea of changing something so deeply personal, so intrinsically linked with our sense of ourselves as individuals, probably didn't mean the same thing to him as it meant to the rest of us. I wondered, briefly, whether Arun recognized himself in the mirror each time he shaved.

“Look” Arun said. “The good thing is that varying some of these parameters by even a little bit throws the software out completely. As far as the computer is concerned, someone whose nose is an eighth of an inch closer to their top lip is a different individual. Change the chin, too, and it’s a whole new game”

“Just the nose and chin?” Alice asked.

“Well, it will probably help to vary a few things. In some cases, maybe just one, eyes maybe, in others, two or three. It’s all a matter of doing enough to futz with the algorithms the software works with. But we might still use some things like hair dye, fake facial hair, that kind of thing, even though it doesn’t fool the software. We also have to get past the pit bosses and security, so we also need to keep it subtle. As far as the software goes, we have the advantage of an expert to advise us. Wei Cheng, who developed the algorithm the software uses, is right here at MIT.”

Alice persisted. “Can we trust him?” I could understand why she would worry. She was very pretty. Who knew what moving parts of her face around would make her look like?

“He’s agreed to work for a fee, and he doesn’t need to know any of you. All he has to do is tell us the limits of the software, and then we pass those on to the plastic surgeons. Who are, of course, among the very best.”

“There’s more than one?”

“We’ll be spreading the work among several. It seems prudent from a security point of view.” Arun said.

“And how much is all this going to cost us?” Dan asked.

“Fifty Thousand all up for Wei Cheng, and between Ten to Thirty Thou to the surgeon each, depending on what’s done. I figure around One Forty all up for the team. Less than we’ve been bringing in on a single good night,” Arun said. “And the best part is, once we’ve done it, we’re good to go for several years, maybe longer if we’re careful.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “This is a big step. What are we going to say to our families?”

“The differences can be very subtle,” Arun said. “When was the last time you saw your parents, Alex?”

“Thanksgiving before last,” I admitted. Eighteen months ago. I only ever got to go home once a year at most, and I had missed the last Thanksgiving because it was a big weekend for playing. Before we started Blackjack, I couldn’t afford to travel more often. Since then, with all our time in Vegas, Chicago, Connecticut and Louisiana, I had found it hard to schedule anything more frequent. I was glad I had been to see Grandma Rousselot, but I regretted not seeing Mom and Dad. Although given the time I had spent looking like a woman, that had possibly been a good thing. But I remembered my Daruma goal. I needed to see them more often.

“I’m willing to bet,” Arun said, “and as you know I am a betting man,“ he smiled “that your parents will be noticing other things aside from plastic surgery.”

Alice laughed, I thought somewhat cruelly.

She wasn’t wrong, though. If I went home looking like I did right then, the last thing my father would be concerned about would be the shape of my nose. I could just picture him looking at me, then down to my skirt and boots, then right back up. It gave me shivers.

“What about the rest of us?” Bob said. “A lot of us do see our families regularly. My girlfriend is gonna freak the fuck out.”

“The key word here is subtle. Subtle. I bet she’ll come around,” Arun said. “Once you explain it to her.”

“That’s not a bet I can afford to lose,” Bob said. “I need some time to think on this.”

“I agree,” said Lucy. Everyone except Arun nodded.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The next day I had a scheduled weekly meeting with Dr. Kidman, early in the morning. I usually enjoyed being his first patient, because I felt he gave me more attention. On the few occasions I'd seen him before in the afternoon I had the sense that he was still thinking through some sessions from other patients earlier in the day. Not that he ever seemed distracted, exactly, but I got a better vibe from him in the morning.

We’d progressed through a lot of the basics since I first began seeing him: parents, school years, ambitions, etc. We’d even talked about playing blackjack for a living, which took me most of two sessions to explain to him. The elephant in the room, which I’d never gotten to dealing with and he’d never raised, is why I kept showing up at his office dressed like a woman.

I’d been seeing him for almost four months. I’d never said anything, and he’d never asked. When he finally got around to broaching the subject, it almost came as a relief.

“So, Alex, we’ve talked about childhood, and your relationships with women.”

“Such as they are.”

“We haven’t got around to talking about any relationships with men.”

“Relationships?”

“You’ve mentioned a few of your male friends. You talk a lot about your friend Pete. Last month you said the way your relationship with him had changed was bothering you.”

“Well, yes, obviously.”

“Why obviously?” He said gently.

“Well, because now I’m living like this, we’re not like best buds any more. Now it’s like … I don’t know.”

“Now that you’re living as a woman?”

“Yes.”

“You realize this is the first time you’ve ever admitted to me that you’re living as a woman?”

I paused, backtracked through my memory. He was right.

“I thought it was obvious.”

“Well, I never try to assume anything, Alex. That’s why I asked you to tell me everything about your life, even the parts I might already have heard about from Susan, like your parents.”

“You didn’t make any assumptions about me based on the way I was dressed?”

“Of course I did. But I tried not to form an opinion on them, until I’d heard from you. I’d like to know a lot more about why, and how, and where you think it’s leading, but we’ve been covering a lot of other ground up until now. You know, the fact that in all our time together you’ve spoken about relationships and your parents and expectations people have of you, but you’ve never, so far, talked at all about how you view yourself.”

“You never asked me.”

“No, I didn’t. Usually patients tell me about themselves. I must say the only two other patients I’ve ever had that were transgendered spent every session talking about gender issues. I never had to prompt them at all.”

I was about to interrupt him and try to protest that I didn’t think I had ‘gender issues’ but realized that it would have seemed utterly ridiculous. Quite apart from the fact that I was sitting in front of him wearing a bra, I did think that. I just didn’t like to think about it too much.

“What we’ve been doing, though,” he continued “is talking about your world, and the way it impacts you. But not the way you impact upon the world. Do you understand the distinction I’m trying to draw?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Maybe I should have read more philosophy in my freshman year.”

“I’m not offering you any kind of diagnosis, Alex. But seriously, don’t you think that you influence the world?”

I reflected on this for a few moments. “Mostly, I think it influences me.”

“Really? How did you get into Harvard?”

“I got a scholarship.”

“So you made an effort, and created an impact on the world.”

“Then I fucked – sorry, I screwed it all up.”

“In your sophomore year.”

“Yeah.”

“Was that you influencing the world, or the world influencing you?”

“Both, I think.”

“But you got through.”

“With a truckload of debt, and the help of a lot of other people.”

“You don’t really like being obligated to other people, do you?”

“What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” I said.

“I’m serious, Alex,” he said. I think he was becoming frustrated with me for the first time. “It’s not a philosophical proposition.”

“I understand you’re serious. I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just not sure where you’re going with this stuff.”

“I’m trying to get to your view of yourself.”

“It’s not very positive,” I said.

“Why do you think you have such a low opinion of yourself?”

“Why do I think it? I think it because it’s true.”

“Alex, you’re being obtuse. It’s not like you. Do you want to end the session?”

I did want to, so I said so. Then, as soon as I had left, I regretted it. What was the point of seeing a shrink if you couldn’t be open with them? What was the point if – when we finally got to the elephant in the room – I decided the elephant was too tricky to try thinking about? It was still an elephant.

And what was the point if, when Dr. Kidman observed something about me I didn’t like, I became combative and negative? Wasn’t the point to try to get past all that?

I was disappointed in myself.

I understood that somewhere out there, people were content. Somewhere out there people loved one another. They led fulfilling lives. Or they didn’t, but it didn’t matter. But somewhere out there, there were people who felt, if not happy, exactly, at least at peace with themselves.

How did other people – the people who weren’t happy – go on?

I wasn’t sure where I was going with my thoughts. I mean, I hoped for a fulfilling life. Not exactly a happy life, not a ‘successful’ life. Just a life that didn’t feel so – for want of a better word – unbalanced.

I wondered whether the reason I was so angsty was because I felt like I wasn’t in control any more. It seemed like other people were making the decisions for me. I’d gone through the year in one passive reaction after another.

I didn't think it at the time, of course, but I was so young. I can’t believe how naive and unhappy I was. When I hear people say that their youth was the best time of their lives I usually think they're crazy. I don’t know about all young people, I'm sure there are people like Barack Obama who go to Harvard and know who they are and what they want. But I didn't.

Worst crime of all, I was too self-obsessed to know what to do about it.

 

~o~O~o~
 

After my marathon session with Dr. Kidman. I wandered over to the Common. I’d arranged to see Susan for lunch at a place not far away because she had a meeting with a dealer somewhere vaguely near there.

I had forgotten how beautiful spring can be in Boston. Everyone goes slightly mad at the first sign of warmth: plants, birds, humans. Pheromones were rampant in the bar Pete and I had gone to the night before. Most of the young women there were wearing low-cut tops under their jackets, and most of the men could barely keep their eyes off all the cleavage. I had felt a little bit inadequate. I found myself wishing, as Pete checked out a woman walking past us at the bar, that I had something to distract him with too. After we went back to the apartment I realized how bizarre it was that I’d started to think about having real breasts.

But was it more bizarre to want to have breasts, or to want to have Pete notice them?

I spent some time on the Web using Altavista when we got back from the bar, looking at the effects of female hormones on biological males. Frankly, a lot of the information I found seemed like it had been put together by fetishists or crackpots, but there were a couple of sites, both foreign, that contained some reasonable information. Basically, I could take female hormones and develop breasts and other curves, but if I did that my status as a fertile male had a lifespan of about six months. After that, no more sperm, even if I stopped taking the hormones. Apart from fertility, though, it seemed like most of the effects of hormones would be reversible up to about 12 months. After that there would be some permanent changes requiring surgery to reverse.

The problem was, it seemed like six to twelve months was the minimum I’d need to take hormones to get any kind of reasonable results. The sites that sounded most credible said that most hormone therapy took between 2 to 3 years to be fully effective, and I would become infertile in 6 months to a year. So if I started down the hormone path, and wanted to do it properly, I was pretty much committing myself to never being properly male again. I knew the guy thing wasn't working for me anymore, but wasn’t sure yet whether I could take that step.

All the same, there was a part of me that wanted to do something. I was living as a woman full time now. Everyone I knew was reacting to me as a woman. But now, as summer was approaching, I was going to have to be very, very careful about how I dressed to keep up the charade.

I hated fucking charades. I felt like a phony. Walking on the Common that morning, I felt like a fraud, and I felt envious of every woman I saw, whether she was exposing any flesh or not. How come they got to just be? How come they didn’t have to work at it? How come they could distract Pete just by wearing something that showed some cleavage? It didn’t seem fair.

They had the curves, they didn’t have to fake anything.

It was a nice morning, still a little chilly, but with streams of sunshine through the trees, a grandpa and two kids playing with a model boat on Frog Pond, and people out sitting on the Common, taking in the rays. There were two lesbians sitting on the grass. One was unmistakably the butch, hunched in a heavy leather jacket, but her hispanic girlfriend, wrapped in her arm, was wearing this very pretty cropped blue floral top under her denim jacket, showing off the curves of her belly and the tops of her breasts. I wished I could wear something like that. Or even, you know, be like the other woman on the pathway ahead of me, who was wearing a simple blouse and sleeveless top. Her ass filled her jeans perfectly. I was sure mine didn’t look like that.

A big part of me wanted it to.

Yet at the same time, the idea of doing anything permanent to my body to make myself irrevocably feminine scared me.

I didn’t think I was ready for that.

Susan and I had lunch at a little cafe not far from the Common that had focaccia and decent coffee. She looked beautiful as ever in a geometric print dress that made her look professional and sexy at the same time.

We talked about her work. She was loving work, it offered her tremendous opportunities and she was becoming quite the expert on repairing restorations that had been botched earlier in the century, of which there were apparently thousands. Then we began talking about my visits to Dr. Kidman, and I reassured her that he’d never said a word to me about anything she’d ever discussed with him. Which was, I ventured, just as well, because I’d told him some pretty screwed up stuff too, and I’d have hated it if any of that had ever got back to her.

That immediately made her insanely curious, of course. What mad secrets could I have confided to him? She just had to know. It was going to drive her crazy.

Eventually I laughed, and she realized she’d been set up, and she laughed along.

The final thing we discussed over lunch was Pete. At first I was reluctant, because talking about Pete that way made me feel like I was gay. Or maybe I was afraid Susan would think I was gay. Which I obviously was. Or bisexual. Or something. I mean, I still thought Alice was gorgeous, but recently I’d stopped wanting to sleep with her. I wasn’t even sure what I would do if I could sleep with her. With Pete it was different. I’d never been sexually attracted to him, until recently. Until I’d begun to socialize as a woman. So now I was fancying men, or at least one man, and that made me gay, right?

Except that wasn’t the point. I didn't have any problem with anyone being gay. I knew scores of gay people, and they were sure as hell happier than I was.

The point was how should I handle the way things were between Pete and me now? Should I just try the ‘strictly roommates’ thing we’d had going on so long together, which was not really working now? Or should I try for more? Did I want to try for more? I opined that I didn’t. I didn’t really want to sleep with Pete, I told Susan. I just wanted his attention. Except I wanted it in a different way than I used to.

“What you have, Alex, is a crush.”

“What? It’s serious.”

“Every crush is serious. But there’s a difference between having a crush and wanting to jump someone’s bones. From what you’re telling me, you’re deep in crush territory, but you’re no way ready to sleep with him.”

“God no!”

“Glad we got that settled,” she smiled.

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 
Dr. Morgan’s office was on Pinckney Street in Beacon Hill, amid sleek men driving European cars and sleeker women carrying Hermes purses. I had to park a few blocks away, and walked in the bright spring sunshine.

For the visit to Dr. Morgan’s I’d dressed in the same kind of gender-neutral wear I’d always favored, black jeans and a blue t-shirt, but I’d also worn a lightly padded bra, and a pair of strappy sandals. After maintaining the routine with my eyebrows and hair I’d come to the realization that people were going to perceive me as female no matter what I did, unless I had a flat chest, which just made them confused. Since I’d become so used to wearing a bra now it seemed like the path of least resistance.

All the same I was insanely nervous as I walked in, and I stammered slightly as I introduced myself to the receptionist. I never stammered in my life until then but I had a fear of doctors in general, and a fear of the procedures Arun had suggested in particular. I’d never been under anesthetic before, never been cut by a surgeon for anything, had in fact never seen a doctor — psychiatrists excepted — for anything more substantial than the flu. Now here I was, looking definitely more female than male, in the offices of a plastic surgeon.

The reception room seemed more like that of a well-to-do lawyer than a surgeon. It was well decorated, in that kind of overdone Architectural Digest manner. What particularly caught my attention, though, were a few small bronzes in cabinets and two marble busts on stands in corners of the room. If they weren’t originals they were very, very good reproductions. With my rudimentary knowledge of Art from things I’d learned from Susan, I guessed they were originals. Dr. Morgan was a collector of antiquities. The receptionist gave me some forms to fill out, but I had enough time waiting that I was able to study the art very thoroughly. I wished Susan was there – she’d probably have known whether or not they were original. Thinking about Susan made me guilty, though. She didn’t know I was seeing Dr. Morgan.

When I finally saw him Dr. Morgan was very reassuring. Yes, I would need anesthetic, but I’d only be in hospital for three nights at most – possibly even only two. It would take between one to six weeks to recover, depending upon the procedures. He asked whether I had determined the extent of what I wanted.

At that point I wasn’t sure how to respond. Arun had been clear with us that we couldn’t talk about the real reasons why we wanted the surgery. There had to be other reasons than wanting to disguise ourselves.

So I talked generally about wanting to ‘refine’ my appearance. That was the word Arun had decided I should use. Alice had agreed. It seemed like a good way to guarantee subtle changes without anything major being evident. Dan had joked that he wanted to ‘unrefine’ his appearance, but Dan was built like a cross between Buddha and Arnold Schwarzenegger so it was hard to see how that was possible. I had mentioned to the gang that maybe we should ask for specifics like bigger noses and such like, but that had made Alice nervous, and Arun had said that getting too specific was probably not such a great idea, as it would limit the surgeons in what they changed, and it might even make them suspicious. Nobody ever asked for a bigger nose.

All the same, I wasn’t sure I wanted my features ‘refined,’ especially given all the problems I’d been having with sexual identity since using contacts, the incident in Louisiana, and the responses I’d been getting from Pete. In fact I’d had a long talk with Alice about it: what if I asked Dr. Morgan to try to make me look less feminine? We’d both determined it was probably only going to make me look odd.

And there was the fact that I was presenting to Dr. Morgan as a woman.

So I explained to Dr. Morgan that I still wanted to look more or less like me, but with a few of the rough edges rounded out. He seemed to find that intriguing. Eventually I got him to understand that I was trying to change the proportions of my face, so that I looked more classically attractive. Perhaps a little less Asian? I’d studied some art history, and based on the busts out in reception I figured he’d understand what I was aiming for. A Roman nose. A stronger countenance. I couldn’t really say something like that out loud – for one thing I would have laughed while saying it. But we talked briefly about the classic ideal of beauty, and I complimented him on his artworks, and gradually I began to feel like I was connecting with him. More classically attractive – that was it.

When I saw him a few minutes later we went through some formalities as he reviewed my chart. He asked me for some basic medical history. “Any previous surgeries?”

“None,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

“And you’re not on any medication?”

“No.”

“No contraception?”

For a moment I thought he was asking about condoms. Then I realized he hadn’t read the file as thoroughly as I thought he had. “Uh, Dr. Morgan. Have you … Um …”

He noticed my confusion and looked once again at the questionnaire I’d filled out in the waiting room. Then he looked back up at me, confused. “Alex, you’ve ticked “male” on this form. Alex is short for …”

“Alexander. Yes sir.”

“I see. I don’t usually agree to see patients of your, uh, persuasion.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t operate on transsexuals. I don’t know who referred you to me. I have no moral or ethical problems with the syndrome, it’s just that they’re not always good at paying their accounts.”

I was about to launch into invective about how I wasn’t transsexual, but I reflected it probably wouldn’t do any good. I tried a different tack. “I’ll be paying cash. In actual cash if you want it that way. Or a cashier’s check. Your choice.”

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Morgan said. “That was insensitive of me.” He looked embarrassed. “You must think me a bigot. I must say you are by far the most feminine uh, transsexual, I have ever met.”

I was still feeling snarky. “There are probably a lot you’ve met and haven’t realized.”

“Touché,” he said. “My apologies. I’d like to get off to a better start. Can we keep talking about what it is you’re looking for?”

My consultation with Dr. Morgan lasted for at least 45 minutes. It turned out that quite a few Asians want to look less Asian and more Caucasian, and Dr. Morgan seemed to grasp the concept quite easily. By the end of our session we had discussed a range of surgeries, and he’d suggested some surgeries he’d reassured me would be “very subtle”. I made him reassure me again and again. They included changing the distance between my top lip and my nose, minor rhinoplasty, and some changes to my chin – possibly a small implant. I was worried about this – would I look like Michael Jackson?

Dr. Morgan reassured me yet again. “Very subtle,” he repeated.

“Your eyes are your strongest feature,” he said to me. “I wouldn’t want to make any changes there. You have a North Asian epicanthal fold. Somewhat horizontal, but it’s more pronounced than usual in size, slightly closer to Caucasian norms.”

“My dad’s Jewish. My Mom’s Japanese. My maternal grandmother was half-French,” I said.

“That would explain it. Well, you have very attractive eyes.”

I thought the conversation was going in an odd direction.

“How many patients do you see in a week?” I asked him, to change the subject. I was also worried about his workload, and his attention to detail.

“About twenty consultations in a week, and about twelve cases in surgery,” he answered. Later, I was to regret not asking him for more detail on what those cases were but at the time it seemed like he was neither overworked nor under-appreciated. I felt as comfortable as anyone would feel, if they were going to have their identity altered, and if they were a guy presenting as a woman. We agreed I would be scheduled for surgery within two weeks. I made a point of writing a two thousand dollar check for a deposit while I was still in his office, and he looked suitably embarrassed when I promised him it would clear.

I went home with mixed emotions. I knew Arun was right, we couldn’t go on as we were, but I also knew somehow that it was going to lead to disaster. I felt like I was on a runaway train.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Back at home Pete was wildly excited about the new finance for his business. He and Vassily had courted several other financiers before a serious offer from Command Dynamics, the defense contractor, which was now entering the final phases of due diligence to acquire a forty percent stake. Pete was knee deep in meetings with his earlier backers, and advisors, and with the suits from Command Dynamics, but he seemed to be in his element.

I was genuinely excited for him. Pete was one of those guys whose enthusiasm was contagious. I guess that was what made him a good entrepreneur, and also, by all accounts, a good CEO. He was passionate, and he made you feel his passion, through sheer energy on his part. Even at the depths of our most cynical grumbling about the world when we were drinking at Grendel's, there was always something about Pete that was grounded, real, and endowed with the kind of confidence that comes with having been well over six feet tall since you were fourteen. Since about the fourth week after I had met him, that night at the record hospital, I knew that Pete would be the kind of guy I could always rely on. He was a rock. Not a flashy diamond — he was too quiet for that. He was more like granite.

If the deal went through, he was going to be financially solid, too. His share of the transaction would amount to well over ten million dollars. He'd have to work for at least two years before the stock part of the transaction vested, but that was to be expected in the type of deal he was negotiating.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Alice and I had coffee later in the week, to share our concerns about the whole plastic surgery scheme. I hadn’t had the nerve to mention it to Susan, or to Pete, or any of my other friends, because I was pretty sure I knew what their response would be. I had almost told Pete, but he was so wrapped up in his deal it seemed difficult. With Susan I thought I already knew what the answer would be. So Alice was the only person I could bounce my feelings off.

None of the others on the team seemed as concerned as Alice. Dan’s original opposition seemed to have faded since he found out he could get his acne scarring reduced with some kind of laser treatment. Lucy was enthusiastic, and seemed to see it as her opportunity to be remade as the kind of woman she’d always wanted to look like. Bob seemed to be driven entirely by the desire to keep making the kind of money he’d become used to. Or maybe he needed it for payments on the house he’d bought. I wasn’t close enough to him to ask.

I was still somewhat in love with Alice — even though it still seemed to be unrequited as far as I could tell — but I wasn't sure still I wanted to sleep with her. Perhaps what I had with Alice was similar to what I had with Pete — what Susan had called “a crush.“

Crush or not, I respected Alice's opinion. We’d become closer the more time we spent together, even though there were still so many things I didn't know about her.

As we discussed things over coffee at her apartment I could sense she was worried about Dr. Morgan. We were the only people on the team who had been sent to him. Dan had been sent to someone in New York, Lucy to someone in Los Angeles of all places, and Eliza to someone in New York that Arun was also seeing. Neither Alice nor I knew who Bob was scheduled with.

Alice wasn’t worried about Dr. Morgan’s experience, but about his results. “I saw the photographs he showed of his patients,” she said.

I hadn’t even thought to ask about that when I saw him.

“And?” I asked

“They’re all rich white women,” Alice said. “When I asked him if he’d ever operated on an Asian woman before he said yes. But he couldn’t show me any before and after photographs of Asian women, just white girls.”

“Were the results bad?” I asked.

“No, they were good. Really good,” Alice said.

“So …”

“Well …” Alice began. “Look, I’m not worried about looking like a white girl. As if!” She smiled.

“What are you worried about?” I think I knew the answer. She was afraid of the same thing I was.

“I’m just not sure I want to look like someone else.”

That was my fear, too. I might not have been that happy about the way I looked, but at least I looked like, well … me.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “You remember the other night, when we were talking? I thought seriously about telling him I wanted to look more masculine, but …”

“But you didn’t?”

I hung my head slightly. “No, I didn’t. I’m not entirely sure why. In fact he thinks I’m transsexual. It’s completely screwed up. All my life it’s bothered me that people have mistaken me for female. Now I have the chance to do something about it. And I’m not … I should …”

“But?” Alice asked.

“The last year …” I started. I really didn’t know where to begin to say this. I hadn’t really thought it through myself. And there was my relationship with Alice. I knew, by then, that we were never going to be lovers. I didn’t know who her mystery lover was, but I knew it was never going to be me. And yet, we’d become good friends. Apart from Pete, and Susan, she was my closest confidant. Since I’d begun living more and more as a woman, there were things I really didn’t share with Pete any more, but I could share them with Alice.

“Yes?”

I thought once again of my Daruma goal. “This last year I’ve, you know, enjoyed a lot of things … A lot of things that I never could have imagined. I mean, if I could look like Brad Pitt, maybe I’d feel differently. But there are some things you’ve really helped me with, Alice.”

“I’m glad, Alex. I … Um … I really enjoy our friendship.” Alice seemed genuinely touched. I had never seen her be less than articulate before.

“So, you know, I wonder, if I wasn’t this kind of Alex, if I was the old Alex, would we still spend as much time together?”

She touched my hand. “You’ll always be my friend.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Are you saying …” she paused, and squeezed my hand gently. “Are you saying you’d like to be this Alex the whole time?”

“I don’t know, Alice. It feels good, but I really don’t know. I mean, what does it say that I’m still on the team, working as a woman? Doesn’t that seem fucked up?”

“As Arun said, it makes more sense.”

“Yeah, but I could have dropped out for a few weeks, grown my eyebrows out, got a different haircut.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

She held my hand firmly in hers. “What does that tell you?”

“I don’t know. I mean … like I said, I’ve actually really enjoyed this year. Once I got over the double takes from people when I was in boy mode. And once I learned how to deal with the guys …”

Alice laughed “When you think you’ve got that completely figured out, let me know. I sure could use the help.”

I blushed. “I meant fending off unwanted advances.”

“I knew what you meant, I was just teasing you. So, you’ve been having a good time. What’s so terrible then?”

“I always feel like, you know, I’m failing somehow.”

“Failing?”

“Failing at being a guy.”

“I honestly don’t understand what you’re talking about, Alex. How can you fail at being you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but does it matter whether you’re good at ‘being a guy,’ whatever that means?”

“Don’t you ever wonder whether you’re … “ I was about to say “whether you’re feminine enough” when I realized what a stupid question it was. Alice was femininity personified. No wonder she had no gender confusion at all. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s just, you remember that thing I said, that time we had dinner after Lake Charles, and I said it was hard for guys when their masculinity was impugned?”

“Yes. I thought it was pretty dumb then. People are who they are, and there’s a very broad spectrum between Bruce Willis and Winona Ryder.”

“You make it sound so easy to work out, Alice. It’s not that simple.”

“I’m sympathetic, Alex. Really. But you just need to be you. You don’t have to make any choices you don’t want to.”

She jumped up from her seat suddenly. “Oh. I just remembered! I made this for you.“ She went to the sideboard and picked up a floppy disk. She held it out to me. “I made you a kind of college project thing, part of my dissertation. I wanted to let you see some of my work.“

I took the disc. I was touched. “Thanks.“ I meant it. Alice hardly ever talked about her study. “So, uh, what's on it?“

“A music program that sorts what you like and then matches it with other stuff you might like but mightn't know yet. I figured since you listen to so much stuff nobody's ever heard of, you would be an ideal candidate to look at it for me and see how well it matches on someone who has outlier tastes.“

“Wow. I'm impressed, Alice. That's a very cool idea.“

“It’s not completely original,“ Alice said. “Other people at MIT did one last year that wasn't very good. I just worked on some of the algorithms for matching, and I think this is better. One of my research partners did most of the code.“

“Well, I'm honored you've chosen me for your guinea pig. Thank you.“

“You want more coffee?“ She indicated my empty cup.

“No thanks, I'm good.“

She sat back down and we had a few moments of silence. Soul Coughing was playing in the background on WHRB, and the unmistakable strains of Circles filled the space between us.

“We still have to make a choice about this surgery.“

“We do.“

We both sat for a moment, together on her couch, not saying anything. Alice always made sense to me, but I wasn’t always sure she had all the information she needed. For that matter, neither did I.

“We could just walk away,” Alice said.

“We could.”

We both looked at one another. I looked away first, draining my coffee.

Alice sat up straighter, as though she was resolved. “I don’t need the money,” she said. “Neither do you.”

“Well …”

“Seriously, Alex, you could stop now. You didn’t earn much as a sysadmin, but you got by. You’ve got a big future in front of you, if you go to grad school. Would it kill you to stop?”

“No, but …”

“But what?”

“Well, you have more to lose than me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You … You’re already beautiful. Things could only get worse if you let someone operate on you.” I was so nervous. Alice was beautiful, but I’d never said anything like that to her before.

“That’s very sweet of you,” Alice said softly. “But what about you? It’s not like you’re ugly yourself.”

“I’m not exactly the manliest man.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Plastic surgery isn’t going to change that.” Alice said. “You’re good looking, Alex. Take it from me, it’s true.”

“You’re right, there’s nothing a competent surgeon could do that would make me more or less attractive. What’s wrong with me isn’t my face, it’s my physique. So I suppose that reduces my risk, really. It’s not like he can make me more feminine – people already think I’m a woman almost all the time.”

“I was trying to talk you out of this, not into it.” Alice said.

I stood up from the table. “We’ve been making a lot of money,” I said. “Just one more year.”

“I’m going to pull out.” Alice said firmly. “You should, too.”

 

~o~O~o~
 

Back at home I ran the program on Alice's floppy disk. It required me to grant it privileges on my system in order to run, so I looked at what I could understand of the compiled code briefly and it seemed relatively safe, if poorly written. I didn't know Java well, but it looked like Alice's research collaborator didn't sign his code properly. That was sloppy, but hardly unforgivable back in 1998, especially for an art project.

The program itself was interesting to fool around with, but I soon stumped it by asking it to come up with a match for someone who liked both Sun Ra and Green Day. The best the program could do was suggest Rancid, which told me, immediately, that neither Alice nor her collaborators knew or liked anything about more experimental music. Rancid was sort of a match for Green Day (in a casual way), but it didn't belong anywhere near Sun Ra in any ontology of likes and dislikes.

Mentally I wished Alice and her collaborators well with the project, but I didn't use the program again. I stuck the install disk on my bookshelf and forgot about it.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The days were warmer and longer, and my mood was less dour than it had been. Every morning I looked at the Daruma as soon as I woke, and remembered my promise to it, and to myself, and strangely even though I had made the promise because I thought I owed more to other people, I seemed to feel better about myself. I was feeling more confident. Gender was still bothering me, especially now the warmer weather was here and I was becoming so conscious of my body. But I was feeling as though I was getting my life back on the rails. Throughout my early twenties I'd had a kind of roller coaster ride through ups and downs, and this was an up period. I hoped it lasted.

Earlier on in this story I referenced a pretty big event in my life — a breakdown I had in my sophomore year — and if you're at all attentive you might have been wondering why I haven't talked about it at all.

Maybe the reason for my reticence is that the reasons for the breakdown don’t reflect too well on me, and like most things to be ashamed of, I don’t often talk about it. But there's no good way to address what comes next in this story without telling you about the flaw in my character that I keep telling myself I grew out of. To wit, that I was startlingly immature and uncertain, and didn't understand what being 'growed up,' as Talia had called it once, was all about.

When I first came to Boston I was only 18, so young I barely knew anything about myself. I knew lots about mathematics and history and chemistry and all the things I'd taken AP classes in at school, but I knew almost nothing about how to cook, or how to choose tomatoes at the market, or how to do laundry without making all my white clothes gray. It seemed to me that these things should all be easy, and yet I failed at them, miserably. I had to fall back on Susan time and again.

That was only part of the problem. The bigger part is I sucked with money, and I sucked at responsibility. I was, by any meaningful definition of the word, a child. And a depressed child, at that. Left to my own devices, it could take me up to four hours to get out of the house every day. I would wake at 7am, and then not be able to drag myself from bed until close to 9. Then, inexplicably, it would take me two hours to shower, find some clothes, check my email, have some breakfast and leave the house.

Mornings after a shift at the record hospital were even worse. I had a shift on Tuesday night, which wasn't the worst (Mondays were the bottom rung), but which meant I didn't get to sleep until 6am. Most Wednesdays I didn't make it to classes at all.

The more I failed at living like I imagined adults lived, the more depressed I got, and the more depressed I got, the harder and harder it was for me to get out of the house.

I beat myself up for this, terribly. I knew, intellectually, that I should just will myself to pull out of my funk. And yet I could not.

Underlying all of it was a deep sense that I was unlovable, that somehow I was a fraud. I had gone from being an unpopular but brilliant young kid in Lincoln to being an unknown and average student in Cambridge, and I felt like I must have obtained my scholarship by accident. When a professor rebuked me for a glib response to a thoughtful question by another student, I took it as a sign that I was not made for Harvard.

It was only Pete that got me through. As I mentioned earlier, the guy was just … solid. He was reliable. I could talk to him and he wasn't judgmental, but on the other hand he didn't suffer bullshit. “You're smart, Alex,“ he said. “You're smarter than me. I know you're depressed, but you just need to do the day at a time thing. Don’t think of the task as this enormous, baffling thing. Just do each day. Be the best person you can be, each day.“

“You want me to join the Army?“ I joked, and he smiled. I didn't know the meaning of that smile until much later. Eventually I understood it meant he knew his advice had been received, but not fully accepted.

Finally, though, Pete wasn't enough. I would compare myself to him, and note that he was everything I could not be: handsome, tall, self-assured and yet humble. He was a great guy. I was a failed guy.

When I actually had the breakdown it wasn't anything dramatic. I didn't try to kill myself or anything. It was just that something broke in me, suddenly, one day after class while I was walking home. I kept walking. About seven hours later a woman in suburban Needham noticed me stumbling, exhausted, down her street, having walked continuously from Harvard, and asked me whether I was alright. And I answered, remarkably truthfully, “I don’t know.“ I didn't know who I was, or where I was. It took a few days for me to come around.

Afterward, of course, I felt even more like a failure. But I buried my thoughts because I knew the doctors would never let me out of the hospital if they knew the truth. Afterward, with Pete and Susan's help, I got myself more or less back on track, and although I missed the rest of the semester and lost my scholarship I didn't lose everything. Grandma Rousselot gave me some money, and my Uncle Ari helped out too. Fraud or not, I recognized the difference between the opportunity to graduate from Harvard versus a life washing cars.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Pete and I went drinking one more time. I didn't tell Pete about the impending surgery, but of course it was on my mind as we sat at Grendel's. I had never had any surgery before, so there was the uncertainty that went with that. And in the back of my mind I think I knew it was crazy to even be thinking about going ahead with it. But there was something still in me — some strange dysfunctional self-loathing perhaps — that made me feel like it was curiously predetermined, while at the same time I felt that if I told Pete, or Susan, or anyone more sensible than me, they would talk me out of it.

So I didn't tell them. I kept Alice as my counselor, but while Pete and I were out drinking, I never said a word about Doctor Morgan and what lay ahead.

While we were out that night we mostly talked about Pete's work, and about science fiction, and whether or not The Truman Show, which we had seen a week earlier, was a good film. I said yes about Truman, Pete said no.

Pete's business was expanding, and things were looking rosy. My own life was a strange and uncertain thing, but I was pleased to help Pete celebrate his.

Late in the evening we saw Dan, who came in late with Bob, and the four of us drank and argued some more about Orson Scott Card and Ender's Game and the notion — which Pete and I fervently believed and Bob did not — that the series goes to hell after the second book. I'm sure none of us made any sense, but we had a good night.

As we stumbled out of Grendel's Pete put his arm around my shoulder. He'd done that once or twice before, when we were still in college, but now, dressed the way I was, and confused as I was, it took on an extra significance.

I liked it. My Pete crush was definitely stepping up a notch. What a pity, I thought as I went to sleep alone that night, that there wasn't more to it than just a crush.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The next morning, hungover but more or less functional, I got a mild surprise in Watertown. I had dropped my car to be serviced at Boston VW, and was walking along North Beacon Street to head for the bus stop, when I noticed Arun coming out of a florist on the other side of the street. Immediately behind him was Alice, followed by an older Asian man I didn’t know. He was maybe fifty, short but solid, well dressed but not polished-looking. I thought he might be Japanese, or maybe Korean. I was about to call across the traffic to get Alice’s attention, but then I saw her turn to him and say something. He nodded, and the three of them walked a few paces and then all got in a large silver Mercedes.

I kept walking to the bus stop. I didn’t mind taking the bus back home. I had nothing planned for the day, and although I had lots of money now I didn’t feel like blowing it on a cab. Sitting on the bus as I rode along Soldier’s Field Road I wondered who the man was. I wondered why the three of them were together. Was Alice telling Arun she was going to pull out? Did Arun have to consult the older man about the team? Who was that guy, anyway?

I realized then, that even though I was treasurer, there was a great deal about the operations of the team I didn’t know. Arun kept a lot of secrets.

 

~o~O~o~
 

When Alice and I caught up for dinner the next evening, I waited for a while before considering asking her about the older man she’d met with Arun. Before I questioned her about that, I wanted to understand, first, whether or not she’d done what she had said she would do, which was pull out of the team.

She said no, she hadn't pulled out yet, she was waiting for the right time to talk to Arun. So then I intended asking her why she hadn't, but she diverted the conversation to talking about me, my prospects, and how I should look to an alternative career. Since my surgery was scheduled only two days from then, we talked some more about the risks, and once again she told me she was pulling out, and I reaffirmed that I was going to continue.

Between that, and some gossip about a woman who had been in Alice's drama class at Harvard who was transitioning to become a man, the entire dinner got hijacked, and I never did press her for more answers that night.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I came to after the surgery with the mother of all headaches. Everything hurt. Everything. On top of the hurt, whatever residual drugs were in my system from the anesthetic made my arms and legs feel like they were weighted down. I opened my eyes, squinting against the light, and tried to turn my head to look away. Through half-closed lids I was aware of someone sitting next to the bed. I started to try to say something, but I couldn’t open my mouth.

“Oh, good, you’re awake.” It was Alice. I was so glad to hear her voice. I tried once again to speak, but could only grunt.

“Don’t try to speak. They’ve got your jaw taped.” She reached out and squeezed my hand. I heard her press the buzzer to summon a nurse.

The nurse came in, and fussed around, and pressed a remote control device into my hand. “You push on this if the pain gets too bad,” she said. I pushed, and a few moments later the pain didn’t feel bad at all.

On the second day when visiting hours started Alice brought someone I hadn’t expected. It was Susan. I’ll never know exactly what I looked like on that second day, but it must have been pretty horrific. “What have they done to you?!” she cried, as soon as she came into the room.

I, of course, could only grunt.

Once her shock had subsided, Susan was unbelievably angry at me for having gone through with the surgery. “You’re such a fool, Alex,” she said to me.

For some reason I had harbored a delusion she would be sympathetic once it was all done, but she gave me serious grief instead. “You deserve whatever happens now,” she said.

I could only grunt in response. Susan grimaced every time I tried to speak, as though she was feeling the same pain I was. What I didn’t consider at the time was that she was looking at me, through my bandages, whereas I was looking out at a world that didn’t seem much different. Plus I had the benefit of Patient Controlled Administration – the magic morphine machine.

Over the course of the next two days Susan and Alice came to see me every day, sometimes together and sometimes separately. Over time, Susan’s attitude softened slightly, to one that was a mixture of concern that matched Alice’s, plus disgust at my behavior. Softening or no, I could tell she was still plenty steamed up.

On the third day a nurse unwrapped my bandages and replaced them with a simpler arrangement that made me feel less like a mummy, and I was allowed to leave. The plan had been for me to go stay with Alice, but Susan was insistent that I should stay with her instead, and I suppose family won out, because I went back to Susan’s.

On the sixth day after the surgery I went back to the hospital, for the bandages to be taken off. As the nurse unwrapped me I demanded a mirror. Apart from any other considerations, I wanted to see what I looked like before Susan and Alice did.

It was hard to tell what I looked like: there was so much bruising and swelling that I looked more like a miniature Asian Jake La Motta than anything else, although it was even hard to tell I was Asian with all the swelling around my eyes and nose. Even though they removed most of the bandages from my nose there was still some packing inside, and tape across the bridge. I wasn’t in as much pain, but I certainly wasn’t comfortable.

Back at Susan’s I had to endure more scorn from her, for what she kept referring to as “your mutilation”. I was finding it pretty hard to take. But despite continuing to criticize me she seemed determined to take good care of me, and refused all my offers of help around the house. To tell the truth I still hurt too much to be very energetic, and I was very tired most of the time. I guess my body was taking all the energy it could find and directing it toward healing.

On the eighth day after the surgery I caught a cab to Dr. Morgan's rooms because Susan had to go back to work. I had the last of the packing and tape removed, and some stitches in my hairline snipped. Dr. Morgan saw me after the nurse had finished removing and cleaning everything, and pronounced himself very pleased with the results. “Once the swelling goes down, it will settle in very nicely,” he said. “I am pleased.” He looked at me expectantly. “Are you pleased?”

I looked at myself in the mirror. It was still hard to ignore all the swelling, and there was still a lot of bruising, although that was more yellow than the black and blue of the previous week. In the mirror the face was still recognizably … Susan’s?

 

~o~O~o~
 

Back at Susan’s apartment I compared my image in the bathroom mirror with a photograph of Susan I’d taken from the bookshelf in her entry hall. If put our faces side by side you could see we weren’t exactly the same. I mean, there was still a lot of swelling. And also, I still had shorter hair. Mine was just below my jaw, now. Susan's was halfway down her back. But Dr. Morgan’s adjustments to my face, far from diminishing my chances of being taken for a woman, had pushed me firmly over the edge, to the point where there was no chance I could ever be mistaken for a man again. He had shortened the distance between my nose and my top lip, turned that top lip up slightly, made my nose smaller, my forehead somehow more curved, and my jaw slightly narrower. All of the changes were subtle, but they weren’t minor. The overall effect made my cheekbones and mouth slightly more pronounced. I suspected when the swelling subsided my eyes would look slightly bigger, too.

Notwithstanding bruising, swelling, scars etc., it was clear that the minor changes Dr. Morgan had made, on the recommendation of Arun and Wei Cheng and whoever had determined what was measured by that infernal software, made me look more like my sister than ever before. I could wear Buddy Holly glasses, and there was no way I’d look like anything other than a chick with Buddy Holly glasses.

I called Alice. Five words into the conversation I broke down in tears. She promised to come right over, but it took her about forty minutes. By the time she got there I had consumed three glasses of some Scotch I found in the kitchen, and I had stopped crying. I opened the door, and Alice looked at me in surprise, and then she hugged me and we both just stood, in the open doorway, hugging one another for dear life, not knowing what either could say to the other.

After another drink, which Alice actually poured for me, with one for herself, we considered my options.

“Surely there’s a surgeon who can reverse this,” I said hopefully.

“I think there are two problems with that,” Alice said quietly. “I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think they’ll do any more surgery on you for a while until this is completely healed.”

I nodded. I’d had the same thought in the forty minutes spent waiting for Alice.

“And secondly, what would you get them to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said to Alice. “I mean, I guess there’s the risk if I had more surgery, I’d wind up looking like Michael Jackson or something. But aren’t there women who become men? What do they do?”

Back in those days the Web was still in relative infancy. There was no Google. There was AltaVista, which for those of you who mightn’t remember it was a barrel of crap. And there was Yahoo!, yes, with the exclamation mark, although nobody except Yahoo! used that. In those days, before Google became a verb, companies were more afraid of trademark infringement than they were eager to become a household word.

But I digress. We did a little searching on Yahoo with the exclamation mark for information on male to female transsexuals, but there was very little available. Basically, it seemed like if you were a girl who wanted to look more like a guy, you took testosterone, and voila, you got whatever testosterone gave you. The two photographs we saw of women who had become men showed short, bearded guys who obviously worked out and had good muscles, but also still had small noses, and foreheads they’d covered up with baseball caps. I guess the beards and muscles were enough to make them look like men. The only surgery they’d had was mastectomy.

“I can’t grow a beard, Alice,” I said glumly. “What happens if I take extra testosterone?”

We investigated further. Both of us were aware of a female-to-male transsexual who had been in our graduating class at Harvard, Rachel who had become Benjamin. Benjamin had been in Alice's drama class. Alice offered to call him, to ask about the various therapies involved in going from female to male, but I vetoed the idea on he grounds it was creepy. I didn't really know the poor guy. Even Alice didn't know him that well. I tried to imagine how I would feel if someone from my physics class phoned me up to ask me about plastic surgery. Ewww.

So we went back to web research. The prognosis wasn’t good. It seemed likely that if I tried to supplement my naturally occurring supply of testosterone, I’d experience the same problems body builders did when they took steroids: rage, acne, potential kidney damage, and atrophy of the testicles and probably eventual sterility. It was even possible, according to links from Yahoo!, that if a guy took too much testosterone, that their body would start converting it to estrogen anyway. In such cases a bodybuilder could grow breasts.

But there weren’t any obvious surgical fixes. Beyond, you know, taking too much testosterone and then having a mastectomy. Even I wasn’t that insane.

Plus, there was the way things had changed between Pete and me. And despite my terror at having options closed off by Dr. Morgan, there was the fact that I'd considered becoming more feminine with hormones not long before.

But my feeling of being committed was terrifying, and all through the discussion with Alice, I kept on about the possibility of reversing what had been done. I think part of me still held some hope that perhaps Alice saw something masculine in me. Although, as I thought more about it, I realized that over the previous months I’d become less interested in Alice sexually. We were good friends, best friends. If I had the chance, would I still want to sleep with her? I was pretty sure Yahoo! would be silent on that score (When I asked it, in a fit of depression a month later, “can Alice and I still be friends” it referred me to an Internet dating site. No wonder Google won the battle of search).

I wasn’t so sure, any more, about anything. I had fewer answers than Yahoo!. I was upset about looking like Susan, but I wasn’t entirely upset about looking more feminine. Pete had said, before all this, that he thought I was beautiful. What would he say now? Would he like me more, or less?

Alice did her best to try to cheer me up, but she didn’t have a lot to work with. She tried distracting me, instead, with her plans for graduate school. At first that depressed me more, because I realized that – had I taken her advice and made plans to go back to study – I wouldn’t be in this mess. But I made myself suck it up. It was my fault, mine alone. And I was pleased that Alice was looking forward to something challenging. She was going back to MIT to do more work in Artificial Intelligence. On the plus side, it meant she’d be staying in Boston.

“So, now that this is … you know,” Alice indicated my face. “Now that you’ve gone to all this trouble, I guess you’re going to keep playing cards?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I better help pay it off, for one thing. For another, it would seem, you know, exceptionally stupid to do this and then not get any dividend from it, don’t you think?”

And then Alice surprised me. Really surprised me. “I'm scheduled for tomorrow,“ she said. “With Dr. Morgan. I'm pleased to see he seems to know a thing or two about beauty.“

“Wait, what? You're going to have the surgery?“ this was about the most bizarre news I'd ever had. “You're going to stay on the team? What was all that about your PhD?“

“Yes. I know I said I wasn't going to do it, but I've changed my mind.“

“Alice, why? I thought you were going back to school?“

“I can still go to school. Blackjack only takes up the weekends. And this is our last chance to set ourselves up for life.“

I hugged her, then pushed myself away and held her at arms' length to look at her more clearly. “You sure about this? You did a pretty good job of arguing me out of doing it.“

“Not good enough,“ She smiled, with what I thought was a trace of sadness. “Yes, I'm sure. Plus, how could I let you go through this alone?“

 

~o~O~o~
 

Alice had gone by the time Susan came home, which was just as well, because Susan was hugely pissed at me, and I mean huge in the sense an iceberg is huge, because her anger was enormous, but I could sense I was only seeing about one-tenth of it.

“Well, you’ve really fucked it up now,” she said, bitterly. “You know, when I was younger, I thought having a little sister would be cool. I didn’t expect to lose my brother to get one.”

That stung. She could see she’d hit her target, but she didn’t relent.

“So what now? You go back to this stupid gambling scheme, and wait until they catch you again and maybe try to kill you?”

“I don’t think they actually murder anyone,” I mumbled. It was the wrong response.

“Oh, getting beaten to a pulp like your friend Henry is something to look forward to, then.”

“Come on, Susan.”

“Don’t fucking ‘come on Susan’ me,” she said. “Jesus, Alex. Does anything I say ever reach into your head? Do you ever actually think about the consequences of what you’re doing? What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and then the tears came. “I don’t know.”

And then we both said some things we’d later regret, things dredged up from our teenage years when we’d been so close to one another and learned things about each other we’d never told even our best friends. She reminded me of my mistreatment of my friend Hal, and I reminded her of her abortion. The two of us tore strips off one another for about five solid minutes, which doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but is a very long time indeed if you’re deploying all the heavy emotional artillery you can find.

Finally, exhausted, I sat in her living room, crying, but she didn’t give me any comfort. She went to her room, changed, and went into the kitchen without speaking to me again. After about thirty minutes in which I understood there really wasn’t anything I could say to her without making her angrier, I packed the few clothes I had there, took the sheets off the convertible bed and put them in the laundry basket in the bathroom, and then silently let myself out of her apartment.

I drove back to Somerville, hoping that Pete would be out when I arrived. He was. It felt like the first thing that had gone right for me since the surgery.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Pete was out, but Talia was in. She nodded at me as I walked through the living room, but didn’t say anything, but I could see the shock register on her face. I hadn’t mentioned the facial surgery to her.

Despite what Talia had said to me about my shift to looking female, I had been getting a vibe from her — even before the surgery — that she wasn’t completely comfortable with me. Neither Pete nor I had seen much more of her than usual over the past six months, but when I did see her she kept giving me strange looks. I almost felt a little like she was undressing me with her eyes. Except I don’t think she was in any way sexually interested in me. Whatever she felt, she didn’t say much to me, although that wasn’t anything new.

Of course her offer to try to find me another job never came to anything. That didn’t bother me. But it was uncomfortable to have to share an apartment with someone who looked at me like I was a curiosity. The fact that she didn’t even make a comment about the state of my face, didn’t even ask what had happened, said more to me than anything she might have actually said.

I think her behavior bothered me most because it was an outlier. It wasn't like Cambridge didn't already have its share of gender shifters — as I said earlier, Alice had known Rachel who had become Benjamin, and in our sophomore year at Harvard someone called Richard had transitioned to become Rebecca, and nobody blinked. Almost everyone else had accepted my gradual transition, and Talia had said she did, but she seemed to have some residual issues. Susan, of course, had gone off at me big time over the surgery, but that was different. I was pretty sure I was going to be okay with Susan.

With Talia? I wasn’t so sure.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The next morning I had to go out to get milk and coffee, because we were completely out, and as she heard me coming down the stairs Beverly stuck her head out the door to say hello. To say she recoiled from the sight of me would be overstating it, but she was definitely shocked. “Alex?“ she said.

I sighed. “Hi, Beverly.“

“What happened?“

“A lot of stuff. I've got to go get coffee and milk. You want to come with?“

“Are you … Are you okay to drive?“

I smiled. “It’s okay, Beverly. It only hurts when I laugh.“

Beverly grabbed Samantha and we headed over to Whole Foods. Beverly was momentarily distracted when we first entered the store because she'd never been to a Whole Foods before.

“Ever?“ I asked, incredulous.

“Ever,“ she said. “I think this is a little granola for the East Bronx.“

I got a lot of stares in the Wholefoods but we spent a little longer than I had planned there, in part because Beverly was fascinated by the place (“People pay this much for cereal?“ was one of her questions), and also because it was good to be out and about, stares or no.

And it was good to spend time with Beverly and Samantha. Samantha was still at that useless baby age, where all they're good for is drooling and smiling, and I have to admit it’s still not my favorite age. I liked it a lot better a few years later, when she got around to talking, and we could play the “But why?“ game. In case you're wondering, the perfect answer to “But why“ from a 3 year old is to answer in French, “Pourquoi pas?“. Kids think it’s hilarious when you say things in what they regard as gibberish. Well, Samantha did.

But I digress again. The thing I was getting to there was the smile. I had never spent much time around babies before. And man, that smile is something. We could solve all war, if we just had more of those smiles. I even managed to forget, for a while, how much Susan was angry with me.

Spending an hour or so out shopping, and then another couple of hours with Beverly and Samantha just talking and drinking coffee and eating some donuts we had bought to offset the healthy food, was a real restorative. I didn't know how much I needed it until Beverly and Samantha gave it to me.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I got to sleep later that night without seeing Pete, and dreamed odd dreams again, dreams of high school, of being on the softball field, for some reason in a dress, and somehow not being able to speak to anyone else on the field. When I was woken by my cellphone, it took a few moments to register that it was a cellphone in 1997, not a cellphone in my dreams of high school, when they were the size of bricks and had standard ringtones.

I scrambled around on my bedside table to find the phone, answered, and it was Lucy.

“Dan’s dead.”

“What?” I still wasn’t sure I was awake.

“Bob called me. Dan’s dead.” I was awake now, to realize she was crying.

“Luce … fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“He was run over, in Charlestown. Hit and run.”

“What the fuck was Dan doing in Charlestown? I thought he was in New York?”

“Beats me. I guess he came back.”

I could tell she wasn’t up to talking, but right then I needed a voice.

“Luce.”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll be alright.” I knew that wasn’t true, but I had nothing in me to give back. But words needed to be said.

“He was a good guy, Luce.”

“He was, Alex. He was. He was an idiot sometimes, but he was a good idiot.”

“He was. Fuck. Dan. I don’t know … that’s just … Bob called you? … You want company?”

“No. I just wanted to let you know.”

“Thanks Lucy.”

“Alex?” She was tentative. She wasn’t ready to say the next words.

“Yes?” There was a long, long pause. A very long pause. Maybe 30 seconds, before I broke it. “Lucy?”

“Yes.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. I’m okay, Alex.” I could hear her intake of breath, and then it all came tumbling out. “Alex … Alex. Bob says it wasn’t an accident.”

 

~o~O~o~
 

The day of Dan's funeral was a beautiful and sunlit and all the things you don’t associate with death. It seemed completely unfair.

I was wearing oversized sunglasses, before they were fashionable, and a black floppy hat to try to hide some of the bruising on my face. It’s not considered good form at a Korean funeral to wear too much makeup, so I had applied it to look as natural as I could while still hiding some of the damage to my face.

As I came into the greeting room for the ceremony I lit the incense stick next to Dan's photograph, and gave the customary bows in front of it. I placed the envelope of cash I had brought as my gift to his family, then bowed my head and spoke to Dan's parents and sister. “I went to college with Dan. He was a very, very fine young man,“ I said. Dan's father thanked me, and then I walked from the greeting room into the funeral hall. I noticed Lucy hiding down the back off to the right, and I immediately settled next to her. She nodded a hello without saying anything.

Lucy's jaw was quite swollen. Much more than mine. I probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been trying to see what was different, but since I was, it was obvious, and I wondered whether or not she would be able to eat properly. That's not a non sequitur — Korean funerals usually involve a dinner afterward.

Like me, Lucy was also wearing sunglasses, but there was some bruising visible beneath the bottoms of the frames. It looked like she'd had a nose job, and likely more.

A dozen or so other people arrived, and the last to enter were Alice and Arun, who seemed to have arrived together. Arun nodded to Lucy and me, but the only places available to stand were close to the entrance, so they remained a distance away from us. I could see both of them were also bruised, but it wasn't easy to work out what they'd had done. Arun's bruising and swelling looked more obvious above the black suit and white dress shirt he was wearing. I think Alice had hid a lot of hers with makeup.

Dan's family was obviously distraught, but despite that I could see that his sister Sunhee was looking at all of us from the team and wondering what the hell was going on with the way we looked. I guessed Dan had never told her about his surgery. He may never have told her or the rest of the family what he did for a living.

The ceremony was fairly brief, and conducted in Korean, so obviously I didn't understand a word of it. I was thinking only of Dan throughout, and the time we had spent together, first in Matthews, then on the team. It seemed improbable that such a large man, with such a huge, generous personality, could ever have left my life.

Lucy, Alice and I stayed for the dinner, out of respect. I didn't see Arun there. I noticed that Alice's bruising seemed minimal, basically just shadows under her eyes. From the pattern of the shadows and what looked like a minor change in her profile I suspected she'd had a nose job and little else, and wondered whether that was enough to fool the software. She still looked as beautiful as ever. Dr. Morgan had certainly kept his promises to her in that regard.

As Alice, Lucy and I were leaving Sunhee Koh approached us. It looked like she wanted to say something, but something in the way she glanced at Alice and Lucy made me think she was afraid of talking plainly. I wasn't sure why she'd want to talk to me alone, but I told Alice and Lucy I'd catch up with them at my car, which was parked around the corner. I gave Alice the keys to unlock it.

“You were in college with Dan?“

“Yes, we all were.“

“But you were closer.“ it was more of a statement. Sunhee was crying.

“We weren't absolute best friends, or anything, but …“ I started to cry too. “I could have been a better friend, Sunhee.“

“He mentioned you to me.“

“Dan mentioned me?“

“Didn't you, um, used to be …“

Now I was embarrassed. At least it was enough to make my tears stop. “Yes. When did he tell you that?“

“Dan told me almost everything about his life,“ she said. “He liked you. He admired you.“

“He admired me?“ I couldn't imagine why he would admire me.

“He thought you were brave, and smart.“

“So was he.“

“You all seem like you were in some kind of accident.“

“Ah.“ I wasn't sure whether I should enlighten her about the plastic surgery. Dan clearly hadn't shared everything in his life. “Um. It’s a very long story. Maybe we could meet some time to discuss it. And Dan?“

“I would like that. So, your name is Alexandra, yes?“

“Call me Alex.“

“Alex, you know this wasn't an accident.“

“I had heard.“

“I need to find who did this.“

“Sunhee. You're young, you have your life. Let the police —“

“I need this, Alex. Will you help me?“

I stood for a long time, looking at this tiny Korean girl, shorter than me, and every bit as slight. She had cried so many tears her face was puffy, but there was no doubting the resolve on her face.

“I'm not as brave as Dan —“ I began, but she interrupted me.

“Alex, I will find these people with or without you. But if you cared for Dan, I really hope you will help me.“

How could I say no?

 

~o~O~o~
 

After Dan’s funeral, I hibernated in my room for five days, not doing anything much at all. The heat was oppressive, and my bedroom had very poor ventilation, but I couldn’t bring myself to get out and be with people at all. Between what I’d done to myself, and what someone else had done to Dan, I couldn’t cope. I kept thinking of Sunhee and her plea for help, and I felt utterly powerless and worthless. How could I even begin to help with something like that? I should have refused. I should have said no, but it’s impossible to refuse a grieving 21 year old sister on the day of her brother's funeral. I just couldn't turn her down.

So I avoided the issue. The issues. I avoided everything. I could hear Pete in the mornings and sometimes in the evenings, but I only ventured out to the bathroom or the kitchen when I was sure he and Talia weren't at home. I ignored the phone, let my cellphone run flat, and ignored the three people who came to knock on the door. I lived on ramen noodles, some plums and oranges that were past their “best before” dates, and a bottle of whiskey I found in the kitchen. It was, I reflected bitterly, a lot like my days as a student, except for my fear of being seen by anyone. I avoided mirrors, stayed away from my computer entirely, and worked my way through War and Peace. I don’t know why I selected that particular book, other than that it seemed like something that would keep me going for a long time, at least long enough to avoid people without being bored. I read, slept a lot, then read some more.

There’s nothing like reading Tolstoy to get you simultaneously depressed and inspired. As the title suggests, War and Peace is not the most lighthearted read you’ll ever get into, but Natasha Rostova is easily Tolstoy’s most inspiring female character. She’s charming, vivacious, beautiful, and utterly naive. In fact she’s quite the fool, at least in her younger days. The only thing that really redeems her is her sincerity, and the fact that she wises up in time. I could take or leave the religious guff, but that kind of goes with Tolstoy.

It was the fifth day of my hibernation by the time I finished reading. For a while I just lay there, taking it all in. And then – lying there in my dim, blue bedroom, I realized it was time to get my shit together. I sincerely doubt that when Tolstoy wrote the book he intended it as a self-help novel, but in an odd way, that’s what it was. When you’ve just read through hundreds of pages of Russian angst mixed with religious fervor, Cambridge angst seems almost like small beans. Those Russians had it going on.

Having put the book down, for the first time in a couple of days I actually looked in the mirror. The swelling in my face had almost entirely subsided, but I had neglected myself so badly that my hair looked like a large, badly-tended shrub. There were very small visible scars around my hairline, that I should have been applying cream to but had neglected, and with my hair sticking up and out in all directions they were quite noticeable.

Depressed though I was, I acknowledged that a shower was in order, so late in the afternoon I roused myself from my increasingly rank sheets and took a long, soothing shower. I washed my hair, which I noticed was beginning to get longer again and could use a trim once more. I was almost plunged into another round of self-pity about that, but I had a newfound resolve. That which hadn’t killed me would make me stronger. If it meant being a stronger guy who looked like a girl, so be it. I was going to at least try to be an adult about my life and take responsibility for it. Susan was right. So, for that matter, was Tolstoy.

I looked at the Daruma on my bookshelf, mocking me for having paid insufficient attention to my goal.

No more self pity. Reach out to be a better friend.

I dried my hair properly, sweeping my bangs across my forehead to hide the scars from the stitches. Since I’d washed they weren’t very noticeable. With my hair vaguely styled I was reminded again how much like Susan’s twin I had become. I pushed that thought to one side, finished dressing in a plain cotton skirt and singlet top over a lightly padded bra with some small silicon inserts, and applied a little perfume. For reasons that still didn’t make complete sense to me, being clean, and smelling good, actually made me feel a lot better.

Then I got stuck into the housework. I’d been away for a long time, and then subsequently in hibernation, and it was clear that Pete and Talia, left to their own devices, were no Martha Stewarts. The house was a total catastrophe. Talia never did housework, except for taking out the trash and occasionally doing some dishes, and she certainly hadn’t done any recently. And maybe Pete hadn’t known I was at home, so hadn’t bothered tidying up, because he was usually not totally awful on the domestic front. For whatever reason, the kitchen was filthy and the bathroom hadn’t been cleaned for at least a month. To clean the shower I had to strip off my clothes again, but it was such a warm early summer’s day I didn’t mind that at all, and I took another shower after that to clean my sweat off at the end of my cleaning spree. Then I washed my sheets.

Back in the kitchen I took an inventory of the food situation: dire. Either I would have to go out to the market, or it would be pizza or Chinese delivered. We were, it turned out, even out of ramen. I was debating the pros and cons of going shopping when the doorbell rang. What the hell. My days as a recluse needed to come to an end. I opened the door without checking the little security peephole.

It was Susan.

“What the fuck, Alex,” was the first thing she said.

“Nice to see you too.”

“I called, and called. I was worried.”

“Sorry.” I opened the door wider. “Want to come in?”

The fact that I wasn’t offering excuses or arguing with her seemed to put her off balance. She came in, but circled around me, studying me from all sides. I gestured to the living room and we both went in there.

“You seem to be healing up okay,” she said, finally.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So why weren’t you answering the phone? I called your cell like fifty times.”

“I was suffering from an extreme case of self pity. I think I’m over it now …” I shrugged. “Sorry, I’d offer you coffee or something, but while I was incommunicado none of us did anything about putting anything in the house. I guess I've become the designated shopper around here. I was just about to head to get some food when you arrived.”

Susan volunteered to come with me. At the store the two of us loaded up with almost everything that seemed appealing, on the principle it almost certainly wouldn’t be in the fridge or cupboards back in Somerville, and that, as Susan reminded me, I had lost even more weight and, in her words, “gone from waif-like to heroin-chic.”

Apart from that, though, she didn’t make any more comments on the way I looked, which I appreciated. And at least while we were shopping neither of us mentioned her outburst five days earlier. Back at the apartment she helped me unpack everything.

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 
For two people who genuinely loved one another, Susan and I were pretty expert at tearing into one another. Perhaps that’s the secret to really powerful fighting: the intensity of the fight is directly proportional to what you feel for the person you’re fighting with. It would explain some of the things we said to one another a few days earlier. I should never have mentioned Susan’s abortion, and when I did I hadn’t been trying to hurt her, directly. Well, that's untrue — but I was only striking back. I’d never used it as a weapon against her before, and I was ashamed of myself.

“Hey, I’m really sorry,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “Me too.”

“No, I mean really sorry.” I should never have talked about, you know …”

“Well,” she shrugged. “You were right. You were reminding me that I’d made some bad choices, too, which had led to other choices and places I hadn’t expected to find myself in.”

“Yeah, but in my case, you know, it’s completely my fault.”

“It was my fault I got pregnant, Alex.”

“And Jim’s.”

“Whatever. I remember, at the time, it all just felt like a huge, crushing inevitable thing. It all just rolled along, until suddenly, you know, it was the clinic, because what else was I going to do? Tell Mom and Dad?” She stared at the coffee mugs on my kitchen shelves, as though they had some encoded message in the Starbucks pattern. “Is that what’s it’s been like for you? Just this huge, unstoppable thing?”

“Not exactly. You know, I have this rule, about telling you about things before I do them, and I mostly keep it, you know?” I shook my head. “Except when I don’t. So I told you I was thinking about playing blackjack, but then you didn’t like it, and I did it anyway. And that was the point at which I broke the rule. And it all kind of went downhill from there.”

“You think?”

“I know. And you want to know the really fucked up part?” I opened the refrigerator to retrieve some ingredients for dinner. “The reason I didn’t listen to your advice is I didn’t tell you the main reason I was going to play blackjack.”

“What was the main reason?” Susan said. “Money?“

I laughed. “I thought I had a shot at hooking up with Alice Kim. Ha.”

“Why would you have been afraid to tell me that?”

“I don’t know. I was always afraid to tell you about people I was interested in.”

“In case I didn’t like them?”

“I guess in case I flunked out with them. If you didn’t know, you couldn’t laugh at me.”

“I don’t think I’d have laughed at you.“ Susan seemed mildly offended. “But I might have asked you to consider why you thought you had a shot with Alice.”

“You would have?”

“Wait. Back up a minute.” It seemed like she was still catching up on the conversation. “You started this blackjack thing for a girl?”

“Yeah.”

“She was coming on to you in order to get you on to this team? Alice?”

“Well, not exactly coming on to me …” I put a bunch of herbs on the chopping board to begin some prep. “You want to stay for dinner?”

“Sure. Thanks. Um, Alice. You didn’t think that was kind of strange?”

“No. Should I have?”

“Well, was she interested in you before?”

“I didn’t know her too well before.”

“It just seems, I don’t know …”

“Well, you know, we’ve actually become pretty good friends, so the whole thing is kind of ironic, really.”

“If you use the word ironic in the sense Alanis Morissette uses it again I will stab you through the heart with this parsley,” Susan said, holding a bunch aloft.

“It’s like raaaaaaaaiiiiiiiin, on your wedding day.” I sang, and Susan lunged at me, laughing.

 

~o~O~o~

 

I finished rolling out the pasta. Oddly enough it was the one activity I had done that day that made the scar near my hairline hurt slightly. I had no idea why that was. I put it through the machine and had some good loops of fettuccine in about ten minutes, while Susan was chopping the garlic. The sauce was one of my favorite recipes, just parboiled broccoli, anchovies, fresh parsley, toasted breadcrumbs, garlic and oil. The anchovies dissolve with the oil and garlic, and are offset by the sweetness of the broccoli, and it’s a great mix of textures. It needs good fresh broccoli and freshly-made pasta to work well, but milling my own pasta has always seemed like a morally righteous thing to do, so it’s a recipe I come back to often. Since I messed up some of the really big things in my life, I take solace in little achievements.

We’d probably made too much food for just the two of us, but it was going to be good. I had been eating so poorly the past few days that my mouth was watering just thinking about it.

Susan finished the chopping and laid two settings at the table. She was rummaging in the kitchen drawer for the corkscrew, as I was sautéing the garlic, when we heard Pete come through the front door.

Pete. I had forgotten, completely forgotten, that I was going to have some explaining to do with him. I wasn’t really ready to do it right at that moment.

Susan looked at me. I looked back. I said nothing. She busied herself trying to open the tempranillo.

I heard his footsteps approaching the kitchen. I placed my head forward against the range hood of our kitchen, the steam from the boiling water for the pasta brushing over my face. With my eyes half-closed I tried to think of something to say that I hadn’t already said to Susan, or Alice, and came up with nothing. When I opened my eyes and turned to face him I could see Pete was still just standing there, staring at me.

“Hey,” he finally said, softly.

“Hey yourself,” I said.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” and then he turned to Susan. “Or you. Hi Susan.”

“Would you like some wine?” Susan said, in an attempt at deflection.

“Actually,” I said, “there’s a ton of food here, if you want some. No meat though. If that’s important, I mean. Anchovies. But a lot of pasta. It’s good. You’ll like it.” I was babbling.

“You okay?” Pete said, still with that quiet, soft tone he used when he was unsure of me.

“I’m fine.” I waved at my head. “Nothing you wouldn’t find in a Mary Shelley novel. Pretty good, considering.”

Susan set the bottle on the table. “Hey, Alex,” she said. “I can … you know — leave you guys to it, if you want.”

“Don’t do that,” Pete said. “Yeah, I’d love dinner, if there’s enough.”

“There’s enough,” I said. I strained the pasta and put it into a large bowl, glad to have something to do. “But it will be ready in like two minutes, so go wash up if you want some.”

Pete left, and I dumped the broccoli, and parsley in the pasta, then stirred in the hot oil, anchovy and garlic mixture, which sizzled and crackled. Finally I added the toasted breadcrumbs to the tossed mixture. It was one of my favorite things to cook, so easy and yet so fresh and tasty. I carried it across to the table and sat down across from Susan, who had just sat down after setting another place.

“I take it,” she said, “that you didn’t tell Pete you were having any surgery.”

“No, she didn’t,” Pete said, as he re-entered the room. “She’s full of surprises like that.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. I spooned some pasta onto his plate, and poured him some wine. “Let me make it up to you.”

Pete reached across the table and brushed his hand across my upper cheek, pushing my bangs back. It felt like an intimate gesture, with Susan watching on.

“You look good, kid,” he said, inspecting one of the yellow bruises that still lurked near my hairline. “You look maybe like you played a match with the Bruins, but you look pretty good.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

“But you should have told me.” He turned to Susan. “She tell you?”

“Nope.”

“Then I don’t feel so bad, being left out.”

He raised his glass. “To Alex's recovery, and the future, and good fortune, and whatever the hell that means.”

 

~o~O~o~

 

It was 9pm, and Susan announced it was time for her to leave. Maybe it was the sheer nervous exhaustion of sitting with Pete and me, and wondering which one of us was actually going to begin speaking directly about the elephant in the room, which was what my facial surgery said about my sexual identity. I was certainly worn out. Pete was trying to be upbeat, but there was still undeniably some kind of odd tension in the room while we sat and ate, and I didn’t blame Susan when she finally decided to make her excuses. I gave her a hug at the door, the kind of deep, real hug you can give your sister out of gratitude without seeming excessive. You can only do that with family. She held my hand before we parted, and smiled. “Be careful, Alex.”

Maybe it was the wine, but I didn’t really know what she was talking about. I was pretty sure I’d made all the mistakes it was possible to make in life, already.

Back in the kitchen, I noticed Pete had cleared the table and stacked the dishwasher. “You up for another drink?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, imagining we were going to crack the second bottle of white wine in the refrigerator. Instead, Pete led me to the front door and down the steps. For some reason I was oddly happy to be led. I was glad he hadn’t exploded at me, yet, the way Susan had, about my face. I had been expecting it, but he genuinely seemed to be okay with what had happened.

We went to our regular haunt. Cameron was on bar again, and gave me a nod and a smile as we walked in. We immediately made our way to the back, but that late there were no booths. So I stood, a little awkwardly, while Pete went to the bar to bring us both back some drinks. Someone behind the bar had put on some Throwing Muses. It wasn’t unusual — local band, local bar, there were bound to be some fans — but it wasn’t the most upbeat sound I could think of.

When Pete came back he immediately proposed a toast. “To change,” he said.

“Nothing stays the same forever.” I said, clinking our glasses.

“Nothing stays the same for ten minutes in this town,” Pete said. “You know this place is going to be renovated?”

“What? They're going to try painting it for a change?”

“Cameron just told me, they’re “updating it“. Renovations next month.”

I looked around. What were they going to renovate? “So we’ll have to find somewhere else to drink?”

Pete took a deep swig from his beer. “That or give up drinking. I just hope they don’t go all ultra Irish on me. I’m not listening to the Pogues here as well as every other fucking place in Boston.”

“Then you should have gone to college in Madison, Pete,” I said, smiling.

I’m not sure what happened at that point. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with Irish music, but he was suddenly serious. “Goddamn, Alex.”

“What?” I was mystified.

“What did we discuss, what, last year? Two years ago?”

“What?” Seriously, we had discussed a lot of things last year.

“I want you to know –” he said, suddenly more serious than I’d ever seen him, ever. He had his arm on my shoulder, like he was about to pull me toward him. “– I totally support you. I will always be here for you. But you told me, last year, that you didn’t want to be a chick. And here you are,” he gestured with his hands. “What am I supposed to make of this?”

“That I’m a terrible liar?” It was a lame attempt at a joke.

“Seriously, Alexandra.” He held his hand up to prevent me interrupting. “Yeah, I’ve seen your driver’s license. You left it on the coffee table two months ago with a credit card application.”

“Uh.” I wanted to say more, but the bar seemed a lot noisier than usual. Maybe I wasn’t used to the wine and beer, after a week or so in hospital and then recuperating.

“You just have to be straight with me.” Pete said.

“I will.”

“Good. I was worried you were gonna melt down on me. I can’t have that. I need you, Alex.”

Pete needed me? Wow. What did that mean?

I had never felt 'needed' before. It was a new experience, and my reverse-idiot-savant brain wasn't very good at processing it.

A table had opened up nearby. I watched the girl who had been there with her boyfriend vacate it. She had a cute face, big hips, black thick strappy sandals with a 2 inch heel, and long hair tied up behind her head in a loose, messy bun. Apart from the hips, and the fact that I was wearing sneakers, I could probably pull that look off. Maybe my hair wasn't long enough yet. I slid into the seat she had vacated. Pete went to get some more beers.

We talked a lot that night, over the noise of the crowd, U2, Soundgarden, Sebadoh and a bunch of other mainstream forgettable 90s bands. We talked about what I had done, what I was doing with Arun, what I was going to do about my parents, about Pete’s fucked up relationships with several women (Debra was not in his good books any more), and then Pete talked about his work for a while. A rival company had just patented an algorithm for pattern recognition of crowds that was very similar to work Pete's business had been doing. “We were like, only a week from finalizing our new patent application,“ he said, making a gesture with his fingers. “This close.“

“You can write something new, right?“

“Well, of course. It’s just frustrating. And the guys at Command Dynamics are seriously pissed.“ He signed deeply. “It will take us at least six months to re-work our stuff enough not to infringe their patent. Seriously, their stuff was exactly what we were working on.“

I was touched. Pete had spent the evening trying to make me feel better, but he'd been pretty miserable the whole time. I made more sympathetic and encouraging noises, and bought him another drink.

I tried telling some bad jokes to take his mind off things: “A screwdriver walks into a bar. The bartender says, 'Hey, we have a drink named after you!'. The screwdriver responds, “You have a drink named Jeff?'“

After that lame attempt Pete decided he need more booze, and we moved onto drinking whisky (Pete) and margaritas (me). This is a bad idea at Grendels, which is pretty much a beer dive, but we were already drunk so our discrimination was impaired.

By the time they came to clear the bar, we were both toasted. We stumbled home in the warm night air, walking at least a mile and a half. The air was still warm, and the moon was bright, and it was a beautiful night to be out. At one point Pete put his arm around me. I wasn’t sure if it was to steady himself, or me, but I didn’t object.

On the walk, Pete wanted to talk about what I had told him about my reasons for having the surgery. “Pattern recognition, huh?”

“Apparently,” I said.

“You know that’s my thing, right?”

“Duh. What were we just talking about back at the bar? You don’t do face recognition though, do you?”

“We do all kinds of pattern recognition. But no, you’re right, we don’t specifically do facial recognition algorithms,” Pete said. “But you should have mentioned it. Maybe I could have helped.”

“How could you have helped?”

“I don’t know, I’m just saying.” He tried to shrug while keeping his arm around me, which was funny.

“Well, the advice we got was that it was plastic surgery time.”

“I’m just reinforcing an idea with you here, Alex.” Pete said. “Which is: you get in trouble, you have a problem, you come to me. Are we clear on that?”

“We’re clear on that,” I said. “So long as it runs both ways.”

Once inside our apartment, we both stumbled to the bathroom. “Uh,” Pete said, letting me go first in what seemed like a gracious manner at the time. I did, then selfishly took the time to clean my teeth as well before letting Pete have the room to pee. I staggered to my room to collapse. I managed to get my jeans off, but left my bra and panties on underneath my t-shirt. I think I was asleep as soon as I hit the bed.

Some time later I was aware that Pete had joined me in my bed. He’d brushed his teeth, which I took as a plus. There was a little part of me – a big part of me – that wondered what the fuck he was doing in my bed. But that part of me was tired, and drunk, and Pete seemed to be tired and drunk too, and he had his arm around my waist, but nowhere compromising. I went back to sleep, sound asleep.

 

~o~O~o~

 

Waking up next to someone you love, when you haven’t made love with them, is even harder than waking up next to someone you don’t love when you have had sex the night before.

I woke before Pete. He still had his arm around my waist, with his hand on my fake breast outside my bra. I lay still, not wanting to disturb him until I had some kind of plan for how I was going to deal with the aftermath of what I was sure had been a very bad decision by both of us. Pete was my closest friend. I had no doubt about that. Alice was becoming a good friend, but I had known Pete longer, and while I wasn’t completely sure I could trust Alice to watch my back if I needed to, I completely trusted Pete to do so. He’d done it many times before.

Did we have sex? I couldn’t remember. I mean, I think I would have remembered. Surely, I thought, I would have felt something. Like, I don’t know, I’d have been sore? Or something?

Even if we had not had sex, we had slept together. As in slept. But still. It was a level of intimacy we’d never had before. I was torn. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy that Pete was apparently interested in me. Although I wasn’t sure he was interested, exactly. Usually Pete went for women who were more, um, endowed than me.

Part of me sort of hoped he was interested. The past few years had been lonely. Any kind of physical affection was welcome. But another part of me wasn’t happy about it at all. I hadn’t yet come to grips with whether or not I was actually attracted to guys.

I might be, I thought. Maybe?

The bigger problem was that I didn’t want to use Pete as the experiment to find out. What if it didn’t work out? What if I ended up being the one rejecting him? Could I even do that?

Besides, what was he actually attracted to? Was he actually attracted? Was he just drunk? Here he was, with a handful of silicone and lace. I knew, from comments Pete had made before I’d had any of this gender trouble in a serious way, that the kinds of girls Pete liked weren’t the kind that relied on silicone. He hated, or professed to hate, artificiality. Of course, I’d become aware in recent months that like most men Pete had no idea how much makeup and styling went into the kind of looks he thought were ‘natural’, but it didn’t change his stated feelings. A girl with fake breasts was definitely not where Pete’s interests lay.

Out of the corner of my eye, without moving my head, I could see the clock radio beside the bed, which read 8.25. I tried to turn over. Pete stirred. He removed his arm from around me and flopped it to his side.

“Pete,” I said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“You’re going to be late.”

“Fuck off.” He buried his head into the pillow.

“You’re going to be late.”

“Who are you and what did you do to my head?”

This is going to sound demented, but if there was anything that ever made me decide I was in love with Pete, it was that.

I decided to get up, and extricated myself from the bed without stealing all the bedclothes. As soon as I stood up I regretted the margaritas from the night before. I went to put some coffee on, then ducked into the shower while it was brewing. Maybe I could entice him out of bed with the aroma of the coffee.

I washed my hair again, since it was full of smoke from the bar the night before. My hair was still not as long as it had been before I'd had the first cut at Alice's prompting, but it was below my chin now, almost to my shoulders. Long enough to tie back when I needed to.

When I came back to my bedroom, with a towel wrapped around me, Pete was gone. I dressed quickly, in a t-shirt and sweatpants, and pulled my still wet hair back to my shoulders, and went to knock on the door to his room, to see whether he was okay, but he wasn’t there, either. He’d obviously got out of bed and just left the apartment.

So much for the morning after. I put some music on, drank the coffee, and sat in the kitchen in a deep funk.

 

~o~O~o~

 

I needed to get out of the house, so I phoned Alice, and to my surprise she picked up. “Come over,“ she said. “I have a plan.“

I put on a simple sundress and some sandals and drove over, wondering what her plan would involve. I should have known better. Alice's 'plan' was to go to the beach, and as she opened her apartment door to let me in she thrust a beach towel, a one-piece costume, and a tote bag at me. It took me a few seconds to put it all together in my head.

“Alice, I can’t go to the beach.“

“Why not?“

“I’ll look ridiculous in a swimming costume.“ I gestured toward my torso with my hands. “Have you forgotten that a lot of me is padding?“

“You'll be okay,“ she said, unconvincingly.

I gestured to my face. “What about all this?“

She held up a big sunhat. “This, and glasses, are going to hide almost everything. Come on. We don’t actually have to swim. But it will be fun. I need to get out of town.“

Alice tried for several minutes to coerce me into the costume, and eventually I gave in. It was a beautiful July day, and perfect beach weather, and it had been so long since I'd even thought about the beach, or swimming, I was mildly excited at the prospect.

I did the requisite tucking thing that I won’t go into too much detail about here, and since I was so thin I didn't actually look too terrible — my hipbones actually stuck out some and my waist was tiny. But there was no disguising the fact that I had no breasts. If I put the chicken filets in, they showed above the neckline of the costume.

“Satisfied?“ I said to Alice. I was cranky.

“Okay, you win.“

“I think I lose, actually, whichever way you look at it.“

“Sorry.“

“Yeah, well, do you have a plan B?“

“I packed us a lunch. Let's just go sit on the sand anyway.“

I put the sundress back on, and Alice kept to her halter and denim shorts. We drove all the way out to Crane Beach. The first part of the journey was in silence but Alice put The Magnetic Fields' Get Lost on the CD player, and the sun was on my skin as we drove and it was impossible to stay in a bad mood the whole way there. I had heard a lot of The Magnetic Fields at WHRB, but Stephin Merrit’s music had always seemed a little close to show tunes for my tastes, and they'd never stuck with me. I was punk rock and angst, not melody and wit. Maybe my tastes were changing along with my gender, but I found, while listening, that I loved the music. The songs were all about love and crying and the moon, but they were melodic and poppy in an unexpected way — genius pop, actually — and I had never heard The Magnetic Fields that way before, but suddenly I was in love with the music. There was one very sad song, delivered in a deadpan by Stephin Merrit, which caught me. I made Alice play it three times even though I knew it suggested painfully obvious things about me. It’s All The Umbrellas in London, and it’s not my favorite Magnetic Fields song these days but it’s up there in the pantheon.

I drive around
I walk around in circles
'Cause I've got no sense of direction
I guess I've got no sense at all

I listened to the song, and we drove, and neither of us said anything for a while. I was still tossing around my feelings about Pete, but I wasn't cross with Alice any more.

After we had settled on the beach for a while I worked up the courage to say much about what was really on my mind.

“Alice, have you ever slept with someone and then regretted it?“

“I think you're asking the wrong question, Alex. How many times have I slept with someone and not regretted it?“

“Really?“

“Not quite. But, you know, delight has been … a scarce commodity.“ She dipped her sunglasses for a moment to look at me. “So. Who?“

“Pete. Who else?“

“You're very attractive, Alex. I can imagine many who else's. But Pete … Huh.“

“Huh?“

“Well, sleeping with a housemate isn’t unprecedented.“

“No.“

“You guys have been friends for a long time.“

“Ever since I first got to Boston. He's like my closest guy friend.“

“Huh.“

Alice was irritating me again. Surely there was more to say than 'huh'?

“So you think I did the wrong thing?“

“That depends. What happened?“

I outlined the story of the previous night, and Pete leaving without saying anything in the morning, and Alice patted the sand next to her and said “So tell me something new about men.“

“Yeah.“

“But you guys didn't have actual sex?“

“I did not have sexual relations with that man,“ I said. Clinton had made his infamous disclaimer a few months earlier, but had yet to appear before the Grand Jury. “Nor, so far as I can remember, did I perform any Lewinsky-like maneuvers.“

“So your problem is …“

“I think maybe I made a mistake, Alice. And I feel like a fraud. Or something.“

“A fraud.“

“You know, what am I doing?“ I gestured toward my body. “This started out as one thing, now it’s something completely different.“

“Yes, well, we went through that a few weeks ago.“

I thought that was a little insensitive.

“The thing is, I really like Pete,“ I said. “Really. I get him. I think — I used to think — he gets me. I don’t know. But also, and here's the thing, I worry that if I get involved with him that I'm going to distract him or fuck his life up. And he has some really exciting stuff going on right now, professionally.“

“You mean his business?“

“Yeah. He's really onto something with this pattern recognition thing he's got going.“

“I think you should think of yourself,“ Alice said. “Business is, you know, business. What does your heart say?“

“My heart is an unreliable muscle,“ I said. “I'm better at using my brain. Although I don’t seem to have used it too well lately.“

“We've been through this before, right?“

“Yeah. My heart hurts more this time though.“

“Of course.“

Talking about this with Alice was really beginning to seem like hard work. “Yeah. Anyway, I really want him to succeed. I know he will. They've got a cool business.“

“I don’t know, Alex. From what I know, I don’t think that's ever going to take off,“ Alice said. “I certainly wouldn't invest in it.“

“Really?“ I knew Alice was pretty knowledgeable about A.I. I didn't know whether she knew much about the specifics of Pete's product.

“Really. And you should take care of yourself.“ She said. “If he cares about you, he’ll let you know.“

“So why did he just leave?“

“Men are like that.“

“Really? I mean, I don’t know. It just seems, uh, insensitive, you know? And Pete's not usually like that. I'm like that. Anyway, really, I care about him, and it hurts, but I really don’t want to distract him with melodrama. He has enough going on. And his other girlfriends all do that, the melodrama thing.“

“His other girlfriends.“ She smiled. “Listen to you.“

It wasn't until later that night that I found myself thinking Alice's response to my comments about Pete's business had been odd. As far as I knew she and Pete barely knew one another, and I didn't think I'd said very much about the detail of his work. I didn't actually know much about the detail, anyway. Alice was the kind of person who, usually, would refrain from saying anything negative about another person, unless seriously provoked. I admired her for that. So speaking out about Pete and effectively dismissing his professional achievements was very strange.

I wondered whether I had said something else to upset her, and perhaps this was her way of striking back.

 

~o~O~o~

 

Pete was on my mind for more reasons than Alice's comments. It had been a long time – since high school – since anyone had held me in their arms. I had enjoyed it. I seemed to enjoy the memory of it even more than the actual event, but that was probably because when it had been happening I had been drunk. Or it was some mammalian thing. I recalled reading somewhere that mammals release some kind of pleasurable hormone in their brain when they’re being touched by other mammals they trust. I am a child of random scientific facts that add up to little, but they distract me enough to avoid asking the big question often, and that keeps me going.

In spite of my mammalian instincts, I started weighing up my life. John Ostermeyer had suggested to me, when I was at a low ebb in high school, that it sometimes helped to write up a list of the good and the bad in your life, because you could always find a few good things to put on the credit side of the ledger, and no matter how bad life looked, those good things were usually things you couldn’t let go of. I remember, years earlier, watching Woody Allen’s Manhattan with John and his Mom one evening over at their house on their old Laserdisc player, and there’s a scene in it in which Woody (or whatever his character’s name was, I forget) made up a list that included Cezanne’s still-lifes and Louis Armstrong and a girl he had loved, played by a young Mariel Hemingway. Contrived or not, the idea of that list had stuck with me.

So I made up a list:

The good: the taste of fresh white peaches, and the texture of soft-shell crab. Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth, Van Gogh’s 1889 self portrait (the one with the brushes), Picasso’s work in the 1930s, those demented paintings by Francis Bacon. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach, and Nabokov. Poetry by Auden, Rimbaud, and almost everything by William Blake. Doolittle by Pixies, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville, Shostakovich’s Symphony No.4, Mahler’s Seventh, Bach’s Concerto for 2 Violins. Groundhog Day, Band of Outsiders, Badlands, Blade Runner. Pete, Susan.

The bad: Pol Pot, Stalin, Kissinger, Nixon. Hitler, obviously. Throw in various Borgias. Licorice. Almost everything Willem de Kooning ever painted. Things produced by The Franklin Mint. Any movie with Sharon Stone in it, plus Highlander, Hudson Hawk, and Billy Madison. The existence of AIDS.

I realized there weren’t any people I actually hated. I could come up with a short list of people I didn’t like much, but they weren’t a counterweight to Susan and Pete. On balance, the world was full of wonderful things.

 

~o~O~o~

 

I discussed my list with Dr. Kidman. He listened to me recite it. I thought he was going to take issue with my aesthetic choices.

“There’s nothing in that list about you.”

“What do you mean? That’s not how it works.”

“Well, try it. What do you like about yourself?”

“Um …” I wasn’t good at answering that one. “Haven’t we been down this path before?”

He smiled. “We have. You didn’t deal with it so well that time.”

I nodded an apology. I was older and maybe not any wiser now, but I knew he wasn’t goading me. “I’m pretty smart, I guess,” I began. “I mean intellectually. I’m pretty stupid when it comes to organizing my life.”

“Go on.”

“On the negative side, I’m not very good at making friends.”

“You think that’s still true, Alex?”

“I guess. I mean, the only real friend I’ve made in the past two years is Alice.”

“She wasn’t on your list.”

“I don’t know whether she qualifies, yet. I like her, and all, but …”

“You hold people to a difficult standard, Alex.”

“Yeah. Should that be one of my negatives? Because, you know, I don’t think it’s necessarily a terrible thing.”

“Keep going.”

“On the plus side, I’m healthy. I’m not poor. I had a pretty good education …”

“Yes.”

“On the minus … I don’t like myself all that much.”

“Congratulations.” He said. It wasn’t the response I had been expecting.

“Huh?”

“You’ve been seeing me for a long time now, Alex. And this is the first time you’ve come to that realization.”

“Really?” I thought about it. He was right. The idea had been bubbling around in my head, under the surface, but I’d never verbalized it. Now that I had, it seemed true. More true. “So, um, so what?”

“Well, now we can work on that. The only way to happiness, Alex, is beginning to like yourself.”

“That sounds like a Hallmark Card.”

“It’s true.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Yes, yes it is. Now, when was the last time you remember ever liking yourself?”

I thought back. The last time I could remember really enjoying life, free from the uncomfortable buzz in my head that had always been there, was that summer when Hal and I had been friends, back in 1985. The summer I had been able to say that I didn’t care if someone thought I was a girl. And I remembered I had said to Hal, then: “If I was the one who made a mistake …”

 

~o~O~o~

 

The session with Dr. Kidman had ended well. For the first time, I felt like I understood why Susan had liked him so much. It took a long time to get where we needed to go, but he was a patient man.

We spent a long time discussing what ‘liking myself’ meant, and I did a lot of thinking. I finally tracked down that thought that had been nagging me for years.

I didn’t mind if people thought I was a girl. I did mind if they thought I was a freak. But being a girl … it was actually easier. I enjoyed it more. I worried about my relationships more – I especially worried about my relationship with Pete, and Alice – but I told Dr. Kidman I didn’t have any feelings of inadequacy.

Then I had to backtrack, because I had told a lie. I did have feelings of inadequacy. I told him about the time I had spent on the Common, watching other women in the sunshine. I told him about the time we had gone to Crane Beach, and I had needed to cover myself and stay away from the water. I did feel inadequate, especially next to Susan and Alice. I wanted to feel more … womanly.

There. I had said it. A year of living as a woman, and facial surgery, and I had finally faced the truth. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

“This isn’t going to be peaches and cream,” Dr. Kidman said.

“I know that,” I said. “But somehow I think it’s going to be easier than the past five years have been.”

Dr. Kidman gave me a referral to an endocrinologist, and went to the trouble of phoning to make an appointment on my behalf. I appreciated that, especially since it meant I got a much quicker slot than I would have if I’d called myself. A week later I had a lot of blood taken for tests, and walked away with a prescription for estrogen.

 

~o~O~o~

 

I envied Susan. I wanted the same kind of easy familiarity she had with her friend Chloe. She and Chloe talked almost every day, by phone. Mostly, it seemed, they talked about inconsequential things, and I envied that. Pete and I talked about inconsequential things, too, but not the same kind of inconsequential things. And as I had changed, the nature of our relationship had changed. Now Pete never discussed anything to do with the women he was dating with me.

And Alice and I talked about myriad different subjects. But there were things it just didn’t feel right to talk about with her. Especially things to do with Pete. Or with my future. I had been trying that with her, like that time at Crane Beach, and it wasn’t working. She was too focused, too together. I was too much of a fuckup to be able to begin to explain my problems to her.

Plus there was still a kind of distance between Alice and me. Partly it was that she was very private. I knew she was seeing someone, but she never spoke about him. She hardly ever talked about her childhood. We talked a lot about Harvard, and about the team, and sometimes about clothes or books or people we knew, but rarely about things that were very personal.

So I didn’t have any friends I could talk with anymore about serious personal issues. When I tried it with Alice, there was this information asymmetry problem. Conversations with Pete about relationships or gender or anything sexual didn’t seem to work any more — at least not in the same way. When I tried to discuss serious things with Pete – serious things that required solutions – Pete would always try to find solutions, and often those solutions weren't easy to find.

Chloe and Susan, it seemed, didn’t need to do that. Susan could talk with Chloe about very serious things, and not have the conversation blow up into a huge issue. They could talk about their feelings without having to resolve everything, or indeed anything. The solutions were not as important as the process of talking about the issues. I liked the idea of that. More and more, I thought, I needed someone to talk with.

So I wandered over to Susan’s house. Together, Susan and I were tender and kinder and somehow wiser than either of us could be on our own. I liked that. It seemed to me a kind of validation of the entire idea of family. As a pair, we were stronger. We were better. We were … more.

 

~o~O~o~

 

Pete and I had arranged to meet for drinks after he finished work. His office was over near Bunker Hill, so we settled on the Warren Tavern, which in my student days, if I’d ventured this far, I would have avoided like the plague. All I knew of the area was the rink, where I’d gone once with some friends from college to watch an amateur hockey match, which I’d found boring as hell. Separated from the leafy environment of Harvard by the industrial park and the I-93, Charlestown had always seemed pretty rough and unpleasant. The fact that Dan had been killed there had been one more nail in the coffin of the place for me.

Now, a few years later, the Charlestown neighborhood didn’t seem so bad, apart from the memories of Dan. It still looked dirt poor in most places – solidly working class in a way that only the old east coast cities with their frigid winters can represent, as though they were prospective movie locations for realist depressive films about frustrated dreams. But a lot of places around Charlestown now looked like they’d been renovated. There were planters in a couple of windows, and the streets were lined with newish midsize and compact cars.

I arrived before Pete, and was seated with a view of the street, a rare thing at the Warren. It wasn’t quite dark yet, just going on late dusk, but there wasn’t a lot to look at on the street. I browsed the menu, waiting for Pete. Nobody from Boston really goes to the Warren for the food, it’s more for the convenience and the atmosphere, so the menu was pretty much irrelevant, but I didn’t have anything to read and I had discovered over the preceding months that randomly making eye contact with strange men in a bar was an effective way to invite a pickup line, and I wasn’t really interested in that. As I was wondering what was keeping Pete I glanced out the window a few times. I could see a silver Acura, the same as Arun’s, parked closest to me on Pleasant Street, with two people in it, but I couldn’t see who they were. Almost as though I’d asked, one of them opened the passenger side door, and by the dome light in the interior I could see Arun, with a solid-looking blond man I didn’t know in the passenger seat. The blond man nodded at Arun, and then stepped out of the car. He must have walked in the opposite direction because I didn’t see him walk past the Warren. The dome light went off and I couldn’t see Arun any more either, but then he started the car and drove forward, turning right onto Main Street, I guessed to drive back toward Thompson Square and Cambridge.

I wondered what Arun was doing in Charlestown? It didn’t seem like his kind of neighborhood. Then again, with all the yuppification, maybe it was exactly his kind of area now. I really didn’t know all that much about Arun, and had never bothered to find out.

As I was wondering about the coincidence, Pete came in, apologizing for being late. I swear in the late dusk light coming through the window, shining on his blond hair, he looked like some kind of Norse god. He was wearing a simple black cotton shirt and jeans, and despite being at work all day he somehow still looked fresh and alive. Several of the younger women in the restaurant were checking him out.

“I’m sorry,” He repeated.

“No problem,” I said, smiling. “You look happy.”

“Had a good day,” he said, sitting down. The waitress was over to our table and Pete ordered drinks for both of us.

“Your deal?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think it’s going to come together. We did the term sheet. Now it seems to be about the personnel, and how the relationship will work. I think the financials will take care of themselves.” He was genuinely excited. “I can’t believe I’m not focusing on the money, I really can’t.”

“I can,” I said, smiling. Pete had never been about money, and I had the feeling he probably wasn’t the greatest business guy in the world. He’d surrounded himself with a couple of lawyers and financial advisors to help with all that, and if they did their job properly he wouldn’t have to worry. It seemed like, so far, his lawyers and financial advisors were doing their jobs. “I’m really pleased for you, Pete.”

“Thanks.”

“So what’s next?”

“Well, Vassily and I go down to Virginia to meet with the head guys, do some bonding, you know that. They seem pretty keen to get our team committed.”

“Well, no point buying your stuff if you’re not around to explain it, right?”

“Right. I’m going to be tethered to the business for at least 2 years.”

“Does that mean you have to move to Virginia?”

“Fuck I hope not,” Pete said. “No, there’s no chance of that. They just want us to keep doing what we’re doing, and license the results to them to exploit.”

Pete talked about his business some more, and we ate, and we drank, and at some point – some time in the middle of dessert, I think, when Pete leant back in his chair and laughed at something I’d said — I reflected that this was almost like a date. It was almost like the kind of perfect date I’d have imagined a few years ago I might be taking a girl out on. Only this time I was the girl.

It was on the way home that Pete sprung the surprise on me. “Alex?’ he began, tentatively. I always worried when he asked me questions in that tone, because there was usually a catch attached to whatever was coming next.

“Yes?”

“So, these people from Command Dynamics, they want Vassily and me to meet them in two weeks in DC.”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if you would come with me?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.” Pete looked over at me briefly while he was driving, maybe trying to gauge my response. “Vassily is bringing Yana. These guys will have their wives with them. It’s that kind of thing. We’re supposed to be bonding.”

“You want to present me – present us – as a kind of couple?”

“Yeah.” He looked worried. “I mean, if that’s okay. Is that okay?”

I looked out the window. We were driving past the Big Dig. There were huge lights strung over a construction pit, lighting up a giant area next to the road and throwing an alien blue light on the buildings beyond.

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea, Pete?” I said. “I mean, they’ve done a security check on you, right?”

“Yes. I’ve been checked out a few times.”

“And it’s important, right? That you have a good security clearance?”

“Of course. We wouldn’t be able to sell anything if I didn’t.”

For a guy who was so smart he could be super dense. “You don’t think being with a woman who uses a fake name could be an issue?” I said.

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” It seemed like he genuinely hadn’t considered this. “Yeah, I guess that could be a problem.”

We made it back to the apartment. I was pissed. My good mood from dinner had been dashed. What kind of life was I leading?

 

~o~O~o~

 

When I got inside Pete went straight to his room, but I went into the living room to sit for a few moments and collect my thoughts. As soon as I entered I checked the messages on our machine, and was surprised to find one from Sunhee Koh, Dan's sister. I immediately felt guilty for not following up with her after the funeral. She had said then that if I couldn't help her she would take matters into her own hands to seek revenge on whoever had killed Dan. I assumed that it had been Whitwell, but I really didn't have any proof. But I worried about Sunhee as soon as I heard the message. What would she do?

Talia, who was home for once, had overheard me playing the message. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, peeling a mandarin. “You really think she'd go after people herself?“ she asked. I understood from her tone that she'd heard the message before I played it. It happened frequently in our house — the rule was first one in played the messages, but you only got to delete the ones meant for you.

“I don’t really know her.“ I reflected that she had certainly seemed determined on the day of the funeral. But people are usually very emotional at funerals, and I had no idea how long Sunhee's desire for revenge would continue.

“It wouldn't be such a bad thing if she provided a distraction to these Whitwell people, would it?“

“Talia!“ I was shocked. “Even if I thought that was possible, which I don’t, I wouldn't let a girl like that get into that kind of situation.“

“I'm just saying,“ she said, raising her hands in an 'I surrender' motion. “A distraction would be good, right?“

“Probably,“ I grumbled. “But not like that.“

It wasn't until much later, as I lay in bed that night tossing events around in my head, that I realized that Talia knew about Whitwell. I wondered how she knew about that?

 

~o~O~o~

 

---

 
Guilt was something I didn’t think was healthy, but which nevertheless seemed to have wormed its way into me. Part of my guilt was due to failure to conform.

Growing up in Nebraska, everyone tried desperately to conform. Well, apart from the goths and metal heads, but in their own ways they were even more conformist.

In my grade school years I worried about not respecting God enough. By the time I was a teenager and knew more about Japanese history and culture, I worried about respecting God too much. My parents, whatever their roots, grew up with a strong work ethic. Dad was the quintessential Jewish American trying to assimilate in whitebread middle-America, never wanting to appear Jewish, or different, despite his faith, but still undeniably out of place in a city where the vast majority of people looked like the ones you saw in Chevrolet commercials. He was cursed not only with a face that came straight from a caricature from early publications of Dickens, but with two children who seemed like they came from another continent entirely – the children of Hirohito. We never saw anything but love – after all, he certainly loved Mom – but as I got into my teens I became aware of his sense of estrangement from the environment we lived in. If it hadn’t been for his job, working in middle management for a division of General Mills, I’m sure we might have moved somewhere more cosmopolitan like New York or LA, but Nebraska was where his job was, and whatever else he was, my father was a man that shunned change. Stability and reliability were the keys to his life.

Mom’s big thing was self-respect. She disapproved of credit cards, designer logos on clothes, dyed hair on anyone under 40, tattoos, and plastic surgery. She and Susan fought bitterly during Susan’s early teens, when Susan bleached her hair (like most Asian hair before new dyes were invented some years later, it turned out kind of orange), but even Susan understood that, however much they might disagree, and however old fashioned she might have been, Mom conformed exactly to the old-skool definition of honor.

All of us Jones's knew that. You could make a mistake; that was okay. It was how you dealt with the mistake that was the measure of you. When I was kid she read me Hans Christian Anderson, A.A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame and Charles Schulz, and I always knew who the good guys and the bad guys were, but just from the way she read certain phrases I also knew who the smart guys were and who the fools were. The Shmucks, as her mother in law would have called the fools, though Mom, being a convert to Judaism rather than someone brought up with it, would never have used that term. She thought Yiddish was like swearing. Honor, making the right choices, not swearing: these were the things my Mom lived by.

As I came up the drive and opened the door of the rental car I knew they’d be the things I’d be measured by. Stability, and honor.

The money would be inconsequential.

I felt guilty even before the front door opened.

Dad opened the door. His eyes registered surprise, but reflexively he drew me to himself and hugged me. “Good to see you, Alex,“ he said, hugging me tighter than I remembered him ever doing. “It’s been a long time.”

“It’s good to see you too, Dad.” Suddenly I felt overwhelmed with emotion. I hung onto him for a few moments longer than I had ever done before, afraid that if we parted I would start crying. The physical affection surprised me. Dad and I had never displayed much emotion in front of one another before.

We parted, and he ushered me into the hall. I took my coat and hat off and hung them before turning around to face him again. Both of us caught one another sizing each other up, and eventually we both smiled, tentatively.

“Big year, huh?” Dad said.

“Very.” I said. “I’m glad to be here.”

The thing that caught me by surprise, again, was not how gentle he was being with me: it was how much older he looked. It had only been two years since I’d seen him last, but his hair was so silver now, almost white. And his face was so thin. My father was old, suddenly. How did I let this happen? Why wasn’t I around more?

“Your mother is going to want to have a word with you later.”

“I know that, Dad.”

“Well, come inside and fortify yourself with some food before we get to that. Your mother has been cooking for two days.”

Susan and Grandma Rousselot were already there, talking to one another, and Susan was blocking the door to the kitchen so I couldn’t see Mom at first.

Mom was straightening up from the oven when I came in. I saw a brief flash in her eyes as she first saw me, but then she smiled and we came together and hugged one another. Again, I was overcome with emotion.

I turned to hug my Grandma. During the hug, my defenses broke. I started crying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Grandma led me to the kitchen table and sat me down, and stood behind me running one hand through my hair as she left the other reassuringly on my shoulder.

It took me a good five minutes to stop crying.

“Sorry about that,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for,” Grandma said.

Whatever misgivings my parents might have had about me, both of them were clearly happy to have their children back under their roof again. Mom was super animated over lunch. We talked about a hundred different subjects, from the neighbors (“still insane” my father said, of the ones next door to our North), to our extended family (“your mother’s side of the family has always been a bit whacky” said Dad) to politics (“I think Hillary Clinton has a screw loose,” said Dad), to science (“this genetic engineering thing will end in tears,” Dad said). Then Dad and Tom took to discussing sport, and Mom and Susan and I began to reminisce about kids we knew from High School and their families.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Susan and I were cleaning up in the kitchen. The radio on top of the refrigerator was on, playing hits and memories, which turned out, in this case, to be the Beatles Ticket to Ride, and Susan and I both sang along as she put food that could be saved into containers, and I loaded plates into the dishwasher. “She's got a ticket to ride, She's got a ticket to r-i-i-ide.“ We both became aware of Mom standing in the doorway to the dining room, watching us, and we stopped singing. “Snap,” she said, smiling.

I must have looked puzzled, but Susan got it, and put her hand on my shoulder. “Yeah,” she said to Mom, “It’s pretty uncanny, isn’t it? At first I was kind of aggravated … I mean, apart from just being mad at Alex for even thinking of doing it … but, you know, it’s kind of cool.”

“I know you’re talking about me, but what are you talking about?” I said to both of them.

“You both look so alike, now,” Mom said quietly.

“Uh, yeah,” I said guiltily.

Susan seemed to take that as a cue. “I’m just going to check on Tom and Dad.”

When she was gone Mom came into the room, closer to me. I stood against the kitchen bench. There was no escaping this. I had come to Lincoln knowing my parents would be shocked, and knowing there would be consequences, and I had been lucky, so far, that nobody had actually yelled at me. I recognized Susan’s “kind of cool” remark as a gesture of support, which meant she knew “the talk” was coming. So I steeled myself for some harsh words. I deserved them.

“Alex. Why?” was all Mom said.

There wasn’t an easy way to explain that. I didn’t understand the reason myself. I could tell her about Arun and blackjack and Henry and Louisiana and face recognition software and Dr. Morgan’s attempts to refine my features, but on the airplane on the way to Nebraska I had run this scene, and variations on it, through my head again and again and nothing I could say could really explain it. And yet I knew that Mom was going to want some answers.

When I failed to answer, she started to come up with her own explanations. “Are you gay? Is that it?”

“No, Mom. Yes. I don’t know. How do you define gay?”

She didn’t really have an answer for that one, and it stopped her for a few moments.

“Do you want to have a sex change?”

“I don’t know, Mom.”

“You look like you have already had one.”

“That was a mistake, Mom.”

“That’s some mistake.”

We were both silent a few moments. I couldn’t meet her eyes. I felt like I was seven years old again, the time Ellen Lindstrom and I were caught shoplifting chocolate bars from the Hy-Vee and Mom reacted not with anger but with such a profound sense of disappointment that it was ten times heavier for me to bear than anger. Anger I could have deflected, because it’s a transitory emotion. But disappointment lingers. It can last for years.

When I was seven and had shoplifted I had felt like I had dug myself into a huge hole of disappointment and it would take years to get back out. But now I figured I was standing on the bottom of a canyon as we stood there in that kitchen.

“Susan told me about the gambling.”

“Susan told you?” I was shocked. Susan hadn’t ratted me out to Mom and Dad since I was nine. It was probably a measure of how much I had upset her, too, that she’d betrayed my secret. So much for the gesture of support. “What did she tell you?”

“That you were involved in some kind of criminal gambling operation. I don’t have to tell you, it has given your father and I a lot of sleepless nights. And then to learn that you’re turning into a woman.”

She began to cry. I began to cry.

“I’m not a criminal, Mom. I would never do anything illegal.”

“Do you need money?”

“Of course not! Mom, I have lots of money.”

“Illegal money.”

“No, legal money. Perfectly legal money. I haven’t broken any law.”

“So, why? Why did you do this to yourself?”

“Because I’m an idiot?”

“I’m not going to disagree with you, if that’s what you’re hoping.”

“I’m not going to disagree with me, either, Mom.” I gathered myself together. We looked at one another, both of us in tears. Eventually I realized there was no easy way to begin to make her understand, so I stood up and walked over to the bench to put some coffee on.

“If you’ve got time, I can tell you the whole story. It’s not a good story. I’m an idiot. I know.”

“Make three cups. I’m going to get your father. He deserves to hear this, too.”

“Okay, Mom.” I started to make the coffee, knowing it would be the most difficult conversation I would ever have. Or so I thought, at that time.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Considering what a fuckup I was, Mom and Dad took the story pretty well. As we sat around the kitchen table I didn’t try to defend myself, since I didn’t really understand, myself, how I’d let myself make such a mess of my life, and I was upfront with them about the fact that it was a mess. Because of that, I think, they took it better than they might have, and Mom’s first response, after I finished telling her what an idiot I was, was to try to console me.

“There are worse things in life, Alex. I’m not condoning any of what you’ve done. How could I?”

“I know, Mom.”

“But there are worse things. You could have been killed by those men that hurt your friend Henry … You could have been breaking the law. As it is, I think you’ve been very foolish, but there must be a way out of this, now. Ben?”

Throughout it all Dad was his usual stolid self. Now, prodded by my Mom, he nodded. “You know we love you, Alex. I’m not going to pretend to even understand anything you’ve said. I still don’t quite know how you first let yourself go back to that Casino dressed as a girl.”

I started to say something about feeling more comfortable in myself, now, but thought better of it. There were things that children can’t ever explain to their parents, and feelings like mine, then, are among those things.

“Surely there is a surgeon who can reverse what’s been done?” Dad said.

I thought back to the discussion Alice and I had had in Susan’s apartment. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I certainly didn’t want to bring the subject of female-to-male transsexualism up for discussion. I just shook my head, and then stared at the table.

My father reached across and took my hand. I was wound so tight I flinched when he touched me. He rubbed my hand reassuringly, then reached over and tilted my chin up so I was looking directly at him.

“As your mother said, there are worse things in life. You have your health, you have your brain, and a fine brain it is, and you have your family. You look like my daughter, it’s true …”

I was looking at the table again. Mom had her hand on Dad’s, on mine.

“If you had been in a car accident and disfigured, we would have a different kind of sorrow,” he continued. “This is strange. It’s strange because you brought it on yourself. I’m not going to pretend I’m at all happy about it. But we will get through this.”

There was a protracted silence while all of us tried to work out what to say next. I failed to think of anything that made sense, so it was Mom that spoke next. “Alex,” she said, more gently than before. “You have to help us understand what it is you want to do, but whatever you want, we will be here for you.”

I broke down, in tears. They were good to me. They were still angry, but I wasn’t going to lose them. It was reassuring, but if anything it increased my sense of guilt. The floodgates opened, and I cried, and cried, until I was heaving great wracking sobs. I couldn’t control myself. At some point – I was losing track of things – my father came around to my side of the table. He scooped me up, somewhat awkwardly, and carried me in his arms, like he had done when I was young, into the living room and laid me on the couch. When I could cry no more I fell asleep there, exhausted.

“I would have carried you upstairs to your room,” he told me later, “but I’m an old man now, and you may be small like your mother, but you’re not a child. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

 

~o~O~o~
 

Despite the exhaustion of talking things through with Mom and Dad, I didn’t sleep well that night. I woke around two a.m. after a bad dream, one I hadn’t had since I was a kid. In it, I was lying on the road outside the house, and there were people standing along the road, and they were waiting for a train to come along, and run me over. The dream had never made any sense to me at all, not least because the train never ever arrived, and there were no railway tracks running down the middle of the road anywhere in Lincoln, but also because I could never figure out what in heck could ever have triggered it. It made no sense. It had been at least 18 years since the last time I'd had it, but as a kid I’d had the nightmare many times.

In the wake of the nightmare I understood some things more clearly. (Over the years I've come to believe that the psychic trauma that goes with waking from a nightmare can result in clearer thinking, but it’s not a path to enlightenment I can recommend). I understood that I could have a life, an authentic life like my parents, but it was going to be a life spent as a woman. The universe was telling me something. It had been telling me that one thing my entire life.

I realized that the background noise in my head, the one that had been bothering me, was just the universe talking to me. If almost everyone mistook me for a woman, and there was now nothing at all I could ever do about it, then I would be a woman. Because it turned out, it felt better. It felt more authentic. It wasn't only that, as my father had said, there were worse things in life. It was that for the first time the background buzz of discomfort seemed to have gone away.

I got up and shuffled off to the bathroom. As usual I was wearing only a big, oversize t-shirt, in this case an old Huskers shirt that came down almost to my knees. The neckline was so stretched out it almost fell off one shoulder. I had been aware, in the past months, that Pete got a little distracted when he saw me wearing it, but I hadn’t really given much thought to why, until I almost literally bumped into Mom on the landing outside the bathroom as I exited.

“You couldn’t sleep either?” she said.

“I just had to use the bathroom. But no, couldn’t sleep. Bad dream.”

Even in my somewhat befuddled state I became aware that she was looking at my chest. My nipples were fully erect in the cold night air, and were proudly announcing to my mother that her son had breasts. Not very large ones, to be sure, actually just little bumps, but not artificial ones either. Embarrassed, I put my hands up to cover them, and then she laughed.

“What are you laughing at?” I said crossly.

“You have so much to learn, Alex. So much.”

She bent to hug me. I was aware, for the first time, how much frailer she was becoming. She was only fifty, but she’d lost a little of her spring since the last time I had visited. I hugged her back.

“Will a cup of tea keep you awake or help you get back to sleep?” She asked me.

“No idea,” I said. “But I’d like a chance to talk some more, if it’s okay.”

I went and got a robe, and then Mom led the way downstairs, and we quietly made tea and sat at the kitchen table together.

We sat and talked in a way we hadn’t done since I was in my early teens. By high school I’d entered that moody depressed phase that I kept up right until I went to college (maybe longer). But when I was a kid we would sit together and discuss all sorts of things. Up until that point, she was pretty much my closest confidante, and purveyor of wisdom in response to a million stupid questions from me.

I sensed that I was going to get another lecture from her, but she was surprisingly supportive. She reminisced about my behavior as a child, and the way that I had behaved “not like the other boys.“ When I apologized, she shushed me, and told me that she and Dad had actually been proud of me for that. “We never had to teach you not to bully people, or not to break things, or to keep yourself clean.“

“God, Mom, you make me seem like a total goody-goody.“

She smiled. “No, you were too contrary for that. You never did take advice. Always had to figure things out for yourself.“

“Touché.“

“It’s okay, I can never stop offering advice anyway. You need to work on your self-respect more.“

“Another of my many failures,“ I joked.

“Stop it. Alex, everything will be fine. There's only one thing I really want you to promise me off the back of this misadventure.“

“What is it? You name it.“

“You think you could call your poor old mother from time to time? I noticed you have a cellphone. You don’t think you could use it more often?“

“Of course,“ I said. “Of course. I’ll call you all the time.“

“Once a week will be fine. And any other time you're feeling down.“

She made me feel guilty again. Mom might have had to convert to Judaism to marry Dad, but she had the Jewish mother thing down, solid.

“And Alex?“

“Yes, mom?“

“You need to learn a few things about modesty, and being a woman.“

“Say what?“

“You need to make sure you cross your legs when you sit like that.“

Mom could still embarrass me, too. Do parents get better at that as you get older? Mine did.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Nostalgia is a terrible thing. Susan and I decided we had to take a look at the old neighborhood, which of course also meant our old school. Tom tagged along with the two of us, I guess partly out of curiosity about Susan’s past and partly to escape my Dad, who had exhausted his anecdotes about life at General Mills and was on to politics again. In Susan’s case our tour didn’t bring back terrible memories, but it did for me. We stood by the school fence a while, then entered the grounds and walked around the buildings. There was the doorway where Bob Gatenby had knocked one of my teeth out. My gum ached even thinking about it now. There was the science block, where Johnny Domke had blown the windows out one day in a disastrous prank and given three kids permanent hearing loss. And there were the bleachers where Kelly Gatzemeyer and Anne Sorenson had mocked me so cruelly, setting the stage for three years of torment.

Susan had a different set of memories, of boys she’d had crushes on and others she’d disappointed (I bet Tom thought that was fascinating), and of the successful attempt she and some friends made to stage a takeover of the student council.

We reminisced briefly about some of the more horrible teachers we’d had, and turned to head back to the car. As we walked back out onto the street we were hailed by a voice from a passing car. Neither of us heard what was said, but the car slowed, did a U-Turn and came back. I thought it looked familiar, but couldn’t place it. We were standing beside Mom’s Honda by that point, and the driver of the car pulled up directly behind. As he got out I realized it was John Ostermeyer.

“Susan?” he said, to both of us.

“Hi. John, right?” Susan said.

“Yeah, hi.” He seemed confused looking at two Susans, but he continued talking to her. “How are you? Are you just back home for Thanksgiving?”

“Yes. You?”

“Same. Uh …” He was clearly waiting for Susan to introduce me and Tom. “Um … I didn’t know you had a sister. I thought there was just you and Alex.”

“Hi John,” I said quietly.

He stood perplexed for a few moments. His face moved in a few odd directions before eventually settling in an uncertain grin.

“Alex?”

“Yes. How are you?”

“I’m good. I’m good. Wow, this is, um, a surprise.”

“You think?”

He laughed. “Well, maybe not a complete surprise. I mean … Well, yeah, it’s a surprise. I wasn’t expecting this when I noticed Susan coming out of the gate there.”

“Oh, by the way,” I said pointedly, “this is Tom O'Donnell, Susan’s boyfriend.”

John and Tom said their hellos, but it was pretty perfunctory. John was clearly fascinated by me.

“So, um, is it still Alex? Your name, I mean.”

“Yes. Alexandra. But, you know, wow … Alex. What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I suspect. Visiting old haunts. I haven’t been back home for a few years. Say, you guys want to go grab a coffee or something?” He looked at his watch. “We could grab a drink if you want.”

Susan begged off, but I was oddly compelled. It felt a little like I was cheating on Pete, but then he and I weren’t a couple. Were we? No. No way. And it was just a drink with an old friend. John promised to drop me back home after we’d had a drink, and I got into his Dad’s old Ford station wagon. I remembered it from the time we’d borrowed it to go camping, and countless aimless cruising around Lincoln when John had his license and I didn't. We drove to a Starbucks outside a mall that hadn’t existed the last time I lived in Lincoln, and did the Starbucks shuffle to get our coffees. While we were in the car, and in the line, I was aware of John trying to check me out. From another guy it would have seemed skeezy, but I had fond memories of John and could hardly blame him in the circumstances.

“So, what you doin’?” I asked, when we found a table.

“PhD at Berkeley,” he said.

“In?”

“Oh, Astronomy. Same old.”

“Aren’t you a little, um, young to be in a PhD program already? How’s it going?”

“It’s a good school, I have a good advisor, I did a lot of summer schools, they like my work. Enough with the me, I got to say, Alexandra, what about you? Seems like some big changes.”

I blushed. Nobody had ever called me Alexandra except a guy at a Hertz office when I was using my ‘Alexandra Jones’ drivers license, and that one time Pete was ribbing me about my driver's license.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Did you always know this?” Like, that time when we …” I knew what he was alluding to.

“Uh … no.”

“Well, you look … fantastic. Really. Congratulations.”

I thought congratulations was kind of an odd thing to say, but it was nice of him all the same. John had always been a nice guy. When nobody else would defend me, he had been the one to pick me up and dust me off and reassure me. While the rest of the school was taunting me about being a fag, he’d put his own reputation at risk by going out of his way to be seen with me. People didn’t call him ‘gay’ for doing it, but it didn’t help his social standing. He wasn’t a demonstrative guy, but like Pete, he had a solid core. He stood for things he believed in, and if you didn’t like those things, then the hell with you. The two of us became inseparable: when he took three days off to go to the funeral of his grandmother in New York I refused to go to school at all.

John had grown up to be quite the charmer. At school he had been modestly good looking, popular enough with the girls but not part of the A-team sports-obsessed dickheads that ruled the social calendar. But seven years had been good to him. His face had filled out a little and he didn’t talk as fast as he did when we were at school.

“So what about you? What are you doing?” he asked.

I really didn’t want to tell him about Vegas so guiltily I used the standard cover story everyone in our team used, that I worked for a startup that did research on probability models and their application for finance modeling. It wasn’t exactly a lie. But I didn’t want to dwell on it.

I had feared, as we drove to the Starbucks, that I might have made a mistake, that perhaps all John wanted to talk about was my apparent sex change, but instead the two of us talked about his work, and about life in California versus Massachusetts versus Nebraska, and about how we’d both fared at college. At that point I did reveal that I’d had a lot of problems adjusting at Harvard and had had a breakdown, and John was oddly solicitous, even apologetic. We had planned, when we were at school together, to go to college together, too, but even though we’d both applied to the same schools we’d received different offers. I remember the day I showed him the scholarship offer from Harvard. We’d both applied, but somehow, for reasons neither of us understood, they’d made me an offer of a scholarship and not him, even though our grades were almost the same. Stanford had made us both an offer. And Stanford was at least as good a school, probably better for Math and Engineering. I had felt guilty, as though I was letting John down, and I tried to convince Mom and Dad that Stanford was the right place for me, too, but no way were my parents going to let me turn down a scholarship to Harvard, so the deal was done. There was no reason he should feel guilty about it – given the way my parents felt, there was nothing he could have done to keep us together. As it was, though, the disappointment we both felt about being separated had the perverse effect of driving us further apart. Aside from a couple of awkward emails in the first two months neither of us had stayed in touch.

I reflected that if we had gone to college together, I probably wouldn’t have had that melt down. And if I hadn’t had the melt down, I wouldn’t have been in such horrendous debt, and then I mightn’t have considered the offer from Arun, and … No – that was nonsense. I took Arun’s offer because I was in love with Alice, and because I thought it was a challenge.

“So,” I said, anxious to get out of my head, “Any significant partnerships? You’re not married or anything?”

He laughed. “It’s hard to be an astronomer and have a long-term relationship. Too many odd hours. Too much travelling to get telescope time. Also, just too much work. There have been a few girls, but …” He shrugged. “What about you?”

“No, I put too much work in, too. I burned up quite a few friendships that way. I’ve learned, you know. You have to find a balance. There’s been a guy, but um …” I made a hand gesture to indicate things falling apart. I thought about Pete, and the night we’d been together. God, if only I hadn’t fucked that up so badly.

“So you like guys now?”

I shrugged. John had the grace to laugh.

John and I talked, and talked, until the afternoon sun had tinted everything gold.

We finished our coffee, and John acknowledged he hadn’t really finished his tour of the town yet. I admitted all Susan and I had really seen were the houses of her old school friends and the school. So we got back into the old Ford and drove slowly around town, noticing the things that had changed. There was a kind of counter-culture café where the comic book store used to be, and a new mall, and everything looked smaller than we remembered it, but the essence of Lincoln hadn’t changed much. Downtown was still pretty much as it had been a decade earlier. It seemed like a few buildings had been cleaned up in The Haymarket.

It was dark by the time we’d seen most of it. “You have to get back for dinner?” John asked.

“I said I would. What about you?”

“I probably should. Mom’s been pretty sick these past three years, and I don’t get back much. I’d really like to keep talking with you, though. When are you going back?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Ah. Rats. Oh well.” He began driving me back to Mom and Dad’s. Funny how I had stopped thinking about their place as ‘home’. Home was in Cambridge, with Pete.

We arrived back at the house. “Hey, Alex,” John said, turning to me. “Would you, uh, would you like to have a drink later tonight, after dinner?”

“Is anywhere open?”

He laughed. “Okay, it’s not Boston or San Francisco, but I’m sure we can find something.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Pick you up at nine?”

I looked at my watch. It was just on six. Pretty much everything in Lincoln closes at eleven pm, except for O’Rourke’s, but I didn’t think I wanted to go to O’Rourke’s. Two hours was enough time for us to catch up, and not long enough for it to get awkward. “Okay. Thanks.”

I was about to get out of the car, when John said “Alex?”

I turned back. “Yes”

“It’s good to see you, it really is. And, um, I’m really glad for you.”

I blushed again. “See you at nine. Don’t be late.”

I got out and went up the steps to the door. John waited until I’d opened the door before driving away.

 

~o~O~o~
 

John showed up promptly at nine, and came to the door. I was upstairs putting a little makeup on, on the principle that nothing could startle my parents any more, and I wanted to look as unambiguously female as I could in front of John. It was freezing outside and I was going to be swaddled in a huge coat, but I’d dressed less casually than I had been earlier that afternoon, in a red v-neck sweater that showed off what little cleavage I had (assisted by a heavily padded bra), a black full skirt and boots, and a silver and black floral-patterned scarf to prevent my new cleavage from getting frostbitten.

My dad answered the door, and seemed delighted to see John. Much backslapping and reminiscing ensued. I could hear my Dad all the way up in my room. It went on for at least five minutes, to the point that I became embarrassed, so I raced down the stairs as carefully as I could in the 3 inch heels on my boots, and attempted to rescue John.

John actually seemed greatly amused by the whole experience, but didn’t resist when I grabbed him by the hand, waved bye to everyone in the living room, and practically pushed him outside. “Go!” I said. “Go now, or you’re done for!”

He laughed, and then, solicitously, took my hand and led me along the path to his car, the old Ford he’d been driving earlier in the day. “Careful in those heels, Alex. You’d think a Lincoln girl like you would know better than to wear heels like that on pavement in this weather. It’s going to snow tonight for sure.”

“So take me somewhere where there’s no snow.”

We got in the car and he started he engine. “I’m out of touch with the scene here now,” John said as he began driving, “so I wasn’t sure where we should go.”

I laughed. “When were we ever ‘in touch with the scene’?” It was true. Both of us had been underage when we’d left Lincoln, so we had next to no experience in any bars. I remember being with John once in Cliff’s when he’d tried to use a fake ID to buy us both drinks, but the waitress had smiled and put paid to any ambitions we had of being taken for grownups.

But now we were. True to John’s prediction, it began snowing as we were driving, the flakes settling down on the car and melting immediately. I was reminded of another time we’d been driving through the snow, again in the same Ford station wagon, after a party we’d been to in our senior year. Going to the party had been a mistake for me, I had made the fatal error of stepping out onto the back porch to get some air after a particularly depressing conversation with Lisa Hemphill, my ex girlfriend from two years before. She and I had more or less remained friends, in the sense that she was pleasant enough whenever we saw one another alone, but I discovered at the party that it didn’t mean she wanted to be seen talking to me all that much, at least not in front of some of the more popular girls. It wasn’t that she was shunning me that upset me, it was that I had always held a higher opinion of Lisa. She was clever, and funny, and usually kind and generous, but somehow social climbing seemed to have become important to her. I remembered the sting of her brush-off that night.

So that night I had stepped on to the back porch of the house – I couldn’t even remember any more whose house the party had been at – and there was light snow falling. I wasn’t dressed for the cold, since my coat was inside somewhere, but the fresh air sobered me up, and the way the snow was gently falling was pretty, settling on the trees for a few moments before melting. I stood out there for a good fifteen minutes, until the snow had stopped melting and was beginning to turn everything white, and I was freezing. As I was thinking about going back in Bob Gatenby and three other guys came outside, I think to smoke some weed, and they noticed me immediately and started their usual ridicule. As the taunts got worse I decided to just walk away rather than respond, and I tried to get past them to go back inside, but instead two of Bob’s football team friends had stopped me. Then they held me while Bob had held my head back and mimed sticking his dick in my mouth. I was terrified, as he was doing it, that he was going to stop miming and actually try to make me do it, but apparently it was only intended as a joke. Some joke.

Of course nobody else had seen it happen, because nobody else was foolish enough to be outside on the porch in December in Nebraska, but as I came back into the house I went looking for my coat, and John had seen me with tears streaming down my face, and he had taken me aside, into one of the bedrooms off the hallway, and put his arm around me and asked me, gently, what was wrong, and all I had been able to do was cry, great wracking heaving sobs. I was as mortified by the fact that I was crying, and couldn’t stop, as I was by what had happened.

John led me through the crowded hallway out of the party. He drove me home in his Dad’s car, and I remember as we drove then the snow settled on the windscreen and the window sills like it was doing now. It was almost as though we’d rewound those years, and were still in highschool. Except for the way I was dressed. I looked across at John now, and wondered whether he remembered that night the way I did. Possibly not. It had been traumatic for me, but only mildly inconvenient for him. Now here he was, a grown man, slightly bigger, certainly more self-assured, even good looking.

He noticed me looking at him. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“I was wondering what ever happened to Bob Gatenby.”

“Made second string for the Huskers, but he never went on to pro football. Ruined his knee I think. I haven’t seen him, but I heard he’s doing okay. Marie Chaney said he works selling cars somewhere around here. What on earth made you think about him?”

“I don’t know. Coming home does strange things to my brain, I guess.”

John decided we should go to some place called Rogue’s Gallery, which didn’t sound all that promising but then wasn’t likely to be full of frat boys like Main Street. The decor was a little cheesy, and so was the drinks menu, with lots of specialty cocktails, but in its favor it wasn’t crowded, and it wasn’t too noisy, so that we could sit and talk. John was the perfect gentleman and took my coat as we entered, then held my chair for me while I sat down.

I ordered a straight Martini and John got a malt whisky, both of which seemed to disappoint the waitress, who was trying to push some infused vodka onto us instead.

“Sorry to hear about your Mom,” I said in the interval while we were waiting for the drinks to arrive. “Is it serious?”

“Unfortunately yes. Multiple Sclerosis. It’s going to take some time. It’s hardest on Dad.”

“I’m very sorry, John. I like your Mom. She was always really good to me.”

“She likes you, you know. I mentioned to her this evening that I’d seen you again, and she wanted me to bring you over to say hi.”

“Did you …” I waved my hand over my body to reinforce the way I looked.

“No.”

“Good!”

“Why good? I don’t think she’d mind. I think she’d probably react the same way I did.”

I had to admit, I was surprised how easily John accepted me as female, especially given the length of time he’d known me. Maybe it helped that I wasn’t going by a different name, although in some ways that should have made it harder, should have reminded him of the old me more often.

We talked about his Mom’s illness, and the prospects for treatment, and that segued into a more general discussion about how weird it is to realize suddenly how mortal and frail your own parents are, and I mentioned to John that I’d noticed a bit of frailty in my own Mom.

Then our drinks arrived. John proposed a toast: “To the prodigals.” I drank to that. My parents had certainly welcomed me back despite a multitude of sins.

I noticed John was stealing glances at my cleavage, so I adjusted my scarf, which I’d draped loosely over my shoulders, to cover up a little more. I was enjoying the attention, but I was also self-conscious.

We had another round of drinks, and our conversation moved on to people we’d known from school. I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone, but John had stayed in touch with three of the girls from our year, two of whom were already married and had babies and a third who’d gone to work as an assistant to a rock star. The rock star had been three years ahead of us at school. And he'd stayed in contact with both Carl Choi and Hal Donovan, my friends from elementary school. Carl was also at Berkeley, teaching math, John said he had blossomed well beyond the Asperger's stereotype we had all associated him with at school. John's friend Jim Brauch was still his best friend, even though they lived on opposite sides of the Bay Bridge. I remembered Jim with some fondness. He hadn't been my actual defender, in high school, but he'd occasionally functioned as a kind of surrogate deterrent when John wasn't available.

I took a short break to go to the ladies room. While I was inside I took stock of the evening. I was really enjoying John’s company again, but there was an added dimension to our relationship now. On the one hand it was great to catch up, and it was almost as though the two of us had never parted. The kindness and strength of character he’d had in high school was still very much in evidence that night. But on the other hand something very big had changed between us, and that was me. Not just the way he saw me, but also the way I saw him. I wasn’t sure whether it was the hormones messing with my head, but I had to admit to myself that I had a pleasant little buzz going on whenever he was talking to me, and it wasn’t just two martinis or the fact that it was easy to distract him with a glimpse of the little cleavage I had. I wished I wasn’t headed back to Boston the next day. I liked John. I’d always liked John. Now I wanted him to like me, but in a new way. It wasn’t something I’d had much practice at.

Back at our table John asked whether I’d like a final drink. The bar would be closing in another half hour. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but he promised me he would be sticking to a straight soda, so there was no problem on the driving front, and it was up to me. I decided to let the cocktail waitress have her little moment of glory and sell me one of those infused vodkas she’d been peddling, and for some reason that made her insanely happy and she came back with the drink faster than I’d have thought possible.

“Alex?” John asked, after a brief lull in the conversation. “I promised myself before we came out tonight that I would try not to bring any of this up, because I got the sense earlier that it bugs you. So, um, sorry in advance, I guess. But I have to say how impressed I am with what you’ve done.”

“Impressed?”

“It has to have taken a lot of courage.”

I laughed softly. If only he really knew. “Actually, John, it was more like a series of accidents. I know where I am now, and it’s good, but I didn’t start out with a definite plan.”

He reached across the table and took my hand. “Well, I’m impressed anyway. You look fantastic, you seem happy, everything seems to have worked out for you brilliantly. I remember all the good times we had together when we were at school, but I look at you now and I know that’s you, but I’m also amazed how much it’s not you. Congratulations.”

“Well, congratulations yourself, Mr. PhD.” I changed the subject back to his work. John told me about the research he was doing for his dissertation, which was something to do with Exoplanets and the means for detecting them. The first one had been found in our first year at college, and there were new ones being found every couple of months. John didn’t hold out any hope that he’d be one of the people to find one, but he thought the method he was proposing to use to find them was good original research, and apparently his advisor did, too, because the future was looking bright. It was great to see him so enthused about his work, and he clearly enjoyed the opportunity to explain it to me. I knew enough Physics and math to be able to understand almost all of it, so that probably helped.

Soon enough it was closing time. I wrapped myself back up in my scarf and John helped me with my coat, and we ventured out into the cold. It was still snowing, but there was a bitter wind accompanying the snow and it cut right through us as soon as we stepped out.

John opened the car door for me, and we drove home in relative silence. The snow was heavier, maybe tending to sleet now. As we drove through old neighborhoods I had more flashbacks to my teenage years. It hadn’t all been horrible. John and I had had some good times. Unfortunately most of the memories that were coming back to me that night were of the sadder type.

“I don’t think Vodka’s my drink,” I said to John.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. But I think it makes me a bit maudlin.”

We arrived back at my house. All the lights were out except for the one on the front porch and the one in the entry hall. I asked John if he wanted to come in for a coffee, and he said yes. He turned the car off, and got out and came around to my side in the time it took me to find my purse on the floor of the car and stick my cellphone and a lipstick back in it where they had fallen out. John opened the door for me and offered his hand to help me out of the car. As we were walking from the car to the house I slipped in my heels on some ice that had already formed on the sidewalk, and quick as a flash John had his arm around me to catch my fall.

“I told you those heels were dangerous” he said, looking down at me. I became aware, held in his arms and looking up at him, of just how much smaller I was than him. He wasn’t as tall as Pete, but I could feel the strength in his arms as he held me. He pulled me up, slightly, but my boots still didn’t have traction. I threw my arms around his neck and almost brought both of us down. I imagine it was like watching a Buster Keaton sketch. I giggled, and he laughed, and then he pulled me tightly to him and our faces were very close together and he bent down and kissed me, gently. I kept my arms around him, and kissed him back. He tasted different than I had imagined. There were hints of the whiskey he’d drunk earlier in the night, but also something masculine and tangy. I liked it. I could feel the light stubble on his face rubbing against my lips, but it didn’t feel unpleasant in the way I had imagined it might.

We separated. “John, I could stand here for a long time doing this, except I think the two of us would freeze to death. Come inside and I’ll warm us up.”

I made coffee, and took it into the living room, where John was looking at the family photographs on the mantel. Oh god, I thought, and I set the coffee down and went over to him. He was holding a photograph of Susan and I from when I was thirteen.

“Please don’t look at that,” I said. I was suddenly self conscious about the way I looked. After the kiss we had just shared, I wanted John to forget I had ever been a boy.

“It’s alright Alex,” he said, putting the photo down and touching his hand to my face. “You don’t have anything to regret any more, do you?”

“I think everyone always has things to regret, John,” I said. I led him over to the couch. I wanted him to kiss me again, but I was also a little scared of it, so I sat slightly apart from him as I poured cream into the coffees.

“Well, I don’t think you have too much. Certainly not now.”

“I think I regret that third drink,” I said, smiling.

He reached over to touch my hand. “I’m sorry, Alex, that I didn’t know about this when you were younger.”

“Don’t be. I didn’t know about this when I was younger, either. And you were always the perfect gentleman, and the perfect friend.”

“So when did you know?”

“For sure? Only a few months ago.”

“This has all happened in only a few months?” He seemed shocked.

“No, no, of course not. It all happened over a couple of years. I just wasn’t really, um, committed until recently. I had a lot of stuff to work out. And this weekend, actually, has really helped. Seeing my folks, seeing you.”

“So … I need to ask a prurient question, Alex.”

“You mean have I had surgery, right?” I said gently.

“Uh … yes.” He was embarrassed.

“Not that kind of surgery. Not yet.”

“Oh.“ He paused for several seconds. “Are you going to?”

I thought about his question. There was vodka in my response, but there was truth, too.

“John, if you’d asked me that this time last year I would have said no. Asking me now, hell yes.” I drank some of my coffee, if only to give myself an excuse to break eye contact. “Damn, please don’t think I’m a slut or anything, but if I’d had the surgery already I’d have figured out some way to get you into that little single bed upstairs by now.

“Wait,” I continued, “God that came out wrong. I mean, sorry, I’m not assuming you would automatically want to sleep with me or anything. Sorry. God, I’m an idiot.”

He touched my face. “You’re anything but an idiot, Alex. You’re beautiful and smart and god knows you’re one of the sexiest women I know. I always knew something like this would happen.”

“Me asking you to go to bed?” I asked, mystified.

“No.” He laughed. “God, Alex, for the smartest woman I know you say the dumbest things sometimes. I meant I knew something like this” – he made a motion to indicate the way I looked – “would happen.”

“You did?” I was befuddled. “I didn’t.”

“Self-awareness was never your strong suit.” He pulled me closer, and kissed me again. This time I think we both tasted of coffee. It was a longer kiss, this time. Longer and deeper and more intense, and I enjoyed it more than any kiss I’d ever had except possibly that time with Pete.

Eventually we separated. “Alex, will you think less of me if I go now?”

“I could never think less of you,” I said. “Wait. God, that’s a terrible thing to say. That’s not what I meant. Never ever give me vodka again, John Ostermeyer.”

He laughed. “I think it makes you funny.”

“Funny like an idiot. Of course I won’t think less of you, John.” I took his hand and stood up. He was still seated on the couch.

“Alex?” he said. “Alexandra Jones?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you live on the wrong coast?”

“What?”

“Will you keep in touch this time?”

“Yes,” I said. “I promise if you promise.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on.”

“I have to warn you, I don’t always know what’s going on.”

“When are you, uh … when you are going to have the surgery … will you tell me?”

“Um. Okay. Can I ask why?”

“I would like to know. You know we were always close, Alex. And I still think you are wonderful. Hopefully I can see you more often.”

“You'll need to come to Boston.”

“Come to San Francisco.”

“Good night, John.”

“Good night, Alexandra.”

I walked him to the door. We kissed again, once more. He did something to me way down in the core of me when he held me. I didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t melting, exactly. It was more of a softness inside me, a feeling that demanded more of his touch, more of his attention, more of his energy.

“Please call me,” I whispered.

“I will. I promise,” he said. Then he was out the door. I watched him walk down the path through the snow, then drive his Dad’s old station wagon away.

It had been a long six years.

I went to bed, more sexually frustrated than I had ever been in my life. But jerking off wasn’t going to help – the hormones had already seen to that. In any case, that wasn’t the sexual release I was looking for. I think I wanted more kisses, more holding. More of something else I didn't yet know anything about.

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 
Coming off the flight at Logan two guys around my age at the baggage carousel tried hitting on Susan and me, until Tom, who had gone to the bathroom, came back, and the guys split. Tom thought it was funny. “Get used to it, Alex,” he said. “You know your sister is a beautiful woman. It’s got to be the same for you.”

“Are you hitting on Alex?” Susan asked, jokingly.

Tom realized he’d boxed himself into a corner. He was only rescued by the sight of Susan’s bag, and then mine, and then his.

Tom had put his car in long term parking, so we all schlepped there on the bus. Light rain was falling. Winter was well and truly underway. I sat in the back of Tom’s big BMW as he drove to my place in Somerville, looking out at the houses and idly wondering what kind of lives the people inside had. Chances were they were all pretty normal. Guy lives. Girl lives. Not in-between fucked-up lives.

Tom carried my suitcase to the door for me. I could tell this was part of a shift in our relationship. Because I looked like a woman, and in particular like the woman he loved, he had started thinking of me as a woman. Dressed as I was, in a black down jacket and blue jeans, the only cues he had to go on were my face, and my ass, and I sincerely hoped that Tom was not checking out my ass.

Pete was still away. Pete’s family lived in Wisconsin. Despite all the excitement with the acquisition he had taken a couple of extra days off work and would be away until the Sunday night. I took a warm shower to get the Boston damp out of my bones, and went to bed. After the emotional roller coaster of Thanksgiving, I needed the rest.

Next morning I could see from my bed that snow had begun falling. I didn’t have to work, I was in no hurry to go talk to Arun, and it was cold outside, so I stayed huddled under the duvet, just watching the snow fall.

Sometime past nine a.m. the doorbell went. I grabbed my robe – actually a yakuta given to me by my maternal grandmother – and went to the front door. Through the peephole I could see two guys in dark suits. They looked like undertakers, but they didn’t look threatening. I opened the door.

“Good morning,” the one closest to me said. He was a solid man, with a broad, open face. If I was going to stereotype him I would have guessed he came from a farm in the Midwest somewhere. His voice had that authoritative tone that come from years in law enforcement. Not that I had any experience with law enforcement outside of what I saw on TV shows, but I guessed he was some kind of cop.

I wished the yakuta was thicker. It was freezing outside, and I wanted to close the door.

Sure enough, his hand went into his jacket inside pocket and he flicked out an ID. “I’m Agent Grieves, Department of the Treasury. This is Agent Hernandez.” The other guy, who was younger and thinner and didn’t look at all Hispanic, held open his own ID. They looked like genuine government IDs, with an eagle and scales and stuff like that, but then what did I know about such things? “We are looking for Alexander Kazuo Jones.”

“Um. That would be me.” I tracked back through my memory. When I was still at Gene Systems I’d filed each year, but I hadn’t filed for last April yet. Surely they weren’t sending special agents around to check up on delinquent filers?

He looked momentarily surprised. “Would you mind if I came in?”

I was going to say, “Yes, I would mind,” but it was freezing and I just wanted the door closed. Plus I had the impression they were going to be insistent anyway.

I showed them into the living room, which fortunately wasn’t too untidy. Pete had done some cleaning up before he left for Wisconsin, but I wouldn't have characterized the place as clean, exactly. “Uh. Would you mind if I went to put some clothes on?” I said. “I just got out of bed.”

“Of course.” As I turned to leave I saw Grieves check his watch in a disapproving manner.

I pulled on the clothes I’d been wearing the day before, a heavy black turtleneck and blue jeans, with some clean socks, my padded bra and fresh panties, and went back down. As I entered the room I noticed his eyes take in all of me, as though he was trying to make sense of what he saw. His eyes flicked to Hernandez, then back to me.

“May I call you Alex?”

“Sure,” I said. He seemed vaguely relieved at that.

“Alex, I’ll cut right to the chase. You play cards for a living, is that right?”

“It’s not illegal,” I said defensively.

“That depends,” he said.

“Depends on what?”

“Alex, perhaps you would let me ask a few questions first. Things will go more quickly that way.”

“Should I have a lawyer?”

“Do you think you need one?”

“Well, that depends.” I said.

He should have seen that coming, and he smiled. When he smiled he didn’t seem that scary.

“Would you guys like to sit down?” I asked. “You know, depending on how many questions you have.”

“Thank you,” he said, and he and Hernandez found spaces on our none-too-clean couch.

“Coffee? I haven’t had any yet, and I kind of need coffee to make sense.”

The two of them exchanged glances, Grieves seemed to give some kind of shrug. “That would be great, thank you. Black for me.” Hernandez made a motion to decline.

I went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. It took a couple of minutes, and while I was doing it my mind went in about fifty different directions. Treasury. Even though blackjack winnings are exempt from W2G filings, occasionally casinos would ask for IDs so they could comply with regulations on cash transactions, and when I’d had to do this I’d done it with false names using the IDs Arun had supplied. Were they after me because of something Alexandra Leung had done, or something Lisa Lee had filed? Both were aliases I had used, in addition to my usual Alexandra Jones. Then there was the fact I hadn’t filed for last year yet. False ID’s: what were the penalties? Impersonating a woman: were there penalties for that?

I carried the two coffees in, but my hands were shaking and I slopped some of mine on the carpet.

Grieves and Hernandez sat on the couch, facing me, while I sat in the old red overstuffed chair Pete had rescued from the sidewalk a few years back. Pete loved that chair, but it really did need recovering.

“We’re not here to charge you with anything, Alex. I can read you your rights if you’d like, but we just want to understand some things.”

“Like what?”

“You play cards in a team with Arun Kapoor, is that right?”

“A team?”

“A group of you. You play together in casinos. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

I wondered where they got their information. I guess it wouldn’t be hard to pick up some details from the alumni network. Despite the vow of secrecy, a lot of people from Harvard and MIT knew that Arun and Bob and Alice and the rest of us all spent a lot of time together. Or maybe, I thought, they got their information from Whitwell. “You guys are from the IRS, right?”

“Yes.”

I was going to ask for their IDs again, but I really had no idea what a genuine Treasury ID looked like. “What does Treasury want with Arun? Don’t you guys prosecute tax cheats?”

“Treasury looks into tax fraud, yes. That’s not why we’re here. Agent Hernandez and I are with FinCEN."

“I have no idea what that is.“

“It’s part of the Department of Treasury.

I think I just stared at him blankly. I probably seemed very slow on the uptake, but that didn't tell me anything.

“How well do you know Mr. Kapoor?”

"Uh. We went to Harvard together? We hang out. We play cards."

"You’re not …” Grieves was searching for a diplomatic way to say something. “ … in a relationship with Mr. Kapoor?”

I laughed. “Me and Arun? No way."

The idea was pretty funny, really. Arun was all about the business. Even if I had swung that way, and I didn’t, I really couldn’t see Arun giving too much time to a relationship with anyone. Certainly not anyone on the team. And, I was pretty certain, not with someone who looked like a chick but wasn’t …

“How would you characterize your relationship with him?” Grieves continued.

“Mutual antagonism?” I laughed nervously. “No, he’s okay. We’re not best friends or anything, but we don’t hate one another.”

“Are you aware of whether or not he’s romantically involved with anyone else on your … in the group you travel to casinos with?”

“Not as far as I know. He treats it like a business. I really don’t think he’d, ah, sleep with anyone he works with. Why?”

“That’s just for background."

“Why would you care who he sleeps with?"

“Are you aware of where the money comes from, that your team plays with?"

“What do you mean?"

“Where do you get the money from, to play with?"

“We win money. That’s sort of the whole point."

“You win money, every time?"

“Almost every time." I was defensive again. “We’re not breaking any laws."

“Did you use your own money, when you first began playing?"

I thought back. That seemed like forever ago. I remembered that first time, when Arun had handed me five thousand dollars, and I had played with Alice that night at the Mohegan Sun. And the second time, when we had gone to Vegas.

“No," I said, more cautious than ever.

“Mr. Kapoor gave it to you?"

“I feel like I need a lawyer, now."

“Miss – Uh, Alex. You are entitled to seek representation if you want. We’ve come here, today, hoping to meet with you in an unobtrusive way."

“I don’t want to say anything that will, uh …"

“I understand, Alex.” He definitely seemed like a genuine kind of guy. On the other hand, I wondered why he and his partner had come here so early. I tried to imagine what my dad would say in this situation. I imagined he would be polite, and cooperative, but reserved.

“When you play now, does Mr. Kapoor give you the cash or chips you use to gamble with?"

“Uh …"

“Alex," Grieves said. He leaned forward in his chair slightly. “I’m sorry this is making you uncomfortable. I want to try to reassure you. We have reason to believe Mr. Kapoor is breaking many laws. That could make you an accessory. Or it could make you part of the conspiracy. We’re not sure. I’m obliged to read you your rights if you feel you’re going to compromise yourself. I haven’t done that, until now, because we’re not accusing you of anything. Would you like me to read you your rights?"

When I didn’t say anything, he sighed, and then Hernandez began the Miranda speech. When he finished, none of us said anything, until, quietly, I had to ask. “So does this mean, uh, that you’re going to arrest me?"

“No, Alex. It’s to protect you, to let you know that you don’t have to answer our questions. Obviously we’d prefer it if you did."

“I know we’re not doing anything illegal by gambling."

“How do you know that, Alex?"

“It’s not illegal to count cards."

“No, it’s not, Alex."

There was something I wasn’t getting. “So …"

Grieves sat back in his chair again. “Look, Alex, I’ll cut to the chase. We think Arun, and maybe the whole team you work with – maybe you – are laundering money for an arms syndicate."

“What?" Actually, halfway through his sentence I had begun to piece together where he and Hernandez were coming from. Jesus.

“Uh. Can I see your ID’s again?" I didn’t have any way of verifying them, but I needed time to get my head together. Somehow, as soon as Grieves said it, it all made sense. Arun flashing the money around. We made money, but we didn’t make that much money. We had our losses from time to time. But we always seemed to be up. Always.

They showed me their IDs again.

I thought of my words to Mom and Dad, only three days earlier, when I had promised them I wasn’t breaking any laws. I had thought, then, that I had reached the bottom of the canyon, that my life couldn’t be much more fucked up, that I’d done about as thorough a job of ruining a good education and a promising start on life as possible. I’d thought, that afternoon with them, over the kitchen table, a great weight lifted off my shoulders. Now, what? I was going to have to tell them their youngest child was an idiot and a criminal. Could this get any worse? I had thought not, but what does a shmuck know?

I suddenly thought to myself: this is authentic. This is real. Be careful what you wish for.

I looked at the picture of Hernandez on his ID. It matched the way he looked right then exactly, almost as though someone had just snapped the picture a few moments earlier. “You don’t look like a Hernandez," I ventured.

“You don’t look like a Jones," he replied.

I nodded. “Point taken."

“Or an Alexander," he added. I noticed Grieves give him a sharp look.

“That’s a complicated story," I said. I rubbed my temple. I had a headache. I could hear my Dad’s voice in my head, telling me to be cooperative, but careful. I wondered whether I should phone him, or phone a lawyer.

“Alex, we’d like to talk to you about cooperating with us."

“Would you guys mind if I made a phone call?" I asked. “I’m allowed to do that, right?"

Grieves looked disappointed, but he nodded. I got up and went to my purse. Inside I had Tom’s number. Apart from the team’s lawyers, and my Harvard classmate Dave Mandel, who had been in Elliot with Pete and me and was a jackass, Tom was the only lawyer I knew. I picked up the handset, and dialed.

I had to bother Tom’s assistant to get through immediately. “Alex, what’s up? Megan said it was urgent."

“It is. Uh, Tom, can I ask for your professional help?"

“Any time, kid. What’s the problem?" He sounded lighthearted. He told me later he thought I was calling about unpaid traffic fines or something similarly lightweight.

“I’ve got two IRS agents in my living room. They want to ask me some questions about the stuff I do in Vegas. They just read me my Miranda rights."

His lighthearted tone fell away immediately. “Get one of them on the phone, right now. Wait! Before you give them the phone. This is very important. You are not to utter another word to them, except maybe to say goodbye. Nothing. Are we clear?"

“Yes." Now I was even more worried. Had I said too much already?

“Good. Now, I’m going to try to set up a meeting for later today, or tomorrow, with you, and then a meeting with us and them. You okay with that?"

“Yes."

“Good. Now remember, don’t say anything. And put the guy who seems most senior on the line."

“Thanks Tom."

I motioned to Grieves that Tom wanted to speak to him. He came across the room and I handed him the phone, then made myself busy clearing the coffee cups back into the kitchen. I could hear Grieves’s part of the conversation, and he seemed even-tempered.

I went back into the living room and both agents were standing. “Thank you for your time, Alex," Grieves said. “And the coffee. Mr Murphy has arranged a meeting for all of us at 4.00pm today."

“Yes," I said.

“Thank you for your cooperation."

I was going to say, “I’m not cooperating yet," but thought better of it. Instead I said, “I’ll show you out."

 

~o~O~o~
 

For the meeting in Tom’s office I dressed in a red silk knit sweater underneath a black Gucci leather coat, with my usual black jeans and boots. I wanted to look respectable but not guilty, and dressing up too much seemed to me like it would send out a guilty signal.

Tom’s firm wasn’t all that big. It only occupied one floor of the building. I announced myself at the reception desk, and within a few moments a woman came to greet me. She was only a few years older than me, but she had an air of no-nonsense authority. “Hello, Alex,” she said. “May I call you Alex? I’m Megan Burke, Tom’s assistant. Please come right this way."

I was impressed. I hadn’t had a chance to say anything like “no” when she asked whether she could call me ‘Alex’. Not that I would have minded, but I could tell she had a way with people. The fact that Tom was smart enough to hire someone like this gave me hope he was smart enough to help me out. I already knew Tom was a nice guy. I just didn’t know how good a lawyer he was.

As it turned out, Megan didn’t lead me directly to Tom’s office. Instead she took me to an office with “David Robicheaux” on the door. I had no idea who David Robicheaux was, but I followed Megan’s gesture to enter, and sat down in the chair indicated, which faced a couple of others and had a pretty good view of the skyline out to the river. In a matter of moments Tom and another guy arrived at the door. The other guy was older, maybe almost fifty, with silver hair and good grooming. He exuded confidence.

They took the seats opposite me, and both of them took out pens and picked up the yellow notepads that had been placed on the small table between us.

“Hi Alex," Tom said. “Thanks for coming down on such short notice. This is Dave Robicheaux, one of the senior partners. I’ve asked him to sit in on this until we have a better idea of the scope of what we’re doing. As you know, I have a lot of experience with tax law, but Dave is our resident expert on the criminal codes. Hopefully everything will be straightforward, but you never can tell. Coffee?"

I declined the coffee, but both Tom and Robicheaux asked for one, and Megan went off to organize it.

“Well, thank you for seeing me at such short notice," I said. “I appreciate it, Tom. I really wasn’t sure where else to go."

“I’m sure your team has a lawyer," Tom said.

“I wasn’t sure that was the best place to start," I said.

“Smart girl," Dave Robicheaux said. He had a pleasant, polished voice, which once might have had a trace of a southern twang to it but was now deep and smooth enough for him to make a living doing television voiceovers if ever he tired of the law. “First things first," he said, and he slid a document toward me. “If you’d like to sign that, you’ll officially be a client of Sheehan, O’Halloran and Robicheaux, and everything you say to us now will be bound by professional privilege."

I didn’t bother reading it. I looked at Tom and knew I could trust him, so I signed and pushed it back to Robicheaux.

“Now, Tom has briefed me a little on what it is you’ve been doing in Vegas, and I’d like to learn more about that, but before we get into that, could you tell me, as clearly as you can, exactly what the IRS said to you this morning, and what you said to them?"

The coffees arrived, brought by a younger woman, and once she had left the room I ran through the discussion I had had with Grieves and Hernandez. I’ve always had a good memory, and I think I got it pretty close. I told the whole thing in chronological order to try to remember exactly what had been said. I noticed Tom and Robicheaux exchange glances when I mentioned that Grieves had said "That could make you an accessory. Or it could make you part of the conspiracy. We’re not sure," and then again when I mentioned the part about our scheme being a front for money laundering.

Once I’d finished, Robicheaux leant forward, putting his legal pad back on the table.

“Do you guys win all the time?"

“Not all the time. But yeah, most of the time. Almost all the time. I can’t think of a time we’ve lost really big, but we win big pretty regularly."

“So this could be a fishing expedition by Treasury," Dave said.

“Really?” I said hopefully. “Um … except there are a few problems." I outlined the fact that we regularly used fake IDs when we played, and then I went into the whole saga with Whitwell. “And, um, there’s one more thing," I said, “which might or might not be big. I didn’t file a return for last year yet."

“Don’t worry about the return, that’s easily fixed and Tom can definitely sort that for you. We’ll get someone on to setting that right straight away. And there’s no reason the IRS should be interested in this crowd Whitwell.

“Regardless of all that, yes, this could be a fishing expedition," Robicheaux said. “Having said that, I don’t know that it is. They’ve obviously done some research on your team. That indicates a high level of interest. If they were just interested in the tax implications, they probably wouldn’t have come to see you. Do you know which division of the IRS they were from?"

“I think it was called Finsen or something," I said.

“FinCEN. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. I’ve got someone looking into how they operate," Tom said.

“We’ll know soon enough this afternoon when they come in," said Robicheaux. “We’ve got an hour until then. Alex, can you tell me, as succinctly as possible, what you remember about how you came to be involved in the team, and how your finances as a team work?

I tried to tell as much of the story of how I joined the team, where we’d played, and how the scheme worked, as I could. Some parts I left out, like padding my butt with hundred dollar bills. They just seemed too embarrassing. And a big part I left out, that I should have included, was being the treasurer for the group. I don’t know why I didn't mention that. But I didn't. It was just a detail that got swept aside in the flow of the story as I told it. I swear it wasn't a deliberate omission.

“This Arun, what’s he like?"

“I can’t say I like him. But he’s pretty smart. He runs the team well."

“Why don’t you like him?"

“We had some unpleasantness at college."

“Does he like you?"

“Not much. I think he tolerates me."

“And yet he asked you to join his team?"

“Yeah," I said. “I didn’t really understand it at the time, but I’m pretty good at counting."

“Alex," Robicheaux said. “There are lots of people who could be trained to count like that. Why would he choose you?"

“I don’t know," I said. In my zeal to spend more time with Alice I’d put a lot of those questions out of my mind.

Tom looked at his watch. It was almost time for our meeting with the Treasury Agents. Dave Robicheaux had been doing most of the talking, but now he took over again.

“Hope everything is alright, hope everything is alright," I sang softly to myself as we walked to the door. I don’t think Tom or Dave would have understood the reference even if they’d heard.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Megan announced that Grieves and Hernandez had arrived and we all trooped in to a conference room. Once again Tom had warned me not to say anything at all in the meeting without clearing it with him or Dave Robicheaux first. As Tom said, the purpose of the meeting, from our point of view, was to get as much information from the IRS as we could before we even explored the notion of cooperating. Whether or not I would cooperate would depend on a combination of factors: how much they had on me; how serious Arun’s crimes were, if there were any crimes; how seriously I was implicated in those; and whether there was any advantage to collaborating, as opposed to defending myself from all charges. If there were to be charges. The big unknown, at the start of the meeting, was whether the IRS actually had anything substantial, or whether it was, as Dave Robicheaux had suggested, a fishing expedition.

We dispensed with the fishing expedition theory right away. After the preliminary introductions, Grieves drew two manila folders from his briefcase. From the thinner of the two, he pulled an envelope, and from the envelope he produced a series of black and white photographs. The photographs were a series of shots of Arun meeting various men I didn’t know in cafes and restaurants and parks. They had obviously been taken without Arun’s knowledge. Each photograph was one of a series of five or six, taken in succession, and each showed clearly the exchange of matching bags between Arun and the other man. The identities of the various men changed, but one of them I recognized straight away as the guy I’d seen Arun in the car with, when I was meeting Pete at the Warren Tavern.

The constant in all the photos was the bags that were exchanged. Black or gray Nike or Adidas branded sports bags. And, of course, the other constant was Arun.

“Each of these was taken a month or so apart over the past six months," Grieves told Robicheaux. “We don’t know the identities of all the other men in the photographs, but three of them are known to be associated with a Russian organized crime ring operating out of Brighton, New York.

He put another photograph on the table. In that one Arun was sitting alone, with his Nike bag. “In this case we arrested the contact on a pretext – the idiot had run a red light and was driving a car registered to a dead woman. So he never showed for the meeting. You can see the look on Mr. Kapoor’s face. The man we arrested was carrying half a million in cash, which he claimed to have won at a casino a few nights earlier."

Hernandez chuckled.

Then Grieves tabled another series of shots. Each of them showed various members of our team with Arun. Some of them showed several of us together. Quite a few of them showed me taking bags from Arun, or giving them to him. One showed Arun handing me a large Louis Vuitton carry-on bag. I remembered the occasion; it was just before the Fourth of July trip, when he’d given me $250,000 to transport for the team.

Grieves’s presentation lasted about forty minutes. He tabled documents that indicated wire transfers, and more photographs of meetings, and copies of bank statements that showed millions coming in and out of Arun’s hands. He finished by showing series of photographs of dead bodies, all of people around my age. “All sometime associates of Mr. Kapoor and his Russian friends," he said sadly.

I didn’t recognize any of the people in the photographs, and I was about to protest, but two things stopped me. The first was Tom’s absolute prohibition about speaking without discussing it with him first. The second was the other, earlier photographs, which showed Arun receiving money. I think I said once that Tom could have passed for a mobster on television, because he had that look. Looking at the men in the photographs that Grieves had tabled I could tell there was a world of difference between looking like an actor who played a mobster, like Tom did, and looking like an actual mobster. The guys in the photographs looked like they had already sold their grandmothers and were working on selling their children. The ugliness in each of them somehow seemed to come through each Tri-X print.

At the end of the presentation Dave Robicheaux thanked Grieves and Hernandez for their time, and said he’d have to consult with me. He asked whether or not we could have a few days to come back to them on our response to their request for cooperation. Grieves, relaxed and even-tempered as ever, said we could take until the following Monday. What was important to the IRS was building a strong case. He reminded us that the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS had a 90% conviction rate, the highest of any law enforcement agency, and that they were committed to building a strong case here too, with or without me. “I hope, Alex," he said, addressing me instead of Robicheaux or Tom, “that it will be with you." He turned to address my lawyers. “Obviously if we can obtain Alex’s cooperation there will be a generous deal."

After Grieves and Hernandez left Dave Robicheaux and Tom called for more coffee, and I got some water.

“What do you think?" I asked, after the coffee order had been taken.

“They’re not fishing," Robicheaux said.

“Alex," Tom asked, "how much do you think you personally earned from blackjack in the last 18 months? You personally, I mean, not the entire team. Less expenses."

I had to think about it, but I had a rough idea from having acted as treasurer, and a very good idea from the amounts I had invested in stocks, or taped to the back of the refrigerator, or hidden in various other places, including a safety deposit box I’d opened in Alexandra Long’s name a few months earlier.

“About $2.7 million." I said. “Give or take."

“And there are 14 of you active on the team?"

“Yes."

“Have you ever met any of the men in those photographs you saw, where Mr. Kapoor was exchanging bags?”

“No, of course not."

“But those photographs of you taking bags, and giving bags, to Mr. Kapoor, are genuine."

“Yes. I remember most of those occasions. I couldn’t swear to all of them. But I probably have some records. I keep notes of the transactions."

“You keep notes? That could be useful," Robicheaux said.

Alex," Tom said, “would you mind if we left you alone for five minutes?"

“No problem," I said. “Would you mind if I called a friend?"

“Not a friend from the team?"

“No, my roommate."

“Sure. Sorry, just wanted to make sure."

I called Pete, but my message went through to voicemail. I was disappointed. I wanted to hear a friendly voice. I texted him instead. “Need to talk. Call when U can."

Tom and Robicheaux came back in after only a few moments. They looked grave.

Tom was the one who gave me the news. Maybe they’d discussed it and thought it sounded better coming from him.

“Alex, we’d like to review the Government's case a bit further before we decide anything. But I thought we should prepare you for the idea that it might be best to turn State’s witness. If you choose not to, it is of course your prerogative. And until we’ve seen all the evidence we’ll withhold a formal recommendation. But what they just presented then was pretty compelling, If it all checks out, then this is very serious."

But then it was Dave Robicheaux who delivered the words I had more or less known were going to come, but hadn’t wanted to think about. “Alex, I won’t say there’s not a way out of this, because we’ve really only been in this case for a few hours. But based on what you’ve told us, and what they’ve just showed us, I think cutting some kind of deal might be worth exploring. It’s your call, of course. But if you’re okay with it, after we’ve done some more work on this we’ll explore what they might have in mind."

“The alternative?"

“The alternative is not very good," he said. I believed him.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I think Tom was taken aback at my first request after the meeting. I had thought about it on the way home, and I phoned him as soon as I stopped the car outside my apartment. “Tom. I need a favor."

“What can I do, Alex?” Tom said. “You thought about what Dave said?"

“Yes, but this isn’t about that. Well, it is, a little bit, but …"

“What?"

“Well … it probably seems like a strange time to be asking, in the middle of all this …"

“What?" Tom seemed concerned.

“I’d like to change my name."

“To what?"

“To Alexandra."

“Oh.” He seemed relieved. “Well, that makes sense."

“You thought I was going to call myself Daisy Duke and skip the country?" I said.

“No. I know you’re not that silly. Can I ask, why now?"

“Personal reasons, Tom. There’s someone I care about. I think it will be important for him."

“He knows about you?"

“He does. I’m not trying to deceive him. I was worried, though — with the investigation, and everything."

“Well, it’s a simple thing to do. Takes a couple of weeks, but it’s not complicated. And we'll just tell the IRS about it tomorrow." He laughed. “I suspect, from what you told me about Agent Hernandez, they might actually find you a little easier to deal with."

“Good. Can you make it happen for me?"

“Sure. Any second names, anything like that?"

“Yukiko is my grandmother’s name, so that would be good to replace Grandpa’s," I said. I had thought it through.

“Consider it done," Tom said. “I’ll have the paperwork for you tomorrow."

 

~o~O~o~
 

The following week Pete and I went to see Juliana Hatfield at The Middle East in Cambridge. It was a good show, and we stumbled out into the night afterward, on a high from the music.

As we were walking to Pete's car he was a step ahead of me at the corner, and I watched his ass in his black jeans as he turned. I had been noticing things about men in a different way ever since I had been on estrogen. Two years earlier I would never have noticed anything except the jeans. He looked back at me and motioned for me to catch up. As I did I caught his grin, and something about it — its reinforcement of our friendship, or maybe just the genuine joy in his face — made me feel very, very emotional all of a sudden.

The emotions I was feeling were difficult for me to reconcile with my more rational brain. On the one hand I enjoyed the experience. When I was happy, I seemed much happier. When I needed to cry, I cried like I never had before. And when I felt love, it seemed to carry me on a wave, surfing in a wild scary way. Not that I knew anything about surfing back then, but it seemed to me that if there was any metaphor for powerful forces that could lift me up and throw me down it was a big Hawaiian wave.

On the other hand, I knew that no matter how much I loved Pete, we were always going to just be friends. We had too much history together for it to work any other way. And while I was becoming more truly a woman with each and every dose of estrogen I took, there was still the matter of Pete's taste in women diverging from the reality of my body. So I had to beach those feelings of love, stick them in the sand to anchor them somehow. Get myself out of the surf.

But still the wave just carried all my rationality away with it. Even though I couldn't be physically intimate with Pete, I felt very close to him emotionally. So once we were in the car, driving, I felt the need to unburden myself on him, the way I had with Susan and Tom. I told him all about the Treasury agents, and about Arun, and about the scam he was pulling.

Of course Pete was immediately concerned. It took him a few moments to process, and when he was sure had it straight he did that thing that I now recognized as the quintessential 'guy' thing: he tried to solve the problem. He was immediately turning it over in his head, analyzing all the angles, asking me questions.

“Pete," I said. “I really don’t know how it’s all going to play out. I haven't worked all that out yet. I don’t think my lawyers have worked it all out yet. I haven't even worked out what the Government wants, exactly. So I can’t answer a lot of your questions."

Unable to solve my problems, Pete became focused on the cause of them: Arun. “I want to whack that fucker upside the head."

“I don’t think …" I began. “Pete, you have to promise me you won’t say anything about this to anyone. Please?"

He took some convincing, but eventually I talked him around to letting things play out, but only by promising to keep him informed, and by telling him that if there was a way he could help, I would let him know immediately.

We arrived back at our place in Somerville. I felt the need to change the subject before we got into the house, just in case Talia was home, and still up.

“So hey, Pete, remember that false name problem with your trip to Virginia?" I said, as we were getting out of the car.

“Yeah."

“Well, it’s not a false name any more."

“You …"

“I made it serious, yes."

“You made a commitment, Alex."

“I did."

“I'm proud of you," he said, as he ushered me through our front door. It was a final lovely gentlemanly gesture for the evening, and my emotions came off the beach and rose on a wave again as I said goodnight and went to bed, alone.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Next morning, before he headed off to work, Pete knocked on my bedroom door. After I'd roused myself sufficiently to tell him to come in, he stuck his head around the corner of the door.

“Hey, Pete."

“Hey yourself. You okay?"

“Yeah. Just waking up. What's up?"

“So, Ms. Alexandra Jones. Now that you're all legal and all, you think maybe you would do that thing for me?"

“That thing?"

“Yeah, the come to dinner with my investors thing."

“You still haven't done that?"

“We put it off for a while."

“Um. If you want. You're sure you want to take me?"

“I'm sure," Pete said.

“Not Debra?"

“Not Debra, no," he said, smiling. “I trust you more than anyone else, and I need someone who isn’t going to put their interests ahead of mine."

“Uh. Okay, I guess. You sure?"

“That's great. Alright. Next week okay?"

He was going to call Jeff, his contact at Command Dynamics, to set it up for early the following week. We were going to drive down with Vassily and Yana.

“Road Trip!" Pete grinned.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The Command Dynamics office is just inside the Beltway, and by just inside I mean a couple of hundred yards inside. It’s a bland black glass tower with a three story concrete building with recessed windows alongside, that looks as though it had been designed to take a nuclear blast. Maybe it had been.

They had stuck us in a nearby Marriott, which was nothing to write home about, especially after some of the treatment I’d had in Vegas, but it was clean and functional. Yana and I decided to try to go find a local mall to buy some better shampoo than the hotel had provided (Yana was very particular about shampoo) so we dropped the guys at the main gate at Command Dynamics and took Vassily and Yana’s Cherokee to some exurban shopfest that looked the same as every other mall I’d ever seen on the East Coast.

Yana was fun to shop with: much more fun than Alice, or even Lucy. She spent almost nothing, but she tried on almost everything, and every bra, every dress, every jacket prompted a round of commentary from her that was both educational and caustic. She was a gorgeous looking woman, with a model's figure, but even she found it difficult to find clothes that fit her well, and she swore in Russian whenever anything displeased her.

I found listening to gentle swearing in Russian oddly comforting.

Around 6.30pm, as promised, we met the guys back at the hotel to get ready for the dinner.

“How’d it go?" I said later to Pete when we were alone in our room together. I was transferring a lipstick and my cellphone from the larger purse I'd used during the day to an evening bag I'd bought a few weeks earlier. Pete was in the bathroom. “You sold your soul already?"

“Only haggling over the price of it," Pete said, as he came out of the bathroom, smiling. “I think they understand it might have a few miles on it.

“Actually," he was suddenly much more serious, “I think this trip is an attempt to re-negotiate. They're upset we didn't close out that patent. I think they want a better strike price on some options. They'll probably want to talk about it some more over dinner. Sorry."

It had been a little while since I had seen him without a shirt on. He looked good, and it was hard to concentrate on what he was saying. After what I had thought when we had been to see Juliana Hatfield, and the reaction I had seeing him shirtless, I was now convinced that the hormones were doing more to me than just adding to the size of my butt.

I looked away, then gathered my clothes from the closet and took over the bathroom without looking at him again. It was clear to me that what Susan had described as a crush was much, much more than that, but the more I thought about it the more I knew that nothing good was going to come of this. Pete was the kind of guy who went out with confident beauties, all sprung from the pages of Ralph Lauren advertisements, and although they all seemed to give him eternal grief I didn't think there was any hope of competing against the tall, athletic women I knew he found most desirable.

I felt like a fake girl again, all of a sudden. As I got out of the shower, the clothes I had chosen to wear suddenly seemed ridiculous. Who in their right mind would go to a dinner with American security contractors looking so – foreign?

But it was all I had brought with me. I’d bought it two days earlier, thinking it was exotic, and in the back of my mind thinking it would work in some mysterious way with Pete. I don’t know why I’d thought that, after our previous disaster in bed, but there was obviously some remote part of my brain that filtered everything through what I imagined his perceptions were. It suited me. It even made me look more shapely.

I put my underwear on, and assessed myself in the mirror. I had put on a little weight since taking the hormones. Okay. A lot of weight. My hips and butt were, let’s face it, almost double their previous size. Well, maybe not double, but they were much, much larger, and the effect was accentuated by the fact that my waist had shrunk. I didn’t mind the look. I kind of liked it. I would have liked it more if I lost a few pounds, but I knew that’s exactly what Lucy would have said, too.

Behind me, in the mirror, I had hung the white silk á¡o dá i I had bought. Whatever creases it had had were easing in the steam from the shower, as I had planned. It didn’t help. Why had I thought it was such a good idea to accentuate my foreign roots? These guys we were meeting, this company – they had manufactured a lot of the weapons that had been used to bomb South East Asia into not-quite-submission. Surely the fact they hadn’t succeeded would be a sore point? If I had wanted to go ethnic, I should have worn a kimono. Except I really didn’t like kimonos – they were too constricting.

What was I thinking in wearing this? I just wanted to make it easier for Pete. He’d invited me to make it easier for him to bond with these aged executives. And here I was, rubbing his new business partners’ noses in their corporate history by wearing the clothes of a culture that didn’t even have a connection to me … I should have worn J Crew or something equally bland.

I put my hair up and secured it with a lacquered clip at the back. Then I did my makeup in a minimalist style. At the end of the exercise I was still full of regrets. My insecurity was my worst enemy.

Coming out of the bathroom, I saw Pete have the opposite reaction to my own. He smiled, broadly. “You look beautiful, Alex."

“Um … Thanks, I guess. You don’t think it’s too much? Too foreign?"

“I think you look perfect," he said. Well, score one for Pete making me feel better about myself.

“Thank you. I should have you say that more often."

“I wouldn't want you to get a big head," he said, handing me my purse from where I had put it on the bed. “Anyway, you don’t believe me. Fact is, Alex, you are so much a woman. And feminine self esteem is a mystery to me."

We met Vassily and Yana in the lobby and sat for a few moments making small talk. Yana was wearing a simple black dress with long sleeves, a bateau neckline, and a short hemline that showed off her fantastically long legs. I had to quash my jealousy and maintain a smile. It wasn't hard: she was a very friendly, casual woman. On the few occasions I had spent time with her it had been clear that she knew she was good looking, and used to dismissing the unwanted attentions of men. I admired her poise, and I enjoyed her very droll sense of humor. She teased Vassily constantly, but in a playful, friendly way.

A car arrived for us to take us to the restaurant. The driver had a haircut that suggested he was not long out of the military.

The restaurant was about two or three miles from our hotel. From the outside it didn't look like much, but as we entered I realized one whole side of it opened onto a small lake. The floor was terraced so the tables on the inside looked over the ones closest to the windows, and everyone had a beautiful view. Outside, on the lake, there were small lanterns, maybe candles inside some paper shells, floating on the lake. There was a four-piece acoustic band playing soft jazz at one end of the room.

We were led to the bar, where Jeff Allen and Tom Broadbridge, Pete and Vassily's investors, were already seated with their wives. I watched one of the women, I think Jeff's wife, give me an unsubtle once-over as we approached. If she saw anything unusual in me she didn't show it.

Dinner progressed well enough. We were led to our table. I let Pete order for me. It wasn't an anti-feminist thing: he knew my tastes, and since the older men ordered for their wives it seemed fair enough to let Pete do the same for me.

During the course of the dinner I noticed the guys from Command Dynamics knocking back the booze. I think they'd been drinking martinis before we had arrived, and now most of the table collectively polished off the better part of four bottles of wine. Yana and I were both mostly just drinking Perrier, and Pete didn't drink much, so our hosts must have been socking it away.

During the meal Tom Broadbridge had tried to engage me in conversation a few times. In an effort to avoid saying too much about myself I used the tried and true technique of getting him to talk about himself, which — in my experience — men at a certain level in corporate management just love to do. He talked to me almost incessantly after that, and I began to get dark looks from his wife, Carol. I attempted to engage her in conversation, too, but it was an uphill battle.

While I couldn't hear what Pete and Vassily were discussing with Jeff further down the table, I did glean some useful things from Tom. Pete had been right about their desire to lower the bid price. Command Dynamics was still making a bid. But that missed patent had shaved perhaps 20% off their offer price.

Between main course and dessert Tom and Jeff led their wives to the small dance floor and shuffled around a few times. After the first song I knew that neither Vassily nor Pete would make a move to follow suit, so I leaned across the empty chairs Tom and Jeff's wife had been in and hissed at Pete “I think you're supposed to do this, too." I think it took Pete a moment to work out what 'this' was, but eventually he stood up and then offered me his hand to lead me to the floor. Vassily and Yana followed us.

While he might have been slightly reluctant, Pete was an adequate dancer. We moved around the floor gently, Pete guiding me with subtle pressure from his hand at my waist from time to time. When a very slow song came on I rested my head against his shoulder. The top of my head only just came up to his shoulder blades, even with my 3 inch heels.

I decided I liked dancing. I was disappointed when we returned to the table for dessert and coffee.

Back at the hotel that night we were both completely exhausted, and fell into bed almost as soon as we were in the room. I appreciated looking at Pete's chest as he took off his shirt again, and I noticed him stealing glances at me as I undressed, too. But both of us were too tired to even think about acting on anything. Part of me regretted that, but I knew I'd regret it more if we did something I later realized was silly.

I woke up spooned against Pete. This time I wasn't wearing a bra, and so his hand, which was cupping my breast, was cupping my actual breast, not some artificial silicone pad. There wasn't a lot to cup, but from my side of the arrangement it felt good. I lay still, enjoying his body enveloping mine and wanting to let him sleep so it could continue.

Eventually the Perrier from the night before caught up with me, though, and I had to extricate myself from his grasp to go pee. As I got up he stirred and rolled over.

Once in the bathroom I decided to shower and wash my hair, using some of the new shampoo and conditioner Yana had made me buy the day before. While I pined for the touch of Pete's hand on my breast again, I also knew that getting myself out of that particular position was the smart thing to do.

By the time I came out of the bathroom in my yakuta Pete was awake. I looked at him to try to determine whether or not he was disappointed that I wasn't still in the bed with him, but if was he didn't show it.

That day we had a lunch to attend at another Command Dynamics executive's home. It was a lovely old Georgian house, set among sweetgums and linden trees well inside the beltway. For this occasion I had worn a simple blue skirt with a large white scrawly pattern, and a white silk cardigan over a white cotton top. It wasn't a sophisticated look, but it seemed appropriate. I left my hair down.

The lunch was casual, and I mostly stuck around Pete so I wouldn't have to socialize too much with the wives of the Command Dynamics execs. There were apparently no female Command Dynamics executives, or if there were they didn't get invited to those kinds of events.

Eventually, after we'd all snacked at the buffet and the maid had begun to clear, the men went out to the patio and all the women were evidently expected to retire to the living room for coffee. It was so utterly 1950s it was all I could do not to laugh, and as I looked across at Yana I could tell she was having the same problem. We exchanged glances and nodded at one another, then we dutifully followed the hostess. I sat and hoped nobody asked me anything too difficult.

As it happened Yana and I were the focus of conversation, since we were the unknowns in what was obviously a tight knit group of wives. After they each discussed one another's children, Mrs. Broadbridge turned to me and asked me, courteously, what I thought of what I had seen in the area. I mentioned that Yana and I had gone shopping and that was evidently the correct thing to say, because all the women chimed in with advice on local stores, and that segued to things they had recently bought, and I was able to zone out slightly. I was wondering what would have happened if I had been able to stay in the bed with Pete that morning.

I was interrupted from my reverie by the hostess talking to someone over my shoulder, at the living room door. “What can we do for you, Richard?"

“I was hoping to have a brief word with Miss Jones," he said.

“Me?" I stood up and followed him into the hallway. He led me from there to the den, a very dark room that looked like it had been cloned from an Architectural Digest spread on masculine retreats. There was one of those green glass lamps on the table that lawyers used to use in the 19th century. It was the only illumination in the room.

“Thanks for giving me a few moments, Miss Jones. Can I call you Alex?"

“Sure, um, Richard?"

He nodded. “Richard Deuchar. Thanks. I won’t keep you long. I'm the head of corporate security for Command Dynamics."

“Uh huh."

“It’s my job to do background checks on companies we acquire, and on their executives, and as part of that --"

“I've been expecting this," I said.

This seemed to throw him off his stride.

“You were expecting what?"

“You to have this discussion with me. I have an unusual past, Mr Deuchar."

“Ah, well, it’s not that unusual, to tell you the truth."

“It’s not?"

“No. I have a friend from my service days, did what you did."

“Oh."

“No, that's not what I wanted to discuss with you. What I wanted to talk to you about is your relationship with a Mr. Kapoor."

“Really?"

“Yes, really."

“There are a lot of people asking me that question recently."

“I know," Deuchar said. “You weren't on our radar, really, until a few weeks ago, and then you popped up on Treasury's screens, and then …"

“It sounds like you already know quite a lot."

“I suppose my question to you, Alex, is whether I have anything to worry about?"

“I have no stock in Pete's company."

“But you have stock in Pete."

“I'm not sure about that."

“Really?"

“Is my love life really your business?"

“It is if it’s a distraction that might impact upon the performance of a Command Dynamics executive."

“I would never let that happen."

“It’s not your intentions toward Mr. Johanssen I'm concerned about."

“Well." Something he had said earlier percolated into my consciousness. “The only problem I can see, really is … You managed to learn about my deal with the Treasury Department? How?"

“We have connections, Alex. it’s our business."

“But if you can find that information out, so can other people."

“I suppose it’s theoretically possible," he said. “However unlikely. I don’t know the details of your discussions with Treasury. I didn't know you 'had a deal' with them until you just confirmed it then."

“Ah."

“Yes, ah. So you have a deal. That reassures me."

“It doesn't reassure me."

“I didn't mean to alarm you. Rest assured, Alex, we have levels of access to information that nobody outside the NSA knows about."

Jesus, only the day before I had been obsessing about whether or not wearing an á¡o dá i was appropriate. Obviously, I had much bigger problems.

“I don’t know whether that's supposed to reassure me, or not," I said.

He made a half-shrug with his hands without moving his shoulders. “My concern, Alex, is whether anything that's happening with you will impact on Peter Johannsen."

“You think I should break up with Pete?" I was about to say that I thought such a comment was wildly offensive, but he quickly corrected himself.

“I'm not saying that --"

“I don’t even know if we're a couple. It’s, um, complicated."

“If you care about him, I would suggest that you figure out a way to keep your distance."

“What happens if I don’t?"

“I can’t stop you, or him, from being with one another. But I can tell you it will hurt his future with this company."

There didn't seem to be anything more to say. I stood and he guided me to the door. “You are a beautiful young woman, Miss Jones," Deuchar said. “I can see why Mr. Johanssen would be interested in you. Any man would be."

Man, that was creepy. I left the office and went back to sit with the ladies as fast as I could.

 

~o~O~o~
 

We drove back with Vassily and Yana and it was very late by the time we arrive in Boston, so I went straight to bed, alone, with Deuchar's words bouncing around my brain.

I didn't get a chance to talk to Pete before I made another trip to Vegas with Arun's team on the Friday. Pete was incredibly busy at work, and I texted him a few times but we kept missing each other's calls. It wasn't actually a conversation I wanted to have over the phone. For one thing I wasn't sure that my phone wouldn't be tapped by the Feds, or even Command Dynamics, and for another I felt like I needed to have some time to work up to telling him I was damaging his business prospects just associating with him. It’s not an easy thing to just blurt out.

Travelling to Vegas was a completely routine experience now, except I was still nervous around Arun and we had two new members of the team, brought on to make up for Ziyen’s departure, and Dan’s death: Sally Zhu, a young Chinese girl who none of the rest of us knew, and a new security assist, Brian Ko, who Bob had recommended. We had tried them out with an evening at the Mohegan Sun. The trip there had been bittersweet for me – it was amusing to be an old hand on the team and observe the wide-eyed experience the new recruits had that night, but it also made me sad. Sad to realize that Dan and Henry weren’t there to share the initiation.

I made Sally take part of my share of the stake money taped to her body on the trip to Vegas. Under the influence of the hormones my ass had started to get considerably larger, and I could no longer accommodate the extra padding I used to put there. I was quite pleased about the physical changes – I was starting to feel less inadequate – and it was a much more comfortable sitting down for the flight.

The actual gambling at Vegas went smoothly. We played for most of Saturday at the Mirage, at Ceasars, and at Rio. They were all places with high table limits, so we Wizards were able to rock through some big hands very quickly. I could see Sally, who was smurfing, was intrigued by my behavior, and especially by my transformation into the spoiled Japanese princess that I played at the Mirage, bad English and all.

We scored big, and wrapped early, but once back at the MGM Grand I couldn’t sleep for some reason. Maybe it was the adrenaline from the big win earlier in the night. I tossed and turned a few times, then realized I wasn’t going to be able to go to sleep, so I got dressed again and went downstairs. I had intended to step outside, onto the strip, but instead I stopped at one of the tables.

We didn’t play the Casino we slept in. It was one of our rules – no playing where you slept. On the other hand, I felt like I was off duty. I sat down at one of the low stakes blackjack tables, with a $25 minimum, and bought $200 worth of chips.

Straight off I lost the first four hands, as the dealer kept getting 20 or better. A guy sat down two seats to my left, and asked head. “This a good table?"

“Not really. I think he's got it in for me," I said, indicating the dealer and looking him over at the guy who had sat down. He was maybe four or five years older than me, in very good physical shape, and good looking in a slightly heavy Ben Affleck kind of way.

We both lost the next two hands. “I warned you," I said.

“I'm not staying unless we both win the next hand," he said.

And we did. “Congratulations," he said to me. “You’ve redeemed yourself."

“Thanks, I think. I needed redemption?"

“Not really," he said. “That sounds like I'm evangelical or something, doesn't it?"

I shrugged.

“Where are you from?" he asked.

“Boston,” I said. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have talked all that much at the table, but I wasn’t working. “You?"

“Here."

“You’re actually from Vegas? Or you live here?"

“Yes."

“Which is it?"

“Both. Born and raised." He doubled down on two nines. The dealer was showing a 3.

“I didn’t think anyone was actually from Vegas," I said. I looked over at the dealer’s nametag. It said: 'Sergio, Cuba'. “What do you think, Sergio?"

Sergio shrugged as he dealt two face cards on the nines. Mr Two-seats-away smiled.

“Gotta be some of us. Most people can’t stand the heat here without air conditioning." He shrugged. “I guess heat isn’t something that bothers me."

“I don’t mind the heat either," I said. “I prefer it to snow."

“I wouldn’t mind a bit of snow," he said.

We played a few more hands. The dealer’s luck had changed and he busted out three hands in a row. My playing companion hit blackjack on a hundred dollar bet, and sat back, relaxed and smiling. I knew he was looking at me from time to time, measuring me up. I pretended I didn’t notice. In two or three more hands I figured I would go back upstairs to bed.

But for some reason – could it be dumb luck, after this many hands dealt to me? – I kept on winning. I wasn’t counting – what was the point, without our team system? The cards just came, and I played, and I won. And I didn’t go to bed. I stayed up. We got to talking, across the table. I was aware of how Sergio took this, he must have seen almost literally a thousand Vegas hookups, but my playing companion, who eventually introduced himself as Will, was a nice guy. A genuinely nice guy. He didn’t even check out my very modest rack. Or if he did, I didn’t notice. He was that good. In an odd way, Will reminded me of Pete – he had that confidence, like he’d stepped out of an advertisement. In another way, he wasn’t anything like Pete. I didn’t know him, didn’t feel the same ease I did with Pete. He was interesting, in a new way.

We chatted, over the cards, about the kinds of inconsequential things you chat at over cards, except that Will didn’t fall back, after that first comment about the quality of the table, into the most annoying habit Blackjack newbies have, which is talking about the actual cards, or what the dealer has, or anything as banal as that. We talked about Vegas, about the way it was changing. “I don’t really notice that much," I said. “I only come here now and again." My first lie.

“So," I said after about the thirtieth hand, just after Sergio had departed to be replaced by a young blonde dealer who looked like she was my age. “What’s your day job, Will?" I had never – and you have to believe me, never – asked another player this, ever. From Alice and Lucy I knew it was the surest come on line you could give a guy.

“I.T.," Will said.

“In Vegas?" It seemed somehow improbable.

“In Vegas." He said coolly. In his first reproachful gesture he said, “You know, there are other things here aside from gambling."

“Sorry."

“No offense taken," he said.

To his credit, the way to break the ice then would have been to tell me to split the Queens I had in front of me. But he didn’t. My estimation of him increased. He actually waited until about three hands later until he asked me what I did.

“I.T.," I said, smiling.

“You don’t look much like an I.T. Girl," he said.

“Should I take that as a compliment, or an insult?" I asked.

“A compliment. Sorry. That sounded incredibly sexist, didn’t it?"

I nodded.

“I work with a couple of women. They’re not as … beautiful as you."

Even when you know it’s a line, it’s usually still good to be told you’re beautiful, especially if you’ve had some doubts about your sexuality. Except for that time Deuchar did it, but that was different. I tried to keep my smile under control.

“So now I have to ask," he said, “having made a fool of myself: you’re here with someone?" I realized that when I had gotten dressed to come downstairs I hadn’t put on the rings I usually wore when I gambled. In the absence of the rings, he assumed I was single, but in my short time as a woman I had observed that guys always seemed to feel their way around the subject.

“Friends," I said. “They’re upstairs. I just couldn’t sleep."

Will smiled. Sergio had come back from his break and we went back to playing cards for a while without saying anything further, and then began talking again, about politics, of all things. Not usually a safe subject, but we kept it light, and it seemed like the two of us were mostly aligned, which surprised me. I had imagined that being from Nevada he would be conservative, but Will turned out to be more liberal than I was. I decided that I liked Will. He seemed like a very relaxed guy. He had a rich, deep voice, almost like a professional voiceover man’s, and something in the way he spoke suggested he had himself worked out.

But eventually I could feel myself getting tired. I shuffled through my four remaining chips – of course I had lost almost all my $200 stake. I picked up the chips and put all but one out on the next hand. “I’m done," I said.

“You never told me your name," Will said, perhaps hopefully. Sergio dealt the cards.

“Alex," I said, giving him my hand. He leant over to reach me, but instead of shaking it, he bent to kiss the back of my hand. I actually giggled.

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Alex. I’m only sorry I didn’t meet you earlier in the night. Would you care to get a drink?"

“In the ordinary course of things, Will, I would love to. But it’s very late, and I think I’ll be able to sleep now. It’s been lovely meeting you."

“Will you be back in Vegas soon?"

“I don’t know," I lied. We would almost certainly be back within the next two weeks. I looked at my cards and waved Sergio off. He got twenty, and I flipped my cards over in disgust. I picked up my one remaining chip and flipped it between my fingers.

Will scribbled a number on the back of a coaster. “This is not exactly the classiest way to do this," he said. “But if you’re interested perhaps you could write this number on something that seemed less alcoholic or something. If you do come back, would you be interested in maybe dinner or …"

I could see Sergio was taking a keen interest, and I turned to him. “What do you think, Sergio?"

“I think you should call him," Sergio said.

“You’re the man, Sergio," I said.

“He certainly is," Will said, standing as I stood, and handing me the coaster with his number on it. “Alex, it’s been a rare pleasure.” He smiled, and something inside me went ‘ping’ and it was like a small revelation. Apart from a few times watching Pete I’d never had this kind of interest in a man before. With Will, I was certainly interested, and in a new, more urgent way. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was the hormones, but something had flipped in me, and I realized that I was definitely no longer ambivalent about men. I certainly wasn’t ambivalent about Will. If it hadn't been for my confusion about Pete, and if I hadn’t been tired …

“Goodnight Will. It’s been lovely meeting you."

I went back upstairs and slept soundly for the first time in several days.

 

~o~O~o~
 

As Alice, Lucy, Sally and I made our way through McCarran on Sunday night, I once again had that very strange feeling of being watched. Of course, we were at an airport, so even in those pre-911 times it was probable some security guy, somewhere, was watching us, but this felt different. I never got spooked by electronic surveillance, since all the casinos used it. No, this was a sense that someone in the milling crowd around us as we made our way to the gate, was paying too much attention. Don’t ask me how I knew. I might not even have been right. Maybe I was paranoid about Whitwell for no good reason. The face of John Mantonelli still haunted me from time to time. Or maybe I was waiting for Grieves to pop around the corner and say hello.

As I looked around I couldn’t see anyone obviously staring at us, so there was no logical reason for my paranoia. I thought maybe I should mention it to Dr. Kidman at my next appointment.

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 
Are all Government buildings beige inside? I only ask because so far I’ve seen a bunch of airports, the Massachusetts DMV, and the Boston offices of the Treasury Department. They were almost all the same shade of beige. Except McCarran, which is every color except beige, but I suspect they get a dispensation there for being Vegas.

I was at a conference with Dave Robicheaux, Tom, two guys from the local office of the FBI, a woman from the Secret Service, and Grieves, Hernandez and two other IRS agents. They were all wearing black or grey suits, except for Dave Robicheaux, who was in a cream suit that looked expensive, and me, in a pale blue wool cowl-neck Donna Karan jersey dress with a white silk scarf, dark blue pumps, and matching purse. I looked pretty good, even if I do say so myself, and I felt like I owned the room. Judging from the way some of the men watched me enter I think maybe I was justified. The poor woman from the Secret Service was in an unflattering gray pant suit that made her ass look huge. I felt guilty for thinking that, but kind of good that I came out so far ahead, too. What kind of lousy feminist was I? I could only imagine what Virginia would say if she heard me saying what I was thinking.

“The way we see it,” Grieves was saying, “the best way to get Arun to dip into reserve funds would be for you to lose.”

“That’s going to be hard,” I said. “I don’t count, any more. Right now I’m what they call a ‘wizard’. I’m one of the people who makes the really large bets. I just come and go when I’m signaled by the guys who are doing the actual counting. So I don’t actually have a lot of control. My only choices are the amounts I get to bet.”

“You just operate on someone else’s signal?” That was one of the FBI guys, I think the senior one. I couldn’t remember his name. No doubt Tom had it written down somewhere.

“Yes.”

“How hard would it be for you to be the person who was doing the counting?”

“That’s where I started off. I suppose I could ask Arun to send me back to doing that, but I don’t see how I could without arousing his suspicions. Being a wizard is fun, and easy. Being a smurf, a counter, requires concentration. It’s hard, and it’s not glamorous, and it’s not something people go back to.”

“You seem like a creative person, Alex,” Grieves said, with some sincerity. “Can’t you work out a way to do it?”

“And what? Go back to counting, and then deliberately be bad at it?”

“Yes.”

“Nobody would buy that.”

“Why not? How long since you were doing it? Maybe you’re just rusty.”

“In all the time I was counting,” I said, “Which was a couple of years, I never once made a mistake.”

“There’s always a first time.”

“One thing that's been puzzling me,” I said.

“Yes?” Grieves responded.

“All this evidence you have on Arun. All the stuff you showed me. If you already have all of that, why do you need me?”

“Because it’s not enough,“ Grieves said. “We could make a case against Mr. Kapoor right now, without any trouble. But it’s not enough for a solid conviction. And we want the people he works with.”

“You have photos of them.”

“We have photos of men exchanging bags. Not men exchanging cash.”

“Surely, with the evidence you have, you could get Arun to cooperate, the way you have with me?”

“Alex. There are reasons. Merely having his testimony might not be enough. We need to get him in an actual meeting taking actual cash. He hasn't been doing that recently, not the way you have been winning. Besides, there's the risk that – even if we approached Mr. Kapoor – he might say no, and just take the jail time.”

“You didn't think that about me.”

“No. You didn't seem like the type who would prefer money over jail.”

I guess Grieves was a good judge of character.

I sighed. “Alright. Can we at least think of something else. Something, you know, more plausible than me screwing up the count?”

“Well, help us out here.” Hernandez said. “What else could cost him a lot of money?”

I thought long and hard, and came up with an unpalatable answer. “Getting busted by Whitwell. That would cost a lot. More than losing. We’d lose the stake as well as our winnings.”

“That would expose all your identities to Whitwell, again.”

“Yes.” I thought about the implications of this. “Yes, it would.”

“And Arun would simply have to stop playing,” Grieves said.

“Pretty much … He’s tried the plastic surgery angle once. I don’t think it could be done again.”

“That’s not going to work for us,” the lead FBI guy said.

“Why not? I thought you wanted to stop him laundering money.”

“No, we want to catch him laundering money,” the FBI guy said. “In order for us to do that, he has to lose, and then need some more funds from the guys he launders for.”

“I don’t get it. If he’s laundering money, but he only needs the money when he loses, isn’t that a really inefficient way of laundering money?”

Grieves looked at the other agents with an expression that suggested ‘I told you so’. “Yes, it would be,” he said. “Although there is the issue of volume. Arun does a lot of volume, and that’s worth something. Bank robbers launder money. It’s small time, a hundred thousand a pop. Arun really launders money. But the only way we can prove he’s laundering money is if we track him getting the payments, and then track him spending that money at a casino. The only way we can be sure he’ll receive a payment is if he needs money.”

I thought about this for a few moments. “Don’t you guys have, like, wiretaps and such like? Can’t you track his deals that way?”

“Alex,” Grieves said, with the air of a father talking to his teenage daughter. “We have lots of methods for doing things. If you don’t mind, it will be better for you, as well as us, if we don’t tell you too much about how we plan to do things.”

Tom nodded at me.

“So you want him to lose, but keep playing,” I said, trying to work out what I could do with all this information.

“That’s about it,” said Grieves.

I thought for at least a minute. To my surprise, nobody interrupted me. Nobody said anything. They were all looking at me like I was the answer to their prayers.

“I think,” I said, “I can see a way. But I need to talk to my lawyer here about what it involves.” I looked at Tom and he gave me that ‘smart move’ slight grin he’d given me that first day in his office.

 

~o~O~o~
 

After the meeting I went home. Tom had appointments for the remainder of the afternoon, but he promised me he would see me at Susan's for dinner.

Nobody mentioned the investigation at all over dinner. Instead we discussed Susan's work on a Magritte than had been damaged, and I mentioned Pete's invitation to accompany him on his trip to Virginia. And then the usual discussions and disagreements about movies, and whether or not Titanic was a terrible movie.

After dinner Tom volunteered to clean up and I helped him in the kitchen while Susan watched TV.

“You acquitted yourself pretty well today,” Tom said to me as he was scraping plates. “Those federal guys, no matter how nice they seem, they’re not your friends.”

“Okay.”

“So, this plan of yours. You think you have a way for Arun to lose?”

“Yes.” I took a few moments to think through where I’d been going during the meeting. “I’m not sure I have a way to do it that doesn’t involve trouble for me, but I think that the trouble on that end is probably less significant than the trouble from the Government.”

“So, you want to tell me what it is?”

“I shouldn’t tell you about something if I’m planning on doing something illegal, should I?”

“You can, but it’s not a good idea. I can’t tell anyone about it, but it could make me an accessory. I could get disbarred …” His brows furrowed. “I don’t understand – in the meeting you said you thought you had a way to make Arun lose. How could that be illegal?”

“It’s not the Arun losing part that’s illegal,” I said. “It’s everyone else not losing that might involve cutting some corners.”

“Alex. You have to look after yourself.”

“I am,” I said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I put everyone else in danger. Alice, Lucy, Emily, Sally, Brian – none of those guys have done anything to warrant going to prison for.”

“Alex, I have to warn you of something,” Tom said. “You might not be the only person the Government is trying to do a deal with.”

“We wouldn’t know?”

“Not necessarily.” He said. “It wouldn’t be incredibly smart of them to have two of you trying to bring Arun down at the same time, but it wouldn’t be unheard of.”

“It sounds incredibly stupid.”

“Well,” he shrugged. “I’m just saying …”

“Well, I can’t do the wrong thing, the thing to hurt them. At least not deliberately.”

“You and your sister, you’re like that,” Tom said. “Jones family values.”

 

~o~O~o~
 

I went shopping with Lucy at Cambridgeside Galleria, just a girls' morning out. I don’t think either of us was really into mall culture, or even shopping, but Lucy had wanted to get something from Best Buy there, and I usually enjoyed just hanging out with her. We didn't buy very much else. I had the conversations with the Feds on my mind, and I desperately wanted to discuss them with her, but I didn't know whether I could trust her. Instead I told her a bit about the trip to Virginia with Pete. After Alice's 'huh' comments about us I didn't feel like talking about those kinds of issues with Alice any more, so Lucy made a good sounding board, even if she did say the same thing as Alice, “Sleeping with a housemate isn’t unprecedented.”

“Do women have a handbook of these sayings that I haven't found yet?”

“What?”

“That's exactly what Alice said.”

“Well, you know, it doesn't mean it’s a good idea. Unless, like, you love him or something. Do you?”

I told Lucy about Susan's theory that it was a crush, and she agreed. Then I mentioned meeting Will, which she found intriguing, mostly I guess because the idea of meeting a guy at a gambling table had never appealed at all to Lucy, the consummate professional.

Then we talked a bit about Lucy's love life, or lack of it. “I think I've given my life to the team, Alex. I need to get it back,” she said. It sounded reminiscent of the discussions I'd had with Alice, and one time with Dan. We all had this life that seemed like it should be great, but at a severe cost to our personal relationships.

Eventually I saw a blouse that was similar to one of the ones Yana had tried on during our visit to Virginia, and that reminded me of Deuchar's warning about Pete. I mentioned it to Lucy.

“You sound like this is more than a crush, Alex,” Lucy said.

“Maybe it is. Maybe I should leave Pete alone, for his own good.”

“Or maybe you should follow your heart.”

“What does it say about my feelings for Pete that I thought Will was cute?”

“Alex. You're allowed to be in love with a guy and still find other guys attractive.”

“It still seems like it’s not quite right.”

“You are seriously hard on yourself, Alex. Lighten up.”

Lighten up, indeed.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Instead of lightening up, I took Pete with me to Vegas on our next trip. It went against everything Deuchar had warned me about, and it was mixing business with pleasure, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I had decided to take Pete at his word. The plan I had begun to develop in my head involved getting into Whitwell's records. I wasn't sure how to do that, but as soon as I mentioned it to Pete he told me that he needed to come to Vegas with me, because he could figure out a way to make that happen.

Pete and I flew out to Vegas a day earlier than the rest of the team. I didn't want them to know he was with me.

The flight, so routine for me now, amused Pete. “First class,” he said, as we settled into our seats on the plane. “You sure you want to stop doing this? I could get used to it.”

We were going to stay at the Bellagio. I was booked as Alexandra Leung. Because I'd played there under that ID before, they had me down as a high-roller, so were met at the airport by one of their handlers, and a limo. Pete remained hugely amused by the spectacle. I introduced him to Drew, the handler, as my boyfriend, which was our agreed cover story. As I held Pete's hand in the limo I wished it was really true. He was a boy, he was my friend, but he was there to help me, not to romance me.

The Bellagio put me in a two bedroom suite, which actually suited both of us. Pete was still amused by the spectacle, but I got the sense he was slightly disturbed by the fact that I had this ostentatious lifestyle when I was 'in role,’ and I could sense that, although he was amused, he was not impressed.

That night we went to an early show over at the Grand, which was terrible, and then we went back to the Bellagio for dinner. Drew was expecting me to play, so to sustain the illusion I sat in for a few hours, with Pete playing alongside me for smaller stakes. Of course, we lost about $4,000, since I didn't have any resources behind me and wasn't bothering to count. We were lucky we only lost that much, since I had to still pretend I was the reckless Japanese princess type. But after a while I got tired of cards, so then we moved over to the craps tables, and Pete played a few rounds, for a few hundred dollars a round. Mostly, he lost.

Eventually Pete steered me back up to the suite, where he phoned down for a rental car. Drew was on it right away, but seemed confused that we weren't just availing ourselves of one of the hotel limos, especially at 2am. It was my turn to be amused as I heard Pete get a slightly dismissive tone to his voice, as though it was beneath him to have to explain himself to Drew. Just organize the car, please,” He said. “You have Ms. Leung's license details and credit card, right?”

We sat in the suite for another twenty minutes before Drew phoned back to say the car was ready. Then Pete picked up a backpack and guided me back downstairs.

“So, what are we doing?” I asked Pete, as he flipped the valet a tip. He slung his bag into the back seat.

“Research,” Pete said, starting the car. We drove out onto the strip, then did a right turn, and another right turn, until we were coming back up an alley behind another casino. Pete stopped just next to a bunch of dumpsters.

I looked around. There wasn’t anything nearby, except the dumpsters and a loading dock about fifty yards away. Pete was ferreting through his bag until he pulled out a laptop. It wasn’t his laptop — I didn’t recognize it. I had no idea where it came from.

“I don’t want to seem like the prying bitch type,” I said, “but do you think you could give me some idea of what’s going on? Whose laptop is that?”

“It’s ours, for the next few hours. Then it will go to Goodwill.”

“Because?”

“Because I don’t know whether they’ll be able to log our MAC address when I access the account. I don’t know if I’ll have time to edit access logs later.”

“We’re accessing an account?”

“We’re warchalking. I’m breaking into the hotel wifi network,” Pete said.

“We couldn’t do that from inside the hotel?”

“This isn’t our hotel.”

“And we’re breaking into this hotel's network because?”

“Because if we can get into this network, then we can get into the ethernet network inside the hotel, and …”

I was getting it. “Pete, you’re no cracker.”

“No, but I’m no card player, either. And the way I figure it, getting into Whitwell’s system is your best bet.”

“I’m not sure how you’re going to do it.”

“Neither am I,” Pete said. “The first step is just figuring out whether or not I can do the second step.”

“What are the chances the hotel’s wifi network will even be on the same physical network?”

“Pretty slim. But I’m betting the firewall isn’t going to be as secure as it should be. And the security network and the wifi network will probably both be accessing the same gateway.”

“And why didn't we try to break into the network at our own hotel, where we actually had wifi access?“

“Too easy to trace us,“ Pete said. “Besides, those networks for guests are definitely on different networks. We're trying to get into the wifi network the hotel uses for its own employees.“

As much as I appreciated Pete’s concern for me, hacking away on a laptop at 3am wasn’t my idea of a super-exciting time, and after the drinks earlier I was feeling sleepy. Eventually I drifted off in the passenger seat. It was several hours later, as dawn was breaking, that we pulled up at the valet again.

“Hey there,” Pete said.

“We’re back?” I said sleepily.

“We’re back.” He was smiling.

Instead of going up to our room Pete dragged me to breakfast. “I don’t know about you, Alex, but I’m still super-hungry.”

“So what’s next?” I asked, after we’d scoured enough food from the buffet to feed a small village.

“What’s next I will need some help with.” Pete said. “I got access to a Whitwell account, but it doesn’t have a lot of privileges.”

“Great. What can I do?”

“Nothing.” Pete said. “You have to be completely out of this.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“But –”

“Two things wrong with you doing anything that has to do with Whitwell,” Pete interrupted. “One, it might compromise any deal you have with Los Federales. And two, we need more skill than either you or I have, to go any further than this.”

“I don’t really trust anyone else to get involved.”

“I’m not sure I do, either, but we are going to need some help.” He hesitated. “How would you feel if I asked Vassily for help?”

“Vassily?”

“I mean, not asked him to get involved directly. That would be, uh, bad. Bad for him, bad for me, bad for all of us. But you know, back in Russia, he went to college with some guys … let’s just say they make their living in an interesting way.”

“You trust him enough?”

“I trust him enough to be the other major stockholder in my business.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Yes.”

“How much does he know about me?”

“Some. He doesn’t know everything. You remember the night we went out, when you first met Yana? He thought you were a chick, then. They both did. Yana thought you were a lesbian.”

“I should be thankful for small mercies.”

“I didn't try to correct the impression, by the way.“

“Thanks, I guess.“

“Of course, if we ask him to help, he’s going to know everything.”

“You think?”

“Well, whoever he brings in to help is going to end up knowing everything. If they get access to the things we want them to have access to, that is.”

“I guess.” I thought back to the time we’d been busted, by Whitwell, and the thing that John Mantonelli had said to me – ‘You seem like a nice girl.’ Mantonelli hadn’t been trying to be clever when he said that.

I wondered, with a burning curiosity, what was in Whitwell’s database.

Then I couldn’t help myself, and I told Pete about Deuchar’s warning to me. I had withheld the conversation from him because I didn’t want to concern him, but since I had dragged him to Vegas I wasn’t exactly being consistent. “I think you and Vassily should keep out of this, Pete,” I said. “You guys have too much at stake.”

“Alex, I’m not just doing this for you. Okay, most of it is for you. But don’t you see? I’m already tainted in Command’s eyes. The only chance Vassily and I have is if we help you to get back at Arun, so that he’s not a threat to any of us. If you go down for this, my career is finished.

“Anyway,” he continued. “As I said, I’m already tainted. The best thing we could possibly do right now is win. It’s not just about beating Arun, we have to secure everything, keep you safe from Treasury, keep all of us safe from all the threats. If we can do that, then neither of us is a liability — we’re an asset.”

Back up in our suite, I took a shower. I left the door to my bedroom open, because I wanted to stay awake to talk to Pete, but by the time he was done having his own shower I was fast asleep again.

 

~o~O~o~
 

John Ostermeyer had sent me roses on the first of the month for both months since I had last seen him. I wrote a short thank you after the first bunch. It seemed like it was an appropriate follow up to our brief time together in Lincoln. The second bunch made me start thinking about him again, in a more serious way. I didn't think there was any future for John and I, but I was touched. Maybe I was getting soft in the head.

If Pete was at all curious about the roses he seemed to play it cool. I think I was a little bit upset by that. A part of me wanted to make him jealous. Of course, Pete was much too practical to be the flower-buying type. I think he'd only ever bought flowers for a girl as an apology: he'd never have done it as a simple romantic gesture.

A few days after I had sent the thank you note I received an invitation in the mail from Jim Brauch. Jim had been in my year at LHS. We hadn't exactly been close, and as a friend of John Ostermeyer's he hadn't been among my tormentors, but we hadn't kept in touch. I wondered why, out of the blue, I would merit an invitation. He was marrying a young woman named Alison Weinberg, daughter of Robert and Mia. I didn't know the family. The wedding was in Marin, in California. It was addressed to Miss Alex Jones, which was odd in itself since I had no idea how Jim Brauch might have known about the recent changes in my life and, unlike the other invitations I'd received for such things, there was no indication on it of whether or not I was expected to bring a partner. I thought that was odd, too, but, as I wasn't sure I even wanted to go, I filed it with some utilities and credit card bills I planned to pay later in the month, and forgot about it for a few days.

The following week John Ostermeyer phoned me. I was glad to hear from him. The events in Lincoln were still playing through my mind and I had wondered whether or not there was anything more to them. I wasn't looking for anything — I was still too conflicted about Pete to be looking for anything — but there was definitely a small frisson, and the roses kept reminding me.

John had an invite to Jim and Alison's wedding, too. “Who is she?” I asked. “Do you know her? When was the last time you saw Jim?”

It turned out John played squash with Jim once a fortnight. Jim worked for a shipping company in Oakland, something to do with managing logistics. It didn't seem very interesting. “So, um,” John said to me, “I know it’s a long way to come, and everything, but I thought maybe you might like to be my date for the wedding.”

“Did you get one of those solo invitations, too?” I asked. “What's with that?”

“Catering is expensive, I guess. And, um …”

“Yes?”

“You know, I mentioned to Jim that I had seen you at Thanksgiving. And I think maybe he meant me to ask you, anyway. But I think he really wanted you to come. So maybe he thought if he just invited me plus a partner, and I asked you, you wouldn't go to all the trouble to come out here.”

It made a twisted kind of sense.

“You know,” John said, “I can pay for your airfare.”

“Don’t be stupid, John. I can certainly pay for my own airfare.”

“So you're coming then,” he said, his voice brightening. I could practically feel his smile through the telephone. “Awesome!”

It seemed I had committed myself to going.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I caught the plane to San Francisco with mixed feelings. On the one hand I was pleased to be seeing John again. On the other hand, there were bound to be people at the wedding that I hadn't seen for a long time. I wasn't worried about what they would think of me. Strangely, what worried me most was that I might upstage Alison, the bride. I thought that would be poor form. It was her day, and she deserved to have all he focus on her. It seemed to me that if people spent more time focused on me, the weird transsexual, I would somehow be ruining it for her.

I had mentioned this briefly to Lucy, who had kindly driven me to Logan. She had even brought along coffee for the ride, since it was so early. “Alex,“ she had said. “That's really sweet of you. But you know, it’s not going to be all about you. Most people will be focused on her. Most people — am I right? — won’t even know who you are. It’s just going to be a handful, right?”

She was probably right, but I was still nervous.

I had to transit through Chicago but everything was on time, and John was waiting at the gate at Oakland when I arrived a little after 2pm. I hugged him as a hello, and he held me a little longer than I expected.

I stepped back to look at him. He seemed more relaxed than the time I had seen him in Lincoln. In fact he was smiling like he had just won the lottery. I wasn't sure whether to be flattered that he was so pleased to see me, or alarmed.

The plan we had made was that we would both go to John's apartment in Berkeley to get changed, and then John would drive us both to the wedding. I had only consented on the proviso that he promised not to get toasted at the wedding. “I'm not going to get a cab back from Marin,” I had said. “You have to stay sober enough to drive.” I had booked a room at the St Francis, downtown in San Francisco, so I could get a flight back easily the next day. So John was in for a long drive home that night.

At the apartment he was a perfect gentleman, and he gave me privacy in the bathroom to do my hair and makeup. It didn't actually take all that long. I had chosen to wear a simple sleeveless red tea-length dress, with a high neckline. Alison wasn't Chinese, so she'd be wearing white, and red usually looked good against my skin and hair. Plus I wouldn't need to worry about any of my padding showing.

I didn't need as much padding as I used to. My body seemed to love estrogen. Most of its effects seemed to be evident in my butt and hips, which had rounded out considerably. My breasts were definitely getting bigger too, if not quite as enthusiastically. I was still wearing the chicken filets, but now I had graduated to a B-cup bra when I wore them, instead of the A-cups I had been wearing for the previous two years.

I came out of the bathroom and both John and I did a kind of double-take at one another. He had gotten changed in his room while I had been in the bathroom, and he was now dressed for the wedding, in a black suit that fitted poorly enough to scream “I'm an academic with no money.” I felt momentarily guilty about having such thoughts, but I had never seen John in a suit before, and I realized just from the way he was standing that it wasn't something he did a lot.

“You need to lose the tie,” I said.

“Really?”

“Really. It’s a late afternoon wedding. Outdoors. In a garden. Trust me.” I walked over to him and undid the knot in the tie. “You don’t want to look like an undertaker.”

“That bad?”

“Not bad at all. You just need to loosen the look up.” I undid his top button. There was just a hint of his chest hair visible above the open neck of his shirt.

I could tell he liked the way I looked. I was flattered, again, but at the same time his attention was a little too intense.

We drove up to Mill Valley, which seemed much further than I had imagined, but we just made it on time at 5.00pm. The ceremony and reception were being held at a restaurant with some beautiful gardens which were at their best in the late afternoon light. As we got out of the car I wrapped myself up in my pashmina against the typical Bay area chill. Remember the late 90s, when pashminas were ubiquitous?

We darted into the back row of the seats in the garden, just before Lohengrin struck up from an invisible organ.

Alison looked beautiful. She'd chosen a very simple long silk dress that suited the casual garden setting – no frou frou at all. Jim Looked pretty good, too. And I'd made the right call by removing John's tie. Most of the younger men were without them.

Once the ceremony was done, the bride and groom posed for shots in the magic light of dusk, while we guests retired to the terrace, champagne and beer in hand. There were only three faces I knew: Hal Donovan, Carl Choi, and Marie Chaney. Marie and Carl were talking to one another and weren't looking at me at all, but Hal came over to talk to John and me as soon as I made eye contact with him.

“Susan?” he said, but I knew, even as he said it, that John must have passed on the news of my transition before the day.

“Hi Hal. John told me he was putting the band back together,” I joked weakly. “It’s Alex. Susan is back in Boston.”

It was clear Hal was more than a little wigged out. He shuffled nervously from side to side, as he looked me up and down. I tried to lighten the mood by telling him he looked good, and that it was good to see him, but he kept staring. I felt like an exotic animal in a game park. Nervously, I reached for John's hand.

“So Hal,” I finally said, when he hadn't said anything for perhaps a full ten seconds, which is an eternity in a social setting like a wedding. “What are you doing these days?”

Hal opened his mouth like he was a goldfish, then closed it again, then said, almost exactly like Jeff Spicoli said it in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, like he was stoned. “I don’t know.”

“Dude,” John said, and I loved him, then, for that, because we were clearly on the same wavelength. “You don’t know?”

“Um.” This was getting embarrassing for all of us. But at that moment Marie Chaney walked over.

“Hey, Hal,” she said, and went to kiss him on the cheek. “Great to see you again.” Then she turned to John, and said hello and kissed him. Then she turned to me. “Hi. Are you …?”

“Alex is with me,” John said. “Alex, this is Marie.”

“Alex,” Marie said. “How are you?” It was clear she hadn't made the connection to our high school days.

“Hi Marie,” I said. I realized there was no point in not being upfront with her. For one thing, Hal was still staring at me like I'd grown a pair of antennae from my forehead. “How are you?”

“Good,” she said enthusiastically. “Didn't Alison look gorgeous?”

“She did. And it was a beautiful ceremony. You're looking pretty good, yourself.” I couldn't help myself. “Who would have though Jim had it in him?”

She laughed. “Too true. Who would have thought? How do you know Jim?” She turned to John. “How long have you guys been dating? Oh. Sorry, that was out of line.” She indicated our entwined hands. “Are you dating? John Ostermeyer, where did you manage to find such a gorgeous girlfriend?” As ever, Marie had a thousand questions.

“Marie,” I said. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Should I?”

Hal finally got some words to come out. “This is Alex Jones, Marie. From Lincoln?”

John squeezed my hand back. I wondered why he hadn't run away already.

I watched the penny drop. It was like a swinging arm in an old carnival coin-in-the-slot. And then Marie laughed.

“Alex. God, you look fantastic. Fantastic! Doesn't she, Hal?”

Marie laughed and practically dragged me over to meet Carl Choi. I still held John's hand, so he came too. Hal trailed behind. “Carl!” Marie cried. “Carl! Look who's here!”

All of a sudden I wasn't enjoying the wedding much any more. Carl gave me the same goldfish treatment Hal had. Marie talked enough for all of us and there were no awkward gaps in the conversation as there had been when it was just Hal, John and me, but I was beginning to wilt under the combined detailed scrutiny of both Hal and Carl. I had known them both since they were about four years old.

The straw that broke the camel's back, or maybe broke my spirit, was when a woman I didn't know walked over to talk to Marie, and she introduced us all. When she got to me, she somehow felt the need to add that we all went to school together, but some of us had been through some big changes since then.

The woman, who seemed pleasant enough, ventured that everyone says that about everyone at weddings, and the conversation drifted on from there. But my mind was on Marie's comment. I was a figure of curiosity. Marie was being friendly, but I knew — I knew as soon as she said those words to that woman — that she would spend the rest of the evening telling people at the wedding about the transsexual she had gone to school with and didn't she look fantastic. And I didn't want to be 'fantastic.' I just wanted to be with people who took me at face value. My phobia about coming to the wedding had been validated: people were going to talk about me.

After a few minutes of conversation I excused myself to go to the ladies room. I sat in the stall for quite a while, thinking. I realized after a moment or so that I was actually shaking slightly. Coming to the wedding had been a mistake. However much I wanted to see John again, I realized that being around people who knew me from my childhood was stupid. I had almost nothing in common with them any more, and they were going to struggle to get past the things that had happened in my life. Even with John, who seemed comfortable with me, I had not been honest: he thought I worked for a startup developing financial algorithms. Once again, that feeling of being false washed over me.

As I washed my hands at the basin and fixed my lipstick, I looked at myself and tried to be objective about it. I certainly looked like a woman. The estrogen in my system was seeing to it that I was becoming more and more like a woman every day. And there was no way I would ever be a man again. What was false? Aside from lying to John, about my job, I was a woman, and usually a truthful person.

And yet …

I knew if I left the restroom I was going back into what was, almost literally, no-man's land.

Out of deference to John, I stayed. As I left the ladies room I had the impulse to rush to the front door of the restaurant and begin walking. But I felt I owed it to John to stay. My mother raised me to be polite and to bear up under pressure.

So I sat next to John and said almost nothing for the entire night to anyone else. The guy seated next to me at our table tried to make some small talk with me, but I was so conscious of Hal and his date staring at me from across the table that I could barely talk. Once the speeches were finished I turned to John, who had been holding my hand almost the entire time, and said. “Would you mind if we left soon? I have a tremendous headache.”

It wasn't a lie. I was wound tight enough to snap.

We said our brief farewells, awkwardly, and John drove me down to the St. Francis. When we got to the hotel I think he was hoping I was going to ask him to come in with me, but I was emotionally drained.

“Your flight is at noon, right?” John asked.

I nodded.

“Breakfast? I know this little place in Potrero Hill. It’s on the way to the airport.”

For some reason — all the hand holding? — I thought I owed him that.

The next morning I woke early, still on East Coast time. I went for a walk through Union Square, which was beginning to fill up with its requisite beggars, even at that early hour. I continued on down toward Market Street. The morning light was uncommonly clear for a winter's day in San Francisco, and the light bounced pleasingly off some of the glass skyscrapers down near State Street.

As I walked I thought of the events of the previous evening. Here I was, in what was practically the transgender capital of America, San Francisco, and I had never felt more uncomfortable in my own skin. In Boston my friends, few that they were, had adjusted to the 'new' me, but people who knew me from my past and hadn't witnessed the changes over time viewed me as a curiosity.

I thought back to my childhood comment to Hal Donovan. “Why should I mind if someone else is an idiot?” I had said to him. “If I was the one who made a mistake …”

Back at the hotel I packed and was downstairs when John came by to take me to the airport. He drove me to a small cafe south of the city. It was pleasant, and busy. The dot com boom was in full swing and the neighborhood on Potrero Hill was prosperous. We were lucky to get a small table near the window.

We ordered food and I pondered, as John was making small talk, whether or not I should tell him what I really did for a living. But as I listened to him talking I began to have a deeper concern. Mostly, he seemed to be talking about how beautiful I was, and how amazing my transition had been.

“John,“ I said gently. “Can we talk about something other than me changing sex?”

He seemed a little offended. “Sure.”

“How's your work?”

We discussed his research in more detail than we had in Lincoln a few months earlier. I was surprised to discover that I could follow some of the things he was talking about: estrogen hadn't ruined my head for physics. Some of the more esoteric elements were beyond my grasp, but I guess that was why John was a senior T.A. in astrophysics and I wasn't.

We finished breakfast and he drove me down to SFO. When we got to the drop off zone he got out of his car and retrieved my bag from the trunk, then set it on the sidewalk. We both stood there awkwardly for a few moments, me on the curb, him on the roadway, which at least made our differences in height slightly less awkward. Then he swept me up in his arms, and held me tightly. I liked the feeling. I liked the smell of him. I liked the sensation of being wrapped up.

“Alex, I know you might think this is coming on strong, but I'd really like to see a lot more of you.”

“Me too, John. But —“ I stepped back slightly so I could look into his face, “— we live on opposite sides of the country.”

“A trifle. I could fly out to see you next weekend.”

I remembered we were supposed to be playing in Vegas next weekend. Maybe I could fly to San Francisco from Vegas? How could I explain being able to do that to John?

It didn't matter, because then he said the one thing that ruined everything. Everything.

“Alex, I know we've known each other for a really long time. I think this — you — is kind of a destiny thing.”

“Destiny?”

“I've, um …”

“Yes?”

He blushed. “I've always had a kind of thing for girls like you.”

“Girls like me,” I repeated, the words sinking in.

“Um, yeah. So this … you … it’s like, perfect.”

“John, I really don’t know what to say to that.”

“Promise me you’ll call me.”

“I’ll call you.” I think I meant it when I said it, but truly, as soon as John had said, 'girls like you,' I had felt a deep, overwhelming sense of sadness. John didn't love me, for me. I mean, maybe he did. But I was a fetish.

I released myself from his grasp. “Bye, John. Thanks for the lift.”

“Any time, Alex. Let me know if it’s okay for me to fly out. Destiny.”

As I entered the terminal I knew it would never be okay.

 

~o~O~o~
 

On the flight back I turned my feelings over and over in my head. What was so wrong about accepting that John loved me and he was attracted to me? His feelings were, at least, honest, whereas mine were honestly confusing. Was I channeling Groucho Marx, who once said, 'I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member'? How could I ever expect a relationship with any man unless I was willing to admit that any man who was interested in me would have to accept my fucked-up gender? Who was I, to be so high and mighty?

And yet I knew as soon as he had uttered those words that it was over between us. Something in the way he said it, something in the connection between us, made me feel like an object rather than a person. I didn't know whether I could ever let him hold me in his arms again. I remembered the conversation we had had in my parents' living room in Lincoln, where I had foolishly, drunkenly told him I wanted to jump his bones. I didn't want to do that now, and I wondered why I had ever considered it.

Love and lust seem to me like good, honest, wholesome feelings, but there's something truly disturbing about being someone's fetish object.

The only real love of my life was Pete, and that was out of the question.

Goddamned hormones.

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 
Before I went back to Vegas I thought it was important to put Tom in the picture regarding my plans to take down Arun, such as they were at that stage. Rather than do it at his office, I thought I should talk to him as a family member. So over Sunday dinner, at Susan's, after we'd all eaten well and were feeling relaxed and agreeable, I asked him whether it was okay to discuss business.

“Is anything illegal involved?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Of course not," I said. “Or I wouldn’t be discussing it in front of Susan. I know that would make her an accessory, right? Even discussing it in her home would make her vulnerable."

He nodded.

“Tom, one thing you have to know about me. I may be a fuckup in a hundred other ways, but I will not – ever – put my sister in any danger."

“We have that in common." He reached across the table to take Susan’s hand. I thought that was sweet.

“We have a lot of things in common," I said. “Except I think you have more common sense. So does Susan."

I knew Susan wanted to ask me some questions at that point, but she wisely declined. As we got older we were both getting better at dealing with one another.

I went on to outline what I had in mind for taking down Arun. “Tom. You’ve got to let me know if any of this is illegal. If it is, I won’t do it.” I spoke loudly and clearly, like I was speaking for an audience. “I am not proposing any kind of illegal conspiracy. If you advise me that anything I say involves breaking the law, I will not do it." I lowered my voice again. “That was for the wiretaps and bugs and whatever."

“Bugs?" Susan said, suddenly uncomfortable. I shrugged.

“Your sister," Tom said to her, “is a smart girl."

I had the grace to blush.

“It’s not illegal, Alex," Tom said. “Everything you said to the Feds about card counting, you’re right. It’s not illegal. If you are playing with your own money, then any winnings you make are yours. They have nothing to do with Arun."

“But if my earnings came from Arun in the first place, then isn’t the money I’m gambling with illegal money?"

“Good point. I think I have a solution for that."

Maybe my paranoia had infected Tom. Or maybe the fact that I’d just mentioned being in Susan’s house had done it. Whatever the reason, he suggested we all go for a walk around the block. When he first mentioned it Susan had given him a look like he was crazy, but she wasn’t stupid, either.

When we were at the front door, Tom extracted his cellphone from his pocket, and held it up. He motioned to me and Susan to do the same. I was mystified, but I drew my cellphone from my purse and gave it to him. After giving him another ‘you’re crazy’ look, so did Susan. He set them all on the table in the hallway, and we stepped outside.

As we were walking, Tom explained. “We’re not in the house, no bugs. We’re not standing still, no parabolic mics, or at least no reliable parabolics. We’re not carrying cellphones. All we have to worry about is whether one of us is wearing a wire. I love Susan, you’re my client. We good?"

“Yo, we good.” I said, smiling. Something in the way he said it made me want to come over all gangsta.

“Alex, we're going to need to pay the IRS anything you haven't already given them, and probably turn over most of the cash you've made."

“Most of it?"

“Almost all of it. If you keep it, it’s the proceeds of crime. Title 18 says you can’t engage in a financial transaction with proceeds that come from what the law calls 'specified unlawful activities.' Money laundering is one of those activities. I think I can work out a way you can keep some, but you're going to need to give the Government most of what you have."

“And this is going to help?"

“It will be evidence of your bona fides, yes. Your good intent. If we make the offer to them before they come after you, you might get away with offering them only 70 or 80 percent."

Tom looked around once more, as though checking once again that we were alone and out of earshot. “We need to park whatever cash you have, as cash, right now. How much do you have, cash?"

“About a million five," I said.

“Sweet Jesus," Tom said quietly. “Cash cash?"

I nodded.

“Where?"

“In three safe deposit boxes." I said. “One in Vegas, two here in Boston."

“And in bank accounts?"

“About a hundred and forty thousand." Then I remembered there was more.

“How were you intending to explain this to the IRS?"

“I figure they have some idea, the casinos file the reports and if the IRS knows all my aliases they’ll have been tracking all my winnings over ten thousand dollars. They mightn’t know everything. But I remembered there’s more."

“More cash?"

“About one hundred and ten thousand taped to the back of my refrigerator. I don’t think the IRS or the casinos know about that.“ I thought about it for a few moments. “In fact I'm certain nobody except you guys knows about that."

“Christ Almighty." Tom shook his head.

“But I also have a lot of stock. Maybe almost a million? I got in on some good IPOs. Do I have to give that back too?"

“Christ on a cracker. Is there anything else?" Tom said.

I couldn't think of anything, so stayed silent.

“Okay. You better hope your fridge doesn’t need repairing … Now, you dress nice,” he said, his Jersey accent coming through. “I guess you could have spent it all on expensive shoes and restaurants. They might go for that."

“Seems doubtful," Susan ventured.

“I mean really expensive shoes," Tom said. “And designer dresses, and stuff. I’ll find out from Dave Robicheaux where his wife buys hers."

“Puhleeze," I said, visualizing some store that forty-somethings shopped at. “I do not live in Lincoln. I’ll find my own expensive clothes, thank you."

“Dave Robicheaux’s wife is your age," Tom said. “She’s his third wife. You’ll like where she shops. And you need to look like you’ve disposed of a lot of income."

“I don’t want to seem unsophisticated," Susan said, “but it strikes me even Imelda Marcos couldn’t spend that much on shoes."

“Well, they mightn’t know exactly how much Alex has made. If it just looks like she’s spent a lot, they’ll expect her to have a lot."

“Um," I said.

“What?" said Tom.

“Well, if keep the money from the fridge, and turn all the rest over to the Feds, I don’t know that I want to spend all my remaining cash on shoes."

Tom laughed. “Only a few, Alex. You need to be seen to have lived the high life at the meetings you have with the Feds from now on."

“Gee that sounds tough," Susan said.

“Tom?"

“Yeah?"

“If I give this money to the Government, what will they do with it?"

“It will go to the Treasury, I think."

“I'm not sure they need the money," I said. This was in the Clinton years, when the country was running a surplus. “What are they gonna do, buy another rug for the White House?"

“Point made," Tom said. “Okay. But we still have to get rid of most of the money, in a way they won’t want to get it back, but won’t be able to fault you for."

“And the stock?"

“I think you’ll lose most of that, too. Maybe I can save some of the earnings, but it will require some negotiation."

“If I gave it all to charity?"

“They could ask for the money back from the charity. It’s the proceeds of crime. Nobody's entitled to it."

“There has to be another way," I said.

“Give me some time," Tom said. “We have to make an offer. I think I might be able to save you about 20 points on the dollar. Maybe … No promises though."

“That's still a lot of money," Susan said.

It was, by my standards of only a few years earlier.

“Susan, I know this is going to sound like bullshit." She was going to interrupt, so I held up my hand to stop her. “But honestly, it’s never been about the money. It was the challenge. And the belonging. I don’t have the belonging, any more. And I don’t enjoy the challenge, now I know what it’s for."

I meant that.

“So, you know, maybe it’s for the best that I don’t have it."

“You have a conscience like your sister's," Tom said.

“I don’t know about that. But yeah, I have a conscience."

“Other people," Tom said, “Would say that it wasn't really stealing because it came from the casinos."

“Tom," Susan said, shocked. “It wasn't stealing. You know that. Alex won that money. It’s just she used some bad money to do it. It wasn't stealing."

“You should be a lawyer," Tom said to her jokingly. “You want a job?"

The truth was, I wasn't that worried about the money. I never had been. It’s easy for rich people to say that, but it’s true. I just wasn't sure it ought to go to the government coffers. There had to be a more redemptive way of disposing of it.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Back at home I found a letter with a Berkeley postmark. I opened it, and found a note from Carl Choi, of all people.

Dear Alex
It was great to see you at Jim and Alison's wedding last week. I am very sorry you had to leave early, as I would very much have liked to have had more time to talk to you. I do apologize if any of us made you feel awkward at all. You certainly have no reason to feel awkward.
I am very pleased to have met you again after all these years. I admired you more than you ever knew when we were at school together, and you helped me when I was young — more than you can know. If there is anything I can ever do for you in return I would be very, very pleased to do so.
It was so good to see you have found your true self.
I would like it if we could stay in touch. I can assure you I have no prurient interest. I'd just like to make sure we keep the connection we've had, which I've missed since 1991.
My best wishes,
Carl

I had no idea how I had ever helped Carl, except maybe by sharpening his math skills in competition, but I thought it was a sweet note, and a nice antidote to the odd aftertaste I had experienced following my final interaction with John Ostermeyer.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I had developed a tiny program to track the ins and outs of the team's money, which I ran on my desktop computer at home. I'd never bothered to actually design a UI for it, so I ran most of the queries against the DB in the console. I had been doing some entries into it, updating the results of the previous month's work, and I was also doing some idle chat on IRC while surfing the vast wasteland that Usenet had become, when I noticed a strange result to a query I had run. There was an IP address in a call that I didn't recognize.

I went next door to ask Pete what he thought. He came into my room. As he did I was conscious of just how feminine the room seemed now. It had kind of crept up on me. Maybe it was because it was the first time Pete and I had been there together while not drunk or hungover.

He sat at my desk and reviewed the log while I stood looking over his shoulder. “Whose IP address is this?"

“It seems like it’s a server at a water pumping station near San Luis Obispo." I said. “But I doubt that's true."

“Hmmm. Whatever it is, it’s not good. If I was you I'd be getting this machine off the network."

“You think?"

“Well, what the fuck do you know about connecting to California?" Pete said, waving his hand at the code. “It’s not an advertising call. Whatever it is, it’s authenticating against a server that you don’t know anything about."

“And?" I felt like an idiot. Only two years ago I had been a computer expert. Was estrogen rotting my brain?

Pete ran a few queries in a new shell. Then he opened a Word document and began typing.

“It sends a new payload whenever it sees anything new in a Microsoft Office product. And maybe some others. You still running your Harvard email in Mutt?" Mutt was a Unix email client I had been using at Harvard and then at Gene Systems. I had switched to Outlook only a few months earlier, because I was getting lazy and wanted to use my local ISP and Harvard addresses in the same interface.

“You have an email account with our ISP? That you use with Outlook?“ Pete asked, as though asking me whether or not I had herpes.

“So what is this payload?" I asked. “Where does it go?"

“I don’t know," Pete said. “It might take a while to find out. You should ask Talia to look into it."

We both woke her up. After coaxing her out of bed by telling her my machine was compromised, she found the problem, after a few hours of searching. There was a trojan on the box we used as a home server. This made Talia furious.

“This is unacceptable, guys. We run a clean network here. Both of you should know enough not to allow this sort of thing."

Her grammar was off, but her message was clear. And I was puzzled. None of us were naive enough to fall for the usual tricks that go with Malware. Except me, running Microsoft Outlook.

“Talia, just a hunch, but would you take a look at all our machines?" I asked. “Take all the time you like. I'm going to buy a new laptop anyway," I said. “And there's nothing on my desktop machine I'm embarrassed about."

“Tough shit if there is," she said. “Give me 24 hours. Go to bed. Then tomorrow, go buy your laptop. Buy me a new one as a fucking apology. You can afford it. A good one. Buy Pete one, too. Pete, I'm going to do fresh installs on all the machines on our network. Including yours. I didn't need to sleep tonight anyway."

 

~o~O~o~
 

Next morning I had breakfast with Beverly. (To be honest, it was brunch. It was 10am by the time I roused myself from bed and showered.) Samantha was playing on the floor while the two of us talked, and from time to time she made odd gurgling sounds that were very appealing. I reflected that less than two years earlier I viewed small children as little more than annoyances. Maybe there was hope for me with the human race, after all.

Over coffee I happened to notice a disconnection notice from Verizon, on the kitchen bench next to one of Samantha's drawings. I didn't really know how to address a subject like that delicately, so I just flat out asked her whether she was having problems. She was, as I would have been, embarrassed. I mentally slapped myself for being an idiot. Yet again I was failing at being an adult. Adults were well-mannered, thoughtful. They thought about the impact of their word before they uttered them.

But the words, once out, were there. “I'm sorry," I said. “It’s none of my business."

Beverly made a show of tidying some dishes. “It’s okay, Alex. It’s actually nice to know someone cares. Dave couldn't care less, the f-- the deadbeat."

“Can I help?"

“How could you help?“ she said.

“I could pay some bills for you."

“I couldn't let you do that.“ Now she was embarrassed again.

“How is it different from Dave paying them?"

“Dave is Samantha's father. He should --"

“Well, he's not going to. Maybe if I pay a few things while he's not doing it? I mean, it’s not like you volunteered to take on all of this on your own, did you?"

“No, but …"

“You don’t like taking money, right?"

“I don’t think anyone does, do they?" She said. “But you don’t even have a job, Alex.“ She looked at me as though reconsidering. “Do you?"

“I have a sort of job,“ I said. “Which is kind of screwed up. And for your sake as much as mine, it’s probably better if we don’t talk too much about it, because it’s not a wholesome job."

“You're a hooker?"

I laughed heartily. “No, nothing like that. That's great, Beverly."

“I'm sorry,“ she said. “Really."

“No, honestly, that's great. I love it." I did, actually. It was such a preposterous idea. “Beverly, I couldn't get laid if my life depended on it."

“You and me both."

“Anyway," I said, trying to change the subject back, and picking up the Verizon letter of demand. “How about I pay this?“ I noticed another overdue utility bill, from Commonwealth Energy Systems. “And this one? And we agree that we both find better ways to deal with our sex lives?"

She must have been in a bad way because she agreed to let me pay the utilities. “I’ll pay you back."

“Of course," I said. “Maybe you could sell me your child. She is exceptionally cute."

Beverly looked at me like she was wondering if I was actually serious, then she laughed. “I’ll give you a discount."

I changed the subject again, and mentioned I was headed to buy some new computers. Beverly didn't know anything about computers, and when I started to describe what had happened she made a whooshing motion over her head with her hand.

“You want to come with?" I said. “Get you out of the house, get a little sun. We can head over to Fresh Pond first, take Samantha for a walk and some sun."

So we headed out in my Jetta. I was learning that heading out, when you have a small child, is actually a pretty major exercise. For a start, you have to pack for myriad contingencies, and then there's always one thing you've forgotten. I had the baby seat perpetually fitted in the back of the Jetta now, which had gotten some odd comments from Lucy and Alice, but made the process of travelling with Samantha much simpler.

At the Pond we walked the perimeter road and Beverly told me the story of her disastrous relationship with Dave. Although her life — her whole life — was completely different from mine, especially now, since she had Samantha, there was a common thread running through both our experiences.

“You know, Beverly," I said after she'd unloaded on Dave a little more, and then on herself, needlessly. “You and I have something in common."

She looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about.

“Both of us fell into something without thinking it through properly. With you, it was marriage. With me, it was gambling."

So then, of course, I had to tell her the whole story. Well, the story without the bits about gender.

 

~o~O~o~
 

We were loading Samantha back into the Jetta and about to head for the computer store when Pete called my cell. “You got Talia her laptop yet?" he asked.

“On the way now. Beverly and I have just been for a walk."

“That must be nice. And I can imagine shopping for laptops with a toddler in tow is going to make the sales clerks want you out of the store double quick."

“Ha. I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, we'll either get great service, or really terrible service."

“I'm betting good. Two good looking chicks, plus baby, you're going to get attention. Hey, Vassily had a talk with me this morning."

“Yes?"

“He said his friends know the Russians who are connected to Arun, and they're not the kind of Russians you want to get to know any better."

“I had kind of figured that out."

“Yeah, well. I asked him if there was any way to get them to back off. Vassily thought you should enlist his friends."

“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to end up like some kind of Michael Corleone, holed up at Lake Tahoe with my guards, waiting for a Russian hit."

Beverly was looking at me from the passenger seat, alarmed. I smiled to try to reassure her, and started the car.

“Yeah, I figured you would say that," Pete said. “Just passing on the message. You want to hang out tonight?"

“Depends. You think Talia is going to chain me to the computer?"

“I guess it’s a possibility she may beat you to death if you get her the wrong sort."

I laughed. “I thought I'd get her one of those pretty pink Sony Vaios. Or a purple one. Isn't purple for suffragettes or something?"

Pete chortled. “Just get her something that has a good processor, and has about two million ports for expansion or something."

“Yeah, I know. Maybe I’ll get a sparkly purple one for myself."

“Who are you and what have you done with my friend Alex?"

“Say goodbye, Pete," I said.

“Goodbye, Pete."

 

~o~O~o~
 

Back at home Talia had been somewhat mollified with my offering of a new top of the range IBM ThinkPad. She had an answer on the mystery of the compromised computers. There was a small program on our home server that had been put there just to capture logins and authentication details from within our own internal domain. It, in turn, appeared to have been installed by a program that was running in the background on my desktop machine in my bedroom, which I sometimes used to log on to shares on Pete's and Talia's machines. That program, as Pete had discovered, sent any information it found from a Microsoft Office program to a server in California, and then, maybe, to somewhere else.

I was the weak link.

“The question is,“ Talia said. “how did that first program get on your machine?"

It was as I was going to sleep that night that I remembered the unsigned Java Code I'd installed for Alice's AI project.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I went to the team meeting the following night feeling unsettled. We were meeting upstairs above the same cafe where I had overheard Alice and Arun talking about making me a wizard all those months ago. Now I had different reasons to be nervous about Arun, and while I didn't want to listen in to any private conversations, I passed almost every utterance from him through a filter of paranoia.

“It’s never going to work," I said to Tom by cellphone while driving home after the meeting. “I can’t be some kind of double agent. I'm just not cut out for it."

“I know it won’t be easy," Tom said.

“I didn't think it would be easy," I said. “But I thought it would be possible. Now, I don’t know."

“Alex, if you back out now, it’s not going to go well with Treasury."

“So I have no choice but to stay on this rollercoaster? I feel like my head is going to explode, just being in the same room as Arun. It’s all I can do to not just tell everyone else on the team what's going on."

“It’s not an easy choice, Alex. And there is a choice, it’s up to you. But if you decide against cooperating, my professional opinion is … Well, let's just say I would advise you should continue. Even if only for your own safety. Treasury can protect you."

I checked my rearview mirror. I hadn't seen any cars following me, but that didn't mean they weren't.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Arun had decided we should hit the Mirage again the next time we went to Vegas, even though it had only been about six weeks since our last big score there. For this trip Alice, Lucy, Sally, Emily and I all flew in on the same flight, acting like a bunch of spoiled Asian princesses. We stayed in a different hotel to the guys, and never ate or shopped or so much as talked with them. Arun took care of the money he and the guys made, and I took care of the money we girls made. As we were checking in at Logan for the flight to Vegas, Lucy remarked that she thought it was an inspired idea. “I hate travelling with the guys. They always make me feel like I'm the go-fer, or something.“

“Perhaps we should start an all-girl team," Sally said.

However much the idea appealed, I knew there was no way Arun would just let us walk out on our own. Playing cards wasn't really what this whole thing was about.

I looked at Sally, standing behind me at the check-in counter. She was so much younger than Alice and Lucy and I. I almost felt like I needed to take her aside and tell her to run, just run, and never ever look back. Instead I handed over my ID and ticket and went through with the check-in.

 

~o~O~o~
 

On that flight to Vegas, I sat next to Alice in First. Since it was a daytime flight we weren't likely to fall asleep, even though we'd been up late the night before, and so we both read novels. I figured that, as usual, we'd pretty much keep to ourselves for the whole flight. I always preferred flying that way. Even with a friend, there's something constricting about conversing in an airliner. It’s like it’s difficult for a conversation to end naturally, because you're both still sitting next to one another.

But at one point Alice put her novel down on her knee and turned to me and started to talk about my feelings about being on the team. It was almost a reprise of our earlier discussion about going to grad school.

“You're not going to do this forever," she said.

I briefly thought she was making a reference to my silence, but then I realized she was talking about my playing on the team.

“Neither are you." I countered. “You already said that. What happened to the PhD?"

She shrugged. “Next year."

“Same here," I said.

“Really? I was only wondering, because you know, with the way your life has changed … and I was wondering about your friend Pete."

“What about Pete?"

“I was going to ask you that. What about him?"

“Alice. Pete and I are just good friends."

“But you like him."

“Of course I like him."

“In that way?"

I was mildly irritated by her. “Alice, can we not talk about my love life, or lack of it? I don’t push you to tell me about yours."

“I would tell you, if you asked."

Suddenly I wanted to ask. I'd been curious for so long about the kind of man who could hold Alice Kim's heart. And yet I was perverse. I had this odd feeling that if I asked for her to tell me, it would be like asking for a favor. I would owe Alice something all of a sudden. I didn't mind owing her anything, really, but there was something about the whole dynamic of the way the conversation was headed that just felt off. Plus there was the trojan issue, and I still didn't know what to make of that.

I wondered briefly whether or not I should take Alice into my confidence. About Arun, about the IRS, about trying to work out some way out. Tom had warned me not to, but it seemed like there had started to be a gulf forming between Alice and me. I felt like I should mistrust her following the incident with the trojan, but I really wanted to believe in her, and to have us, the relationship we had had, back again. Maybe, I reflected, the all-girl weekend would help break that down. If we talked about the truth, would our conversation be more grounded, more real?

Coward that I am, I chickened out. I kept hearing Tom's warnings, and Pete's admonishment, in my head. On top of that, I was also conscious of Deuchar’s warning about Pete’s prospects at Command Dynamics if I did have relationship with him. Since that seemed impossible, what was the point even talking about it?

“I don’t know, Alice. I think it’s good for us to have our privacy sometimes. You can tell me if you want to. In the meantime, if you want to keep it secret, that's okay, too. With Pete and me? I don’t know. I keep feeling that there's something there, but then other times that feels ridiculous. Everything's going so well for him and I have this feeling he would want to move on even if there was something between us. So whatever we could have, you know, it would be fleeting. Fleeting until his stock vests, or he finds a prettier woman, or …"

“You don’t trust him?"

“I trust him completely, but he's on a fast rocket to success. He doesn't need me. He needs someone more … more real."

“But you have a relationship already."

“I think it’s a beautiful relationship, but I think it’s a transient one. I don’t think either of us is mature enough to understand how it can work. I don’t even know if he wants it to work."

“You have a low opinion of yourself, Alex. You are beautiful."

“I just think —" I said, really recognizing for the first time just how true it really was — “You know, I can enjoy whatever happens, but it’s eventually going to finish. And these beautiful moments we do have, it’s you know, like in Blade Runner, where you know they've only got a short time together. 'All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.'"

“What?"

“I’ll have the memories, and he’ll have the memories, but they'll be memories that maybe aren't as true as they should be."

“I'm not sure I understand," Alice said. “Lost in time?"

“Blade Runner? The movie. Come on, you must know that bit. Rutger Hauer?"

“Rutger Hauer?" she asked.

“You never saw the movie?"

“Which movie? I'm not that much into movies, Alex, you know that.“

“Blade Runner. You've never seen Blade Runner? You've never seen a clip of that sequence, even?"

She looked at me blankly.

“Philip K Dick? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ring any bells?"

Alice shrugged. I explained the significance of the scene, the thing about memories not being important to people who never had them in the first place. The tragedy of mortality.

“You know," I said, “I suppose in the future, with everything digitally preserved in some way or other, there won’t be the possibility of lost memories. Everyone is always going to think of Michael Jackson as well as the Apollo program whenever they think of the word 'moonwalk'."

It turned out Alice had never seen Michael Jackson moonwalking, either.

Our conversation drifted off into more popular culture. I didn't ask her to tell me who she was sleeping with, and she didn't ask me to believe in a long-term thing with Pete.

Next afternoon, after I'd slept late through the morning, I went to Alice's hotel room, and fired up her laptop computer and tried to find something that would give her an idea of what 'moonwalking' was. This was early 1999. YouTube hadn't been invented then, but at least I had Google. We found something, a segment of a music video, that I could show her using RealPlayer. Then I found an essay on Blade Runner someone had written for their film studies course at USC, that contained the famous quote. And I found a picture of Rutger Hauer from around the time of the movie. I think Alice finally got what I was talking about.

“You think you are like a … replicant?"

“Sort of, I guess. Although that wasn't why I raised Blade Runner. I was actually trying to talk about authentic memories. But whatever."

I was going to ask Alice whether she knew anything about the trojan that Talia had found, but the Blade Runner thing distracted me. I never did get around to it.

I mostly rationalized away Alice's ignorance as the product of a sheltered childhood. I knew her parents were strict. Maybe she was never allowed to watch MTV? Who knew? But it did seem strange that a woman who knew so much about so many things — and especially things about AI — couldn't recall some basic pop culture. How could you get a Masters Degree in Artificial Intelligence and never even have heard of Blade Runner or Philip K. Dick?

 

~o~O~o~
 

The team played well, and there were no unpleasant surprises. Arun might have been a crook, but I had to hand it to him, he knew how to organize people, and his plastic surgery strategy had enabled him to continue to turn over hundreds of thousands of dollars every night. Splitting up the accommodation by sex had also been an inspired idea, because people had fun for a change. It seemed like a long time had passed since we enjoyed our work.

On the flight back I kept to myself. I put my head back and tried to sort through some issues in my head: Alice Kim and the Blade Runner mystery, how to deal with the Treasury investigation, and what I was going to do when all this was over, assuming I was still alive. The only issue I made any progress on was the Treasury investigation.

“I think I figured out a way to get rid of the money in a way that keeps it out of the Government's hands," I said at Susan's the following night after we had finished dinner.

“I'm all ears," Tom said.

“You mentioned if I gave it to a charity the Government could ask for it back."

“Yes."

“What if it’s a charity that's so warm and cuddly, and the donation is so public, that they don’t dare?"

“It really depends. Mostly they'd ask for it back, unless there was a good reason not to. Do you have one in mind?"

“The Children's Chance Foundation."

“Never heard of it."

“It’s small, it’s worthy, and they do lots of work with disabled kids to let them go to regular schools. Won't the Government look cruel if they try to take money away from disabled children?"

“Well, they're not going to like it. But it might not be enough to dissuade the Government from seizing it, especially if they discover the donation quickly. What's so different about this charity that makes you think they won’t?“

“The State Attorney's wife is on the board and a former deputy director of the Department of Treasury is the chair. They'll have political contacts, I'm sure."

Tom thought for a few moments.

“I can see why you win at cards, Alex. It’s a good idea."

“I have one more."

“One more charity?"

“One more good idea."

“Is this an idea we need to go for a walk to discuss?"

“I think that might be another good idea."

Once again Tom, Susan and I walked the blocks around her home. “Well?“ Susan said. “What's this other big idea?"

“Once I give the money to the charity we won’t have much left, and even though the money doesn't really matter, I would like to have a little something to show for the past three years, after everything that's happened."

“That doesn't seem unreasonable, assuming there's a way that's legal," Tom said.

“What if we took legal money — not money I made from the team — and then we won money at Vegas, and declared it?"

“How would you do that, without the team?“ Susan asked. “The way you've explained it, the system sounds like it needs a very experienced team of players."

“It really only needs two or three people who are expert at counting. I think I could put together a team of three or four people if one of them included me."

“Well, there's also the problem of getting money to use as a stake. You need a big stake to make it worth your while, don’t you?" Tom asked.

“I have cash the Government doesn't know about."

“They might not believe it didn't come from the team," Tom said.

“So what if you — if Susan — put it in an account and I drew it from that account?"

“Where would Susan get that much money?“ Tom said. “Wait. Never mind. I can figure out a way to do this. It shouldn't come from Susan, but it can come from another source. Okay, I'm intrigued. What makes you sure you can pull this off?"

We walked another few blocks and I outlined my plan. I was going to need a lot of help, perhaps from people like Carl Choi, if he would do it, and from Pete and Vassily and Yana and Susan. Perhaps Alice. The more trustworthy people the better.

As we rounded the corner of her street on the way back to her house Susan brought me back down to earth. She placed her hands on my shoulders, and looked me straight in the eyes. “So you have a way to make money, Alex. You'll stop after that, right? After one time?"

“Yes, of course."

“Your word?"

“I promise."

“I believe you. Now, all you have to do is work out a way to help the Feds get your friend Arun before they throw you in jail."

“Yes," I said gloomily. “I haven't quite got that figured out, yet."

Then Tom stopped walking, and took Susan’s hand. “Susan, I love you. I will do anything for you. I want to help your … sister. I need you to trust me."

“I trust you," Susan said.

“Is this going to hurt us?" Tom said.

“Us? You mean you and me? Not if you do it right," Susan said.

“I am so glad you don’t take after Dad," I said to Susan.

“Alex?" She said.

“Yes?"

“I’ll help you in any way I can —"

“— Fantastic. Thank you!"

“— on one condition. You can bring in everyone you want. Except that Alice Kim."

“You don’t trust Alice?"

“Neither do you. And anyway, I still blame her for this." She waved her hands over my face.

“She tried to talk me out of it."

“Yeah. Please don’t throw me in the briar patch."

Susan always knew the best way to strike directly to my heart.

“Well," I said, after I'd taken her remark in, “I don’t know that things turned out so badly in that regard, anyway."

“Really?"

“Really," I said. “I mean it. I have a lot of regrets about other things, and I wouldn't have chosen this, but Dad was right. There are worse things in life, and I like myself better than I used to. So that's a plus."

“Good for you, kid," Tom said, and Susan hugged me.

 

~o~O~o~
 

It was only 10pm when I left Susan's, and I was energized by my plan to give the money to charity, and to make some money on the side. So I took a small detour from my usual route home from Susan's, and soon enough I found myself in Kendall Square. I turned the corner and noticed the lights still on in Alice's top floor apartment.

It was really too late to just knock on someone's door, but I knew she was up, and I felt like I needed to talk with her. Plus there was actually a vacant space outside her apartment on Berkshire Street, which was unheard of, and practically an invitation all its own. I parked the car, walked up the stairs to her apartment, and rang the bell.

Alice opened the door after checking the spyhole. “Alex!" She was dressed only in a super-long pink Hello Kitty t-shirt, and her hair was slightly disheveled. She glanced at her wrist as though to check a watch, but she wasn't wearing one.

“I'm sorry, I know it’s late. I saw the lights on, I didn't think —"

At that moment, through the gap in the door, I observed Arun coming out of Alice's bedroom, pulling his t-shirt on. Alice must have seen my expression change, because she looked back, pulling the door open slightly further as she did, and then she realized I had seen Arun.

“Uh, Alex …"

“I shouldn't have come so late, Alice. I'm sorry. I’ll talk with you tomorrow."

“No, it’s okay. Come in."

“Alice … Arun is the guy? Arun?"

She shrugged. “I thought you had already figured it out.“ Through the two doorways Arun's eyes met mine, and there was a smirk on his face, a gleam in his eyes that looked distressingly like “fuck you, buddy, I win."

I shifted my eyes back to Alice, who seemed distressed. “I'm going to go, Alice. I'm sorry."

I walked back down the stairs, without looking back. Alice must have stood there watching me for a while, because I was down the stairs before I heard her close the door of the apartment.

I felt betrayed. My feelings didn't make any sense. I had already had plenty of reasons to distrust Alice – but it didn't make my feelings any less strong. Alice had always been secretive about the man in her life, and maybe now I understood why, but it still felt like a kind of betrayal. Arun? I assumed that meant that Alice was in on everything Arun was in on.

I felt used. I remembered the thing I had said to Susan, not 90 minutes earlier. “I don’t know that things turned out so badly."

I didn't quite feel that way at that moment.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I was visibly upset when I came through the door to our apartment in Somerville. Pete was watching Aliens on the DVD player, and when he saw me he immediately paused it and jumped up from the couch.

I was too upset to process very much, but I told Pete what had happened, and he listened, and he put his arm around me and hugged me close to his chest. Then he sat me on the couch and went into the kitchen. He came back with a glass of whiskey for each of us, and we sat together on the couch while he tried to calm me down.

“Drink the whiskey, Alex, it will help you relax.“ He put his arm around me and pulled me in close again. It was good. He had obviously showered when he came home from work, and he smelled good. I leaned my head against his shoulder, and gradually I wound down.

Pete's hand made little circular motions on mine, and it felt great. I began to stop thinking about Alice, and just let the feelings of warmth and affection flow through me.

“Pete?"

“Yes?"

“Thank you."

“Any time. Ever. You know that."

He bent his head to kiss me, and so help me I raised my lips to meet his. His breath tasted of whiskey — I suppose mine did, too, but his tasted very strongly of whiskey. He kissed me, then he kissed me again, then his hand was off my arm and on my breast, and then it was under the neckline and reaching beneath my bra.

And it all felt good. It felt great. There was something about the way it all began — maybe it was that I was still sober — that made it different than the time we had wound up in bed together and I had woken with Pete's hand on my breast. This was deliberate, and caring, and the very deliberate-ness of it made it so much more appealing.

Eventually, after what was probably a half hour of petting but I really have no idea, Pete scooped me up from the couch and carried me to the bedroom. A smaller man would have stumbled as he lifted me, but Pete was in great shape.

In the bedroom he laid me on the bed, and then he began undressing me, which wasn't all that easy to do. I giggled, and then I started helping him, moving my arms and my hips where necessary. Then I started removing his clothes, as well, which was much easier.

Pete got me down to my panties and I crawled beneath the bedclothes. He snuggled in beside me, spooning me and cupping my breast with his hand while putting his other hand on my belly, but I wanted to face him and kiss him, so I rolled over. We kept kissing for a while and I could feel his hardness against me. I disengaged from the kiss and slid down the bed, about to try to satisfy him the way I thought would work, with my mouth, but he put his hand under my chin and stopped me.

And he looked me straight in the eyes, then kissed my forehead, and then the fucker got out of the bed. He had a raging hard-on but he stood away from me, and said quietly. “I'm sorry, Alex. I love you, but I can’t do this."

“You love me, but you can’t do this?"

He shook his head, and then he was gone, to his own room.

“What the fuck does that even mean?" I called after him. “I don’t even know what that means!"

I cried, and cried, and cried some more, until I exhausted myself enough to sleep. I had never felt so hopeless, so worthless, in my life, but I was damned if I was going to follow Peter Johanssen into his room and beg for anything.

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 
I needed help. I sought refuge in food, and in some time with Lucy. We went to Cafe Pamplona on Harvard Square for lunch. Just going there was an act of rebellion: up until 1999 the place was notorious for not ever hiring women, despite being owned by a woman. But it served good food, and I knew, because all our friends were boycotting it, that even right on Harvard Square we could meet and not bump into anyone else we knew.

The ceilings at Cafe Pamplona are very low, so the place lends itself to conspiratorial discussions. After almost exhausting myself again explaining everything that had gone wrong with Pete, with Lucy listening and making supportive statements like "Men are just pricks," it didn't take long for me to change the subject and turn the discussion to what I'd learned about Alice, and how betrayed I felt.

"I don't know why it hurts that she never told me," I said. "But it does. I thought we were friends."

"But she never told you."

"It was different when I thought it was someone else."

Lucy shrugged. "I honestly thought you knew, Alex," Lucy said. "You never noticed the body language between them?"

"No," I admitted. "I think I'm pretty slow on the uptake so far as figuring those things out sometimes. Does that make me defective as a woman? I mean, there's not getting that stuff, and there's the way Pete behaved …"

Lucy had the grace to laugh. "If you're defective, sweetheart, I'm firmly in the reject bin." Lucy, alone among my generation, could get away with saying 'sweetheart'. She said it like Eartha Kitt might have said it. "You might not notice as much about the interpersonal stuff as you might, but you're much sharper at playing, and at most other things, than I am."

Our food arrived and we busied ourselves with flatware and condiments.

"You know she never actually went to Farmington," Lucy said.

"What?"

"Alice. Miss Porter's. That whole prep school thing. When Dan was busted for getting into the records, one of the things he did was dump a bunch of records to look at later. He was kind of embarrassed, but one of them was Alice's. Turns out she went to Farmington, alright. But Farmington High School. Not exactly a prep school."

"Why would she lie about that?"

"Did she?" Lucy said. "All she ever said to me was 'Farmington'. I just assumed, like everyone else at Harvard, she meant Miss Porter's."

"Well, it's not like it matters," I said. "I mean, who gives a fuck about that prep school stuff, anyway? She's smarter than all the rest of us. And I'm pretty sure the high schools in that part of Connecticut are pretty good. They would certainly be better than my half-assed alma mater. Besides, not going to Miss Porter's makes me think better of her, not worse."

"Yeah. It just kind of seems, you know, off."

"She's probably too embarrassed to tell anyone about it now."

"I guess."

"And it's not as though anyone actually cares where anyone we know went to high school."

"True. It's just, you know, now I really don't know how much I trust Alice."

"Between you and me," Lucy said, "I don't trust anyone on the team except you. Everyone's in this for themselves. Ever since that face surgery thing, it's all been too, too weird. At first, before that, it was like belonging to a secret, special club … Now … I don't know. It feels more like a cult, or something."

Those words went straight into some very sensitive part of my brain. I didn't know exactly what they meant, or what they would lead to, but I knew Lucy had just said something very, very true.

 

~o~O~o~
 

We had a team meeting on Wednesday night. It was a gloomy affair. I was still despondent about Pete, and every time I looked at Alice she avoided my gaze. Others on the team seemed unusually subdued, too.

Arun outlined the targets for the weekend. Ceasars Palace, followed by the Bellagio, with the Mirage as a fallback if something didn't feel right at either.

I went through the motions, checking off the things we would need, listening intently as Bob outlined our security plans, and then explaining to everyone the amounts of cash we would need each of them to carry for the weekend. But my mind was elsewhere. It was on the string of oddities and coincidences that had occurred over the previous two years in my relationship with Alice.

There was her odd lack of knowledge about popular culture. She knew some pop music, but only recent stuff. She didn't know anything about most of the things that formed the lingua franca of twenty-something conversation. At first I had found all this charming. Now I was starting to think it was odd.

And then there was the fact that she lied about a lot of things. True, they were mostly lies of omission – Arun, Miss Porter's, a party she had been to – but they were definitely breaches of whatever trust we had had together.

I wondered what other lies there were that I didn't know about yet.

 

~o~O~o~
 

On Friday morning I woke uncharacteristically early for a playing weekend. Usually I slept as late as possible to compensate for the time difference with Vegas. If I started early in Boston I always had to try to catch up on sleep on the flight, or I'd be too tired to play the part of spoiled princess late into the evening.

Pete had been making himself scarce after our debacle sleeping together, so I didn't expect to find him around, but as I stumbled into the kitchen Talia was still eating breakfast before she went to work. "Morning," she said, her mouth half-full of muesli, only half looking up from the Globe. I couldn't work out, lately, whether she hated, or merely tolerated me.

I mumbled and shuffled over to the coffee machine. I made myself a coffee and stood with my back against the kitchen bench sipping at it. Eventually Talia looked up.

"It took me a while, but I worked out what that penetration was all about," she said.

"What?" It took a moment for me to realize what she was talking about — my mind was still so full of despair about Pete that my first thought was that she must know that we had attempted to fool around. "Wait. Sorry. Penetration? I thought it was that Java program of Alice's that I ran?"

"Probably," Talia said. "But that was just the start. It ran a program to download a keylogger onto your machine, then ran for about a week, collecting all your usernames and passwords, and deleted itself. Whoever ran the bot used it to get your credentials on our server, and on Pete's machine as well. And they've used his machine to log into his business, by way of his VPN. Only once, but I guess after the first time they didn't need to do it again."

I suddenly felt sick, and put my coffee down. I had allowed someone to hack Pete's business?

"It deleted itself?"

'Well," she said, finishing her muesli, "it left a backdoor Trojan on our server, and probably on your machine as well, but I've cleaned that up."

"Do you know who it was? Could it have been Alice?" I said.

"I doubt it. But it's a good thing I keep our log backups hashed. I still had them. From what I could see whoever had access tried to cover their traces but didn't do it completely. The IP address the keylogger used resolved to a university in Shanghai. Somehow I don't think MIT or Harvard has any research relationship with Fudan University." She shrugged. "Anyway, whoever did it wasn't all that sophisticated. Despite trying to clean up they left traces of themselves everywhere. I disinfected all our machines, and I told Pete. I think his Russian friend is doing some cleaning at their office."

"Uh. Thanks." I tried to be more enthusiastic. "Thanks, Talia. I really appreciate it. Man, I can't believe I was that stupid." Then I walked back to my room and tried to call Pete on his cell. It went through to voicemail.

Even though I was still angry with Pete about the "I can't do this" episode, I had to talk with him. I still cared about him deeply, even if he couldn't love me. I tried calling again several times that day. Either he was unbelievably furious with me for the incident in my bedroom, or the penetration attempt, or he was insanely busy cleaning up the mess I had made. Or all three.

 

~o~O~o~
 

So it was the Fourth of July.

"What a waste of gunpowder and sky," sang Aimee Mann on the CD player in my Suite at the Grand.

I was still really depressed about Pete. He had been staying away from our place, and I had been staying in. But the Fourth was a big weekend and so, despite the fact that some of us were barely talking to one another, Arun had decreed we must play Vegas. It was easy to lay off a lot of money on the long weekend, which was the busiest time of the year.

We had planned the weekend late, so we actually had to pay for one suite of the three we booked, which Lucy and I agreed to share with Emily. We played on the Friday and Saturday nights,and then it was the actual Fourth on the Sunday, and we were scheduled to play that night, too, but I was emotionally exhausted. Lucy showed up mid afternoon after a shopping expedition, with a DVD of Sleepless in Seattle, a bottle of champagne, and two blocks of good Swiss chocolate. Her hands were full, so I let her into the suite with what must have been an audible sigh, and she took that as a signal that things were more desperate than she had thought. "Today, Miss Jones, we are having a girl's only Fourth of July, and we will leave everything to do with men behind. There are no men!" she cried, as though her decree would make it so. Emily came out of her room as soon as she heard that, and she and Lucy romped around the room going "no men, no men" for a few moments like maniacs.

Lucy tried her best to cheer me up, and after a determined bit of grumpiness from me, that she tolerated patiently, and a glass of champagne, I started to soften up. "Thanks, Lucy," I said. "You too, Emily. You guys are right. Fuck men. Or don't. One of those things is the right way to go."

We watched the movie, and ate the chocolate. "You," I said to Lucy after the Champagne had kicked in, "Are a good friend. Thank you."

"I mean it," I said. "You're a much better friend than Alice ever was."

We watched the movie, ate the two blocks of chocolate, and drank the entire bottle of champagne and a half bottle from the mini-bar, and then it was time to go to work. "Fuck men," we roared as we entered the elevator.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I don't know what made me start losing. I could blame distraction, because I was distracted. There was Alice, and there was Pete, and the fact that he hadn't responded to any of my voicemails. Maybe it was the champagne that made the Fourth different from the three nights beforehand. Whatever it was, all the time I was at the tables that night I was conscious that the chips I was handling represented money laundered for a bunch of thugs. It was a good thing I was a wizard, because there was no way I had the focus to be a smurf any more. Each time I pushed a stack of chips across the felt, I thought of Dan, and Henry. So late on the Sunday night, when Lucy signaled that the deck was cooling, I got the signal, and I processed it somewhere in my head, but something made me stay at the table and push another big stack of chips out. When I lost that hand, I pushed another stack out, and surprisingly actually won, and I could tell that — although she was alarmed — my win was enough to reassure her. But when I went to push yet another pile out, I noticed her struggling with her self control. I looked her in the eyes, smiled, and pushed the table maximum, ten thousand, out.

And I lost.

And I sat there, and pushed another ten thousand out for the next hand. I could tell Lucy was getting frantic. She looked around for Brian, who was working security. I don't know whether she saw him or not. I was too focused on thinking about Dan. I had seventeen, about as bad a hand as I could have. Lucy passed over any betting on her hand, and I lost again.

I pushed out one last pile of ten one-thousand dollar chips for the next hand, and stood up. The dealer looked at me questioningly. "I'm in," I said. "This will be the last one, whatever happens."

The dealer nodded, and dealt the cards. I had sixteen, with ten thousand dollars on it, and a lukewarm deck. There was no way any rational person, counter or not, would risk another card. I pushed another ten thousand out.

And won: I drew a three, and then the dealer busted out trying to beat me. In all the time I had been playing, it was the very strangest hand I had ever played. Oddly, this made me even more upset. The dealer swapped out my chips for $5,000 ones, and I picked them up, flipped one to the dealer, and walked away, over to the entrance. I was vaguely aware of someone following me, but I was suddenly eager to be done, done with everything. I couldn't do this any more.

I strode down the Ceasars colonnade, my high heels clacking on the cement. The night was unusually warm for Vegas – usually the desert nights are cool and pleasant. Around me were scores of drunks, couples in love, and desperate people in search of something that seemed like a good time.

Lucy caught up with me. "Alex!"

I turned to face her. "Hey, Luce."

"What happened?"

"I just … I don't know whether I can do this any more, Lucy."

"But … why did you keep playing after I signaled?"

"Does it matter?"

"But …" She came closer, and could see I was crying. "Alex. What's wrong?" She was upset, too.

"Lucy. It's just, you know …"

"Tell me," she said, hugging me to her. "Tell me."

After sobbing on her shoulder I pulled myself together, and looked around. The people streaming past us were giving us strange looks – two women overdressed for the strip, one crying. But it was Vegas, where everything happens and nobody cares, and they all walked on.

Lucy took my hand and we walked together down the strip toward the Mirage. We settled into the atrium bar, and she order us a couple of drinks. I didn't care what we were having. She handed me a kleenex from her purse. I was carrying a tiny Armani evening clutch, which barely had room for a lipstick, my little flip cellphone, and nine $5,000 chips. No room for anything else. I dabbed at my eyes. "I look like a raccoon, right?"

She nodded, and we both laughed softly. I used the kleenex to wipe the mascara from under my eyes.

"So what's up, Alex? This isn't still about Pete, is it?"

"Yes and no," I said. "I mean, yes, but no, not tonight. I still hate him, but there's more."

I had sworn to Tom that I wouldn't say anything about the investigation to other team members, but I felt like I had to. I felt like I had been betrayed by Alice. I needed a friend. And Lucy had as much to lose as I did, and I was sure now that she was a friend.

"Did Arun ever tell you where he got the money for our stake?"

"No …" She seemed puzzled. "He was playing before I joined. I just assumed he'd built it up, over time."

"But we've lost a few times, right?"

"Yes."

"And he hasn't had to come to any of us to ask us to help rebuild those losses, right?"

"No …"

"And you didn't wonder why?"

"I suppose …"

"I'm sorry, Lucy." I reached across the table and took her hand. "I didn't think about it, either. Have the Feds been to see you?"

"The Feds?" Either she was a very skilled liar, or she didn't know anything about the Treasury operation. If they hadn't spoken to her that could mean that they suspected her of complicity. In that case, what I'd just said was very stupid.

Or it could just be that she didn't know.

"Alex, what are you talking about?"

I took a bigger gamble than I'd ever taken at the tables. "Lucy, how well do you know Arun?"

"I know him – I guess, you know, we've been playing for 3 years now … I don't see him outside work."

"You know Alice does, right?"

"Remember what we discussed the other night? You need to let go of that, Alex." She looked at me sympathetically.

Our drinks arrived. "I guess I learned two things about Arun."

"What else did you learn?"

"That we're laundering money for the Russian mob."

"What?"

"That's where the money comes from."

"But we win."

"Not all the time. And not this much."

She considered this. "How long have you known?"

"Two months."

"And the police know?"

"Not the police, exactly, but yes, Federal agents."

"Are we going to go to jail?"

"I'm more worried about getting killed by our employers."

"Dan …"

"Yes," I said bitterly. "Dan."

"I thought that was Whitwell," she said sadly.

"Whitwell are not exactly nice guys, but they don't need to kill us to put us out of business."

"Why did they – the Russians – kill Dan?"

"I don't know. I don't know for sure it was them, although the Feds think so. I can't think of anyone else who would have a motive, though. All I can think of is he knew something he shouldn't have."

"But he had the face surgery …"

"Yes. Whatever he knew, he learned after that."

I had finished my first drink, and I signaled for some more. I could see two guys near the bar who looked like they were going to take that as a signal to try to buy drinks for Lucy and me, but I shook my head and I guess my look must have been discouraging enough. The last thing I needed was a guy trying to hit me up.

"We should … we should quit the team," Lucy said.

"I can't," I said.

"Why not?"

"I agreed to cooperate with the Government."

"You're going to –"

"I don't know what I'm going to do yet," I said to her. "If I knew, perhaps I'd be behaving more rationally."

"I can't quit the team, either," she said quietly.

I had been looking away at the bartender, but something in her tone made me snap my attention back to her. "Why not?"

"Arun has … he's … let's just say he knows something about my family." There was a terrible sorrow in her eyes.

"Something? He's blackmailing you?"

"Something like that. I think he blackmails everyone on the team."

"Why would he do that?"

She shrugged. "I guess it helps with secrecy. You know there were two MIT teams that blew up, right?"

"Yes? What's that got to do with us?"

"They had some kind of security leak. Whitwell ended up knowing everything about them."

"I still don't follow."

"Because we're all scared of Arun, none of us would ever talk about what we do outside the team."

"I guess that's true. But …"

"But what?"

"Well, I can tell you, it's not exactly a secret in Cambridge," I said. "I know at least four people outside the team that know about us, who's on the team, what we do. Apart from the money laundering bit, I mean."

"Huh." This definitely surprised her. She and I usually ran in different social circles, so maybe hers didn't gossip as much.

"What does Arun have on everyone else?"

"Alice had an abortion … and her parents would kill her if they ever found out."

"I didn't know," I said. I realized there was so much about Alice that I really didn't know.

"Obviously she doesn't talk about it."

"Are her parents that bad?"

"Yes, they are. You've never met them?"

"No."

"Desperate for a grandchild, preferably a son. You know, classic Asian thing. It's good to be a successful child, but if you're a girl it's your duty to breed. My parents aren't so bad, but I feel the pressure too."

"That's crazy. I'm sure they would understand."

Lucy shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Obviously Alice doesn't think so."

"He's not blackmailing her into sleeping with him."

"I doubt it."

New drinks arrived, and we were both silent for a few moments. I was trying to get my head around the idea that Arun was blackmailing people. In addition to everything else, I mean. I wanted to ask Lucy what Arun had on her family that was so terrible, but I didn't want to pry.

"So, do you know what Arun has on everyone else?" I finally asked.

"Some," Lucy said. "I know he helped fix things when Dan got busted for hacking the administration servers in sophomore year. I don't know how he did it though."

"How Dan did the hack? Or how Arun fixed it?"

"That doesn't matter much any more," she reflected sadly.

"No."

"And there was you," Lucy said. "I feel guilty about that."

"What do you mean?" I said. "Arun hasn't tried to blackmail me … yet."

"Well, you kind of fell into it. I think he was probably looking for an angle … But when Alice and I dressed you up that time, you know he took photos and all. And then he manipulated you into doing … this." She waved her hands at me.

"I don't understand where the blackmail part comes in."

"I think Arun was going to send the photos to your parents."

"Well, that wouldn't work."

"Really?"

"Sure. My parents know everything."

"Everything? I mean, the team and everything? Not just you being a woman?"

"Everything," I said.

Lucy laughed. The sadness from remembering Dan a few moments earlier was gone. "Oh, Alex, I always thought you were the best person I ever met. Arun must have been so pissed to discover that you like being a woman. I can just imagine how much that pisses him off."

I drained my glass. "From where I sit right now, pissing Arun off is a mighty good thing."

"Was you losing tonight part of a plan? To piss Arun off more?"

"No. Yes. No, not like that. I didn't lose enough. I actually won on that fucked-up last hand, so I didn't really lose anything, net. The others will make way more than that. I think I was probably up ten before I melted down, too."

"Yeah. What happened?"

"I don't know. I really don't. I couldn't focus. All I could think about was that we were playing with blood money."

I thought to myself that the Feds had wanted me to lose. The reason I'd told them it was a bad idea had been because I never screwed up, but the better reason was that my losses, on their own, wouldn't be sufficient to guarantee Arun would need to go back to the well for more water. For all I knew he had hundreds of thousands taped behind his own fridge too. The truth was I thought I had a better plan, but despite telling Lucy about the Feds I wasn't sure I wanted to mention that to her just yet.

"You've known about this for two months?" Lucy said.

"Yes."

"How come you didn't 'melt down' before tonight?"

"I don't know. I guess I've had some other stresses."

"Peter?"

"Yes … And Alice. Her and Arun."

"I really thought you knew about that."

"How come she told you, and not me?"

"She didn't tell me."

"Oh."

"I was out one night with Christine – she's a girl I used to work with when I first graduated – and we were at this Thai place, you know, the one near Inman Square?" I shook my head. "Well, it's pretty good. Anyway, we were there, and we saw the two of them, and it was clear they were, you know, an item. They didn't see us, you know, it's a dark place, and busy, but before we left I made a point of going by their table to say hi. And, you know, their reaction was kind of, well, off. You know, Alice was almost embarrassed, or ashamed or something. It was odd." Lucy drained the remainder of her drink. "Then, the next time I saw her, she asked me not to say anything to anyone. Something about her parents, which I didn't believe."

"Weird."

"Yeah. You know there's more, right? I mean, she's lied about a lot of things."

"Yes, but then so do lots of people. Alex, maybe she didn't want you to know about Arun because she thought it would hurt you, and she likes you?"

"Maybe … it definitely didn't work."

"So," Lucy said, taking my hand in hers. "You feel up to going back in? Arun's going to go apeshit … More apeshit than he is already, I mean."

I put my other hand over my face. "Oh, fuck." I wished I had another drink. "Luce, I need him to think everything is okay. If I'm going to get us out of it, I mean."

"Let's just tell him you were feeling ill," Lucy said. "You've never, ever fucked up before, so he'll think there's something wrong anyway."

"You think?"

"I think it will be fine. As long as …"

"As long as what?"

"How good are you at lying?"

"I'm not so good," I admitted. "I'm fine at just not saying something. I'm just terrible at an outright lie."

"And Alex – "

"Yes?"

"When you said 'get us out of it' …"

"Yes?"

"Anything I can do to help, you know I will. Arun can really hurt my family. But if I get arrested, that's all going to come out anyway, so I might as well fight now, while I still can."

"You want to tell me what it is?"

"My father's an illegal immigrant."

"That's it? That's all?"

"That's enough, don't you think?"

"I guess. Wow, Lucy, that's terrible for you."

"Well, it's what it is. I can't do much about it."

"I can't believe Arun would threaten to turn him in."

"He's a prick."

"Obviously."

We went back to Ceasars, and Lucy found Brian, and told him she was taking me back to the MGM Grand, where we were staying. I didn't have to say a word. I went straight to bed, but after she'd taken me to the hotel, Lucy went back to Ceasars and the team played for a few hours before shifting to New York New York.

 

~o~O~o~
 

When I woke, there was a voice message on my phone from Pete. I hadn't heard the phone ring, but it turned out I'd left it on silent from when I was at the table at Ceasars, so that explained that.

It was probably the longest voicemail Pete had ever left in his life: "Alex, thanks for the messages. First off. Sorry. I mean - very sorry. About the other night. Sorry I didn't get back to you, but yeah, Vassily and I have been kind of busy cleaning up. I had to tell Command Dynamics, too, in case our servers were used to get in there. They've been pretty helpful about it, even gave us a security expert to do some forensics. So don't sweat it. It's not really your fault. I think we're going to come out of this much stronger. Not so rich, but definitely okay. And did I say, um, I’m sorry?"
"

I called Pete back and this time he did pick up. It was Saturday in Boston, and he and Vassily were watching the All-Star game at Fenway. It was very difficult to talk with all the noise from the crowd.

"Pete, I'm sorry too," I said.

"No need," he replied. "It's all good. You and me."

"Yes, I think. I don't know. The other night was pretty fucked up. We probably need to talk more."

Pete changed the subject. "We think we know what they got, and it doesn't look like they got anything really valuable."

"You know, getting hit at home is one thing … But Pete, I think I know what went wrong with that algorithm. That patent that you didn't get."

I wasn't sure whether or not he could hear me over the noise at Fenway.

"So this malware that meant they had your credentials."

"What?"

"That's how that other company got your idea."

"I don't understand what you're saying?"

"Can you think of another reason our machines would be infected?"

"Alex, sometimes a trojan is just a trojan. I'm pissed about it, but not as pissed as Talia."

"But I think I know how it got there. I think Alice gave it to me, in a program she gave me."

"Alice Kim?"

"She's in A.I., right?"

"But she's your friend." There was a roar from the crowd. "Isn't she?"

"I'm not sure … Maybe she didn't know. But it would explain how those guys got your stuff for the patent."

"I don't know, Alex," he said. "You know, this is a popular field. The other guys might just have been thinking about the same thing we were thinking of, at the same time. Lots of things were invented in parallel. Edison and Marconi."

"You think? I mean, maybe you're right, and I don't know much about your software, but that seemed pretty specific."

"Yeah, it was a pretty specific implementation of what we did." He was obviously reconsidering. "Alice Kim?"

"Pete, there's something wrong here. Someone knows too much about your business. You've said so yourself. I think this is how they know. And I'm sorry. I'm really, really, sorry."

"Well, I might not give you privileges on my machine again for a while," he said. Then he yelled "Whoaoa!" so loudly in my ear that I had to jerk the phone away. "Wow, sorry about that, Alex. Just an amazing catch then."

"I should let you go."

"Yeah, okay."

"Enjoy the game."

"I am. Hey, Alex."

"Yes."

"We're good. You know that, right?"

"Yeah." I hadn't known it, but I said yes anyway. Hearing him say it rocked me to my core. "I rely on it, Pete. Thanks."

I hung up, and went to get dressed for a flight back to Boston. If Pete and I were good again, I could do anything.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Although he bought the excuse Lucy had given him for the fact that I'd flown home, at the team meeting the following Tuesday, Arun was furious. "This is completely unacceptable, Alex."

The tension in the room was as bad as it had ever been. As bad as it had been before the face surgery. I looked at Arun, who was almost livid. Bob was looking at his feet. Brian, the new guy, looked anxious. Alice and Emily were staring at the floor.

I didn't say anything, but Lucy chimed in: "She didn't actually lose, Arun –"

"It was a breakdown in discipline." Arun was ranting. "We have to be disciplined. You know that. You all know that!"

To my surprise, it was Alice that interceded on my behalf. "Arun, if she wasn't feeling well …"

I looked at her, but she glanced away. Given that she was sticking up for me I was surprised she couldn't meet my eyes.

Arun turned on her. "If he – she wasn't feeling well, she should have said something before we started playing."

"Maybe she wasn't feeling ill before we started playing," Alice said.

"Maybe she could defend herself," Arun snapped back.

I shrugged. That seemed to make Arun even more mad.

"I don't know what you want me to say," I said.

"That it won't happen again," Arun said.

"Okay. It won't happen again." I could make that promise. On the flight home on Sunday I had promised myself I would see my plan through. I owed it to Dan.

Reluctantly, Arun agreed to let me play again, on the basis that it was my first mistake. He wasn't entirely gracious about it. I wondered later that night: if I'd argued with him, would he have tried to kick me off the team? Wouldn't that have been a good thing? Then I realized that kicking me off the team was something he would never do, because he lacked leverage against me.

I felt a small shudder as I realized that the alternative to being kicked off the team was being murdered. Knowing what happened to Dan, it seemed a possibility. I would have to try to keep Arun happy. He didn't need blackmail – he had intimidation. He had a death squad.

I also realized that if I couldn't keep my end of the bargain with the Feds, they would come down on me for all the things I'd done wrong. They couldn't touch my money any more, but I had no doubt they would make life as difficult as they could, and I was sure there were charges for money laundering they could throw at me.

There didn't seem to be a way out, except to keep on with the plan.

 

~o~O~o~
 

After the conversation we had had at Ceasars, Lucy and I had a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma. Now that she knew, she could go to the police, and try to trade what she knew for her father's amnesty. If she went to the police and cut a deal, I would probably lose, because then the IRS wouldn't need me. If I cut the deal, she would likely lose, lacking leverage. Both Lucy and I could come out with nothing if neither of us cooperated, but if both of us cooperated we might get something. But only if both of us acted completely in good faith, and in a way that reinforced to the Feds that we could solve their problems together. That they needed both of us.

How far could I trust Lucy?

 

~o~O~o~
 

Pete and I went out for dinner. It wasn't anything romantic — at least I didn't approach it that way — but neither of us felt like cooking, and Pete had indicated that he wanted to get out of the house.

We caught an early movie, The Sixth Sense, which I might have enjoyed except I figured out the guy was dead about ten minutes into the film, as soon as he comes around after the shooting. After the show we went for Lebanese food at Cafe Barada. It was a bit of a hike, over in Arlington, but Lucy had recommended it to me. On the drive over, Pete explained that his business wasn't doing so well, following the lost patent and the revelation about compromised security. Command Dynamics had used a clause in the Agreement to take more equity from Pete and Vassily, shrinking their entitlements and vastly reducing the overall value of the business. Pete was philosophical, and more optimistic than I imagined. "We can come back from here, Alex. I'm just not going to be buying that Ferrari any time soon. Or a house."

"Those Command Dynamics guys are assholes," I said.

"I signed the contract, Alex. I agreed to certain performance measures in it," Pete replied. He seemed very calm considering the lost patent had cost him millions, and he potentially faced losing control of the business.

Once we were seated at Cafe Barada and armed with dips and bread, Pete got to the other reason he had suggested getting both of us out of the apartment: security. He pulled out his cellphone and made a show of turning it off and taking out the battery. Then he motioned for me to do the same.

"I think we should assume our email is compromised, Alex. And maybe our phones, too."

"Really?" Even in the worst depths of my paranoia that wasn't something I'd contemplated. "So what should we do?"

"I think we can use it to our advantage," Pete said. "If they don't know that we know, they'll trust in our communication."

"Yeah, but I'd kind of like to trust in our communication, too," I said. "Besides, who's 'they'?"

Back at the apartment after dinner, Pete put on a Fugazi CD at high volume, and then showed me the essence of 'least significant bit' steganography. He started up his laptop, and then made sure it was disconnected from our home network. On the laptop he took a photograph — of an advertisement for a Burger King Double Bacon Cheeseburger — and then he wrote a short message in a text editor, and fed both into a program he had running on the laptop called EzStego. The program spat out a copy of the photograph that looked almost identical. I say "almost" because when I enlarged both images I could detect slightly more digital 'noise' in the new image. It no longer looked quite so much like a professionally produced advertisement. But I could only tell because I had the original to compare it with.

"Interesting," I said. I knew the principles of steganography. As a technique for hiding information it's been around since the late 15th century. But I hadn't seen it demonstrated on a computer before.

"How do I get the message back out?" I asked.

"You apply the key — a password — and the program will decrypt it. It's not particularly strong encryption. The main advantage of it is that if you use the right images in context, people don't know to look at the image file as anything except an image. So it doesn't really need to be that secure."

"But I can see the difference. I can tell the second photo," I indicated the transformed image "is grainier. It doesn't look right."

"You have the first image for comparison. Besides, if you start with a noisy image, it's much harder to tell." He fooled around on the laptop and pulled up a directory of the photos I had taken that night in the Alewife parking garage. In the poor light, with the crappy little digital camera, the photos he had of me were exceptionally grainy. There were several I had taken of him, as well, plus some random images of concrete ramps and the children's playground. There was digital noise all through them already.

"We can use these," he said. He turned the CD player off. I hoped he hadn't woken Samantha downstairs or Beverly would give me grief about it.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Something Lucy had said to me at Ceasar's kept going through my mind. "Arun must have been so pissed to discover that you like being a woman." As I lay in bed in Somerville on a Tuesday morning, the phrase kept bouncing around my head. Did I like being a woman? I had told Dr. Kidman my life was easier this way, but that wasn't so much to do with my feelings as to do with the way I looked.

But I supposed Lucy was right. I tried hard to remember my old life, before Louisiana, before cards, before Arun and Alice and everyone else. And oddly enough, when I thought of myself back then, I seemed to put the new me over the old me in those memories. Somehow 'guy' Alex didn't make sense in my head any more. It didn't feel – and even as I thought this I also thought "you're losing your mind" – it didn't feel like I was ever really a guy.

As my father had said to me back in Lincoln, and I had said to Susan and Tom, things could have been worse. I realized that although there were a lot of complications in my life – my relationship with Pete, my fucked up status with the Feds, my imminent danger of being shot by Arun's Russian 'friends' – being a woman was not one of them. I did feel more comfortable being a woman. I was happy. I was enjoying the changes the hormones were making to my body. Since I had done some truly horrible things to myself that meant I could never look like a man again, I figured that being a woman was probably the one good thing that had come out of the last couple of years.

It wasn't nirvana, exactly, but there was some measure of relief in working that out.

 

~o~O~o~
 

"So we have to hire someone," I said to Tom over dinner at Mistral, a very good French restaurant on Columbus Avenue in the South End. It seemed like a safe place to continue our discussion without fear of being bugged. In any case Tom and I were dining alone, so at least the conversation was privileged. I had already explained to Tom that Pete thought our phones might be monitored, and I explained briefly how steganography worked.

Tom was intrigued: I knew the concept appealed to him. "You should get everyone on the team using that. See if you can get a photo of your friend Dan, or something, to use as the common file. They won't question you all sharing that around."

I also explained to Tom that I was going to need access to some money, so I could pay Vassily's friends. Tom explained to me that it wasn't going to be possible. We had given the money to The Children's Chance Charity. I would have to pay for whatever Vassily needed from the funds I had remaining.

"There's this, Alex. Even if you could get back the forfeited money, I don't want to be part of something I shouldn't," Tom said. "I'd think twice about paying anyone money to hack any computers. Hacking them yourself is bad enough, but there are some ways to plead leniency in those cases. Paying someone to hack them — that's very hard to defend in front of a judge. Plus I suspect the Feds would negate any deal they had with you if they knew you were going to go about this with a criminal gang. The FBI and Treasury may work in politically expedient ways from time to time, but that would be stepping over the line."

"There is other cash I can access," I said to Tom, "If Arun hasn't already tapped it. Maybe I should have mentioned this before, but …" I realized I definitely should have mentioned it before.

"But what?"

"I'm actually the treasurer for the team."

"You're the treasurer." He said it without any inflection. It was much worse hearing that than hearing him explode at me. "Alex." He briefly brought his hand to his cheek, like he was trying to brush the idea away from his head. "You didn't think to mention this until now. Until now. You actually have direct access to these funds that are being laundered?"

"Pretty much."

He thought for a moment. "So you could arrange for all the team's money to just disappear?"

"Well, not exactly. I mean, for all I know Arun has already tapped those accounts. There might be some I don't actually know about. He must be suspicious, or worried, at least, now that Dan's dead. If I was still interested in the survival of the team, as a team, I'd be moving the money. Besides, if I do move it, he will know. I mean, he can see the balances in the accounts pretty much any time he wants. But I could access, say, $50k more than usual pretty legitimately the next time we're headed for Vegas."

"Assuming there is a next time," Tom said.

"Well, yeah. If there's not a next time, then I'm guessing Arun won't have much need of me at all any more. And we know what that means."

 

~o~O~o~
 

"We can't hire anyone to hack Whitwell," I explained to Pete as we walked across the Common. It was a beautiful evening, and we were on our way to meet Tom and Susan for Chinese. "Remember my reservations about being Michael Corleone in Tahoe? It turns out that now that I don't have mafia-style money, that's kind of impossible anyway."

"You're too thin for a mafia boss, anyway."

"Ha. Anyway, I get to choose between making some legitimate money, which I need a stake for, or using the stake to hire some hackers, which Tom says is a very bad idea."

"So we have to do it ourselves," Pete said.

"Like we know how."

"We can figure out a way," Pete said. Pete always loved a challenge.

"I still don't know why we have to do this. Can't I distract Arun a different way?"

"This is the way to make him lose. You need to make him lose, right?"

"That's the deal, yeah."

"So we need to hack Whitwell's database," Pete said. "You said Tom thought it was a bad idea to hire someone to do it."

"Maybe I could get the Feds to hack it."

Pete looked at me like I was insane.

"Okay, yes, I was reaching," I said. "You got me. Okay, so we do it ourselves. Somehow."

"We know how to get to the database, right? Once we have DBA privileges, injecting new data is easy," Pete said. "New data goes in all the time. They're not likely to do an audit on those transactions. If we were deleting profiles, yeah, there would be some kind of audit trail, maybe even a script that checks for deletions as a security precaution. But they have to be able to add profiles easily, otherwise the system wouldn't be flexible enough." He sighed, and leaned back with his hands behind his head and elbows akimbo in that way I'd seen guys do after they think they've solved a problem. "That doesn't mean it's not without risk. Unless we're careful, they might notice it in 24 hours. Well, they should. And, you know, it's a Federal fucking felony. But it's a pretty low level of risk."

"You're sure they don't know about your warchalking yet?"

"That account's still active. I can't imagine any universe in which they'd leave it open if they knew."

"So, we need to get Root first."

"I think I have a plan for that."

"Which is? All we have is a user account, no root privileges"

"So, I have a plan. To get us a privileged account. Once we have that, we just need to add some new data."

"Well, I can do it," I said. "I probably know more about database administration than you anyway. You don't have to do it."

"Except that you have to be on the floor while it's being done," Pete said to me. "So you can't do it."

"We must know someone else …"

"Well, I don't trust Vassily's 'friends' to do it." Pete said. "I trust him, but not them."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I thought about it. I actually trust them completely with taking down casino security. What I don't trust them with is stuff like whatever data Whitwell has on you, your bank accounts, or your friends."

"God, neither do I. God knows what else they would do." I was actually touched. Pete cared about me. I mean, I knew he cared about me, even if he couldn't deal with me sexually. He just didn't usually say so, the way he just had.

"Anyway, there's what Tom said."

"There's that," I agreed.

"The only other person I'd trust if I were you would be Susan. And she doesn't know shit about databases."

"I just don't want you to do anything illegal," I said to Pete. "You, and Vassily too, have so much to lose."

"Talia," Pete finally said. "It has to be her."

I wasn't sure about that. From Talia's attitude over the past few months I wasn't completely convinced she was comfortable with the new me. Plus there was the fact that I had compromised our home network, and she was still mad at me for that. And then there was the fact that she knew about Whitwell. I was still puzzling about how she knew about that.

 

~o~O~o~
 

While Pete and I had agreed that I would have to be the one to ask Talia for the favor, he offered to help try to talk her into it. Naturally, this meant he thought we should all go get drunk to try to make it easier. Because of the Whitwell thing I was nervous as all hell.

So we all went to Grendel's. Cameron gave me a smile and a slightly sleazy once over when we walked in. I frowned. Neither Pete nor I had been to the bar together for several months, since Pete had climbed out of bed that horrible night, but despite what Cameron had said then, nothing had been renovated. The place was still the same. I suspect it hasn't changed since around 1970, and it's probably still the same today. I wasn't frowning because I was disappointed — I liked it the way it was. I only frowned because of the way Cameron was looking at me.

After messing around and talking crap for a half hour and a couple of drinks, Pete prompted me to speak up.

"Alex has a favor she wants to ask you." He said to Talia.

Her eyebrows went up a little, but I wasn't sure whether that was because of the use of the pronoun "she" or because I was asking for a favor. I decided to start by apologizing.

"Hey, Talia, I know that maybe I should have talked with you about all the stuff going on with me —" I began, but she cut me off.

"Alex, you don't need to apologize. It's not like we see a lot of one another. I like you. What do you want?"

"I thought maybe you had a problem with my transitioning." There. I'd said that official word out loud. Transitioning. And I'd said it in front of Pete, too.

"Are you fucking joking? Why would I have a problem with you transitioning?" Talia said.

"I don't know. You know," I waved my hands around meaninglessly. "Gender politics, all that crap."

"All that crap, Alex, is important."

"Uh yeah, I mean, I wasn't saying —"

She laughed. "It's okay. I was just making you nervous. Alex, you're okay. I do have a problem with some drag queens. And some guys in female space. I'm kind of a bitch about that, actually. But you — hell, I guess you're going to take this as a compliment, not an insult — you've never seemed much like a guy in any space."

"So you're not mad at me?"

"I'm still pissed off at you for compromising my server," she said, but she was smiling. "But about becoming a woman? Hell no. I always got a femme kind of vibe from you anyway, so it's not like it's a surprise." She raised her glass in a toast. "Welcome!"

"Wow." I was surprised. I had Talia all wrong. There was my reverse Idiot Savant thing, again.

Pete laughed, and clinked glasses with Talia. I lifted my glass and drank with both of them.

"Thanks," I said to Talia.

"So about this favor?" Talia asked.

"Talia, have you ever broken the law before?" I asked.

"Not since I was twenty-four." Talia was twenty-five.

 

~o~O~o~
 

In the meantime Arun's team had to make another trip to Vegas. Lucy and I sat together on the flight, across the aisle in first from Arun and Alice. I had tried to be civil to Alice but I still hadn't forgiven her for lying to me. Lucy did her best to try to distract me, making sure we boarded as late as possible, and then handing me a few magazines before takeoff and a Rio mp3 player and headphones as soon as she was allowed to turn it on. "I made a playlist for you," she said.

I listened to the music with my eyes closed. It was a way of avoiding any contact with Alice or Arun, and while Lucy's tastes certainly weren't my tastes, her choices were a little window into Lucy World that I felt oddly touched to be allowed to glimpse. The player only held 32MB of RAM, so there were only a dozen songs, but I listened to them on endless repeat for almost the entire flight: the battery gave out about thirty minutes before landing.

At McCarran Lucy and I took a cab without waiting for anyone else on the team, and we checked into the appalling Treasure Island together. We were scheduled to play at the newly opened Bellagio, but as usual we stayed elsewhere. The family-friendly Treasure Island would never have been our first choice, but it was a place we hadn't been to for a long time so it seemed safest.

Lucy and I showered and ate and then made our way separately to the Bellagio floor at 11pm, the appointed time. The place was packed. I spotted Bob and Arun at a table at the edge of the high roller's area. Lucy took a table nearer the entry, and I sat and played a few hands without any clear direction, playing up the bored Japanese princess routine. Emily signaled me into a hand at another table after about fifteen minutes, and I stayed long enough to come away $25,000 richer.

The rest of the evening was routine. We played until about 4.30am, then hit the bar for a few nightcaps. Lucy and I actually met up on the strip, just near the escalators that descend outside Ceasars, but we went back in to one of the bars, tens of thousands of dollars in our purses.

After three strong cocktails each, we made our way back to our rooms. We walked together down the Strip. The October night was a little chilly, and I pulled my wrap tighter and wished I was wearing warmer footwear than the 3" heeled sandals I had paired with my cream silk dress. My left sandal was irritating me. I had never worn ankle-straps before, and I suspect with the alcohol I wobbled on my heels more than usual. The buckle on the side of the strap was digging into my flesh uncomfortably.

Almost nobody walks on the strip directly outside Ceasars. At that hour of the morning there were a few stragglers on the other side of the road, outside the Flamingo, but on our side the few pedestrians and cars were closer to the Ceasars entry.

We were just crossing the road at Jay Samo Way when I started to get my old feelings of paranoia again. I looked around but couldn't see anyone following us, and Lucy looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "You okay, Alex?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I get a little, uh, twitchy occasionally. I'm just, you know, a bit paranoid sometimes. Maybe it's the alcohol."

"Bed awaits."

"Amen". Those drinks had hit me harder than usual.

We finally made our way up to our floor at Treasure Island. As we came out of the lift I walked a few steps and the buckle on my sandal parted from the strap. "Shit," I said. "$300 sandals and they don't even last one night."

Lucy looked at me, hobbling. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said, bending to take the sandal off, and wobbling unsteadily. "You go ahead. I'll be there as soon as I get these off."

So Lucy entered our room first. I was forty or fifty feet behind as she opened the door, and I could see as she turned on the light that she was holding the door ajar for me as I caught up.

And then she wasn't. I heard a muffled thud, and a brief cry, and then the door began to close. And then, amazingly, there was the unmistakable sound of a gun with a silencer. They sound much louder than you would think. Much louder than the sound you usually hear on TV. Maybe it was the confined space.

My first instinct was to save Lucy. My second instinct was to run. I think if the door had stayed open I would have tried to rush to her. But it closed, just as I got there. I heard someone try to open it, and then a muttered "Tvoyu Mat!" as whoever it was realized that Lucy's body was blocking the door from opening.

I ran. In my bare feet. Maybe it was adrenaline, but suddenly I didn't feel even slightly drunk.

I didn't stop at the front lobby, although I could see security looking at me and beginning to move toward me, obviously alarmed. Perhaps, given my slinky dress, they thought I was a hooker trying to make a break from a john, or maybe it was just my general air of panic that triggered their reactions.

Outside I jumped straight into a cab and said "Airport" as calmly as I could. The driver looked at me, clearly startled at the speed at which I'd got in, but he set off without argument.

We were a few hundred yards down the strip when I realized that running wasn't going to do any good. "I'm not going into the Airport," I said to the driver. "Just to the Police Department." In Vegas there's a police station right next to the airport.

I took out my cell and called Tom. I got Susan, bright and chirpy on a Saturday morning. As soon as she heard my voice she knew something was wrong. "Alex!"

"Susan, I need to talk with Tom."

Susan actually handed the phone to Tom while he was in the shower. He listened to my garbled summary of what had just happened and reassured me that I was doing the right thing going to the police. "False name, or not, they'll have your DNA all over that room," he said. "Tell them about Treasury, and get them to call the Feds. They won't like it, but they'll appreciate that you went straight to them. It always plays easier that way. Then, Alex?"

"Yes?" I was still turned around in the seat, looking out the back window to see if we were being followed.

"No matter how they pressure you, try not to say anything about why you were there under a false name. They will pressure you. Tell them to ask for Grieves or Hernandez. I'll be on the next flight I can get. In the meantime I'll see who I can get to help you locally."

 

~o~O~o~
 

I sat waiting in the Police station for about an hour before a policeman tried to interview me properly. I had raced in from the cab, still barefoot and mildly hysterical. "I've just seen a shooting." I said. At the time I had arrived at the station the management of Treasure Island hadn't even called the incident in yet, so I think the sergeant on duty thought I was mildly deranged.

"Someone shot at you in your room at Treasure Island," he said, as though he was reading the results of a football game. "Your name, miss?"

"No, nobody shot at me. Someone shot my friend -" I tried desperately to remember the name Lucy had used on check-in — "Lucy Chin." Then I gave him my ID for Alexandra Leung of Galveston. It was the ID I had registered under at the hotel. I knew I'd eventually have to give them my real name, and probably Lucy's real name, no matter what Tom had said, but I hoped to have Tom or someone else to explain that, and in the meantime I didn't want them thinking I was a crook. I mean, obviously I was a crook, using a fake ID. But I didn't want them to know that yet, and I was hoping that somehow being a witness in a federal case would provide some ameliorating circumstances when the Las Vegas police found out.

Soon enough the call from Treasure Island came through and I noticed two guys who I assumed were detectives running past the room they were holding me in. I could only imagine the scene at the hotel. For all the activity that goes on in Vegas, and its history of links to organized crime, it's almost unheard of for anyone to be shot in a Casino hotel.

Despite myself I kept running over and over in my head an imagined loop of what Lucy must have seen as she entered the room.

Tom had been right: the police were none too friendly toward me when I refused to talk in detail about what had happened without my lawyer present. They were going to arrest me, and at one stage threatened me by telling me they were going to pin everything on me unless I told them everything immediately. I held firm to my mantra. "I'm waiting for my lawyer." Tom had told me to get them to call the Feds, but I remembered the time I'd first met Grieves, and Tom had also been very insistent then that I only ever talk with a lawyer present.

The police reminded me a little of John Mantonelli. I'm sure if I'd given an inch with either my life would have been very different.

About two hours after I arrived at the Police Station a guy entered the room where they were holding me and flashed an FBI badge at me. "Special Agent Jones," he said.

"Snap," I said. He didn't smile. I wasn't going to ask to check the ID. I was in a police Station. I figured someone had already checked his bona fides before letting him in to see me.

"Funny," he said. "So, I understand you have some deal with Treasury?"

I didn't say anything in response. I could tell he was about to get angry.

"You understand that your friend is dead?"

I burst into tears.

I hadn't really expected Lucy to have survived. But having her death confirmed shook me. I think Agent Jones might have tried asking me a bunch more questions, but I'm really not sure. All I could do was cry, sob, until I ached in my chest from the physical effort.

I was beginning to pull myself together when another man entered. He was dressed casually, in a t-shirt and khakis. He was only about three or four years older than me.

He held out his hand to shake it. "Denis Powley, Alex. Wrightson and Powley." He handed me a business card. "Tom O'Donnell sent me. I'm sorry I took so long." He also introduced himself to Agent Jones. Then he turned back to me. "Are you happy for me to represent you?"

"Of course. If Tom sent you."

"Good." He handed me a handkerchief. "It's clean. You look like you need it."

I nodded my thanks and tried to clean my face up.

Now," he turned back to Agent Jones. "I'd like to have a moment with my client, please?"

"I'm just trying to get to the bottom —"

"She won't be saying anything at all until we've had a brief conversation. It's in your own interest."

Agent Jones stepped out.

"Tom briefed me," Denis said. "Have you said anything yet?"

"Only that someone shot Lucy."

"You have anything to do with the shooting?"

"No. Of course not."

"Okay. That's what Tom said. Just wanted to make sure. Now, we'll bring him back in. You should tell him about the Treasury guys."

"You know about all that?"

"Getting the background was why it took me a few moments to get here. I've been on the phone for almost an hour. You have quite the exciting life, Ms. Jones."

"Alex," I said. "don't I have to give you a dollar so you're my lawyer, or something?"

"You watch too many movies, Alex. You already agreed I could represent you. You don't need to pay me upfront. Tom and I clerked together back east. If he says you're good, you're good."

Denis ushered Agent Jones back in. He was accompanied by one of the two detectives I had seen running out of the station earlier.

"Thank you," Agent Jones said. "Alex. I understand you have some kind of deal with Treasury."

"Yes. I'm not allowed to talk about it."

"We can confirm that Miss Jones is involved in an ongoing investigation." Denis said.

"Miss Jones?" The detective looked puzzled. "She was registered as Alexa Leung."

"It's a long story," I said. I think Denis thought I was going to elaborate, because he stiffened, but when I didn't continue he relaxed again.

Agent Jones got a message on his pager, and left the room again, and I was left with Denis and the detective.

"So why did you use a false name to register?" the detective asked.

"Do you have a name, sir?" Denis asked.

"Detective Robinson"

"Detective Robinson, my client is working with the Federal Government on an important criminal investigation. It's necessary for her to use various alias's and forms of identification from time to time to perform her duties in that investigation."

The Detective asked a bunch more questions, specifically about what I'd seen and whether I'd seen the man or men who had shot Lucy.

I gave him as much detail as I could remember. Even two hours later, it seemed like bits of the event were blurring. I remembered the feeling more than the actual event. I remembered the terror. I felt the anxiety. But at that moment I couldn't even remember my room number at Treasure Island.

Every now and then Denis gently pressed on my arm if he thought I was saying too much. Twice he answered before I did, reproving the detective for asking loaded questions.

"I've spoken with Agent Grieves," the FBI guy said as he re-entered the room. "He is on his way out, but won't get here until tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime I have a bunch of questions to ask you if that's okay. You work with Arun Kapoor and Alice Kim?

I was surprised to hear him mention Alice's name in conjunction with Arun, even though I'd suspected Alice knew everything.

"Yes."

"Would you suspect either as the killer in this case?"

"No … I …"

"Yes?"

"I suspect Arun might know people who might be involved. But it doesn't make sense for him to be the one who killed her."

"Why not?"

"It just doesn't make sense," I said to Jones. "Arun had leverage on Lucy. He knew things that could hurt her. There was no way she would turn on him."

"What leverage?" Detective Robinson asked. Agent Jones shot him a kind of 'shut up' look.

"I really, really can't say," I said. "I promised." I wondered whether by even raising the subject I was going to send the FBI off investigating Lucy more thoroughly. Maybe I had put her father in danger. "But believe me," I hastened to add, "there's no way she would have ratted anyone out. She had too much to lose.

"And besides," I continued, suddenly realizing my logic applied to Dan, too. "It doesn't make sense for Arun to spend all this time training all of us to play cards, only to kill us. That seems like a bad return on investment, doesn't it?"

"You are trained to play cards?" Detective Robinson asked.

"It's a long story," I said. "But, yeah. I play on a team of card counters."

"Huh," was all Robinson could say.

"That part is not illegal," I said defensively.

"Maybe there was something else," Agent Jones said ruminatively. "Maybe it was Alice Kim."

"Alice?" I was even more shocked. "I know Alice is involved in the fraud. But she's definitely not a killer. And she and Lucy were friends."

"Maybe they weren't after her," Agent Jones said. "Maybe they were after you."

Everyone was silent for a few moments. I had already wondered that myself. Could Arun or his 'friends' know about me turning traitor? Was I responsible for Lucy's death?

 

~o~O~o~
 

It wasn't until a few days after Lucy's funeral that my emotions caught up with me again. While I was shopping to restock our kitchen in Somerville, I started crying when I was standing staring at yoghurt in the Prospect Street Whole Foods. For no reason I could discern. Suddenly, everything seemed to be catching up with me. I could be smart, but I couldn't be smart enough to stay out of trouble. I could be attractive, but never attractive enough for someone like Pete. I could try to be a good friend, but that wouldn't stop friends like Lucy dying.

It was a monumental bout of self-pity, and it just crushed me. Outside, the street was full of the bad smells of Cambridge in the summer, over-ripe old produce in dumpsters around the corner, other odors that seemed to have come all the way from the rail line, dust and bus fumes from Webster Avenue, the sun strong yet mottled by smog. The day was hot, and I was cold and weary in my soul.

When I pulled myself together my mind felt clearer, somehow. I've come to think since then that a good cry is a good thing from time to time. Maybe not the deep, almost hysterical kind I had that day, but something gentler.

In the wake of my crying jag, I resolved to give up drinking. I didn't need a Daruma for that. I tracked back over my life for the preceding three years and realized that a good deal of it had been spent under the influence of alcohol, and while I had enjoyed many good times with Pete, and Alice, and Lucy, over cocktails or whiskey or wine, I'd made some poor choices along the way, especially with Pete.

And in the back of my mind was the thought that if I hadn't been drinking that night, and hadn't tripped and broken the strap on my shoes, Lucy might still be alive.

That line of thought didn't make a lot of sense, since if I hadn't fallen behind at Treasure Island it's likely we'd both have been killed, but it didn't make me feel any better about my drinking. It was time to stop, even if only so I didn't make more bad choices in my relationships. If I was to survive Arun's goons, and make it through the challenge that Treasury posed for me, I would need my wits about me.

In addition to worrying about Treasury, I had been running something else through my mind ever since I'd come back from Vegas, and in the absence of alcohol a day later I thought I saw it slightly more clearly: there had to be something more to Arun and Alice's relationship. Now that I knew they were a couple, Lucy's analysis of what Arun had over Alice didn't make sense. I didn't think even an unpleasant prick like Arun would actually ruin his relationship with his girlfriend by telling her parents about an abortion.

Plus, the abortion story itself didn't sound like enough, to me, for it to work as blackmail. I knew that Korean families prized children and it would have been a very difficult thing for Alice to have overcome, but I didn't buy that it was sufficient blackmail for her to have plastic surgery and allow herself to be drawn into a criminal conspiracy. Since I had witnessed Alice with Arun and that guy the time they got into the Mercedes, and I knew she was as close to Arun as anyone. I had to assume that she knew about the scope of the enterprise, and about where the money was coming from. She had to be a willing accomplice, not a blackmailed one.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I got back home from dinner at Susan's later that day to find the apartment empty. I wasn't sure where Pete or Talia were. But there was an envelope in the hallway, which clearly had been slid under the door. The envelope was about the size of a legal pad, and had the name of a Boston law firm I had never heard of printed in the top left corner. The address label in the middle was made out to me, but it didn't seem like it had come through the post.

I opened it. Despite the fact that I had never heard of the law firm, I was expecting it to contain something related to my IRS case. Instead, there was a handwritten note from Sunhee Koh, Dan's sister, on some handmade paper, and a black and white photocopy of a security ID card.

The note said:

This is what it's about.
S.

Nothing else.

I flipped to the photocopy. The ID card was from a company called Augmented AI. There was a photograph, and a name, and an employee number with a barcode. Below the barcode was a line that said "Valid March 3 1995 — March 3 1998."

It was expired, but so what? The name on the card said "Alice Lee". But the photograph was of Alice Kim. Our Alice.

Alice had a job? One she hadn't told me about? Since 1995?

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 

On the following Wednesday night I held a brief meeting at Susan's place, where I bought together Talia, Beverly, Pete, Sunhee, Yana, Vassily and Susan for the first time.

The first order of business was to get those who had cellphones to turn them off, and pull out their batteries. There were a few nervous looks among them after we had all done this, as though they were wondering what they had gotten themselves into. I had spoken to each of them individually, as well as Carl Choi by telephone over several calls, and although I hadn't been at all specific they had all indicated an interest in helping out.

Then we got Carl on my laptop using CU-SeeMe, and I held the first meeting of what Susan jokingly called the C4 gang. "The Cambridge Card Counters Consortium."

"Carl's in California," I reminded her.

"Okay, C5. Whatever."

After reassuring most of those present that only Carl, Vassily and I needed to be able to count — and that I was satisfied each of us was good enough at it to succeed, I ran through basic strategy, and then explained how each of us would work. I didn't explain any of the things that Pete and Talia and I had planned, because even though I trusted everyone I wanted to keep that information as tightly held as possible, and despite all our precautions there was always the possibility that the Feds might have bugged Susan's house.

Introducing friends is always tricky: I always want people I love to get along with one another as well as they do with me, but of course that's not the way friendship works. Some of them, at least, hit it off. Sunhee and — improbably — Talia seemed to bond strongly.

Before we finished our planning for the evening Pete ran through the way we were to use images in email to communicate. We would avoid using our phones, which we would assume were compromised by Whitwell or other, more nefarious interests. SMS was allowed, but only if we kept the messages non-specific. If there was trouble at any time, an SMS with the word "Cambridge" would let everyone know that they should fall back on our emergency plans. I didn't want to worry my new team with tales of the people I knew who had died, but I impressed upon them the need for absolute secrecy. We ran through the encryption process a few times, and Pete handed out floppies with copies of the EzStego program for everyone to load onto their PCs.

As I drove home with Pete and Talia I discovered how it was that Talia had learned so much about Whitwell. After Sunhee's phone message to me, several months earlier, Talia had called her, intrigued, and the two of them had communicated via their cellphones, several times. It seemed Sunhee had discovered a notebook that had belonged to Dan, which had contained a lot of information on the team, and on what Dan knew about Whitwell, the Casinos, and other things related to his work. Sunhee knew a great deal about Arun's team, and that meant Talia did, too.

That accounted for the comments Talia had made to me weeks earlier, when I had wondered how she knew so much. Now my only concern was whether or not Whitwell, Arun's people, or Treasury had gone to the trouble of tapping Talia's and Sunhee's phones. I reinforced to both of them that using steganography was crucial to staying alive.

On Thursday night I went to talk some more with Beverly. Obviously I didn't want her playing in Vegas. Apart from anything else she had Samantha to take care of. But there were things she could do to help Talia with the exploits we would need to confuse Whitwell and create a distraction, and I needed to talk her through the process for all that. I worried about exposing her to the business, but I also wanted her to feel she was earning some of the money that would flow from the C5 success. No matter how much I tried to help her financially, Beverly only really felt comfortable with money when she earned it herself.

While I was visiting Beverly, Talia did a little extra-curricular research on the rest of Arun's team, using tools I didn't even know about. I didn't even know she was going to do it until after the weekend. In retrospect, I think she should have tried out for a job with Richard Deuchar at Command Dynamics, because she compiled a small dossier on each member of Arun's team, except me, and uncovered a lot of the information Lucy had already given me, just from online searches. In conjunction with Sunhee, Talia actually pulled an all nighter. She told me later it was to get in practice staying up late while we took the Casino in Vegas, but I think part of the reason for her efforts was that she liked showing off in front of Sunhee.

I didn't get a chance to talk to Talia before I flew out on Friday morning, but as I later learned Talia did get a chance to talk to Sunhee in the morning, and share some of the results of her research. Sunhee took it from there, and found out things that I should have known earlier. I had never felt the need to find out before.

 

~o~O~o~
 

We had the semblance of a plan. I had given Susan my cash, which she in turn had passed on to Tom, who had performed some legal chicanery on it somehow, after which it came back to Susan as a regular bank transfer from some company in the Caymans. Don't ask me how. I wondered briefly why, if legal money laundering was so easy, Arun's friends were going about it the hard way, with a team of unreliable Harvard kids. I was sure it was safe, or Tom wouldn't have let Susan's name be associated with it, but I didn't ask too many questions, just in case.

I showed Susan how to package up money for transit to Vegas. She laughed a lot when I described my origami padding, which I had had to give up after I started on Estrogen. We worked out more traditional methods, including simply wiring about $120,000 of it directly to an account in Susan's name in Vegas. After all, we wanted the Feds to know Susan had this money. That was the entire point.

Pete and Vassily were in, too, with the little money they had left. Their business had taken a serious tumble since the Command Dynamics relationship had turned sour following the security breach and the theft of the patents, but they both saw this as an attempt to claw back some income and get some revenge at the same time. I was a little concerned that maybe it wouldn't all work out, and they'd be left with nothing, and I was very concerned about the amount of time they were spending away from the business, helping me, but Pete reassured me that they knew what they were doing, and Vassily pointed out that as one of the putative counters he was going to be directly responsible for ensuring the C5 team was successful.

So I shut up, pulled myself together, drank lots of coffee with Beverly, and got ready to take on Treasury, Arun, the Casinos, Whitwell, and Arun's Russian friends, all in one night, with an untested team of novices.

I organized one night's play at Foxwoods in Connecticut, which had been expanded only a few years earlier. Because Arun's team had always focused on the Mohegun Sun, I hoped that Foxwoods would be less alert to possible counters. Vassily, Yana, Sunhee, Susan and I all went down to the casino on a weeknight and played for about 3 hours in two teams of two, with one person running security, and we at least proved that Vassily could count and Sunhee made a passable smurf too. Yana was more in the wizard/princess mold, and was more than capable there so long as she didn't show her teeth too much.

We won about $25,000 from a small stake. It was almost fun.

In the meantime Pete worked with Talia on ways to get into the Whitwell database, and specifically on ways to inject new data into Whitwell's system without triggering alerts. I tried to stay out of their hair, and prayed they knew what they were doing.

Susan and I both got our hair done on the Thursday, from Stella, in exactly the same style. I had to apologize to Tom, since he loved Susan's long hair and wasn't happy about seeing 12 inches lopped off, and I also gave Susan a hug of thanks when it was done. "It's no big deal," she said. "Long hair can be a hassle. This feels fantastic."

Stella took photographs of the two of us. "I've never done twins before," she said. I was going to convince her we weren't twins, but decided to let the comment go as a vote of confidence.

All of us had agreed that the Koh family and the Huang family would get a small percentage of our final winnings, if any. It wasn't making up for Dan, or for Lucy, but it was better than nothing at all.

Finally, I planned for us to fly into Vegas more than 24 hours before the Harvard team was due, to give us time to boost our stake. It wasn't a lot of time, especially given all the work we needed to do as well as our actual playing. But with the changes in the dynamics of Arun's team, and my increasing isolation from Alice and Arun, I didn't think we could wait another week. We had to move on Arun's team, and soon.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Before I left Boston, Beverly had said one final thing to me as I left the house on my way to Logan. "Expect something you didn't expect. I learned that living with Paul. I know I sound paranoid, but you need to plan for the idea that something unexpected can wreck your plan. Have a fallback."

"Yes, mother," I joked.

"Your mother would … Never mind. Just be careful."

"Fortune favors the bold," I said. But I didn't feel bold. I felt nervous, and stupid. Beverly was probably right. Our plan — what little there was of it — had too many single points of failure. I needed some fallback options.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Vassily, Yana, Sunhee, Pete and I flew into Vegas on August 18th, a Wednesday. I had told Arun and the rest of the team I was going to LA to see my grandmother, as an excuse for not flying in with them on the 19th.

Pete rented a car at the airport, a Chrysler convertible, and we drove down the strip to the Bellagio, where we'd be staying for the next few days. On the first I would move to the Grand, where the team usually stayed, but I planned to use the Grand as the gambling venue for my new mini-team, and that meant staying away from our field of play.

It was Sunhee's first time in Vegas, and she was like a kid, her head whipping from side to side as we drove, trying to take it all in. Pete and Vassily sat in the front, while we girls were crammed into the back seat. Yana's knees were practically on her chest, there was so little legroom, but Sunhee had a good view of the strip. It was a typical Vegas August day, bone dry and baking hot even in the late afternoon. I wore a Sox baseball cap to try to shield my face from the sun. Pete thought it was hilarious, since it was the first and only time he'd ever seen me exhibit any interest in sport.

We checked in. I put everyone's rooms on my black Amex. At the Bellagio I was registering with my real name, paying with my real credit card. Even though Sunhee now knew where my money had come from, she still made an 'ooh' sound when she saw me hand it to the clerk at reception. I prayed the staff didn't remember Alexandra Leung. It would only be when I moved to the Grand with Arun that I would become Alexa Chin again.

I also fervently hoped Arun's friends didn't have a way to track my credit card usage. I wanted to believe Amex was a discreet company — I had heard that the British Royal Family used the cards — but who knew? So much depended on secrecy.

I had booked separate rooms for Pete and me. I wasn't sending a signal: I just couldn't afford the distraction. Pete and I had almost been back to our old friendly selves since the phone call I made to him when he was at Fenway, but there was still a tension between us. When friends sleep together, and it doesn't work out, it's a very hard thing to overlook. I had realized that I loved Pete, very deeply. It was more than just a crush. And there was a lust component, too. I had become attracted to him in a very physical way, a way I didn't fully understand yet. Looking at him sometimes made me feel confused and aroused, in a very different way than had ever occurred when I looked at Alice years ago. It was disturbing. It was even more disturbing because I knew that Pete was someone I could never have as a partner. Even though I knew he was my friend, we couldn't be lovers. Every time I gave the situation any conscious thought it made me despair, so I tried not to think about it. I rationalized that we were too busy to allow ourselves to be distracted by emotions.

After settling into our rooms and showering we met with Susan and Tom at the pool bar for our council of war. I had been drilling each of them individually during the preceding two weeks, to train them in their respective roles, but that night we were going to be doing more than card counting. We were going to be hacking into a computer system, impersonating hotel staff, and breaking the law in a dozen different ways. I looked around at my team — my real team, my friends and family — and hoped as I'd never hoped before that they all acted as smart as I knew they were.

Pete drove me over to the Bank of America branch on Spring Mountain Road, where they knew me as Alexandra Long and where I kept a safe deposit box, and I retrieved the remaining $30,000 the IRS didn't know about. It, and the $120,000 I'd unpacked from behind the fridge in Somerville, that Tom had laundered and Susan had brought with us, were all the liquid assets I had left in the world. It wasn't a big stake, but it was going to have to do. If it all went wrong I was never going to be able to pay the bill on my Amex statement. I had to count, like I'd never counted before, with Vassily and Carl, and Sunhee and Yana had to learn to be Wizards, fast.

Back upstairs in my suite at the Bellagio we played a few mock hands so Carl could get a feel for the flow of the counting. Carl seemed smitten by Sunhee, and didn't focus all that well on the cards, which worried me. Then we did a cellphone check, and I ran through our emergency options in the event we had to bail from the MGM Grand. Our fallback rendezvous was the Mexican cafe at the front of the shops at Ceasars, which was only a short walk from the Grand and offered multiple exit routes. Everyone also had Beverly's phone number, back in Somerville. Beverly had promised to be up all night that night and the next, running communications for us and sending SMS alerts if anything went wrong. I had purchased new phones for the entire team, including Beverly, with new numbers, so with any luck our SMS messages wouldn't be intercepted, but I warned everyone to be careful with comms all the same. I had sent everyone a list of the new contact numbers via email, in a photo of Dan I had encrypted with EzStego, and pre-programmed Beverly's number into each handset.

"I have to tell all of you, this is serious stuff," I said. "Y'all might be thinking about how much I made these past few years, and wondering how hard this could be, and I'll be honest, most of the playing is not that hard."

I knew from the expressions on Susan's and Sunhee's faces that they didn't believe me. "Alright, actual counting is hard, but that's my job, tonight. You all have your own jobs, and only Vassily and Carl and I need to count, so the rest of you just need to stay in character and relax but stay alert. Susan just has to get used to pretending to be me. It's just really, really important that you all stay focused, and watch for signals."

I looked around at each of the people I loved, and hoped I wasn't making a huge mistake. "And whatever happens, if anything seems wrong, if you see anything at all — anything at all — that seems off, I want you to know that you can walk away. Walk away, and let Beverly know immediately. I want you all to check, right now, that you have her number." People dutifully checked. Obviously my attempts to strike the right note of seriousness and discipline were working. "Tonight we need to make at least another sixty grand. But if we don't, we can work to an alternative. What's most important to me — to all of us — is that we all stay safe."

I remembered back to the first security briefing I had had in Cambridge, in 1996, after I'd been formally inducted into the team. It felt like a lifetime ago.

 

~o~O~o~
 

We hit the floor in ones and twos. I had given Susan a red dress that I played in often, and she had glammed up the way I did when I played. The expression on Tom's face as he looked at her, then at me, was priceless.

In contrast, I was wearing black jeans, black long-sleeved top, and glasses instead of my usual contacts. Where Susan's hair was tied back in an elegant enamel clasp, mine was loose, draped partially over the left side of my face. I wondered whether Whitwell's software would go crazy if it saw what it perceived to be the same person in two different places. I figured not. Surely they had to allow for identical twins. And Susan and I didn't look exactly alike. Tonight, we looked very different.

Carl and Vassily went off to separate tables, and before long I noticed Carl signal Susan into a hand. Eventually Vassily called Yana into a hand, and soon I was able to call in Sunhee. Of all our crew, I was most worried about Sunhee. She was certainly smart enough to play, but she was the youngest of us, and I felt responsible for her after what had happened to Dan.

As it turned out Sunhee played impeccably, and left the table when I signaled the deck was cooling. It was all I could do not to follow he with my eyes as she walked away, but I wasn't supposed to know her. I only hoped that Tom, who was running security, was on his toes.

After signaling Yana into a hand, and then bringing Pete in a little later in the evening, I was exhausted. I hadn't counted for some time, and I had never had so much at stake.

When we regrouped later that night in the club at the Bellagio, among the pulsing beat and impossible-to-bug noise, Carl told me that collectively we had increased our stake to slightly more than $240,000. He seemed overjoyed. "Alex! This is fantastic!"

I patted him on the shoulder. "Glad you're having fun, Carl." Then I texted Beverly to go to sleep, and crossed the floor of the club to find Sunhee and hug her.

There was one last thing. Before I could go to bed, I had to make one last call to McCarran, to VegasJets. Now that I knew we had the cash, I wanted Susan, Tom, Pete, Yana and Vassily out of Vegas on a charter, before the Harvard team's post-mortem. I had spoken to Sunhee, and I knew that there was no way she'd leave Vegas until she was sure we'd achieved our goal, but it was important to me — more important than all the money I had ever had — that everyone else was free and clear as soon as Beverly gave the signal. I arranged to charter a Gulfstream V, which had the range to get to Logan nonstop. I gave them my Amex as a guarantee, called Amex to make sure the charge would be approved, and fell sleep in bed, alone.

We were set for the main event.

 

~o~O~o~
 

The next morning Pete drove off in the rental to the back of the MGM Grand where he'd done the warchalking a month earlier. He was going to check to make sure Talia would still be able to access the Whitwell account using the wifi later. But he came back with some alarming news. The wifi signal at the Grand had become weaker, somehow. It was still available, but it was almost impossible to sustain a connection from the alleyway behind the hotel.

"What's happened?"

"I don't know," Pete said. "It's not a security change, or our credentials wouldn't work at all. It might just be that they've moved the wireless base station. Or they've installed some equipment, somewhere, that's interfering with the signal. Hell, it might just be the motor in a refrigerator."

"Talia can login from another network though, right?"

"Maybe," Pete said. "But …"

"But?"

"There might be some protection against logins from outside the right IP ranges. Or they might have — if they're smart — they might have some alarms that trigger if that happens."

"So we're fucked," I said.

"Sheriff, this is no time to panic," said Pete, quoting Toy Story. "Alex, when was the last time you had to impersonate hotel staff?"

"You're joking, right?" I said. He wasn't.

It wasn't a good plan, but it was all we had. I hung around the MGM Grand lobby for a while, observing the staff. I tried not to be too conspicuous, but maybe I wasn't too successful, because when Yana came walking in to the lobby unexpectedly at noon she asked me what I was doing.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Looking at where we will play tonight," she said. "You?"

I explained to her that I was trying to work out how to steal a staff ID. She laughed. "Alex, you have no experience in such things, do you?"

"No," I admitted. "It's that obvious, huh?"

"Have you seen someone whose ID you wish?"

"Um … There's her." I indicated a young Asian woman at the end of the reception desk. She didn't look that much like me except that she was Asian, and around my age, and she was thin.

"Then you leave this to me," Yana said. "I come find you in an hour or two. It must be her, or it can be any young woman?"

"Asian would be good," I said. "But anything. But how?"

When I hesitated, she pushed me away. "Go! You make too much disturbance if you stay."

I was glad to get away. I knew Arun and the rest of the team would be arriving in Vegas in the next few hours, and I wanted to keep a low profile until they arrived.

I don't know how Yana did it, but about 90 minutes later she knocked at the door of my room at the Bellagio, holding the staff ID of the young woman we had been watching behind the reception desk.

"Americans are very careless," was all she said.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Sunhee and Carl had procured kitchen whites from a restaurant-supply company somewhere on the south side of Vegas, and with my stolen ID affixed and a laptop and wireless router Pete had bought that morning, hidden in a cardboard box that had previously contained canned tomatoes, I nervously made my way through the back entrance of the MGM Grand. I had my hair up, tied back securely in a small neat bun like any other female hospitality worker. I kept my eyes focused on a point only a few yards in front of me, desperate to avoid eye contact.

The MGM Grand is huge. When it first opened, back in '93, it was the largest hotel in the world. It's even more huge now, since it was expanded in 2005, but even back in 1999 it was a big hotel, and the kitchens are vast and the staff were too numerous to count.

As I entered I felt the same sense of fear I had felt years earlier at the Lake Charles Casino in Louisiana. I strolled through the kitchen areas expecting someone to tap my shoulder from behind at any moment. The fact that nobody did only heightened the sense that they would at any moment.

But nobody stopped me. One guy looked me up and down as I passed his workstation, but he didn't seem to be concerned that he didn't know me. I tried to regulate my breathing to stay calm, aware that if appearing panicked was the surest way to draw attention to myself.

After walking about 150 feet into the depths of the building, I reached a point about midway into one of the kitchens, near some shelving that contained flatware, napkins, sauceboats and other miscellaneous tableware. There was a noticeboard adjacent to the shelving, containing what looked to be a roster with some names and days on it. Bennett, Da Silva, Arias, Rodriguez were at the top of four columns, with other names underneath. I guessed they were the key chefs. Next to the shelving was a phone, and next to the phone were two internet ports. One of them had some kind of electronic ordering system connected to it on another shelf to the right, and the other one was vacant. Above all this was a small corkboard with hundreds of notes pinned to it. Below the ordering system was a small shelf, partly hidden by a stool propped in front of it. It wasn't ideal, but it was in front of me, and it would do.

I bent down, popped the cardboard box onto the shelf, and looked for a power outlet.

There was a double outlet about three feet away, further along the wall next to a door. The ordering system was plugged into one outlet, but the other was free. I prayed the power cords on the wireless router and laptop charger would reach. They did.

Trying to turn everything on was the hardest part. I was certain someone would interrupt and challenge me at any moment, and I was beginning to sweat. But the dozen or so people I had seen since I entered had all been focused on cleaning cooking equipment, or mopping the floor, or checking off lists and other administrative tasks. In this part of the kitchens, at least, I had lucked into a quiet time.

After the Windows 95 startup came up on the laptop I logged in as fast as I could, praising Pete in my head for having the good sense to disconnect the speaker in the laptop so the Windows startup chimes didn't sound. Then I draped a napkin over the keyboard so the lid wouldn't close. I prayed Pete's scripts would work and the laptop would acquire the network as planned, but I didn't think I could hang round to find out for sure.

I grabbed another pile of napkins from the shelf above and draped them over the electronics, then pushed the stool back into position in front of the shelf. The power cables running to the outlet, piggy-backed on one another, looked ridiculous, but with the stool back in place it wasn't obvious what they led to.

As I had in Lake Charles, I went straight for the door I'd come in, as quickly as I could without running. Again, nobody said a word.

All we needed was a couple of hours.

 

~o~O~o~
 

As I was heading back to our hotel I got a text from Pete that said "ntwk ok", which meant he was sitting in a car at the back of the Grand logged into the wireless router I'd just installed on the hotel's internal network. He would already have sent the same message to Talia, so by now she'd be logged into the same network, using what would appear — to anyone looking at the network — to be a machine located inside the MGM Grand. It should be relatively simple for her to access the other subnets, and she already had Pete's Whitwell credentials. As I was showering she had already obtained Root access to the database, and was beginning to modify the profile information on some individuals and insert some new information on others.

 

~o~O~o~
 

After the shower I had to go to a team meeting with my old Harvard team. It seemed strange, after a single night with my friends, to now have to think of Alice and Arun and the rest of them as a team. I knew now what loyalty was. We had never had that on Arun's team.

The team meeting was every bit as strained as the one back in Boston. We all knew what we had to do, but there was so much tension between the five original members of the team — Arun, Alice, James, Emily and me — that it was beginning to infect the new members, too. Alice, in particular, seemed wound unusually tight. Sally asked Arun a question about the rendezvous point — she had heard it sometimes closed early — and Alice snapped at her, that nothing in Vegas ever closed early. Sally was startled, because it was very unlike Alice to snap at anyone. Arun snapped at people all the time when he thought they weren't on the ball, but he was usually the only disciplinarian on the squad.

I tried to keep to myself. My mind was elsewhere, on the team I had assembled, of people who really mattered to me.

After the meeting, outside the suite, Alice approached me. She seemed to find it hard to meet my eyes, and I made the conversation even harder by glaring at her fiercely throughout.

"Alex, I'm, uh …"

I let her sweat it out.

"I'm sorry," she finished.

"Sorry for what?" I knew how women played this game, now. I could be a bitch if I had to.

"About, you know, not telling you about me and Arun."

"It doesn't matter, really. You can sleep with anyone you want."

"It's not about that, Alex."

"Alice, it's not that you didn't tell me about him – okay, it is that you didn't tell me about him." I exhaled a deep breath that I hadn't known I had stored up inside me. "I thought we were close. But what it's really about, is that you lied to me. You lied to me."

I think she wanted to say something more, because she moved her lips as though she was going to say something. Instead she turned away, and walked back into the hotel suite.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Back at the Bellagio, my new team was down in the bar, drinking soda and mocktails, all clustered around one of the only decent-sized tables there.

"Sunhee, you are going to follow Arun around," I said. "And wherever possible sit just to his left, and mimic his bets. Do you know how to do that?"

"I think so. But if I have a different hand, I won't win, right?"

"Well, you'll be in the hand at the same time he's in the hand. If he's betting big, it's because the count is high. You should be alright. Sit on twelve if you have to, just don't bust out."

"But he will move tables, right?"

"Right. So you will follow him to his new table."

"Isn't that going to make him suspicious?"

"Yes. That's the point. I want you to make him nervous."

"What if there's no seat to his left?" Vassily asked. "If he sits right at the end of the table?"

"He'll try to resist that," I said. "He never likes that position. But if he does, Sunhee should just drop out of play and stand behind him."

"That will still make him nervous," Sunhee said.

"Exactly," I said. "Now, here's the thing. No matter what happens, you need to be on the floor no later than 8.00pm, because Arun will be there soon after and it's better if you're there before him. Even if I'm not there, you should still be there. Unless -" I reinforced this by looking everyone in the eyes, one at a time — "unless you get a text from Beverly telling you to abort. Do you understand?

Everyone nodded.

"And if you abort, you go to the airport."

Everyone nodded again.

"And?" I looked questioningly at Susan.

"We go to VegasJet, not the main terminal," Susan said.

"Unless?" I said to her.

"Unless I have to be you. Then I go to the lawyer's, then get to Grandma's, and everyone else goes to VegasJet." The others looked mystified about this, but it was best that only Susan and I knew about the aspect of the plan involving her and me. I was the weakest link in the team — the person Whitwell and Treasury and the Russians already knew. If anything was going to go wrong, I was the likely vector for it. Maybe I was breaking my promise to Tom, asking Susan to help me in this way, but I felt like she was our only insurance.

As I listened to them recite the fallback plans I was mostly satisfied. Not relaxed, but no longer on the verge of panic.

We discussed strategy for a while longer. Susan and Sunhee, in particular, were worried they would make a mistake at the tables. I reassured them. "Up until Talia does her thing, you should either run your own count, or copy whatever Arun or James or Alice do," I said. "We will make a lot of money that way. But after Talia injects some profiles, you should stop playing, or you should bet lightly, because things are going to get screwy, and I don't know exactly what effect everything will have on actual play at the tables – except that it will throw Arun, and he'll begin to lose. So don't bet once Talia has injected data."

"I still don't know how we're going to know that," Yana said.

"Trust me, you'll know," I said. "When you see someone led away from a table? That will be when."

 

~o~O~o~
 

Before I went back to the floor I decided I had to do one final check on the kitchen. I planned to ditch my kitchen whites for a black dress and heels I was carrying in a white plastic shopping bag. My purse, containing my cellphone and money, also went in the bag. The dress was microfiber, and wouldn't wrinkle. Later, as part of one of my fallback options, I was planning to exchange it for something completely different, but at this stage of the evening it was the best thing for a quick and easy change.

That would come later. In the meantime my hair was still tied back, and in my whites I hoped I was still anonymous enough to get through the kitchen. This time, as I went through, the kitchen was crowded. It was seven pm, and they were geared up for dinner. A tall guy in a chef's hat stared directly at me. He was standing talking to a blonde woman who was also in whites, and I could sense he was going to challenge me. I kept my head down and tried not to make eye contact. "Hey," he called, as I rounded a corner and disappeared from his view. "Hey!"

I stopped, and put my head back around the corner. If I wanted to do this properly, I had to be brazen. "Yes?"

"Who are you?"

"Lisa," I said in what I hoped was a casual tone. I tried to resist glancing down at my ID. I hoped I'd remembered the name right.

"You're new?"

"Yes. Well, no. I was here last week." I don't know what made me think of that, but it seemed better than just saying yes.

It seemed to work for him. "Which team are you on?"

I had no answer for that. I remembered the chart I had seen on the noticeboard near the laptop. I tried to remember one of the names on it. "Rodriguez," I said, praying he wasn't Rodriquez. He looked Hispanic. Maybe I was fucked.

"Okay," he said. "I didn't think he was on tonight?"

"He's not," I said. "I was just checking some ordering. He asked me to. I'm just leaving."

"Okay." He seemed satisfied, and he turned back to the blonde.

I went to the laptop as fast as I could without arousing even more attention. I couldn't believe he'd accepted my explanation. From the look of the napkins arranged over the top, it appeared to be undisturbed. I didn't want to touch it again and risk discovery, so I kept on into the kitchen, and then out to the service corridor beyond.

 

~o~O~o~
 

As I left the kitchen my heart was still pounding, and once clear of other people I sped up to make sure I kept to schedule. I knew Sunhee would be just about to make it to the table, and even though she had acquitted herself well the night before I was worried, still very worried, about leaving her on the floor for any length of time without me. It wasn't that I didn't think she was capable. And given Arun's Prosopagnosia, I wasn't worried about his remembering her. But after what had happened to Dan, I couldn't have faced her parents if anything went wrong. And I liked her. She was fierce, and sweet, and smart and she reminded me so much of Dan and yet was completely unlike him.

Because I was in a hurry I rounded the corner in the corridor leading back to the playing rooms with some momentum, and I smacked right up against an extremely large man in a black suit. He grabbed my arm to steady me. "Easy now."

"Excuse me," I said, attempting to extricate myself from his grip. He wasn't letting go.

"Miss Alex Jones." It wasn't a question.

"Let me go, please."

"I have someone who wants to talk with you," the man said. Before I could stop him he had stripped the bag containing my dress and heels from me, and had grasped both my hands in his. He wasn't really all that big – probably no taller than Pete, and with a similar build – but he had a grip of iron on my hands. I could almost feel the bruising beginning.

I realized that in the corridor I had no hope. There was nobody else around to witness the spectacle. But I tried my best anyway. "You can't hold me. It's illegal."

"Is that right?" He seemed mildly amused.

"Let me go. I was just leaving the casino."

"This won't take long." He let go of my hands, but only so he could pull my arm to get me to move down the corridor away from the playing rooms, toward the service elevators. I decided to let myself go slack, slumping toward the floor in an attempt to force him to drag me. It was a risk. I thought I might twist an ankle. But as I started to slump he didn't try to pull me up. Instead, in a fluid movement, he swept his other arm under my legs and took his hand from my arm. Then he more or less threw me over his shoulder, and began carrying me toward the elevator.

I like to think I behaved moderately intelligently. I only said "put me down, you motherfucker" once, maybe because it elicited an actual chuckle from him. I waled upon his back with my hands, then tried to make a fist and punch him in the kidney. It didn't seem to slow him down any.

I was more than alarmed. I was humiliated. I knew that if I had still been a man, I would be no match for him, but he would probably have hit me or locked my arm behind my back to frogmarch me. Because I was a woman, he simply picked me up. And laughed when I struggled.

We got into the elevator. It was hard for me to see anything except the floor because my hair had started to come loose from the bun and was now hanging down over my eyes. I kept hitting him, and it must have at least irritated him slightly, because as we were going up he said "there's really no need for that," although more in the tone someone would use on a child than in anger.

I started swearing at him again. Every epithet I had ever heard. And I kept hitting him. He had a firm grip on my legs. There wasn't anything I could do to get free. I tried to reach for the bag, which he had slung over his other shoulder. But it was further up his back — I couldn't reach it, or get to the cellphone inside it.

As he was carrying me I heard Beverly's words run through my brain. "Expect the unexpected."

Once out of the elevator I understood from the pattern on the carpet that he was walking in a semi-public area of the casino. I hoped to heaven we would meet someone who would appreciate that a man carrying a screaming woman was inappropriate and possibly worth calling the cops for. But in only a few short steps we arrived at a door, and again, in a quick series of movements that made me think he'd had some practice at this sort of thing, he set me down on my feet, grabbed both my hands in one of his, and turned a door handle to an office. Then he thrust me inside, letting go of my hands as he did so.

I was red-faced, out of breath from screaming, and had a kind of tunnel vision, I think maybe from all the blood rushing to my head while I'd been hanging from his shoulder. I brushed my hair back from my forehead so I could see past it, and a vague image of the room came through the pounding in my skull.

Inside the room were two men. One, an older guy, was facing me when I came in. The other had his back to me and was doing something with a camera and a laptop. When he turned around I realized who it was.

Will. Will the supposed I.T. guy, from that evening gambling at the MGM Grand months ago.

"Hello, Alex," he said gently.

I think I slumped against the door. Just looking at his face elicited a welter of emotions. That night at the Grand, that authentic, real connection I had thought I had felt. That had been fake, too.

"You …" I began.

"I'm sorry, Alex. Yes." He flipped open his badge. It didn't look like FBI, or anything like that. It looked more like a dollar bill with a passport page added. "Will Coles. Thank you for all your help."

It took me a few moments to get everything to register properly in my brain. I didn't understand. As far as I knew, the FBI had only become involved in investigating Arun's team after Lucy had died. This wasn't an FBI badge. And Will certainly didn't look anything like Grieves from Treasury or Special Agent Jones.

The confusion must have registered on my face. My mind was doing gymnastics without a mat or a horse or anything to hold onto. When I had entered the room I had half expected to be walking into my death, or at the very least a major beating. Instead Will – if that was his name – was looking at me somewhat sympathetically. And the other guy was politely holding out a chair and motioning for me to sit. The guy who had led me to the room gently steered me and I slumped into it, all of my momentum gone in a sudden evacuation of everything I ever thought I knew. Just what the fuck was going on?

"You fuckers," I said. Behind me I heard a muffled chuckle from the guy who had carried me.

"She didn't really want to come."

"This is totally fucking illegal," I said.

"Many things going on here tonight are illegal, Alex," 'Will Coles' said. "Some are more illegal than others. You're dressed in an interesting way to play cards, aren't you?" He stared at the MGM Grand ID I was still wearing. "Lisa Teo," he said. "That's a new one for you, am I right?"

"Fuck you."

"I apologize for any roughness," he said. "But time is of the essence. Are you okay?"

The older guy poured me a glass of water and set it on the table. I was going to refuse it but my throat was hoarse from yelling and I didn't think it would be drugged. If they had meant to kill me they would have done that sooner. I swallowed the water and finally asked: "What the fuck is going on?"

"Alice Kim."

"What about Alice Kim?"

"You know her well."

"I thought I did. Well, no, not really. I mean, I've known her for a couple of years, but I discovered recently that I don't know her at all."

"Arun Kapoor?"

"Do you government guys not talk to one another, or something?"

"Treasury and the FBI think Arun Kapoor is laundering money for a drug syndicate," Will said.

"Yes?"

"That's not why we're here," Will said.

"Can I have a look at that ID again?" I asked. Will sat on a corner of the table and slid it across. The other guy held his up, but I couldn't read it from a distance. I looked at Will's.

Under the words 'Central Intelligence Agency, Washington DC' it said: "This is to certify that William J Coles, whose photograph and signature appear here, is an accredited agent of the United States Government on official business for the Central Intelligence Agency."

I put my head in my hands. I couldn't think of him as Will again. Now he was Agent Coles. "How many of you assholes do I have to satisfy?

"What?" Agent Coles said.

"I really, really don't have time for this."

"Alex," Agent Coles said gently. "We're not here to make your life hard. We think you could help us."

"Everyone thinks I can help them," I said, removing my head from my hands and straightening up. "There are only so many hours in the day."

"Alice Kim," Agent Coles said.

"She plays cards. She lies about her personal life. She steals data. Um …"

"Yes?"

"I can tell you some about Alice, I think, but …"

"But?"

"I really have to be somewhere."

"I need to keep …" Agent Coles hesitated.

"You can't let me go?"

"Where do you have to be, right now?"

I had what seemed to be a flash of inspiration. "Come with me. You can play alongside me. Just don't make me look guilty. Not yet. Can we do that? Or is against some kind of oath or something?"

"Alex, we need to talk about Alice Kim," Agent Coles said. "We don't need to play cards."

"I need to play cards," I said. "Or people will get hurt."

I stood up and went to go to the door, but the guy who had carried me in was standing in the way. His eyes flicked to Agent Coles, seeking instructions.

"Alex, there are some things you should know before you step outside. People are going to try to kill you."

"And this is news?" I asked, turning back to face him. "Two of my friends are already dead. If that's all you've got, then I don't need to stay. I need to be with people."

"Do you mind telling us what's going on? We know you're planning something … Miss Teo."

"I can't."

He looked at the guy blocking the door. "Alex, we believe Arun Kapoor –"

"– Murdered my friends. Yes, I know."

"If you would let me finish, please. We believe Arun Kapoor is actually being run by Alice Kim."

"Wait, what? Run?"

"We believe Alice Kim is a North Korean agent. We believe she controls the money your team plays with. She directs Arun Kapoor."

"North Korean?"

"You thought it was Russians, right?"

"Yes." Now I needed to find out more. I sat back down. "I don't understand any of this."

"That's what I thought," Coles said. "The guys at Treasury aren't too sharp. Yes, Arun has Russian contacts. But the money laundering is actually to fund other activities. Principally, we suspect, it's to fund domestic spying operations in the United States. Mostly industrial espionage. The Russians are just thugs for hire, and they help to distract law enforcement from the bigger picture."

"So, that means …" I suddenly wondered whether I was saying too much. I could hear Tom's voice in my head, warning me to be quiet.

"We don't know what it means, other than that you seem to have some scheme you're involved in that's separate from Alice's team's plans. We'd like to know what that is, and whether you're on the right side or not."

"I suppose that depends upon what the right side is," I said.

"The right side," Coles said, "Is the side that's going to win. And that would be ours."

I thought of Sunhee and Susan and Vassily and Yana, out on the floor. And Pete in the alleyway behind the casino, crouched over a laptop. And Talia and Beverly in Somerville. We had our own side.

Coles continued. "We've been observing you, and your friends, and we believe you are planning something. We'd like to know what it is. We'd like to know now."

"I do have a plan," I said. "And it needs to be acted on now. I would be very happy to sit here and talk more, but people are depending upon me."

"I'm not going to let you walk out of here without telling me what you're doing," Coles said.

"I don't think you have a choice," I said, standing again. "If you don't let me go, Arun Kapoor and Alice Kim are going to be scared away. They're going to take a hiatus from playing. Is that what you want?"

"It's a start," Coles said. "Besides, I think Alice Kim has plans to have you killed, so why would you not being around scare them in any way?"

"Because so far," I said, trying not to sound like I was explaining something very basic, "All the people who have gone missing or been killed … it's all been at Alice or Arun's behest. They knew about it. But if I'm not on the floor, soon, they're going to suspect something is going on."

Coles did a beat, then nodded. "I can see that." It seemed as though he and the other guy hadn't quite thought that angle through. "What happens if you don't show up?"

"They'll abandon play. Then they'll go back to Boston. Then they'll try to find out what happened to me." I moved toward the door again. "Maybe you can make something look like an accident, maybe not. It's them you have to convince."

"We're not going to kill you, Alex."

"If you're not going to let me go, you're going to have to. Because if I stay here, other people are going to get hurt, and I can't have that on my conscience."

I motioned to the Agent to stand away from the door. He didn't budge.

"You mentioned something about Alice Kim stealing data," Coles said.

"Yeah, she sabotaged a company a friend of mine runs."

"That would be Peter Johanssen?"

"Yes." It wasn't surprising that Coles knew the name of my housemate, but it still shook me to hear him link Pete to my misadventures. "Look, I really, really have to go. Can we make a deal?"

"We can certainly make a deal, Alex," Coles said. "We'd like to talk to you in more detail."

"If you let me go, I promise you can question me at the end of the night."

"That's not much of a deal."

"And I promise you won't have to worry about Alice after that."

"But you won't tell me what you're going to do."

"No."

"Then I can't let you go."

"You don't have much of a choice. If you don't, your entire case against Alice Kim is going to go pear-shaped."

"I work for the Central Intelligence Agency, Miss Jones. We don't make cases."

"You know what I mean. If Alice gets spooked, you have nothing."

"You don't scare easily, do you?"

I was going to laugh, but I stifled it. I was fucking terrified.

"Look," I said, and I turned back to face the guy at the door, motioning again for him to move. "This is really not getting us anywhere." I briefly looked over my shoulder at Coles as I took a step towards the guy at the door. "How about this: you can follow me, if you want. As long as you don't make it too obvious."

There was an incredibly long period where I stared at the guy on the door, without looking away. Eventually Coles must have motioned, because the Agent stood away from the door.

I grabbed my bag from him as I walked past.

"I'm not against you," I said to Coles as I left. "I think we have common interests. But I have my own side."

 

~o~O~o~
 

I walked out of the room and down the corridor. Behind me I could see Coles and the other Agent standing in the doorway. Before I got to the corner of the corridor I stripped off my kitchen whites, down to my underwear. I didn't much care that they were watching, but I turned so my back was to them anyway. Fuck them. What were they going to do? Arrest me?

How could I ever have been so gullible as to accept Coles at face value?

I put on the black dress, thankful for wrinkle-free microfiber, and then I pulled on my heels. I extracted my cellphone and purse and put my shoes and the kitchen whites in the bag. Then I dumped the bag at the side of the corridor, looked back at Coles, undid the hair that was still caught in what was left of my bun and smoothed it out with my hands, and disappeared around the corner, heading to the floor near the restaurants.

The thing I hadn't mentioned to Coles, as I had bluffed my way out, was that – if our plan was working – Arun and Alice would think I was on the playing room floor already. Because Susan was out there, impersonating me. I had invited Coles to follow me, but he had stayed in the room with the other guy. I guess he knew where I was going to be. I wondered how long it would take for him to show up.

I also wondered who I was going to have to account to, at the end of the night. Would it be Coles? The FBI? Grieves and his Treasury team? It didn't really matter — I was going to have to account to someone.

I came out of the corridor into a flock of accents. The Casino was unaccountably full of Eastern European men. I thought I recognized a little Russian, and was about to panic. But while I was sliding past two of the men I overheard another language that I was pretty sure was something different. Eastern European, but different somehow.

I came to one of the open areas on the floor, trying to orient myself and find the high roller's lounge. The Russians or whatever they were spoke loudly, behind me. Then I saw a sign over at the intersection of the lobby and the playing floor, which told me what was going on. "Welcome, World Chess Champions," it said. I could relax about the Russians.

It was 8.30pm. It was past time. I sent a text to Beverly saying "going in", and walked through the gaming rooms.

Halfway across I ducked into a bathroom and applied a little of the makeup I had in my purse. I wasn't wearing much, because that night I was more interested in staying off Whitwell's radar than sticking out in my usual Wizard visage, and I still wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do when Alice or Arun realized that there were two of me on the floor. I brushed my hair out, half covering one side of my face, the side I would try to keep to Arun and Alice and other team members, and walked out of the bathroom again. I wasn't playing the role of Japanese princess tonight, but I felt more in the mood than I had before.

As I entered the high roller section of the playing rooms the attendant nodded, then looked momentarily confused as he looked my dress up and down. My first thought was that my dress was askew somehow, but then I wondered whether he had seen Susan and was trying to reconcile the clothes she was wearing with what I had just worn past him.

Across the room I could see Sunhee sitting next to Arun. He wasn't discomfited yet, but that would come in time, as she kept distracting him. At another table I noticed Yana subtly doing her best to get James to look at her instead of concentrating on his count. She had worn an extremely low-cut dress, exposing a very impressive décolletage, and I could tell that – even at a distance – all the men at the table were having trouble focusing. James was doing his best to stay cool, but when she leant over to ask him for advice I could detect his nervousness from several tables away.

Nervousness and distrust aside, I had confidence in the Harvard team's ability to perform under pressure. That was why I had told Sunhee to shadow Arun's bets. My friends and I would make a lot of money tonight, before Talia began to disrupt things.

I sat at a nearby table and put a thousand dollars on the table. In that room, it barely registered, and they gave me ten one hundred dollar chips. I put one out on the felt. A waitress walked by, and I asked for a club soda.

I tried to keep myself turned away from Alice and Arun so that my hair was always concluding my face, but I still had a reasonable view of the room. Three tables away Susan was doubling for me, at a table where Emily was counting. I felt momentarily guilty that I hadn't taken Emily into my confidence. She was one of the early players on Arun's team, and while we hadn't been close we had spent a lot of time together, and I had nothing against her. But I didn't trust her enough to risk Susan and Sunhee and my real team.

I couldn't tell from a distance exactly what was going on, but Susan sure seemed to be playing the Wizard part well. I waited for her to notice me, but she seemed too engrossed in the action at the table. That was the difference between her and me. I was always — almost always — aware of things around me when I was playing. Since Henry and Lake Charles, I was always on the lookout for the signal to abandon ship. Susan was too fixed on the action on the felt.

After about two hours that felt like ten I felt my phone vibrate in my purse, which I had put next to my ankle down on the floor. It was just a short alert, probably a text message. There wasn't much I could do to look at it, not while I was on the floor.

I played another hand, keeping my eye on Sunhee and Susan. I noticed Vassily, across the room, keeping a close watch on Yana. He was just behind a table that Alice was playing at. Carl was at the same table, matching her bets the way Sunhee was matching Arun's. I could tell Alice was irritated, but not distracted. A few tables away, Arun was more discomfited by Sunhee's presence.

Vassily caught my eye and nodded almost imperceptibly. It was a sign that things were about to begin.

The first real indication that things were moving was a little after midnight, when an older man entered the room with his wife. He was maybe about sixty, had plenty of sandy gray hair, and was wearing a dark gray suit. It wasn't exactly standard attire on a Saturday night in Vegas. He sat at the table next to me, and drew some chips. I thought I heard the dealer say something, but all I caught was a fragment that sounded like "eerie."

I played my cards desultorily, not paying as much attention as I should have been. Oddly enough I won two hands in a row by standing on 15 while the dealer busted.

After about two dozen hands there was a small disturbance over at a table on the far side of the room. Emily was sitting there, undisturbed, while a middle-aged woman was being escorted from the room. Almost as soon as she had been led away a security guard approached the older man who had just sat down at the next table. "Senator Geary?" I heard the guard say. "I was wondering if we could talk for a moment."

'Senator?' I thought.

The gray-haired guy looked startled, but he laid his cards down and left them on the felt. Because he was facing toward me I could almost hear him, and because I could see his lips I could pretty much understand every word.

"Can I help you?"

"Senator, we'd just like to have a short discussion about something."

"Something?"

"Our head of security would like to talk with you."

The security guard ushered the Senator out of the room. I noticed Emily and Sally, the counters at Arun's and Alice's tables respectively, had both been distracted by the disturbances. Good. One more disturbance would be all that was needed to completely disrupt their counting.

Less than two minutes after security had led the Senator away they swooped on a man in his mid-thirties sitting at the same table as James, Carl and Yana.

It was clear, in the few hands after that, that Arun, Alice and James began to lose, badly. It wasn't easy for me to see Arun's play, but I observed Alice lose at least fifty thousand dollars in only a few hands.

Finally, exasperated, Arun stood up to leave his table. He looked around for a signal from Ziyen as to where he should go. Ziyen indicated a table further away from me, where Audren, one of the new team members, was counting.

I knew I should hang around to make sure Sunhee and Susan were okay, but I was beginning to get concerned about exactly what was going down behind the scenes. In the hope that there might be some clue in the unread text message I had received I decided to step out into the lobby and consult my phone.

There was a text from Beverly. "T done says U have 30 mins." That would have been fifteen minutes earlier.

I went back into the room. This time, Susan saw me almost as soon as I entered. She finished her hand, gave the prearranged signal — a sweep of her hand under her chin — and made for the ladies room. I waited a few moments before following.

There was an attendant inside the restroom, which I should have remembered in our planning phase. I slipped her a hundred dollar bill and motioned with my hand, and after a moment when she looked at me like I was a sasquatch she followed my gesture and went into one of the stalls. Then Susan and I began exchanging clothes. It took us barely two minutes. I did my makeup and she helped me fix my hair the way hers had been styled, pinned at the side with a red lacquer clip. Once I looked the way she had when we'd entered, I went back out onto the playing floor.

Nothing had changed in the few minutes I'd been gone. The atmosphere in the relatively small room was still disturbed from the earlier interventions by the security staff. I looked over at Arun, who didn't quite seem his usual cool self, and then at Alice. Something in her expression made me think she wasn't relaxed either.

In the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Susan as she exited the playing room, dressed in my clothes. I noticed Coles and his henchman follow her. That was both reassuring and worrying. She had instructions to contact Denis Powley and hide out at his place, and I figured Coles would follow her there. Would he be bold enough to try raiding a lawyer's home?

I noticed Sally signaling me onto her table. I slid into the last seat, and quickly won two hands with the table maximum. As I had received the cards for the third hand I became aware of another disturbance on the floor. Security was standing over Arun, clearly trying to get him to leave his table. At the table next to that one I could see another man — someone I didn't know — also being accosted by Security. He was casually dressed, well groomed, maybe 40. He looked foreign.

I glanced across to Ziyen, who was running security for the Harvard team. He looked terrified. I watched him give the signal to abandon ship, and I began to gather up my chips. But slowly. I wanted to see what was going to happen. Alice was still sitting at her table. Across the felt Sally had already gathered her chips and left.

Arun stood. Although he was too far away for me to hear him clearly, I could pretty much guess he was telling the two security guards and the pit boss that he was just leaving, that he wouldn't be coming with them. But he wasn't well positioned for an escape. Two of them were between him and the exit, and the other reached out to take hold of his upper arm. Arun tried to shake it off. The security guy gripped tighter.

The older man was led past my table and I heard the security guard call him Mr. Karpov as he was leading him away. Gary Karpov? The chess master? Oh baby, I thought. What had Talia done?

I finished out the hand, and stood to go. I had given the signal to Carl and Sunhee, and they were ahead of me. Yana was already at the Cashier's desk, cashing out her chips. I pretended I didn't know any of them, and strode out to the Strip and next door to the Harvard Team's pre-planned rendezvous at the Allstar Cafe.

Alice and Sally were there. "What the fuck happened?" Sally asked as soon as she saw me. "I thought they got you, too."

"No, I just wasn't as alert as I should have been," I said. I looked at Alice. She looked grim. "How are you? Who did they get?"

"They got Arun, and James," Alice said. "We'll have to wait to see who else comes back here. How many chips do you have?"

"Nine thousand," I said. "It's still early. What are we going to do about Arun and James?"

"I don't know," Alice said. "I can't believe Arun let himself be taken by them."

"Or James," I said.

"Or James. It's just not like them."

"How did they even know?" Sally asked. "I mean –"

"– There was something strange going on," Alice said. "They got that Senator, and that woman."

"They got Gary fucking Karpov," I said. "No way he was card counting."

I felt a slight vibration in my purse as my cellphone went off. I was pretty sure nobody else was aware of it.

"Buy me a drink, please," I said to Sally. "I'm just going to the bathroom."

Once in the stall in the ladies room I glanced at my phone. The text was from Beverly. "T says go now."

I exited the stall. In the mirror opposite I looked like I had aged at least ten years. Maybe it was the stress. I thought perhaps I could see a few of the suture lines from the surgery, near my temples, but I was probably imagining it.

I sent a text to Beverly. "every1 ok?" As I washed my hands and dried them the response came back.

"Susan w Powley fine others at airpt xcpt U sunhee."

I exited the ladies room, took my drink from Sally, and downed a huge gulp.

"Heard from Arun or James?"

"No."

"I don't think they're coming." I turned to Alice. "You need to get Jeff Orgun on the phone, find a local lawyer."

Alice looked startled. "You think?"

"Of course I think. And I'm going to go."

"Go?"

"To the airport. Go. You know, like leave."

"What about Arun."

"What do you imagine I can possibly do for Arun that Jeff can't?"

"We can't just leave."

"I can." I finished the rest of my drink and strolled out of the Allstar. Across the street I saw Sunhee, and behind me I heard Alice calling to me. Quickly I ran across the strip — this was before they'd put in so many impediments to pedestrians, but I was taking my life in my hands all the same. I grabbed Sunhee by the hand, and together we ran, as fast as we could in our inappropriate shoes, through New York New York and over to the cab stand.

In the cab, I told the driver to head for McCarran. I was leaving my luggage behind. So was Sunhee. It didn't matter. What mattered was that we were out of there.

Out of breath, I turned to her in the back of the cab. "Otsukaresama desu," I said.

She looked at me blankly.

"Thank you very much."

"I'm not Japanese, Alex."

"Thank you very much, anyway. I couldn't have done it without you."

"It was for Dan."

"It was. And for salvation."

If she was mystified by that comment she at least had the good grace not to ask any questions.

 

~o~O~o~
 

At the Airport, I sent Sunhee into the terminal ahead of me, with instructions to pretend she didn't know me, just in case. It was a sensible precaution. After I'd checked in, for the 8am flight, I made my way to the security line — oh, how much easier those were before 9/11 — and Coles was waiting, none too happy about being tricked by Susan and me.

"Alex," he said coolly. His eyes were darting around, I guess trying to check for Susan. Based on Beverly's most recent text she was driving down to LA to meet Tom and Grandma Rousselot.

"Agent Coles," I said, with what I hoped was the same kind of reserve. I kept my eyes firmly focused on him, as though I was unsurprised to see him. I wondered how he knew when I would be at the airport – I had originally planned to fly out later that day – but then I realized he knew my aliases, and it was probable the CIA had access to every flight manifest.

"That was some trick," he said

"I thought so. I thought you guys had been watching me long enough to have observed my sister."

"Well, we have now."

"So what can I do for you?"

"I believe you owe me."

"I owe you? Say what? I have a question."

"You have a question?" He raised his eyebrow as though he was surprised I was talking back.

"Yes. Are you really from Vegas?"

He shrugged. "Albuquerque. I still like the desert, and the heat."

"So you only lie when it's convenient."

"That's a little harsh, Alex."

It was my turn to shrug. "I call it like I see it. The way I see it, you owe me, too."

"Alex, I could have held you, the other night. Hell, I could have had your ass on a plane to Abu Dhabi."

"Abu Dhabi?" My cool was disappearing. What was he talking about?

It occurred to me that Tom wouldn't be much help with Coles.

"Never mind. The point is, I let you do your thing, and you've satisfied Grieves, I think, but you've left me … exposed." for a brief moment I recognized the Will Coles I had met at the Blackjack table all that time ago. "Now I need you to do the right thing."

"And that would be?"

"Help me land Alice's handler."

"Land? … You mean kill."

"No, I mean prosecute, Alex. This isn't James Bond. We don't kill people."

"Does that mean I can relax? You're not going to kill me, right?"

"There are worse things than dying," Coles said.

 

~o~O~o~
 

---

 
I flew back to Logan with a mountain weighing on me. Sunhee and I were seated in different rows, so I couldn't talk to her, and as a result I had too much time for reflection. I tried to distract myself by listening to The Magnetic Fields on my mp3 player. Because it held hardly any songs I listened to You and Me and The Moon, Long Vermont Roads, The Flowers She Sent and the Flowers She Said She Sent, and Take Ecstasy With Me, over and over. I loved that the little player was like an infinitely rewritable mixtape, and I made a note to myself that I should aim to develop something better, that held more music — maybe an mp3 player with a small hard drive? It could hold thousands of songs. I wondered how expensive that would be.

I rolled other ideas around in my head with each song. I had thought, before the weekend, that all I needed to do was take down Arun. Then I'd have settled my deal with Grieves, and made my peace with the law. I would have taken the money I had remaining, and gone on to find a more normal life. If you could call the life of an unintentional transsexual normal.

Coles's revelations about Alice had changed that. I had known something was off about Alice — Lucy and I had discussed it, and of course Sunhee had sent me the photocopy of Alice's ID.

My new deal with Coles, made at McCarran, was that I would contact him as soon as Alice made plans to meet again. "If you can get her to admit to espionage – perhaps to stealing from your friend Peter Johanssen – that will be all we need."

Coles had given me two hurdles to jump instead of one. I thought I knew how I might deal with Arun, but I wasn't sure at all how to deal with Alice.

At Logan I had no luggage to collect, so I made sure Sunhee got a cab before me, then tumbled into one myself. Boston was cold. There had been an early, heavy snow, and while the place looked pretty, the air was icy. I was pleased to be home all the same. Vegas had taken a lot out of me emotionally.

Now that I knew Arun wasn't the mastermind behind the whole operation I was oddly sympathetic to his plight. When I landed at Logan there were four new voicemails from him, and when I arrived back at my apartment he was waiting in his car on the street out front.

"Alex," he called as I got out of the cab at my place. I turned to deal with him. He'd got out of the car, and was crossing the street. "Alex," he called again, like he needed reassurance it was actually me. I wondered how long he had been waiting.

"Hey, Arun," I said. "How goes it? Saturday was weird, wasn't it?"

"Weird, and damaging," he said. He was close enough now, on the sidewalk, that I could see him more clearly. He was in pretty poor shape, hadn't shaved, maybe hadn't even showered since Saturday. I had never seen him like that before.

"Are you okay?"

He seemed to consider this for a moment before answering.

"Yes, I'm fine." He wasn't in such bad shape that he could think I believed him, but I didn't say anything in return. "Listen, I need you to get that money from the Bank of America account at Porter Square."

"You have a key to the box, right?"

"Yes, but I think I'm being followed."

"What?" I made a show of looking up and down my street. There was snow all over the sidewalks, and it cast a strange reflection from the moon and streetlights on the trees above. I had no doubt at all that Arun was being followed. By Grieves, at least, but if Grieves was right, probably by other people, too. "By whom?"

"Several people."

"But you're okay? We're okay?"

"Yes. But we're tapped out of free cash, we have to go back to the reserves."

"Arun …"

"Yes?"

"I gave the Porter Square money to Alice."

"To Alice? Why the fuck would you do that?"

"She told me …" I didn't exactly know where I was going with this. I had planned something different, but that had been supposed to take place in Vegas, not Cambridge, and Sunday morning, not Monday night. Now I was having to improvise.

"Told you what?"

"She told me you were being watched." Based on what Coles had told me, I thought it might seem credible to Arun that Alice might have done that.

"I thought you and Alice weren't on speaking terms?" Arun said.

"We made up."

"So that still doesn't explain why you gave Alice that cash."

"She had … a very specific need for it. She told me you knew about it."

"You didn't think to check?"

"Well, you know. You and Alice. I thought …"

I was being catty. That's such an old and sexist word, but it's how I was acting. Throwing Alice's treachery in Arun's face. If I had felt sympathetic toward him earlier, I certainly wasn't showing it. It occurred to me at the time, though, that this was the longest one-on-one discussion I had ever had with Arun.

Arun put his hand over his eyes for a moment. When he put it back down he looked like a defeated man.

"I don't suppose you have any other cash?"

"Not on the East Coast."

"Oh, Alex …" He slumped a little, and turned to go. He took a couple of steps, then squared his shoulders, turned and looked back at me. "You still in love with Alice?"

"No."

"Neither am I. Good luck, Alex." He turned away, again.

"Arun. Wait."

He turned around again, and stood in the middle of the street.

"I'm sorry," I said. I genuinely was.

"Sorry for what?" He seemed puzzled.

"Sorry about Alice," I said.

He shrugged. "Even Alice is sorry about Alice," he said.

He walked to his car. I stood and watched as he drove away, then turned and walked upstairs.

 

~o~O~o~
 

As I climbed our steps they were slippery, but I was glad to be careful of the ice. It felt somehow reassuring. Even while the steps felt treacherous, the experience felt solid, real. There was no secret government agency involved in the weather — at least so far as I knew. For the time being I was done with the FBI, the CIA, Treasury. I was back in the real world.

Finally I got to the door. All the lights were on inside and out, and I could hear music — Outkast, if I recall correctly — and I threw the door wide open and traipsed snow all over the mat.

Pete stuck his head around the doorway from the living room, into the hall. He beamed at me.

I had never been so glad to see Pete as I was then.

I somehow managed to leap up to hug him, in such a way that he lifted me off the ground entirely, and I wound up with my arms and legs wrapped around him. It was spontaneous, something that just seemed right. And yet, almost as soon as I had unwound myself, and stood, with his arms still around me, I knew that I had gone too far. It was too intimate. Too normal. Too sexual. Too heterosexual — if I had actually been a girl. But I wasn't, so that made it …

"So hey," he said, suddenly awkward. "Good job."

"Excellent job, I think." I smiled, searching his face, to see whether I had really gone too far. He was smiling, but there was some uncertainty there, too. I had broken the standoff we had been so studiously observing since the night he rejected me, and now everything was fragile again.

"I feel bad I didn't come back on the same flight as you. But thanks for the jet, that was good."

"It was safer," I said. "No sense in taking more chances than we have already."

I could feel this awkward gulf opening between us, from me being too physical. When I thought back on it the next day I thought maybe I should have left well enough alone, but at the time, me being me, tone-deaf to how to deal with relationships, my idiot-savant-in-reverse self decided to press on.

I had to know where Pete stood.

"Hey, Pete," I continued, after a brief awkward pause.

"Yes?"

"So, you and me, just then."

"Forget about it."

"What if I don't want to forget about it?"

"Uh …" He seemed even more uncomfortable. Alarm bells should have gone off in my head, then, but there was something perverse in me that decided I had to know the truth, regardless of the consequences.

"I love you, Pete Johanssen." There. I had said it.

If there's something I've learned over the years with Pete, it's that confronting him with raw emotion was a really bad idea. Like a lot of guys I've met, he finds it extraordinarily difficult to deal with what he might characterize as "mushy stuff." It's kind of juvenile, I know, but it seems from talking with my girl friends that it's hardly uncommon.

Anyway, as soon as I said "I love you" it was like he'd had an electric shock, and he stiffened up and even jerked a little.

"Ah, Alex … Alex …"

There was a long pause while I waited for him to finish his response. Eventually it became clear that he actually wasn't going to. Both of us faced each other in the hallway, close enough to kiss and yet seemingly a million miles apart emotionally.

"You don't love me."

"No. Yes. I mean … Alex, I don't know, it's complicated."

"You slept with me. I mean, we've slept together several times."

"Yes. Yes, but …"

My heart felt like a small lump of coal. Why had Pete been so overwhelmingly helpful? Why had we been so close again lately? We had been friends, with an edge. Friends, maybe more, but … There was this 'but' — 'Yes, but …'

Was it just that I didn't measure up to his idea of what a partner should be?

That had to be it.

We stood facing one another and neither of us said anything for at least thirty seconds. For Pete and I, that was a long time to be silent. I tried to work out what was going on in his mind. He looked concerned, anxious even. All I wanted was some small sign of reassurance. But none came.

"Godammit, Johanssen, I loved you, you prick." I waited about a second for him to respond, but he was standing there with a kind of look of panic on his face. Whatever he was feeling, it didn't seem like he was feeling love. I was a curiosity. We were friends, but he'd only slept with me when we were drunk, and when we were sober, I wasn't good enough.

I'd never be good enough.

I turned around and headed for the front door. He didn't say anything, and I didn't look back.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I spent the night at Susan's. She was understanding, but I was pretty much inconsolable. How had I allowed myself to think that Peter Johanssen, of the Norse god looks, enormous intellect, and great integrity, could possibly be interested in an in-between, underdeveloped, sexually ambiguous oddity like me? I must have been delusional.

Susan tried to cheer me up. She pointed out that our trip to Vegas had been a big success. Sure, I still didn't know how to pay off Coles, or whether I was in the clear with the Treasury Department, but we had executed a plan, and done it well.

It still wasn't enough to make me feel better.

"Fuck it," I finally said to Susan, after a few hours sobbing. I was all cried out, back in that state of relief that only comes after a good cry. "Fuck men. Fuck him."

"You know you still want to be friends," Susan said. "You'll still want that, when you've had some distance. But it's going to be hard."

"Well, I'm going to have to move out," I said. "I can't stay in the same house with him."

"You can stay here a few weeks, until you sort it out."

"Thanks." I went to bed.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Coles didn't wait long to call me. It was Monday lunchtime. I had slept late, and was only just showered, so when he suggested we needed to talk about Alice and my promise, I was able to stall him until early afternoon without telling any lies. "I'm only just up," I said. He gave me an address at Copley Plaza and told me to be there no later than 2pm.

I borrowed some clothes from Susan's closet, and caught a cab downtown rather than drive from Susan's. The address turned out to be a bland little office building just off the Plaza. The name Coles had given me was "Birchfield Associates," which could have meant anything.

Once at the office I was quickly ushered to a small meeting room, where Coles and another two men were waiting. Coles introduced the guy in the suit next to him, as FBI Agent Willis. Another man was sitting at the far end of the table, next to a large equipment carry case. Coles introduced him to me, as well, but I didn't catch his name. I did catch a reference to "tech," and to FBI. At the Casino Coles had told me the FBI thought Arun was working with Russians, but here they were anyway, wanting Alice Kim.

Agent Willis outlined the FBI plan: if I could wear a wire, they would follow everything. I must have seemed dubious — I'd seen a lot of television and movies where the person wearing the wire comes off badly.

Coles must have sensed this, because he tried to reassure me. There was, he promised, no risk to me. They were not planning to swoop on Alice while she was still with me. That would come later — assuming she said anything to incriminate herself.

I wasn't sure I could trust Coles, but I felt a strange sense that maybe I owed him after the way I had tricked him in Vegas, and besides, I did want payback at Alice, for her lies, and for her theft from Pete.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?"

"Okay, I'll do what you want."

"No skipping out on us this time," Willis said. Obviously Coles had told him what had happened in Vegas.

"That's enough, Carl," Coles said to Willis.

"So what now?" I asked.

"Bob?" Coles was talking to the man next to the hard case on the table. Bob pulled out a small piece of wire with what looked like a band aid attached to it, and approached me.

"Excuse me, he said. "May I?"

I nodded, and he lifted up the edge of my sweater, and began to fumble around on my upper abdomen.

"Would it be easier if I took this off?" I asked, and he nodded. I looked over at Coles. He had seen me near-naked before, in the corridor at the Bellagio, but I wasn't in a hurry now, and there seemed no need of a repeat performance. Coles nodded, and he and Willis left the office.

"You're with the FBI?" I said to Bob. I was having trouble keeping up with all the arms of government involved in catching Alice and Arun. I took off the turtleneck sweater I had borrowed from Susan, and then the camisole I had underneath it, until – from the waist up – I was only in my bra.

"It's a joint operation," Bob the tech said. He fumbled around a little and attached the band aid part of the microphone to my skin just above the flower in the middle of my bra. Then he ran the wire tail for about 2 inches down my thorax. The wire tail was sheathed in a clear plastic covering, and the whole arrangement, circular sticking band aid and tail, looked like a kind of Frankenstein daisy. I put my camisole back on, and then my sweater, and even though the sweater clung closely to my meager curves there was no evidence I was wearing anything other than my clothes.

Bob turned to his hard case, where a couple of LEDs glowed, and asked me to say something. I helpfully replied, with maximum intelligence, "What?"

Bob nodded, satisfied.

"I thought the FBI and the CIA didn't get on that well?"

"We cooperate when we have to." He walked to the door and let Coles and Willis back in.

"You ready to call the curious Ms Kim?" Agent Willis asked as he entered.

"What do I say?"

"Tell her you need to see her?"

"Why? I mean, she'll want to know why."

"Weren't you guys friends?"

"That was a long time ago," I said. It felt like forever ago.

"Well, tell her you have money for her. That would work, yes."

"After Saturday night?"

"You saw Kapoor last night, right?" Willis said.

I wondered whether the CIA or FBI had had my place under surveillance. "Yes, but he didn't give me money."

"Do you think she knows that?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Arun seemed like he didn't want to go to her to ask for money."

"So tell her Kapoor gave you money, to give to the team, for a new job on a Casino. That's what you guys do, right?"

"Wait," I said. "I'm confused. I thought you wanted me to get Alice to talk about her role in hacking Pete, and everything like that. What does that have to do with hitting another Casino?"

This time it was Coles that spoke. "You just want to see her. Can you think of another way to arrange it?"

I could. I pulled by cellphone from my purse and flipped it open, then looked at Coles for approval. He nodded.

I punched in the number, hit connect, and held my breath while it rang. Would Alice take a call from me? I expected it to go through to voicemail.

"Alice," I said, when she finally answered. "Thanks for answering. Listen, I –"

I waited while she interrupted to say hello, then continued. "Alice, I saw Arun last night. He was in a pretty bad way. Have you seen him?" I was pretty sure what the answer was going to be.

"No. Not since we got back."

"He said some things. I don't want to repeat them over the phone. Can we meet?"

We agreed to meet at the Somerville Public Library. It was pretty much walking distance from my old place, and a quick drive from Susan's. I hung up and Coles gave me the thumbs up.

Coles and Agent Willis walked me to the elevator and then stood on either side of me as we descended to the basement car park. It was a little intimidating, and I said so to Coles.

"My apologies, Alex." He moved about a foot further away from me.

"So, I asked Agent Bob back there earlier. You guys —" I indicated Willis, and then Coles, "— don't usually work together, right? I mean," I said to Coles, "you're not supposed to do things in the US, that's the FBI's job."

Coles flicked his eyes to Willis before he answered me. "We've been invited to collaborate. There's a big part of this investigation that is also going on overseas, but it's best that you don't know anything about that, for your own safety."

"But that first time, in Vegas, you were alone, I think."

"Maybe, maybe not." Coles said. "Besides —" he exchanged looks with Willis again, "— there are things the CIA can do that the FBI can't. We have programs that aren't subject to the same oversight."

"It's still illegal," I said.

Coles shrugged. "I think you're a patriot, Alex. We're getting the job done here."

I had never even considered whether I was or not. We were out of the elevator and walking toward a large SUV.

"What kind of programs?" I asked.

"You know I can't tell you that," Coles said. "But let me put it this way. If the FBI had carried you, upside down, through a Casino, you'd probably have sued."

"I might yet."

"Knock yourself out." Coles said, as he opened the door of a GMC Envoy and ushered me in. "I think you'll find it's a lot more trouble than it's worth. This is a new era, Alex. There are a lot of bad guys out there. A lot of programs are designed now to be deniable. The FBI will take care of Alex Kim. But I want things from someone else, and the FBI isn't allowed to do what's necessary." He nodded to Willis. "No offense."

Willis shrugged after he climbed into the SUV. I was sandwiched in the rear seat between him and another FBI agent I hadn't been introduced to. "Besides," Coles said through the open door of the SUV, "it's not like negotiating with the North Koreans is really working for us, is it?"

"You know," I said to Coles, "I always thought 'oversight' was an odd word to use in the context of Government Committees that review spending programs." I said. "Used as a noun, the word means overlook something in the sense of not seeing it. You know, missing something is an oversight. As a verb, we use it to mean looking at something carefully. Maybe the use of the word isn't an accident. When you say oversight, are you using a noun or a verb?"

Agent Willis rolled his eyes.

"Alex," Coles said, as he closed the door of the SUV. "It's a pleasure working with you. But seriously, you think too much."

 

~o~O~o~
 

Grieves called me on my cellphone after the SUV had exited the carpark and was heading across the Charles. Another agent whose face I couldn't see was driving all of us to the rendezvous with Alice. All the agents looked pretty much alike - short hair, thick neck, black suit jacket — but I felt like there was something familiar about this guy.

I was grateful for the call from Grieves, both because I was wondering what had become of Arun, and because I welcomed the distraction from the forthcoming meeting with Alice.

"Agent Grieves. How are we?" I could see Willis recognized the name.

"You met with Arun last night." Grieves said.

"I did. He wasn't a happy camper."

"His backers met with him today."

"And?"

"We arrested the two of them immediately afterward. Mr. Kapoor has agreed to turn State's Witness for us, against them."

"That's good, right?"

"Yes, that's very good. We still don't have their boss, but we're working on that."

"The boss — I guess they will try to kill Arun."

"We're expecting that, yes."

"So you'll, like, put him in witness protection or something?"

"I can't talk about that, Alex."

"No, I guess not." I looked past the FBI agent, out the window. We were travelling along Mass Avenue. On the street was a group of people, around my age, probably students, perhaps on their way home from classes at MIT. They all looked cheerful. I suddenly felt so much older than all of them. How simple my life as a student had been.

Here I was, all growed up, suddenly. It didn't feel the way I had imagined it might. It felt lonely, and incomplete.

Grieves was still talking. "I wanted to thank you, Alex."

"So we're good?"

"Your, um, creative disposal of your winnings was difficult for us."

"But legal." I wondered if I should have Tom on this call.

"Yes, legal. Very clever. And not such a bad outcome, all things considered."

"You're not recording this call, are you?"

"No. This is a personal call, to thank you. I will make an official call about the conclusion of our interest in you to your lawyer, Mr. Robicheaux. And you will, eventually, get an official letter."

"Thank you."

"We have your deposition. It's possible we may need you to testify, but we have Mr. Kapoor, so we may not."

"Okay. I hope not."

"I can't promise. We'll see. Have the FBI and CIA been decent in their dealings with you?"

"You know about that, too? I thought you guys didn't talk." much as I had softened toward Grieves, I didn't feel like telling him I was wearing an FBI wire at that very moment at the behest of the CIA.

"In the world of money, Alex, everyone talks to everyone. We mightn't like one another much, but everyone always seems to be eating each other's lunch."

"They're okay, I guess."

"Call me if there's anything I can do."

"You're awfully nice, for a Government Agent."

"Not all of us are J. Edgar Hoover. Good luck, Alex. I hope never to see you in a professional capacity again."

"Thank you. You too."

We had arrived at the Library. I flipped my phone closed.

 

~o~O~o~
 

It turned out the driver of the SUV that took me to the library was the agent who had been with Coles in the Casino in Vegas. I had seen his neck and back in detail, while slung over his shoulder. He pulled the car around the corner into Winslow Avenue, out of sight of the library entrance. After looking around for a few moments he turned around in the passenger seat. "Are you good?"

"I guess so," I said. I was never going to forgive him for carrying me upside down in the Casino, but I tried to keep my voice level. While this excitement was a welcome distraction from thinking about Pete, I was actually nervous as hell. It wasn't that I expected the meeting with Alice to be dangerous: I didn't even consider that at the time. But there was something about knowing I was wearing a wire that made me sweaty and fidgety. I was sure Alice would notice. I felt guilty, even though I had nothing to feel guilty about. Alice was the guilty one.

Willis got out of the car and let me out. I walked around the corner without looking back. Then I stood on the steps of the library for about ten minutes. No sign of Alice. I began to consider sitting on the steps instead, but they're quite shallow and there didn't seem to be a way to do it with any kind of dignity.

Just as I was beginning to think she wasn't going to show at all, the silver Mercedes I had seen that day in Watertown pulled up beside the Eglise Baptiste Church, and Alice got out. I walked down the short path from the steps to the street to meet her as she crossed.

We exchanged pleasantries, but briefly. Hanging over both of us was the knowledge that Arun was gone, but neither of us wanted to address the subject first. We both stood for a moment, silent. A teen boy walked between us, and I crossed the sidewalk so we could talk more easily.

"You talk with Arun?" I asked finally.

"No. You?"

"He came to see me last night. He was upset."

"Well …"

"Alice … I know what's been going on."

"You know what?"

"About where the money came from. What it was used for."

She didn't seem surprised. "You've always been smart, Alex."

"Obviously not smart enough"

"What else did he say?"

I decided to go out on a limb. "He told me the truth about you." She couldn't know that wasn't true.

"The truth."

"About who you work for."

"You know where the money comes from?"

"No, I mean who you really work for. Sunhee Koh told me part of it, but I didn't connect all the pieces. Augmented AI. China. North Korea? All that."

"Yes."

"Pretty much everything you ever told me was a lie, right?"

"Not everything," she said. For a moment I almost wanted to believe she had some kind of remorse. Was the look on her face an indication that she had valued our friendship? Or was it just guilt at having been caught out?

"We were friends, Alex," she said.

"You steal from your friends?"

"Everyone steals, Alex."

"Not me."

"You steal from the Casinos."

"It's not stealing."

"That doesn't make it right." She shuffled and glanced back at the Mercedes. I could see she was about to leave. "So, was that all Arun said? There wasn't anything else?"

"Did you set everything up? The team, me, everything?"

"Some of it. Some of it was Arun's idea."

"What about planting the Trojan on my computer?"

"What about it?"

"That was you, too, right?"

She looked back at the car again, almost like she was asking permission.

"Alice, you owe me. You can't just –"

"Yeah, it was. It was me. I needed to get something."

"Get something?"

"Have something to trade."

"So you stole Pete's algorithm. You stole all his stuff."

"Yes."

"I honestly don't know how you could even admit that. And, you know, not feel ashamed."

She shrugged, which made me crazy.

"Seriously, Alice."

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Alex. It was just something I had to do."

"You said 'trade'. Trade for what?"

"For my brother."

"Your family lives in Connecticut. I didn't know you even had a brother."

"I do. He doesn't live in America."

I had no idea what she meant by that. I was going to ask her, but two young women were walking past with strollers, and by the time they had passed I realized that it was probably best if I didn't know too much more. Clearly I didn't know Alice. I never did, and I probably never would.

Behind Alice, outside the church, there was that same silver Mercedes I had watched her get into with Arun, all those months ago in Watertown. I had no doubt that behind the tinted windows of the car was the same older man. Perhaps he was her handler, as the CIA guys liked to call such men. He was probably what Coles and Willis were really after. Perhaps he was the closest thing Alice had to a father. Who knew? I assumed the parents in Connecticut were just cover. Did she have a real family, somewhere?

"So Alice …" I had what Coles and Willis needed — an admission of espionage. I was going to say goodbye, but I wasn't quite ready. It wasn't that I found it difficult to dismiss her. It was that I wasn't ready, myself, to go.

"Alex." She reached out to touch my face. I let her, but it didn't feel like any special connection between us. I thought back to that time we had met at a party, a few long years earlier, when I had been in love with her. There was none of that now. I wasn't sure I even really knew her at all.

And yet she said, "I do love you," and when she did, her hand on my cheek, it rocked me. Not in a good way. The falseness of it tore at me. I felt a chasm opening up, into which were falling all the good memories – such as there were – from our times together. Listening to the Magnetic Fields in the car on the way to Crane Beach. Dinner at the Italian place near her apartment. Singing along together at Rocky Horror. Lounging around her living room talking about our plans – or lack of plans – for the future. Painting each others toenails. It all tumbled in, until it was all gone. There was just Alice and I, an Alice I didn't really know, standing on College Avenue, with a big silver car behind her waiting to take her wherever it was that I would never know about.

She dropped her hand.

"You killed people, Alice."

"I didn't kill anyone."

"That's sophistry. You had them killed … Lucy. Dan."

"I didn't kill Dan. That was Arun's thugs."

"Lucy, then. Lucy, Alice. For fuck's sake."

"I didn't have a choice. They made me do it."

"Who's they, Alice?"

"It's not important. There's nothing you can do."

"No, there's not. Lucy and Dan are dead."

We both stood, silent, for a few moments. I couldn't tell what was going on in her head, but as I thought about Lucy and Dan I had a sudden feeling I was going to cry. I didn't want to do that. I had no shame in crying, but I didn't want to cry in front of Alice.

"Goodbye, Alice," I said.

I remembered Arun's words the night before. 'Even Alice is sorry about Alice.' What was it like, pretending to be someone else? I had pretended to be something else, but throughout it all, I had been me, whatever that had meant at the time. I was still – as much as I could be – authentic. I finally knew that. I wasn't quite a full woman yet, I definitely wasn't a man, but I was Alex. Alice was verifiably a woman, definitely smart and beautiful, and yet utterly phony. Who was she, really? I didn't know her. Arun didn't know her. Did she know herself? Was the Alice she was, the Alice she had thought she would be, when she started out?

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I would like to believe you," I said. "But I have heard a lot of 'sorry' recently. Besides, I think this falls under the heading of 'strictly business,' and I know how you feel about business."

She looked at me with an enormous sadness in her gorgeous dark eyes and I almost wanted to believe she was sorry. But then she crossed the street to the Mercedes without looking back. As she opened the rear door I caught a brief glimpse of the older man in the back seat, but only for a moment. I imagined he was the one Coles wanted to do extra-judicial things to. Then the car moved off into traffic further down College Avenue. A hundred yards down the street I saw a dark blue Chevy Suburban pull out and begin to follow the Mercedes. Through the windscreen of the Suburban as it passed I thought I saw the face of the agent who had driven me in the GMC earlier that day, but I wasn't sure.

Then Coles himself was at my side, with Bob the FBI tech. They ushered me into their Crown Victoria, parked around the corner on Park Avenue near where the GMC had parked earlier. The tech started to remove my microphone as we drove through Davis Square. Even though it was warm in the car I shivered a little once the microphone was gone.

And then I cried. I cried like I had done in the Wholefoods, great wracking sobs.

And then I didn't feel anything any more.

Coles and the FBI agent who had been with me in the SUV debriefed me at the Agency's office back at Copley Square. Coles was professional and methodical, and it was over quickly. The FBI guy offered to arrange another car to take me home, but I elected to catch a cab, again. As I was walking to the elevator I turned back, briefly, to ask Coles what was going to happen to Alice. And then I realized that he wouldn't tell me the truth, even if he knew, and that in any case it didn't matter. That part of my life was over, now. A few years later I accompanied Beverly to the courthouse for her long overdue divorce hearing, and she described her emotions to me as we walked out, and her description reminded me of the way I felt as I walked out of the CIA office. I felt like I had just divorced my youth. It felt clean, final, done, but it felt kind of hollow, too. Not so much a victory as a scoreless draw.

 

~o~O~o~
 

I had come back home, to begin packing up my stuff. Mercifully nobody else was home. Just coming through the door was traumatic enough. It had been my home for more than 5 years, and although I knew in my heart that Susan was right about needing to leave, I got pretty emotional thinking about all the good times Pete and I, and even Talia, had had there. My head said 'leave,' but my heart said, 'I'm going to miss this.'

As I walked into my room the first thing I saw was a print of the photo Pete had taken on the roof of Alewife, the one we had been using to encrypt our messages. It reminded me, yet again, of what we had had together, and what I was leaving.

Over the years I had accumulated a lot of crap in my room, and as I stood in the doorway I contemplated just putting it all in a large pile and setting fire to everything. Perhaps that would get Pete's attention.

I tried to shake those ideas out of my head. Love makes you crazy. I did love Pete, I really did. It's what made moving out hurt all the more. But Susan was right, I needed to leave if I had any hope of preserving our friendship. And Pete was the best true friend I'd ever had.

I packed my old Japanese chest full of some books and CDs, which was a mistake. While the chest was beautiful to look at, with elaborate carving on the panels, the damned thing weighed about five times what I did. I tried grasping it by the handle at the end, but I could barely budge it. I emptied out a bunch of books, into a cardboard box, and left the chest half-empty. Then I threw the Alewife photo into the top of the chest.

Then I turned to my clothes. I had stashed all my old 'guy' clothes in some plastic bags about two years earlier. Those I wouldn't be needing. I took them to the door of the room. I planned to drop them at Goodwill on the way back to Susan's house.

As I stood in the doorway I heard the key turn in the front door lock. I turned, and saw Pete enter. He saw me, and froze, but then he walked toward me.

"Hello, Pete."

"It's good to see you, Alex. I was worried."

"You didn't call."

"I didn't know what to say. I wanted to call. I started to, a couple of times. I guess I didn't know how to tell you —"

We stood facing one another, maybe ten feet apart. I suddenly found it hard to look him in the eyes.

"— Look, Pete, I know I'm just the fake girlfriend –"

"That's not true." He took two steps toward me, and I held up my hand, palm out in a 'stop' gesture.

"Don't interrupt, please. I know it. You know, I'm okay to take to meetings with investors, and I know you probably like me in some way, but we both know I don't measure up on the girl front. I mean, you deserve more. I'm leaving, okay?"

Reaching back, I tried to drag the chest through the door. It was still incredibly heavy, and I could barely lift it.

"Don't" Pete said. "Alex –"

I was crying then. The chest was too heavy, and I dropped it on my foot. I couldn't even bring myself to look back at Pete. How could I have been such an idiot? To fall in love with my best friend? I turned back to my bed, and threw myself on it, sobbing.

"Alex," Pete said gently. He had sat on the bed beside me, and he ran his hand through my hair. "It's alright."

"No," I sobbed. I turned my head from the pillow to look at him through a mass of hair. "It's not. I've fucked up our friendship. I've fucked up my life. I've fucked up everything. I don't expect you to –"

"Stop" Pete said, as he held a finger to my lips. He brushed the hair from my eyes. "Take a deep breath for me."

I did. It helped.

"Keep breathing." He brushed my hair again. "If I want to say something, will you stop interrupting?"

I nodded. Then I started to say something, but he put the finger from his other hand on my lips.

"Don't talk. It's okay."

I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what.

"There's nothing fake about you, Alex," Pete continued. "You're the most real person I know. And you're the most beautiful person I know. I'm not …" He paused for a moment, but he held his finger up to keep me quiet again. "Wait, please …

"I'm not very good at dealing with some things," he continued, "but that's not because I don't love you. I have some hangups of my own."

It took me a few moments to process that he'd just said he loved me.

"I haven't been very good to you," he went on. I started to protest, but again he put his hand to my face to quiet me. I liked the feeling he gave me when he did that. He was looking me right in the eyes, holding his hand to the side of my face, with his other hand smoothing back my hair. It felt very soothing, and I started to relax.

"I'm not going to make excuses about how hard it's been for me. It certainly hasn't been as hard for me as it has for you. I'm sorry I asked you to come to that dinner as my girlfriend … Except I'm not really sorry."

"I'm not really a girl," I said.

"Could have fooled me," Pete said, smiling.

"Watashi wa dare wo baka ni shitakunain yo," I said.

"Translation?"

"I don't want to fool anyone."

"I know that."

"I don't know what I want," I said.

"I know what I want," Pete said, with a gentle smile.

"What's that?"

"You."

"What?" I tried and failed to sit up. It wasn't possible unless he moved off the bed.

"Alex, I've been really struggling. I'm sorry I haven't behaved better. Part of me thinks you're the most gorgeous woman I've ever met, and the smartest, and the sweetest, and … I'm not very good at this compliments thing, am I?"

I didn't know what to say. He kept stroking my hair.

"Remember our discussion that night on the roof of the Alewife T?"

I sniffled. "That was weird."

"You know what I was trying to talk about?"

"I had no idea. I still have no idea."

"I was trying to tell you I was falling in love with you," he said. "But, you know, I sucked at it. And I was terrified, because, well, you know … I felt like if I said anything, it would be jumping catastrophically, not falling gracefully …

"Wait. That's fucked up." He paused, and took his hand from my face. "Another part of me remembers you as Alex, guy Alex. And you know, I liked what we had together as friends. And we still sort of have that. But it's different now …"

He finally got off the bed, and stepped back to take in more of me. I could see him weighing some things in his head.

It was a few moments more before he spoke again. "Anyway, I love you. And sometimes I look at you and I just want to jump you. But then there's been this thing in my head that says to me 'I'm not gay.' And now I just don't know. Because, you know, the woman that I love has a penis."

"Um …" I really didn't have a clue what to say.

"So I guess that makes me gay, right? Except you are a woman. I know that. I think you know that now, too, don't you?"

I didn't have to think about that. I'd made my mind up about that back in Lincoln when I explained my life to my parents.

"Alex Jones," Pete said. "Alexandra Jones. You are mine. Okay? I'm going to have to work at a few things — "

Despite the limitations of the bed I managed to leap up on Pete before he said something else stupid, and he lifted me up. We waltzed around the room for a few moments, him holding me up, me with my legs wrapped around his slim hips, both of us kissing each other madly.

"Shutup, Pete Johanssen. Just shut the fuck up, unless you're going to tell me that love part again."

 

~o~O~o~
 

A month later Pete and I were on the road in a rental car from Los Angeles to Lincoln, the hard-core way with only one overnight stop. In the back of the rental we had Grandma Rousselot, who was too old to fly now. She had blankets and pillows and seemed happy enough, but we stopped every two hours for bathroom breaks. It was probably safer to do that anyway, since Pete and I swapped driving duties regularly and were less fatigued as a result.

Introducing Grandma to Pete at her home in Pasadena had been stressful. I had never anticipated I'd be in the position of bringing a boy around for her to meet. And Pete was almost double her height, and even with poor eyesight she could see that, and she did this double-take when she first opened the front door that was comical. Pete was uncharacteristically nervous on meeting her, and I think he found the house, which was full of Japanese-style furniture and designed for more petite frames than his, difficult to relax in. But then over dinner Pete had proceeded to charm her, and I knew she liked him, and he liked her, and I was able to relax.

After dinner Pete had gone out to the car to retrieve our bags and then take a shower, and while he was doing that Grandma and I had a brief conversation about some of the things that had happened, and she wigged out a little bit when I mentioned the CIA and FBI. Then I told her about giving money to Dan and Lucy's families, and about introducing Lucy's father to Tom, to see whether something could be done about his immigration status. As I told Grandma Rousselot, it turns out that — if you have enough money — immigration to the US is actually pretty easy. Mr. Huang would have to leave, briefly, but then he could return, and since he had more than $900,000 in assets (his own, not the small amount of money I had given the family) and he planned to start a new business, the Government would give him a visa without any problems. Life is different if you have capital.

Grandma thought that was excellent. "I don't approve of your methods, Alex, but you have done a good thing." Grandma's Uncle, my great-great Uncle, had been locked up in Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas in World War Two, so she was all for rights for immigrants.

It was getting late, so I promised to have a longer talk with her over the weekend when we got to Lincoln, and I went to bed in the spare room. Pete and I had separate twin beds, but that was okay, since both of us were exhausted.

We made it to Lincoln without too many dramas, apart from constant stops and Grandma having a brief argument with Pete about foreign policy. I decided I needed to teach Pete that it was impossible to win an argument with Grandma. My only other anguish during the trip was that I knew we had to do the drive again, on the way back.

On Thanksgiving morning I got a hug from Pete, and performed the most appropriate ritual I could think of for a Thanksgiving morning. I got the Daruma out of the bag I had transported it in, and carefully inked in the remaining eye. I think Pete was a little mystified about the whole thing, since I didn't tell him what the goal was that I had achieved, but Grandma was delighted.

Susan and I helped Mom with the food while Pete, Tom, Dad and Grandma discussed economics and the rise of China and heaven knows what else in the living room, and then we all sat down to Thanksgiving lunch. I looked around the table, at the people I loved most in the world, and felt loved.

And I think I felt about as whole and complete as it's possible for a pre-operative transsexual to ever feel.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Author's note: I apologize for some of the diversions in this story. Not all herrings are red. Not all Russians are mafia members. Not all North Korean spies are named Kim.

 

~o~O~o~
 

Notes and disclaimers
Firstly, many thanks to Geoff (especially to Geoff, without whom my writing would meander wildly and be full of split infinitives), and to I.O. and Wren for editing and proofing. It's not a small task to undertake on a story this long, and I very much appreciate them taking the risk with this story.

Thanks also to Jayne and Liz for assistance with the Japanese translations. My Japanese was never good even when I lived there, and it's amazing how much I've forgotten.

This is a work of fiction, although some of what's written here actually happened to some people, and some of it happened to me (although nobody I know involved in this stuff was ever beaten up, much less killed). Senator Geary, Garry Karpov and John Mantonelli, like everyone else in this novel, are fictional characters, not based on real people. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The Children's Chance Foundation is, alas, fictional, but there are plenty of other good kid's charities you should give your money to.

There is a real company like Gene Systems Inc. (but not named that), and somebody like me might have worked there in a similar role at one point, but like most novels the bits of fact that do exist here are unrelated to what goes on in the real world. Command Dynamics is fictional, as are the companies VegasJet and Augmented AI and Gene Systems Inc. To the best of my (and Google's) knowledge, no such companies exist in the fields described here.

There is a company similar to Whitwell called Griffin Investigations (although it filed for bankruptcy around the time I began writing this) and it used to keep The Griffin Book, a list of suspected card counters, that was used by the casinos to expel perceived card counters, and two MIT/Harvard teams in particular, but nothing in this story is based on any actions or inactions by Griffin or its employees — Whitwell is a completely fictitious enterprise.

The strategy for bringing down the Casino computers bears a resemblance to three hacks I know of on security companies, but is otherwise complete fantasy.

More than one security company provided face-recognition software to major casinos during the period in which this novel takes place. While the Harvard/MIT teams did resort to disguises (including dressing as women) to evade detection, none of them, to my knowledge, had plastic surgery, except for one transgendered participant who transitioned long after leaving that team.

Obviously the Treasury Department, FBI and CIA are real, but the characters portrayed here are not. It's unlikely that the FBI and CIA would collaborate in the way mentioned in the story, but drama sometimes requires an extension of reality.

The Harvard Square Homeless Shelter is real, and it deserves a lot more support than it gets, especially considering how much wealth there is in Cambridge. I've used the real name of the Shelter, but of course they subsist on money and services from more ethical sources than I've depicted here, and nothing in this story is intended to cause them harm.

If you are at all interested in the real story behind MIT and Harvard card counters, I recommend avoiding Ben Mezrich's Burning Down the House, and instead reading the interview with John Chang at: http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/interviewJC.htm, which has the benefit of brevity.

I was never part of an 'official' MIT or Harvard team, but I have a friend who was. In real life, the most I have ever won personally in a single day playing Blackjack is only $12,500. And it was the result of a reckless self-destructive binge, and I'll never do it again. I also lost more than that once, after I got divorced a few years ago.

Don't try this at home, kids.

~o~O~o~

The Magnetic Fields
If you're unfamiliar with the work of Stephin Merrit and The Magnetic Fields, here's a BC-appropriate song, "Andrew In Drag" from their most recent CD.

---

 

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Author's Note: Hi, This is the second story I've ever written. It's still incomplete. I hope you like it.

Feel free to archive or otherwise distribute, provided it (and this preamble) is unedited and no fee is charged for access. This story may not be distributed from any site that charges money, is members-only, or uses that ridiculous "adult check" thing (or any similar system).

All rights reserved by the author, who can be contacted at: [email protected] ~Becky

Image Credit: Picture purchased and licensed for use from 123RF.com Stock Photography.

The model(s) in this image is in / and are no way connected with this story nor supports nor conveys the issues and situations brought up within the story. The model(s) use is solely used for the representation of looks of the main character(s) of this particular story. ~Sephrena
 

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Chapter 1.  Saturday
 
 
"You have great skin," Marcia said to me when the song ended. I looked over at her quizzically. We'd been lying on her living room floor listening to a CD, both a little exhausted from her attempts to teach me to dance earlier in the afternoon, and although I'd been staring at the ceiling while the song was playing she'd obviously been looking me over. I blushed.

"You're so lucky," she continued. I spend all my time cleaning mine and I still can't get it to look like that. And you're a boy."

It wasn't like Marcia Wilson was the ugliest girl in the neighborhood. She'd had about three pimples the whole time I'd known her. That was about three years, since Marcia had moved in next door. I was twelve then, she was fourteen, and at first it seemed like we had nothing in common. I was a kid compared to her worldly adolescence. Her brother Rob was a year older than me, but he was a jock and he regarded me with some disdain. He and I definitely had less in common.

I thought Marcia was smart and beautiful - more so as she got older. Her mother and my mother became friends, and so from time to time one or the other of us would go next door to find our moms and pass on phone messages or tell them we were going out or something while our mothers yakked half the day. That was when Marcia and I discovered we had similar tastes in music, and started swapping CDs and tapes and spending time together sharing whatever either of us had bought recently.

Not that I bought anything; it was all Marcia's contribution. Mom and I weren't doing too well since Dad had left, and even though he still sent some money I got the impression from Mom that it was irregular and really only barely covered the mortgage, and when she got retrenched from her job her savings were pretty much all we had to go on. Marcia's parents were rich, or so it seemed to me. Their house was easily the biggest in the neighborhood. It seemed Mrs. Wilson was always off shopping, sometimes taking Marcia with her and returning with more new clothes than I'd ever seen. Marcia's clothes wouldn't fit into the closet in her room. She had so many they also filled the huge closet in the spare bedroom they had. Even her brother Rob had more clothes than I'd ever seen, which was pretty funny for a guy his age. From what I could tell Mrs. Wilson was worse, Marcia told me the walk-in closet in her parents' room had barely any room for her father's things at all.

"Well," I said, "I'm younger than you, I guess my skin will get worse in a year or so." I decided to change the subject and got up to put on the new Bjork CD, one of Marcia's favorites. I was a bit sensitive about the fact that I hadn't really reached puberty yet. Fine hair had only just begun to show on my legs and around my genitals, but that was about all that had happened. Mom bought me a razor for my fifteenth birthday but I think that was more a symbolic thing or something, I hadn't needed to use it yet. My skin was, as Marcia had said a few moments ago, smooth as a five year old's.

Strangely enough I wasn't really in a hurry to go through all the changes that were in store for me. I had noticed in the locker rooms at school the things that had happened to the other guys in my year, and some of them seemed pretty scary, or at least uncomfortable. I couldn't imagine myself ever looking like that, though I knew I eventually would. I guessed that when it happened the guys would start being a little kinder to me and not tease me about my size and stuff so much. I didn't really get on too well with many of them, or really any of them - in fact Marcia was easily my best friend even if she did come up with some harebrained schemes that sometimes got us both into trouble.

Mom had commented a couple of times over the last year or so that I didn't seem terribly happy. She was pretty perceptive. I hadn't really been able to figure it out myself, but every now and again I wondered why it was that life just didn't feel right. It wasn't just school, it was... well, a lot of stuff. Lack of confidence or something I guessed. I didn't say anything to Mom about these feelings though, and I never told her how much I hated school. I never liked to tell her stuff that would worry her.
 
 

 
Chapter 2.  Saturday Morning
 
 
The next Saturday Marcia was over at my place where I was taping her latest CD purchases and she did it again. "You know, Chris, you're going to have to get your hair cut soon, it's starting to frizz at the ends and pretty soon it'll be as long as mine"

"Yeah, right," I said dismissively. My mom cut my hair the last time for my cousin Beth's wedding cause she couldn't afford to send me to someone, and she did such a terrible job I had vowed never to let her do it again. Because of the bad cut in the first place it was pretty much a shaggy mess eight months later, and did need a trim, but there wasn't much we could do about it short of me putting myself at her mercy again. I was taking a bit of ribbing at school about looking like Cousin It.

"Why don't you get it cut?" she asked.

"Well, if you must know, it's because I can't afford it," I said.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize things were that bad."

"It's okay, forget it."

"Sorry. It's just that you've actually got really beautiful hair, it would look great if you tidied it up a little," Marcia said. Then, with that same look she'd given me the week before, she said "Why don't you let me cut it?"

"Thanks, but no thanks. You'll do a worse job than my mom did," I snorted.

"Well, I wouldn't have to take much off it, you know, not a proper cut or style or anything, just even it up and take off the split ends and stuff." I obviously still looked doubtful, because she continued. "I did my friend Joanie's a few weeks ago, you know it was just a matter of about a half inch off in a straight line at the back, it was easy."

For some insane reason I suddenly thought, "What the hell?" I mean, I was eventually going to get it cut a lot shorter anyway, so if she just cut it a little I figured I could have any mistakes she made cut out later. And if she really screwed it up my mom would have to send me to a professional rather than risk making it worse herself. Which would be okay, I was kind of ready for short hair again. Life had been kind of boring lately, so taking a small risk like that seemed okay.

"Just even the ends up, right?" I said.

"Yes, I promise."

Pretty soon I was sitting on a stool in her bathroom. Her brother Rob was out with his new girlfriend, Tanya, and Marcia's folks were off shopping for a new car, so we had the place to ourselves. I sat there waiting for her to begin.

"Take off your shirt," Marcia said.

"Why? You're cutting the hair on my head, right, not my chest!" I spluttered.

"You don't have any hair on your chest," she said. I blushed, and she said apologetically "It's to stop the hair getting caught on your shirt and making you itch. I'll get a t-shirt for you if you're worried about getting cold, you can wear that instead and I'll just wash it when we're done."

She left and came back in with a t-shirt. I took off my shirt and pulled the one Marcia gave me over my head. It was one of those scoop-neck things with short capped sleeves, obviously a girl's top instead of a proper t-shirt.

"Very funny," I said. "I guess one of Rob's was out of the question?"

It did look pretty silly, and Marcia grinned. "I don't go into Rob's room unless I have too, he's funny about it. It's okay, it's only for a while." She straightened my head so I faced her and said "Anyway, you look kind of cute."

"Don't push your luck," I said.

Marcia combed my hair out and began trimming the ends. At first I couldn't see what she was doing because of the hair hanging over my eyes, but it didn't seem like she was cutting very much. Then she started spending a lot of time on the bits hanging around my face. Finally she finished and stood back. I turned, and saw past her to the mirror. Oh god, she'd given me bangs!

"That looks better," she said, obviously unaware that I could see what it looked like.

"Yeah, if I was aiming to look like Angela McKinnon," I snorted. Angela was a girl at school who was so Laura Ashley it was nauseating. "You'll have to cut the rest of it now." I looked at the mirror again. It was kind of weird, actually. I looked a lot like a younger version of my mom. I'd never noticed that before.

"What do you mean?" said Marcia, in what I assumed was an attempt at innocence.

"It's a girl's cut, Marcia. Cut the sides a bit and it won't look so bad." I started to reach for the scissors but she pulled them away.

"Well, I like it," Marcia smiled, as though assessing my hair for the first time. "Do me a favour, will you?"

"What? I'm not going anywhere or anything, okay? Not until you fix this."

"No, nothing like that. But you should wash it. I'll finish cutting it, but I'd just like to have some fun with it first, okay?" She had her best winning smile coming up, I could see the beginnings of it.

"Fun?" I said suspiciously.

"Oh, come on, it'll be great. Let me see how this can look."

What the hell. I went and took a quick shower and washed my hair as per Marcia's instructions. She handed me a bottle of conditioner with strict instructions that I was to leave it on for at least ten minutes before rinsing and applying a second conditioner. The stuff stank but I left it on as she asked. As I was drying myself off Marcia knocked on the door and handed me a robe to wear, something fluffy and white. The sleeves came down over my hands, but it felt great to wear. I came out and sat at her dressing table while she went to work.

After a bunch of gunk went into my hair she started to dry it, working it with her fingers, then began to use a curling iron to wrap it into really big curls. Halfway through she saw me looking at what she was doing in the mirror, so she grabbed the towel I had used and draped it across the mirror so I couldn't see. Before she got to drying off the hair over my eyes she stopped and pinned it back, and then I saw her coming at me with a pair of tweezers.

"No way!" I squeaked.

"It'll look completely natural, I promise. I'm just going to tidy them up a tiny bit. You don't want to look like a monobrow, do you?"

That was carrying things a bit far. My eyebrows hadn't thickened at all yet, in fact I think they were finer than hers. But as she bent over me I got a good view down the front of her shirt, and a whiff of her smell, a clean, sweet smell from whatever soap she used, and I succumbed. I didn't usually think of Marcia in a really sexual way, but all this attention from her was starting to have an effect on me. And it was all a little bit kinky, too, I thought, as I felt her tug at a few eyebrow hairs. I'd worn women's clothes before, when I was younger as a kind of joke when we got into the dress-up bin at school, but I'd never tried to look like a woman. As Marcia surveyed the results of her handiwork and went back to drying off my hair I began to wonder why it was that I wasn't objecting quite so much to what she was doing. Did this mean I was weird, or what?

She finished with my hair and stepped back to admire her work. I started to get up to reach for the towel and pull it from the mirror, but she put her hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down. "Unh Unh" she said. "Not until I've finished."

"Aw, come on Marcia."

"Don't spoil it. It won't kill you to do this once. Besides, I think you like it."

I didn't say anything. She was right, and I couldn't lie to her, but I didn't want to admit it. I was starting to feel really weird. If this didn't mean I was queer, did it mean I was developing a crush on Marcia? I liked her and all that, but... She brushed some pinkish-brown powder over my face, applied a little eyeliner and mascara, then finally got me to purse my lips so she could put some lipstick on me.

"Ta da!" Marcia said, pulling the towel from the mirror.

I was shocked. I had expected to see me in makeup, but that wasn't how things looked at all. I looked like someone else. I looked older, but I looked like a girl. Like a young woman. A lot like my mom in the photo of her and Dad when they started dating that was still on the bookshelf in the living room at home.

"Pretty good, huh?" said Marcia.

I was still reeling. My head was framed in a mass of hair, big curls cascading down to my shoulders. It was a lot lighter than it had been, too. Blond. Blonde. Except for the lipstick I didn't really look like I was wearing makeup at all. In fact, I looked great. In the big fluffy bathrobe I realized with something of a shock that I looked pretty. I looked like the kind of girl I'd like to date.

"Uh, it's..." I really couldn't think of anything to say, and my voice trailed off.

"Yeah, you look good. Better than I look in that robe."

I raised my hand to my hair and patted it, then stopped, self-conscious that what I had just done was what a woman does with her hair.

"I thought it needed a little lightening," said Marcia.

"Will it change back?" I asked, suddenly anxious. What was I going to do at school on Monday? "Will it get darker when I wash it?"

"Not really, but if we cut it again people will just notice the change in length more than the colour, so don't worry about it." I must have looked unconvinced, because she shrugged and said "Time for the rest of it."

She strode over to the closet and began going through racks of clothes. "The subtle casual look," she said, as she pulled out a short black skirt and a pretty blue blouse. "Stand up," she commanded as she walked back to where I was sitting.

I did as she asked. She held the clothes up to me, as if assessing my size.

"You're looking kind of spacey, Chris," she said. "Lighten up"

"I'm okay," I said. "I was just kind of expecting to look a little different."

"Well, might as well go all the way, hey," she said, handing me the clothes. I stood there holding them stupidly as she sorted through a couple of drawers to find something else. Finally she handed me some lingerie and something else made of black nylon. "Put these on underneath."

I hesitated. Finally Marcia realized that I was waiting for her to leave the room before I changed.

"Oh, okay. Guess I wasn't thinking then. You really kinda look like a girl," she said. "Do you need any help with any of that?"

I looked at the clothes in my hands. How complicated could they be? Marcia stepped out of the room, then poked her head round the door to ask if I'd like a soda. I said sure and she went downstairs to get some while I undressed.

I took off the robe and picked up the underwear. It was just a bra and panties. I wondered briefly whether it was necessary to go to that length in this experiment, then looked at the chair on the other side of the room where I'd left my own clothes and realized that my own underwear had disappeared anyway. So I tried the panties on. They felt pretty good, actually. I was kind of surprised. I had thought maybe they'd be really uncomfortable, on account of having to hold a little extra in. They bulged a little at the front, though only a little. To make them more comfortable I adjusted myself, and tucked myself back into them.

I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror. That was too weird. I still looked like a girl, only one with absolutely no chest, like someone had taken a photo of a normal girl and then airbrushed out her breasts or something. I realized my body was still underdeveloped enough that I just looked immature rather than masculine. It was vaguely disconcerting, but somehow kind of interesting, too.

Then I looked at the bra. There hardly seemed much point, really, considering it wasn't going to be supporting anything, but I put my arms through the straps and did it up. That was surprisingly easy, too, and it didn't really feel that strange. I looked at the mirror again, and noticed that the bra cups protruded just enough to give the illusion - at a casual glance - that I had breasts. I pulled on the skirt, buttoned it at the side, then did up the blouse, with some difficulty until I realized all the buttons were on the wrong side. Well, the right side for a girl's blouse, but ...

Marcia came back into the room just as I was doing up the last of the buttons. "Wow," she said, handing me the soda. "That was a good choice. Blue is definitely your color."

I turned back to the mirror to look. Something was not quite right. Marcia came over holding the bits of black nylon, which I recognized as stockings now, and told me to put them on. They were solid black, and only came up to mid-thigh. I'd seen the style around a lot, so I knew that was how they were supposed to look. Marcia then came back over with a couple of flesh-colored bits of nylon, and I looked at her with some puzzlement. She bent over me and began to unbutton the top of my blouse. I sat rigid, wondering what was going on, but she scrunched the nylon up into two balls and placed them in the cups of the bra. "That's better," she said. "Not great, but it'll do for now." I looked at the mirror again and saw that whatever it was that hadn't been quite right was fixed now.

I should have been more wary of her words "for now," but as I looked at myself in the mirror again I wasn't thinking about too much except that I looked like someone completely different. I was a babe, there was no other way to put it. It was the strangest feeling, to be me, but to be someone I'd never met before.

"Well, what do you think?" Marcia asked. "Not bad for a quick makeover!"

"It's ... well, it's certainly different," I said, breaking into laughter. Marcia began to laugh, too.

"If you were really a girl, I'd be jealous" she said. "As it is I think you're pretty hot!"

I blushed, and looked at my feet.

"Oh yeah, shoes," said Marcia. She picked out a pair of low-heeled chunky shoes and got me to try them on. "How do they fit?"

Actually they fit very well, though they were slightly on the big side for me. "Try walking" said Marcia, and I did. The feeling of the skirt brushing against my legs was interesting, it made me feel very conscious of what I was wearing but it wasn't at all unpleasant. After I'd done two short trips across the room she gathered up the now empty soda cans and led me down the stairs. As we passed through the living space I was conscious that the huge windows to the street gave anyone outside a good look in at me, and I was suddenly acutely self-conscious. What if my mom looked across from our place?
 
 

 
Chapter 3.  Saturday Lunch Time
 
 
Marcia fixed us both some lunch, a light salad. Ordinarily she would have offered me more, I realized as I was eating. We began to chat about the dinner Marcia was planning to cook for some friends next Friday evening while her parents were away. Most of the kids at school would have just had a big, raucous party, but Marcia had decided she wanted to do something elegant, so she was holding a dinner party for her three best girlfriends from school and they were each inviting a boy. I had kind of hoped when she mentioned she was doing it that she might have asked me, but of course she was going to ask Mike, the captain of the football team who Marcia was quietly keen on.

As we talked, Marcia kept joking with me about how wonderful I looked, about how I looked much better than I did as a boy. At first it was kind of subtle, but then it started to get under my skin. Dammit, I was a boy, and I mightn't have been some muscle-clad jock like her brother but I wasn't a total failure at it. Things would change in a year or two, I knew they would. My hormones just hadn't got into action properly yet.

"So, come here often?" she asked jokingly.

"No, I'm the shy and retiring type," I said.

"Yeah, right," said Marcia. "The way you look, you'd be a big hit anywhere."

I wondered about that last comment. She wasn't thinking I was going outside like this, was she? That wasn't part of the deal.

"When are your parents due home?" I asked, suddenly conscious of the time.

"Oh, not until at least five," Marcia said. "Unless Dad gets impulsive and buys something sooner." I must have looked perturbed because she immediately added "but you know him, he researches everything to within an inch of its life"

"Well, I should get changed anyway," I said, standing up and taking our plates across to the dishwasher.

"Not so fast," said Marcia. As I turned around she was holding a camera. She opened the cover, aimed it at me, and squeezed the button. The flash dazzled me, then dazzled me again. As she took photo after photo I began striking poses. I did a particularly vampy look by the doorway to the living room, then Marcia had me lie on the rug near the fireplace and try to look sexy. "You do know how to look sexy, don't you?" she said, laughing.

I grabbed the camera from her and took a snap of her as she laughed, and then she grabbed it back from me and we began to wrestle to see who could get control of it. We were laughing and rolling on the floor when I suddenly became aware that someone had just walked through the room. Marcia sensed it, too, because she stopped attacking me and called out "Hello?"

Rob stuck his head back around through the door he'd just left through. "Hey Sis, you looked like you were busy so I didn't interrupt." He was being sarcastic. I always thought Rob acted like a jerk toward Marcia, but I guess she gave as good as she got.

"I thought you were out with Tanya."

"She had a headache. Can you believe it?" said Rob. Marcia exchanged glances with me, like "Of course she had a headache, wouldn't you?" I didn't respond, I was rigid with fear as I realized that Rob was going to have this little adventure of Marcia's and mine all over school by lunchtime Monday. Actually, make that tomorrow, he'd make a point of ringing everyone he knew just to tell them.

But Rob was still hanging in the doorway, looking at the two of us. Finally he said to Marcia "Well?"

"Well what?" she said.

"Aren't you gonna introduce me to your friend?"

"I thought you were too busy to stop and say hi," Marcia shot back quickly. "But you're right. This is Jenny. Jenny, my adorable brother Rob."

I couldn't believe it. He didn't recognize me? This was too much. Sure, we didn't see a lot of one another, but I lived next door! I looked different, but how different?

"Nice to meet you, Jenny" said Rob. All of a sudden I became aware of the way he was looking at me. I'd never been looked at that way before, and I wasn't sure I liked it.

"Uh, yeah. Hi," I said, in what must have sounded a very flat voice. Rob looked momentarily disappointed, and then disappeared from the doorway again. Marcia and I heard him going up the stairs, and then finally could hold it no longer and burst out laughing. If he heard us he must have assumed we were laughing at something to do with him, because he didn't come back.

"That was great!' said Marcia

"That was weird!" I said. "Really. How dumb is your brother?"

Marcia kept laughing. "Chris, this has made my year."

"Speaking of which," I said, "What's with this name 'Jenny'?"

"It was just the first name that popped into my head. I don't know. I suppose it was a better choice than your real name."

We both laughed again. "He has to figure it out," I said. "Nobody can be that stupid."

"No, it makes sense," said Marcia. "His brain wasn't working. His first response when he saw you properly was to think sex."

I swallowed, not wanting to think about that.

"So he didn't figure that he knew you, he invented a whole new space for you in his head." She paused, then laughed again and added "The one marked 'babes'."

"I'm thinking this is getting a bit too strange," I said, suddenly anxious again. "I need to get changed, Marcia. Now."

"Well, I don't think you can do it here, with Rob in the house" said Marcia. She had a point. But I didn't want to hang around and give Rob a choice to see more of me. I said so to Marcia, and she agreed that he'd probably figure it out eventually if he had a chance to talk to me.

"We could go out," said Marcia.

"No way," I retorted. "Besides, he'll still be here when we come back."

"Well, if we stay here he's going to figure it out for sure, eventually. I mean, you look really different, but you still talk like Chris, and you move like a boy"

"So what do we do?"

"I think we should call Becky and see if you can change at her place."

I wasn't sure about that. Becky was a friend of Marcia's from school. She always seemed nice the few times I'd met her, but I really didn't know her too well and wasn't sure this was a way I wanted to present myself to her. But Marcia was up and at the phone. "It's busy," she said. "Well, at least that means she's home. Come on, let's get out of here"

Marcia went upstairs and returned with my clothes stuffed into a shopping bag, then ushered me out the door. "I told Rob we were headed to Becky's."

"So how are we getting there?"

"It's not so far, I figured we could walk. That's how I usually get there."

Walking. I started to feel strange the minute we stepped out the door. Rob might be dumb, but I was sure everyone else was going to see straight through me and see a guy in a skirt. What if a cop car cruised past as we were walking? I didn't want to spend a night in jail.

As we walked down the path to the street I was feeling like I was going to throw up, I was so nervous. Fortunately we turned left to go to Becky's so we didn't have to walk past the front of my house -- I don't think I could have done that under any circumstances.

I was starting to get kind of mad with Marcia. Whenever I let her talk me into a bit of "fun" things always went slightly wrong. This was just one more example, I guess. Here I was, in broad daylight, wearing a skirt down the street I lived in.

After about ten minutes of walking we turned into the main street. Santa Rosita is mostly an old town, and there's been a community effort to maintain the old buildings. So although there's a mall on the outskirts of town there's still a lot of stores and traffic in the centre of town too. Cars were cruising past us slowly as we walked, but the occasional shopper paid us no attention as we passed. Still, after a few moments Marcia looked across at me and made me stop walking. "You've got to learn to walk differently," she said. She explained that I was still moving like a guy; that women moved differently. I more or less knew what she was saying, I just hadn't thought about it. I was gonna argue with her that I was only gonna be dressed as a girl for a few more minutes, but I felt very self-conscious of myself out there on the street, so I did what she told me and we walked on, me swinging my arms a little more and standing a bit straighter. "That's much better," she said. It did feel better, actually.

Then Marcia stopped at the door to a little antique store. "What's up?" I said. "Let's go." But Marcia was looking at an old pair of earrings in a cabinet just inside the store.

"Quiet," she said, "or people will notice." I was agitated, but I did as she asked. As we walked on, she said "Chris, if you're gonna talk you have to make your voice a little musical, like girls do."

"Musical?"

"Yeah, less of a monotone." She demonstrated a sentence the way she would say it, then tried to imitate me, which cracked me up. "That's better, you're smiling again," Marcia said. "You haven't done that since we left the house." She made me try saying some things more 'musically' as we walked, corrected me when I got too sing-song, and eventually pronounced "that's better - still not exactly right, but much better."

I started to feel a little more confident. We'd walked past lots of Saturday afternoon shoppers, and none of them had stared at us. I'd had a couple of glances from a few guys, like the kind that Rob had given me, but it seemed they actually thought I was a girl. So I stopped panicking about everything, and as Marcia and I walked on and we began talking about the new Aaron Spelling show that had started the week before I began to forget that what I was doing was kind of freaky.

"I think you've got the voice thing down," Marcia said. That's when the car stopped next to us. Driving it was Mike, the guy Marcia was keen on. There was another guy in the passenger seat. I thought I'd seen him at school, but I wasn't sure.

"Hey, Marcia," Mike called.

We stopped walking. Marcia went over to the car, and I followed a few steps behind.

"What's happening?" Mike asked.

Marcia explained that we were just on our way over to Becky's place, and Mike suggested that they could drive us. I was trying to smile and shake my head 'no' at the same time, but Marcia wasn't paying too much attention to me anyway. She agreed, and opened the back door to the car. I hesitated before getting in -- I didn't know these guys, but I guess Marcia knew Mike well enough. I got in, trying to smooth my skirt under me as I sat down, to see Mike twisting around in the driver's seat to say hello. I could see him sizing me up in that same way I'd already experienced with the other men who'd looked at me.

"Uh, Mike, Paul, this is Jenny," said Marcia. She was still going along with it. That made sense, I guess. I knew she trusted Mike, but who knows how this Paul would have reacted to finding a boy in a skirt in the back of the car. I couldn't really see him properly, just the back of his head. He half twisted around and he and Mike said "Hi Jenny" almost in unison.

"Nice to meet you," I said, trying to keep my voice "musical" as Marcia had suggested. I had to admit it sounded better than the time I spoke to Rob. Marcia gave me a smile and a little nod of approval. We drove off, and Mike and Marcia did all the talking, about the two parties that were on tonight and which one was the better to go to. Very soon we were at Becky's, and as we thanked the boys and were climbing out of the car Mike said to Marcia, "so, tonight at 7.30?." Then Paul turned to me and said "How about you, Jenny? There's a few of us going to this party. Want to come along?"

I was about to say no when Marcia said "Cool. Why don't you pick us both up from my place?"

I was stunned. The boys pulled out of the drive and roared away as Marcia and I walked to the front door.

"What was that about?" I demanded.

"It was easier than making excuses. You don't have to come, I can say you had a headache or something. Anyway, it's not like it's a date or anything, it's just a bunch of us going to a party."

Marcia rang the doorbell. "Hey, do me a favor and wing it with Becky, okay? Then you can get changed."

I was still trying to work out why Marcia had included me in the evening's plans. There was no way that I'd be invited, or welcome, as Chris. Everyone at the party would be older than me, and they'd be part of the inner circle that surrounded the football team and the girls that dated them. Anyone who was geeky, like me, would definitely not be invited. I'd never been to one of those kind of parties. Still, there was no way I was going to go as Jenny. That would be just way too strange.

Becky opened the door, and Marcia introduced me and said we were passing and thought we'd see how she was doing, but we couldn't get her on the 'phone. Becky invited us in, apologizing 'cause she'd been on the 'phone to another friend. And she just hated call waiting. She thought it was so rude to interrupt someone just because there was another call.

I was amazed once again. Clearly she didn't get it, either. She chattered on to Marcia for a minute, then turned to me and said "I haven't seen you around town before, Jenny. What brings you to Santa Rosita?"

Marcia, always quicker than me, jumped in. "She's just visiting. Her family's thinking of moving here, and they came to check the place out." Where did she get this stuff from?

"Well, hope you like it," Becky smiled. "We think it's a bit of a snooze, but mostly it's okay."

I looked across at Marcia. We had come here for a purpose, and she'd had her fun with Becky, now was the time to put an end to this. I tried to catch her eye, but she and Becky were babbling on about someone I didn't catch, so I sat back and waited for Marcia to get the hint. In a few minutes I was drawn into the conversation, too. They were, of course, talking about boys, and Becky asked me what I thought of Paul, the guy who'd been in the car with Mike. I replied that I didn't really know him yet, and Becky looked at me kind of strangely and said, "No, I meant the way he looks"

"Oh," I said, trying to recover. I hadn't given that any thought at all. Good, I supposed, if you liked a lot of muscle. "Great. Maybe a little on the heavy side."

"Jenny likes the scrawny ones," said Marcia, laughing. I scowled. We talked on. Apparently Marcia now had no intention of telling Becky. I tried to give her a few signals, but mostly I just enjoyed sitting and talking. I liked Becky, she was funny, kind of in a sarcastic way which made me think of how she could cut someone down with a few words if she wanted to, but I could sense she was a good person inside, she liked to laugh at so many things. She wasn't exactly pretty, at least not in a conventional sense, because she affected something of a goth look, kind of 'goth-lite' as Marcia called it. But she sure was striking with her dark hair and pale skin and full red lips. And she had a great figure.

Finally I could sense that Marcia was going to tell Becky, and all this would be over. It was pretty late now, after 5.30, and I had had enough. Well, actually I really enjoyed the conversation, and the chance to hang out with Becky, and apart from the sheer terror of being out in public I'd had more fun with Marcia than I'd had in ages. I wasn't really having to think about the way I talked and walked and moved and stuff, but a little part of me was exhausted from all the tension and I needed to stop. Eventually Marcia said to Becky "So, have you noticed anything weird today"

"Apart from Denise Convey inviting me to her party tonight, you mean? No."

Marcia was just beginning to speak when we heard the front door open, and Becky's parents entered. Great. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry as I was introduced to both of them. Becky then said "Wow, look at the time." It was almost 6.00

Marcia stood up. "Time for us to move ourselves on, Jenny. Mind if I use the bathroom, Becky?"

"Knock yourself out, but hurry. I gotta get ready, Brad's taking me for a bite to eat before the party," Becky said, as Marcia went off to the bathroom.

"Do you girls need a lift home?" Becky's Dad asked me.

"Oh, don't worry Mr. Connor," I started to say, but he maintained it was no trouble and in a few minutes Marcia and I were in his Lexus and headed down Main Street back the way we'd come earlier in the day. When we pulled up outside Marcia's place we thanked him and began to walk up the drive toward her house as he pulled away.

"Jeez, well that was a really productive trip to Becky's," I said sarcastically.

Marcia looked slightly wounded. "Well, after we got there and got to talking, I don't know, I just seemed to forget about it for a while. You make a terrific girl, you know that? I had a great time, and so did Becky. I almost wish you were always a girl, it's fun."

I honestly didn't know what to say to that. Did she mean she didn't like me as a guy? She must have noticed my expression, because she continued. "Not that I don't have a great time with you as Chris. But today's been fun, hasn't it? And you are very good at being a girl, you have to admit that."

I sighed. I had enjoyed it. But now I was still trapped. "Maybe I can jump the fence and climb through a window," I said, looking across at my house, but I knew there was little chance of that. Mom had gone through a security phase after dad left and installed extra locks on the windows.

"Let's just tough it out," I finally said to Marcia. "I know Rob is gonna spread it right through the school when he finds out, but I don't see what else we can do. I mean, I can't just go home like this, my mother would freak completely."

We walked in to Marcia's house through the kitchen door. Her father was getting ice from the refrigerator for some drinks. "Hi Dad," said Marcia.

"Hi Hon," her father said. "How was your day. This must be Jenny"

Both of us looked at him blankly. "Rob mentioned you were together," he said. "It is Jenny, isn't it?"

"Um, yes," I squeaked.

"We have to get ready for the party tonight," said Marcia, leading me by the hand through the kitchen.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Wilson," I said in what I hoped sounded like a sweet voice as Jenny pulled me into the living room. Mrs. Wilson was sitting with her back to us, reading a magazine.

"Hi Mom," Marcia said as she half-dragged me through the room. "we're just going upstairs to change for the party."

Marcia's Mom twisted in the chair to look at us, but only caught a glimpse as we left through the door to the hallway and the stairs. "That's nice," she called vaguely.

We got to the top of the stairs, to see Rob coming out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. I had to admit I was impressed by his body, he obviously worked out a lot to keep it in that shape. He looked me up and down again and said "Hi Sis, hi Jenny. How you doin' ?"

"Fine," said Marcia, trying to lead me past him on the landing.

"You going to the Convey party tonight?" He asked Marcia.

"Yes. Mike's taking me." Marcia said. "You're not, are you?"

"Well, I haven't got an invite, but since Tanya's sick tonight I thought maybe me and the boys might head up there later on."

Yeah, I'm sure all the seniors are just gonna love that," said Marcia sarcastically as we reached her room and went inside. Once again we collapsed with laughter.

"This is great," said Marcia. "Jenny, I can't believe how wild this is."

She'd called me Jenny when we were alone. I let it pass. I was laughing, too. I couldn't figure it out. Were these people really stupid, or what? But then I saw myself in Marcia's mirror again I stopped laughing. It was true. I did look like someone different. I wasn't sure how I'd ever get to look like the old me. Was I going to have to shave my head, or what?

We sat on Marcia's bed, trying to work out what I was going to do that night. Clearly I couldn't change and leave as Chris, because the Wilson's were expecting to see Jenny leave. Then I realized. The clothes! "Where are the clothes?"

"What clothes?"

"My clothes." We'd had them in a shopping bag when we left Marcia's house.

"Uh, did you take them out of the car when we got to Becky's?"

They were still in Mike's car. God only knew what he'd think when he found them there.

I lay down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling, trying to work out how this had gone so totally out of control. I couldn't change back if I wanted to. Now I had to go home like this. For a few minutes neither of us spoke. Then Marcia lay back on the bed beside me, and began stroking my arm. "I'm sorry," she said. "I kind of got you into this."

"There's not too much 'kind of' about it" I said, and then regretted it. It wasn't really Marcia's fault. I'd gone along with everything. I'd even had fun. "I guess if I stay out late I can go home when Mom's already asleep and she won't notice."

"So, what are you going to do until then?"

"I could stay here."

"No, my parents would think that was strange. I think you better come to the party with me."

"Unh unh. No way. I'm not cut out for going to those kind of parties as a guy, I definitely couldn't handle it as a girl "

"Actually, I think you could handle it much better." Marcia's voice had gotten low, and she moved from stroking my arm to touching my neck. It felt very soothing as I lay there. She raised herself on the bed a little and leant over me. "Jenny, don't take this the wrong way, but I think this was really good, what we did today. Don't you?"

"I enjoyed it," I admitted without thinking. Oh God! What was I saying! I tried to roll over away from her, but her hand on my shoulder stopped me. She kissed me lightly on the forehead and laid me back down.

"It's okay, I knew you would," Marcia said.

She was right. She'd known this would feel good for me. Had she planned it? No, that wasn't so important. The bigger question was, why did it feel right? "Oh, God. Marcia, am I weird?"

"No hon, I think everybody needs to do some exploring some time." She was back to stroking my throat. "Think of it that way, it's just a bit of exploring." And then she kissed me on the lips.

I'd never been kissed on the lips before. Ever. I mean, I've never been able to attract girls, so there's never been any opportunity. Marcia's kiss was gentle and sweet, not too long but warm and soft, and it kind of did something to me. I just lay there and let her do it. She lifted her head a little and smiled at me. "I've never kissed a girl before," she said.

"Neither have I," I said without thinking. I was going to have to watch what I said more. "I mean, I'm not a girl"

"You look like one," Marcia said. "But maybe that's why I did it, 'cause you look like one but you're not."

I reached up to her, but she pulled her head back further. She continued stroking my neck. "You're a good friend," she said softly. "Maybe my best friend. Let's not complicate this too much."

I was disappointed. She had started this. But she was right. I didn't want to complicate things with Marcia, of all people. She wasn't just my best friend, she was one of my only friends.

"Okay" I said. Then I got up off the bed. "May as well make the best of the rest of the evening."

"Say what?"

"Well, if I'm stuck in these clothes, and can't go home 'til late, let's do something. I can't very well walk the streets waiting until my Mom goes to sleep, can I? I'll have to stay with you."

"So you'll come to the party?" Marcia said, getting up from the bed and holding my hands.

"I guess so. Nobody will know me there anyway. I may as well take this as far as it can go," I said. A little voice inside me told me I was making an enormous mistake.

Marcia hugged me tight, and tried to jump us both up and down. "Yippee!" she squealed. "This is gonna be *lots* of fun. You won't regret it." She went over to her wardrobe and began to sort through her clothes, looking for something. "I'm gonna make you look great," she said.

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" I asked. "It seems to have worked pretty well so far."

"No, this is a party. You want something ... exciting," said Marcia.
 
 

 
To Be Continued...

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Author's Note: Hi, This is the second story I've ever written. It's still incomplete. I hope you like it.

Feel free to archive or otherwise distribute, provided it (and this preamble) is unedited and no fee is charged for access. This story may not be distributed from any site that charges money, is members-only, or uses that ridiculous "adult check" thing (or any similar system).

All rights reserved by the author, who can be contacted at: [email protected] ~Becky

Image Credit: Picture purchased and licensed for use from 123RF.com Stock Photography.

The model(s) in this image is in / and are no way connected with this story nor supports nor conveys the issues and situations brought up within the story. The model(s) use is solely used for the representation of looks of the main character(s) of this particular story. ~Sephrena
 

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Chapter 4.  Saturday Evening
 
 
I got undressed and wore the fluffy robe to the bathroom. Rob saw me again as I was going in, and I could feel his eyes on me as I entered. Inside, I did as Marcia had instructed. I tied my hair up so as not to get it wet again, then ran the shower. In the shower I did as Marcia had instructed and shaved my legs for the first time. I really didn't need to, because the hairs I had were blonde, but than again no-one would notice when I went back to guy mode anyway. I also shaved the little bit of fuzz under my arms. As I got out of the shower I studied my reflection in the mirror. I certainly didn't need to shave my face. There wasn't even any fuzz there.

Looking at my reflection, I wondered what was wrong with me. Here I was, fifteen, and it was like puberty was only a distant dream of the future for me. My voice hadn't broken yet, I had no adam's apple, I was still mostly hairless, and Marcia was taller than I was - I even had slightly smaller feet! When my mom took me to the doctor six months ago he'd said there was nothing to worry about, that it would all happen in time, but the question was, how much time?

I used some of the powder Marcia had suggested, then wrapped myself in the robe again and headed back to Marcia's bedroom.

"Okay," she said when she saw me. "Say, you look cute with your hair in a ponytail like that. That gives me an idea. But first, come sit over here." I did, and she gave me some moisturizer to apply to my arms and legs. Then she began filing my nails, which were not especially long but were kind of untidy.

Then she bent down and did my feet. "Kneel, slave," I joked, and she made a face. She reached up to the dresser, and retrieved a small bottle of a silvery nail polish, which she began to apply to my toes. "Don't you think that color's a bit over the top?" I asked, but she laughed and told me it was easily the coolest color around at the moment. So much for my powers of observation.

As the polish was drying Marcia went and had a shower herself, giving me strict instructions not to move. She laid out a magazine on the dressing table in front of me, it was a pretty crappy read but I learned a bit about applying makeup from it. When she came back into the room, wrapped only in a towel, I stopped reading. I was pretending not to look at her body. Of course I was pretty terrible at pretending, and as she applied some moisturizer to her own legs she looked up at me and smiled.

"Um," I said, "do you want me to leave the room?"

"I think my family would think that was kind of strange, don't you?" Marcia grinned. "You're just going to have to get used to being one of the girls. Okay? Think of it as training." And with that, she dropped the towel entirely and went over to the bed, where she'd laid out some clothes and lingerie for both of us.

I really couldn't do anything except stare. Marcia had a fantastic body. And I had never seen a real live naked woman before. Perhaps she was aware of how difficult it was for me to pretend not to be looking, because she faced away from me as she put on her bra and panties, but not before I'd had a good look at her wonderful breasts and the downy hair between her legs.

"Uh, Marcia, you probably know this, but you're really very beautiful."

She walked over toward me and smiled. "That's very sweet of you, but most girls my age look like this. Becky looks a lot better, you should see her. But enough of me, more of you. Drop the robe, and give me a look."

I was embarrassed, but I did as she asked. I thought I looked very strange, with my fingers and toes adorned in silver and my hair up and my scrawny little body. My penis stood to attention, and I blushed. I knew it wasn't very big, and I knew she knew that, too, but was too nice to say anything.

"You look sweet," said Marcia, and kissed me on the forehead again. "But we better hurry." She led me to the bed, and pointed to the lingerie she'd laid out for me. "Try that on." she said. I pulled on the panties. They looked very strange with my penis trying to make a tent out of them at the front. Marcia looked puzzled for a moment, then disappeared for a moment and came back from the bathroom with a very cold damp washcloth, which she had me hold against my penis until it subsided.

"How'd you know how to do that?" I asked, but she waved me on to the task at hand. I tucked myself back in my panties so that there was no bulge at the front, then tried on the bra. This one was flimsier than the one I'd worn earlier in the day.

Then Marcia handed me two very strange objects, little flesh-coloured pieces of quivering jelly. "Put these inside the cups." I looked at her quizzically as I did so, and as she adjusted them in the cups of the bra she said "I borrowed these from Becky this afternoon, though she doesn't know it yet -- I snuck into her room when I went to the bathroom. She used to wear these a few years ago, before she blossomed out like she has. Not that she ever admitted it to anyone, but you can tell when you see a lot of someone. They're only meant to enhance breasts, not substitute for them, but you're skinny enough to look good with small breasts, and they'll feel real if anyone gets gross enough to try feeling you up. This old bra is a cup size too small for me, but it's pretty and it'll hold them properly."

Whoa! There was too much in those last few sentences of hers for me to absorb. She'd planned that I would go out with her tonight all along, or else she wouldn't have thought to 'borrow' those things from Becky. She stole something from her friend. And she was talking about me getting felt up. As if.

"Time to reverse this 'slave' thing you were so into. Sit," Marcia commanded. She was going to start in on my makeup. but I stopped her and started applying it myself. She watched me bemusedly.

"I read that article," I said, pointing to the magazine, "and I saw what you did today."

"Okay, whatever," she said. "Just remember, less is more, especially with skin like yours. You want to accent your eyes more than your lips, I think. Your lips are pretty full. So it's paler lipstick for you."

She watched me doing the makeup, correcting me a couple of times, then quickly did her own before turning to work on my hair. Using a curling iron again and a lot of spray, she put my hair up at the crown, then pulled a few curly tendrils down to soften the look. I was amazed at the effect, I thought it was just my long hair making me look like a girl before, but I guess it was the makeup, too, even though I didn't look like I was wearing much.

Marcia brushed her own hair out, and let it run loose across her back. Leading me across to the bed, she held out a pair of pantyhose and a bit of black material I could only assume was a dress, then began to pull on a pair of pantyhose herself. I tried to watch what she was doing, and succeeded in getting them on even if they felt a bit twisted. Marcia bent down and straightened them a little for me, then held the dress over my head. It was a light jersey, which clung to me as she lowered it over my newfound curves and flared over my hips. Then she pulled a red dress over her own shoulders, and I helped her do the buttons up at the back.

Finally she passed me a pair of black shoes, kind of mary jane style but with an open back and a 2" heel. I put them on, and took a couple of steps. They felt like a pretty good fit.

I looked at us both in the mirror. Once again, it didn't look like me. Maybe I'd been in my 'Cousin It' phase far too long. I looked ... well ... amazing. I looked really pretty. The dress hugged me without being too revealing, though it was very short. I looked across at Marcia and smiled, then blushed.

"Yeah, I know, it's disgusting that a boy can look so much better than a girl, isn't it?" Marcia said, smiling back.

"You don't think it's a bit much for a party like this?" I asked a little timidly.

"Okay, you get the denim," she passed me a cropped and faded denim jacket. "That'll dress it down just a little. I'll take Mike's jacket," she said as she picked up a leather jacket that was way too big for her. "We probably won't need them, anyway, it's pretty mild."

When did she get that, I wondered. Obviously Marcia and Mike were more serious about one another than I'd known if he was doing things like giving her his jacket to wear.

"They'll be here in a few minutes, we better hurry," Marcia said, handing me a pair of earrings.

"Uh, I ..." I stopped, holding the earrings. Marcia looked at me and realized.

"Oh, right, they're not pierced. Um, I don't have any clip-ons, I've had my ears pierced since I was eleven. Uh, wait here."

She left the room, and I could hear her running down the stairs. I took the time to take stock of my appearance again. I really hoped this was going to be as convincing as the way I looked earlier in the day, or I was going to have a lot of trouble with the jocks at the party. I thought I looked great. Really. But then I had the feeling my judgment was very faulty today. Still, I had fooled everyone earlier in the day. I lifted my hands to my breasts, and squeezed. Marcia was right, they felt very real. And although they looked small, it kind of fitted in with the rest of my skinny body and the clothes she had dressed me in.

Marcia came bounding back into the room with a needle and a potato, and said "this is gonna hurt a bit."

"You're gonna pierce my ears?"

"If you take the earrings out tonight and disinfect the earlobes they'll heal right over. No-one will notice."

She was right, it hurt a lot. I felt like my ears were on fire as she attached some small silver hoops to them. Then she gave me a couple of silver bracelets, a chain for my neck and a thin watch with a tiny black band.

Finally, we were ready. Marcia led me downstairs to wait for the guys. As we came into the living room I stopped dead in my tracks. My mom was sitting talking to the Wilsons. Marcia stopped, too, clearly at a loss for what to do.

Mr. Wilson stood up. "Uh, Kath, this is Jenny, a friend of Marcia's. Jenny, this is Katherine Miller, our neighbor. Wow! You both look terrific. You girls want a seat while you're waiting?"

I wanted to die. I wanted the floor to eat me, I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I'm sure I looked really strange.

I could see from the expression on my mother's face that she knew instantly who I was, and so could Marcia.

"Nice to meet you ... Jenny," said my Mom kind of stiffly.

There was a kind of embarrassed silence.

Finally Marcia came to the rescue again. Sort of. "Mom, Dad, I hate to drag you away, but could I talk to you in the kitchen for a moment? It's important."

"Okay honey," said Mrs. Wilson, a little puzzled, and they all moved into the kitchen. "We'll be right back," she said to my Mom and I as they left.

There was a very strained silence.

"Jenny?" my mother said.

"That was Marcia," I said.

"And everything else?" She indicated all that I was wearing. "And what happened to your hair?"

"Um, we sort of bleached it."

My mom looked shocked. She slumped in her seat.

"Uh, I'm sorry, mom," I said.

She looked up at me, as though seeing me for the first time. "Are you enjoying this? How long have you two been doing this? How come the Wilson's don't know? How..."

Her voice trailed off.

"It's only been today, Mom, honest, it's just a bit of fun and it's kind of gotten a bit out of control. It was easier to let it go with the Wilsons than explain, really."

"Is this a sex thing?" she asked me.

"Mom, it's not anything, it's just fun, okay." Outside I could hear a car coming up the drive.

"You're not doing drugs are you?"

"Mom! Gimme a break!"

She sighed.

"Well, I must say, for whatever it's worth, you do it well. I almost didn't recognize you."

"Can you just go along with it for a little while? It'll all be over soon."

"I know you haven't been happy, but I didn't know it had come to this." She shook her head.

There was an awkward silence as she looked me over more carefully.

"I think I need some time to think about this," Mom said.

"Well, I have to go out," I said. "Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow?"

"Out," Mom repeated, as though in a trance. She put her head back in her hands. I sat down. Then the Wilsons re-entered the room with Marcia. Mrs. Wilson looked at my mother and said "What's wrong, Kath?"

Mom straightened up. "Oh, it's nothing, I was just explaining to ... uh, Jenny ... that I've got a terrible headache all of a sudden."

"You do look a little pale," said Mrs. Wilson.

There was a knock at the door. Marcia ran to answer it. Then she came back into the room. "Jen? Our ride is here."

Mike came into the room behind her, followed by Paul. I could see both of them pause a moment when they saw me, but they were both trying to impress Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.

"Mom, Dad, you know Mike, this is Paul, and this is our neighbor, Mrs. Miller," said Marcia.

I could see my Mom's radar had gone up as soon as the boys had entered the room. Now she was clearly gonna blow a gasket. After everything else, Marcia and I were gonna get into a car with a couple of boys. With me dressed like this. She looked across at me, and I could see something in her eyes I'd never noticed before, a kind of fear. But she didn't say anything, and after Mr. Wilson and Mike had exchanged a few pleasantries we left the house. As we were leaving I could hear my mother saying that she thought she'd go home and lie down.
 
 

 
Chapter 5.  Saturday Night
 
 
Paul held open the back door of Mike's car for me, then got into the back seat with me. I smoothed out the back of my dress as I sat down, then tried to get the hem a little further down my legs than it wanted to go. Paul noticed me tugging at it, looked at my legs and grinned. I smiled at him, and he said quietly "You look pretty spectacular tonight."

"Um, thanks," I said, blushing. It felt weird when he said that. I liked it. And although I felt nervous when he looked at me, I kind of liked that, too. It wasn't crude or anything, like when Rob had looked at me. Despite all my nervousness, Paul put me at ease.

We drove off. "We thought we'd go to that Italian place, if you girls are up for it," said Mike. I realized that - contrary to what Marcia had said earlier - this was definitely gonna be a date, not just a bunch of us going to a party. We drove back down Main Street until we came to a little cafe at the end of the shopping strip. Inside it was nice, but casual. I hadn't eaten out for ages, Mom and I couldn't afford to, so I really didn't have a lot to compare it to, but it felt comfortable. As we sat down Marcia whispered to me "How was your Mom?"

"Don't ask," I said, and we looked at one another guiltily.

We ordered some food and a couple of sodas. Mike and Marcia did most of the talking, but I did learn that Paul was a senior like Mike, and that he wasn't only the jock he looked like, he was also editor of the school paper and he was really smart. Mike kidded him from time to time about being a rocket scientist, but Paul just took it all in stride. He seemed pretty quiet most of the time, but I was very conscious of how near he was to me, and that he kept stealing glances at me. I tried to eat in a restrained manner, copying Marcia in the way she moved and the way she took small bites. If I hadn't still been a bit nervous I could have eaten a lot more, but I ordered an appetizer size and, like Marcia, ended up leaving some of that, too.

Paul asked me a couple of questions about myself, so I stuck to the line Marcia had used with Becky earlier in the day, that I was visiting the town with my Mom while we thought about whether we wanted to live there. I tried to keep the rest of my life pretty much as it was, until he asked me where I was going to go to school.

"I guess I'll go to the same school as all of you," I said, wanting to change the subject. I was still in junior high, but I already knew a whole lot more about the high school than I wanted to, courtesy of a couple of guys who beat me up one afternoon "for being a fag."

Eventually Marcia said to me "Wanna check out the ladies room?" I knew from the tone of her voice that it wasn't a request so much as a command, so we made our excuses and went together. There were only two stalls, and we were the only ones in there. I hiked up my dress and sat down, then Marcia said from the stall next to me "I'm really sorry about your mom, Jenny."

"I didn't know what to say," I said. "She seemed pretty upset. I think. But maybe surprised more than upset. I think she blames herself for me having gone astray or something." We both giggled.

As we came out of the stalls at about the same time I said "So, did you tell your parents?"

"Huh?" said Marcia.

"Wasn't that what the 'important' discussion in the kitchen was about?" I asked.

"Of course not! I was telling them that I needed them to be flexible about tonight. Usually they make me get home by midnight, but I explained that this was a big party and since there were a few of us going together it would be better if they could allow me to be a bit later. It always takes a while to have that discussion, because my Dad always feels the need to tell me it's for my own good and all that. I wasn't going to ask them that, tonight, but I figured it was a way for you and your Mom to have a talk."

We fixed our lipstick and hair, and headed back out to see the boys. "I think Paul is more than a bit smitten," said Marcia quietly as we approached the table. "I'd watch myself if I was you."

The guys paid the bill and we left the cafe. Mike drove up through the hills to the Convey's house, which was absolutely enormous. There were a lot of cars around, and it took Mike a while to find somewhere to park his enormous old 70's car.

As we went in the noise was deafening. Becky was over by the CD player, I think she was the one responsible for putting on the Nine Inch Nails and the guy next to her wasn't happy about it. Denise, the girl whose house it was, came up to Marcia and gave her a hug, then nodded to me like she'd like to kill me. She turned and gave Mike an enormous smile, though, and actually gave Paul a kiss on the cheek. Uh huh. Well, that explained the look. Marcia introduced her to me, but I don't think Denise caught my name in all the noise.

Mike disappeared into the kitchen as we walked through the living room. I knew who most of the people were, but I'd never spoken to any of them at school. For a start they were almost all seniors, and anyway even the kids in my own year mostly didn't speak to me. But everyone smiled and spoke to Marcia. Eventually Mike came back with some beers for himself and Paul and some wine for Marcia and me. I took a sip. I'd only tasted wine once before, at my cousin Beth's wedding. It seemed okay, kind of sweet.

Mike and Marcia went off in search of some drugs, and Paul introduced me to some of his friends. They mostly seemed very nice, except one guy who undressed me with his eyes instead of really talking to me. One of Paul's friends was a tall, thin guy named Steve, who had a goatee and looked impossibly cool for someone who was still at high school. He and I had a great time trying to have a conversation about music above the noise, and he tried to explain to me how the playlists on radio got compiled. He was sweet, but kind of earnest. I made him laugh a lot, which was fun. Paul told me later I'd made a really big impression on the coolest guy in the school.

I danced a couple of times with Paul, who said he usually felt awkward dancing, and then a couple of times with Marcia and Mike, and then Steve. Paul wandered off to talk to other people from time to time, which was good because I didn't want to feel under pressure like I was his girlfriend or anything, although it seemed that's what everyone else at the party had decided. .

I spent time talking to Becky after she surrendered control of the CD player to someone a little less interesting. She had taken some ecstasy a little while earlier, so our conversation didn't go a long way, but she was extremely friendly and kind of falling all over me. Steve took her off to find her boyfriend Brad, and I had a little quiet time to myself. That was good, I needed to collect my thoughts.

It sure was turning out to be a strange day. Here I was, having a terrific time with a bunch of people who normally wouldn't give me the time of day, but I was popular and they all seemed to want to talk and dance with me.

I went into the den, where people were passing around joints. Paul came up behind me and put his arm around me.

"Want some?" he asked, handing me one.

"Sure," I said, and took a drag on it as though I'd been smoking all my life. Of course I sent myself into a coughing fit, and everyone laughed, but in a good natured way, and Paul took me into a nearby room to recover.

It was a bedroom, I noticed through my running eyes. I sat on the edge of the bed and Paul sat down next to me. He was still smiling broadly after having laughed a lot. "Well, that was a good idea. Not," he said, rubbing my shoulders. "I guess you're not a smoker, huh?"

"Not really," I said quietly.

"Good for you," he said, and put his arm around me. "I don't do it much any more, except now and again at parties. And I don't smoke tobacco"

"I hate the smell of tobacco," I said. I was conscious of how close he and I suddenly were.

"You smell good," he said quietly. "Not too much perfume, you smell clean. It's good"

I was nervous, and he could feel it. He stroked my neck, where some of my hair had come loose a little from the rest and was hanging in little blonde wisps over my collar. Then he turned my head towards his and kissed me.

It was surprising. I'd had two kisses in one day, but this was very different from the one Marcia had given me. His mouth felt hungry as he moved his lips on mine, and I could feel an urgency in him. I liked it. I felt like he wanted me, and I liked that, too. I stiffened at first, but then I relaxed, and when he finished, and stroked my face lightly with his fingertips, I could see in his eyes a certain kindness, a gentleness, and I knew he'd enjoyed it as well. He kissed me again, and then again. After the third kiss I rested my head on his shoulder. Then he gently moved his hand to my breast, and I jumped a little. I still didn't feel very secure about that, no matter what Marcia said.

I got up from the bed. "We should go back with the others," I said.

He stood in front of me. "It's okay, relax," Paul said softly. "Tell me, how old are you, anyway?"

"I'm sixteen," I lied. I figured it wasn't as big a lie as some other things he didn't know about.

"You're very beautiful, you know that," he said. I looked up into his eyes.

He really had nice eyes, I thought. Then I caught myself. What was I thinking? I was making out with a guy, and I was enjoying it! This was utterly insane.

"And you're probably the sweetest thing I've ever met," he said softly. "How come you can be so smart about some things and be so innocent about others?"

He kissed me again. This time, standing up, it was even better. He took me in his arms, and pressed me close to him. I could smell his masculine body, feel how hard he was, how strong. I almost swooned, but he held me.

"It's okay," he said, as he let me go. "This is great, but I want you to be comfortable. You let me know what feels right for you, okay?"

I couldn't believe it. I knew then that I was going to be in big trouble if I let him go any further. This guy wanted all of me, only he didn't know how much of me there was. I gave him a little kiss, just a small one, and was about to say something when there was a knock on the door and Marcia stuck her head around. She smiled an enormous smile when she saw us together.

"Hey, guys, you need a lift back with us? We're going pretty soon."

I looked at my watch. It was 1.00am. The night had flown by.

"We'll just be a moment," said Paul, and as Marcia closed the door he kissed me again. This time I could feel him run his hands up and down my back. He lowered one of his hands to my ass, and cupped it, while the other traced the line of my spine as far up as my neck. Then he bent and kissed the back of my neck. I almost crumpled, and I was shaking. I'd never felt anything as intense as that before. "Whoa," he said, "I think that's enough for now. Wow, you are a passionate little one, aren't you?" He put his arm around me and led me from the room.

The trip home was uneventful. Marcia told them I was going to stay over at her house. Paul had his arm around me, and stroked my arm with his free hand. It felt so wonderful I stopped thinking about how weird it all was. When we got to Marcia's house the boys got out of the car with us. Paul gave me another long and lasting kiss, while he lifted the hem of my dress and ran his hands over my ass.

"Can I call you?" he said finally.

"Of course," I said, and gave him my number without thinking. I separated from him, and he clasped my hand as he promised to call. I followed Marcia into the house and collapsed on one of the kitchen chairs as we came in.

"Well, that was a night to remember, huh?" said Marcia.
 
 

 
Chapter 6.  Very Early Sunday Morning
 
 
I left Marcia's and walked the short distance to my house. The night was crisp, and the sky was very clear, with enough moonlight to see where I was going easily. Even though I felt a little tired from all the dancing, everything seemed amazingly fresh and new. The stars seemed brighter, and the sounds of the night clearer and sweeter. The noise my heels made on the paving sounded like music, and I skipped once or twice, listening to them, then tried to be quieter. As I walked up our drive I heard an owl off in the distance.

There were no lights on, so I opened the front door as quietly as I could and began tiptoeing down the hall. As I passed by the door to the living room I noticed a figure sitting in a chair, silhouetted in the moonlight. It was my Mom, of course. "How was your evening?" she said quietly.

"Uh," was all I could manage. What did she want me to say? "Good, I guess."

"Why didn't you tell me you felt this way?" Mom said.

Even though it was dark, I got the impression from the sound of her voice in the dark that she might have been crying earlier. I felt terrible. Mom and I had always been especially close, especially after Dad left. I know, although she could never have said it, that she felt she was partly to blame for him leaving, and she felt guilty about me not having a father around anymore. I didn't blame her at all, I kind of loved my father, but I could tell, even at a young age, that he was a difficult man to live with. Neither of us ever seemed able to please him. He never hit either of us or anything, but I could sense that I was an enormous disappointment to him because I wasn't good at sport and into the manly kinds of things he liked, and I know that the times my mother stuck up for me against his scorn he'd turned on her, instead. After he left she seemed distraught about a lot of things, especially money, but I could tell that she was also a bit relieved. I thought that relief meant that his leaving was definitely for the better. I would have done anything to make her happier -- I just wasn't always sure what that could be.

I definitely hated to think that it was because of me that she'd been crying.

"What way?" I asked.

"Well, the way you feel. That you enjoy dressing up as a girl. Do you like boys? Is that it?"

I had to pause for a minute. I wasn't sure what she meant. How did I feel? I didn't know. A lot of it felt good, but it was weird -- I was a boy, but ... I hadn't stopped to think about it properly, really.

She turned on the lamp next to her chair. It was probably not the best idea she ever had, because she was once again confronted with the way I was dressed. "Your ... lipstick ... is a bit smudged," she said, in a tone that indicated she knew exactly how it had gotten that way. I could see that my guess that she had been crying earlier in the night was right.

"I don't know, Mom. I really don't know." I sat on the floor at her feet and put my chin on my knees.

"Do you often dress like this?"

"This is the first time, Mom. Honest. It was just for fun. But it kind of got out of hand today."

"I'd say that was an understatement. How was the party? How did that boy ask you out? Did he know?"

"Did he know what?"

"That you're not a girl."

"No!" I said. I couldn't bear to think about that.

We sat in silence a little while longer.

"Mom, I honestly don't know why everything happened the way it did today. I'm really sorry I upset you, I didn't want you to find out -- "

" -- I'm glad I did -- "

"Well, I guess I am, too, I don't like having lots of secrets from you. But ... it was all kind of unexpected, really, Marcia was just fooling around with my hair and it all just kind of happened."

She put her hand on top of my head and played with the strands of hair that were falling around my face.

"You look very pretty," she said quietly. "I would never have guessed you'd turn out this way."

It sounded strange, coming from Mom. I wasn't sure I wanted her to think I was pretty.

"I guess ..." I swallowed, not really sure if I should say this "I guess I had a pretty good time. Everyone really likes me as Jenny. Much more than as Chris." She didn't say anything, so I went on. "And although it felt kind of weird at first, it got easier as the day went along. I think it's easier, being a girl."

Mom gave a little laugh of disbelief. She tilted my face up, to look at me. "It's not so easy," she said.

I shrugged. "It was okay."

"What about that boy?"

I blushed. "Paul? He's ... well, he's a nice guy."

"Were you attracted to him."

"No. Yes. No. I mean ..." My voice trailed off. "Yes, I guess so, though not at first. It was ..." I put my head down, blushing again.

"I know how it is," said Mom. She smiled a little. "But you haven't had much experience with girls. Or have you?"

"No," I admitted, "They don't seem to be very interested in me. I like them, I guess." I considered this some more, thinking about Marcia's kiss today. "Mom, does this mean I'm queer or something?"

"I don't know what it means."

"I think I like girls, like I like Marcia, but I like them in a kind of friendly way. I wouldn't want to do anything with Marcia, because then she mightn't be my friend."

"Well ..." She paused. "Maybe we should get you to see someone. Like a therapist or something. Would that help?"

I shook my head. I didn't know what I thought, I didn't think I could explain it to someone else. Besides, I knew we couldn't afford it. "I love you, Mom. You know that." I knelt and hugged her. "I won't do it again, I promise."

"That's not what I'm saying. If you enjoyed it so much, what does it mean?" she said. "I want you to be happy." She held my arms and looked me in the eyes. "I don't care if you're gay, or straight, or everything in between. But I know you haven't been happy at school, and I have been wondering when you'd start to show an interest in girls. I want you to be happy in everything."

"Mom, that's wonderful. You're great. But I don't know what I want."

We hugged for a while longer, and then she decided it was probably best if we both just slept on it and dealt with it in the morning. I kissed her goodnight and climbed the stairs.

I went to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror again. I still couldn't get over the difference in the way I looked. I let down my hair, and was about to wash my face with some soap and water when my Mom appeared at the door.

"Use this" she said, handing me some cleansing cream. I tissued it off, and began to brush out my hair. That looked more like the old me, more of a mop. But whatever Marcia had done earlier in the day, my hairstyle was still clearly a feminine one.

And she had thinned out my eyebrows much more than she'd claimed. I was going to have to deal with all that tomorrow.

I took out the earrings, painfully, and swabbed my earlobes with some antiseptic. Then Mom came back with some small studs, that she pressed into my ears. I looked at her quizzically.

"You can decide later if you want them to close up," she said with a sad smile. She tousled my hair, and I walked off to my room.

There I carefully undressed, placing the lingerie and the dress carefully over a chair, and the funny fake breasts underneath the dress where they couldn't be seen. I pulled on the oversize t-shirt I always slept in and was asleep almost as soon as I hit the bed.

The last thing I can remember thinking about was the way Paul's hands felt on me when we kissed.
 
 

 
To Be Continued...

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Author's Note: Hi, This is the second story I've ever written. It's still incomplete. I hope you like it.

Feel free to archive or otherwise distribute, provided it (and this preamble) is unedited and no fee is charged for access. This story may not be distributed from any site that charges money, is members-only, or uses that ridiculous "adult check" thing (or any similar system).

All rights reserved by the author, who can be contacted at: [email protected] ~Becky

Image Credit: Picture purchased and licensed for use from 123RF.com Stock Photography.

The model(s) in this image is in / and are no way connected with this story nor supports nor conveys the issues and situations brought up within the story. The model(s) use is solely used for the representation of looks of the main character(s) of this particular story. ~Sephrena
 

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Chapter 7.  Late Sunday Morning
 
 
I woke late, and lay in bed for a while contemplating the events of the previous day. I wondered what Mom was going to say today. I wondered what I was gonna do about my hair. And my eyebrows. When I raised my hands to brush my hair away from my face I remembered I still had painted nails, too. Eventually I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. For some weird reason I sat down to pee. It didn't even occur to me that I was doing it until I'd almost finished. I guess it was because the t-shirt was almost as long as the dress I'd been wearing the previous night.

I went downstairs to the kitchen and poured myself some orange juice. I was standing looking out the window when my Mom came in. "Good morning," she said brightly.

"Hi Mom," I said in a similarly cheerful tone.

She put some coffee on, and came over and gave me a hug. "How are you this morning?"

"Pretty good, I guess"

"Ah, the joys of youth!" she smiled. "I remember when I could stay up all night and be bright the next day, too. Enjoy it while you can!"

I smiled. She wasn't so old, really, but she joked about it a lot. She handed me a croissant and pointed to the butter and jelly on the table. I sat down. She poured us both some coffee and sat down across the table from me.

"I have to go across to Megan's today," she said. "Do you want to come?"

"Okay," I said without thinking. Megan was my mother's sister, about ten years younger and a lot of fun. She lived with Mark, who was a famous photographer. They were both very arty and liberal and lived in a really cool house right on the beach down in LA. "What time are you gonna go?"

"Did you know you're still speaking differently?" my Mom said softly. I stopped buttering my croissant.

"Really?" I said, and realized she was right. I was still speaking the way Marcia had taught me yesterday. Wow. How did I usually speak? I tried to remember. "Um, I don't know ..." I cleared my throat, and spoke in the deepest voice I could. "Is that better?"

My Mom laughed. I laughed too. I sounded like I was a girl imitating a guy.

"I guess it will come back eventually," I said.

"Interesting," my Mom said. She reached across the table and touched my hair. She was about to say something when there was a knock at the kitchen door. It was Marcia.

"Hi Mrs. Miller," she said nervously. "I just came to see, uh, Chris for a few minutes. Is that okay?" She was carrying another shopping bag, which reminded me of my clothes. Whatever had happened to them? They hadn't been in the car when we'd gone to the party last night.

My Mom let her in, and offered her some coffee. Marcia sat down while my Mom poured it. She looked at me for a sign as to how things might be. I didn't know what to say, so I looked at the table for a moment.

"You did a nice job on her hair, Marcia," my Mom said as she handed Marcia the coffee. I looked up. Mom had said "her." Marcia looked at Mom, too.

"It did look pretty good, didn't it," Marcia said hopefully, as though unsure of my Mother's state of mind. She looked across at me and smiled. "All it really needed was a bit of tidying up."

"Well, the color's better, too," said Mom. "You did a much better job than I did when I cut it."

I sat back and pulled my hair up behind me, wanting to hide it from view a little. Mom looked over at me and winked. "I just have a couple of phone calls to make, I'll leave you two alone," she said.

After she'd gone Marcia looked across at me inquisitively. "Well?"

"Mom was pretty good, I guess."

"What did she say? What's with this "her hair" stuff?"

"She was pleased I had a good time"

Marcia looked at me strangely. "Your voice ..."

"Yeah, I know. Maybe it'll gradually go away."

"So she didn't go apeshit about Paul?"

"No. I don't think she was really crazy about that, but she just said she wanted me to be happy."

"Wow." Marcia sat back in her chair. "That's pretty wild."

We discussed the events of the previous day. I admitted to Marcia that I'd enjoyed it a lot, more than I really cared to tell anyone else.

"I meant what I said yesterday," Marcia said quietly, "about you seeming more comfortable as a girl"

I looked down at the table, then back at her. That wasn't exactly what she'd said yesterday, but I knew what she meant.

"Anyway, I just came over to see how you were doing. And to see whether you wanted to come to the dinner I'm having next Friday night."

I was surprised, she'd mentioned it a lot before but never in the context of me being invited. "Um, sure, that would be great," I said.

"I was thinking we could make it ten people instead of eight, and maybe" her voice dropped a little "you could ask Paul if he'd like to come."

"Uh." The penny dropped. "You're inviting Jenny, not Chris."

"Um, reality check, I hate to break it to you, but you still look a lot like a Jenny, and you're still acting that way," she said.

"Bigger reality check -- I'm a boy," I said.

"Well," she said, "Whatever you say. Let me know in a day or so, okay? If you want to come the offer stands. It would be really cool. And Mike told me Paul is really aching to see some more of you."

"I bet he is," I thought. I wasn't sure more of me was necessarily a good thing.

"Anyway," Marcia said, "in the meantime I thought you might like to experiment a little more, and I bought you some things you might like to borrow." She handed me the shopping bag, which was full of clothes. I looked at her with some surprise. "Or not, whatever," she said. "I gotta go, my Dad wants to take Rob and me to see the car he bought yesterday, he's like totally overwhelmed by how great it is." She shrugged. "He's okay for a dad, really, and I like to make him feel happy at times like this."

"Thanks," I said, still holding the clothes. "Uh, and thanks for a great day yesterday"

"That's okay," she said as we both stood. She opened the kitchen door, then kissed me on the forehead. "I like having you for a girlfriend, it's like having a little sister," she said as she turned and left.

I went upstairs and put the bag Marcia had given me on my bed. I went back to the bathroom and had a shower, tying my hair up to keep it from getting wet. As I showered I thought about Mom's behavior so far this morning. And Marcia's. They seemed to want me to continue being Jenny. That was a surprise, especially Mom's attitude. I had to admit to myself that life seemed a lot better to Jenny than it did to Chris. And I had enjoyed the attention from Paul. I was embarrassed just thinking about it. Would I have enjoyed it as much from a girl, say Marcia? I supposed I probably was queer. Uh. Great. That was gonna make me a whole lot more popular at school if anyone found out. Not.

But then I thought girls were neat, too. So I couldn't be queer. Could I?

I thought about what my Dad would say if he could see me now. I shuddered. That was not something I wanted to think about any more than I had to.

When I got out of the shower I brushed my hair out thoroughly. It still looked very feminine. I decided to wear it in a ponytail, that seemed appropriately androgynous. But when I tied it back I noticed the bangs Marcia had given me framed my face and made me look very girlish. Maybe it was the eyebrows. I went back to my room to dress.

When I got to my room I noticed my Mom had unpacked the bag Marcia had given me. She'd laid out some of the clothes on the bed. I presumed this was some kind of a hint. What the hell, I thought. If she wants to explore this a little further, why not? I picked up the underwear, a pair of white cotton panties and a white cotton bra. Then I noticed the fake breasts, lying on the t-shirt. I looked around, and noticed Mom had hung the black dress I'd worn last night up in my closet. Mom had definitely decided she liked me better as Jenny, I thought. I wondered how long that was gonna last. I put on the bra, and put in the jelly inserts, then looked at myself in the mirror on my closet door. The bra was a little big for the breast inserts, but there was no doubt about it, I looked like a young girl again. Maybe a little underdeveloped, but I sure didn't look like a boy.

I put on the remaining clothes, a pale blue t-shirt and a short dark blue skirt and ankle socks. In front of my closet on the floor were a pair of white sneakers. I was standing looking in the mirror again when my Mom knocked on the door. She smiled when she saw me. "I always wondered what it would be like, having a daughter," she said. I went over to her and hugged her. Then I burst into tears.

"Hey," she said. "We can't have that. Don't you like it?"

"Yes, Mom, but that's the trouble. I like it a lot," I said. "I only just realized how much."

"Well, then, that settles it for today," she said, drying my eyes. "You look beautiful, so long as you don't cry."

She took me into her room and let me use her mascara, which I applied very sparingly. She told me I didn't need anything else at my age. Then she gave me a casual purse she thought was young enough for me, and a thin gold bracelet with a diamond pattern on it. "This was my mother's" she said quietly. Finally she popped two thin gold rings in my ears, which were still hurting from yesterday. "And these were the first bits of jewelry your father gave me, when I was seventeen," she said. I hugged her again, and thought maybe I was going to cry some more. She hugged me back, and said in a no-nonsense way "Enough. There are things to be done today."

She made me hand wash the bra, panties and pantyhose I'd worn the previous night, then gave me some nail polish remover and helped me get the polish off my fingers and toes. She didn't like the color, which she thought was "cheap," but she said I could wear another sometime. Mom rarely wore it herself, so there wasn't any in the house fresh enough to use.

Pretty soon we were on our way to Megan's. I hadn't asked Mom what she thought was gonna happen when we got there, what she thought Megan and her boyfriend Mark were gonna say when they saw me. I figured she must be pretty confident they'd be cool about it. In the car the sun on my legs felt great, and I put the seat back and stretched them out a bit, taking a little snooze for the hour or so the trip took. I woke up about ten minutes before we got there, which was enough time for me to get really nervous about the way I was dressed. I really liked Megan, she'd always been really good to me, especially since Dad left, and I was a little scared of Mark, although I really didn't know him very well.

Finally we reached their house, which was down right on the beach, built out on poles over the sand with a breathtaking view of the breakers a few yards away. As we stood at the front door my Mom gave my hand a squeeze, then Megan opened the door and smiled warmly at both of us. "How are you both? How was the trip down?" she asked.

We went in. I could tell immediately that one of the calls my Mom had made earlier that morning was to Megan, because she was expecting me as Jenny and didn't miss a beat when she saw me. She just acted like I'd always been Jenny. Which was cool. I really liked that. I didn't want her to make a fuss or anything.

We went and sat out on the balcony, overlooking the beach. Two people were walking along the sand in the distance, but otherwise it was deserted. It was a wonderful place, and I said so to Megan, even though I'd been there several times before. Mom and Megan began chatting about things, about how life was going for each of them. Megan had a new job as an assistant to some guy in the movies, which she was enjoying although she said the guy was a dork. As she was saying this, Mark came out onto the balcony. He nodded to Mom as he said hello, and was about to say hi to me when he just stopped. "Wow," he said, looking me over. "I was prepared, but not for this."

I blushed. Megan said "Oh, Mark, calm down." My mother smiled, and Mark looked a little embarrassed.

"Sorry," he said. "I was just kind of expecting a boy in a dress, if you know what I mean." Mark was always kind of blunt about what he thought. "I guess I better make some lunch before I embarrass myself further, huh?"

He smiled at me and I felt better. He had a great smile. I'd never noticed it quite like that before.

We had lunch, a chicken salad with some great Italian bread. Afterward my Mom asked Megan whether it was okay to have a look at the things they'd discussed, and Megan led me inside to the bedroom. There were two suitcases at the end of the bed, with a lot of clothing folded in them. "I wasn't sure," Megan said " whether you and I would be the same size. I think some of these might need to be taken up a fraction, and one or two might be a little sophisticated for someone your age, but ..."

I looked at the suitcases. My mother frequently called Megan a "clotheshorse" behind her back, she was always dressed in the very latest fashions, and clearly spent almost all her meager paychecks on clothes -- but then, as she said, she was an L.A. girl. I turned and gave her a hug. I was a bit overcome. My Mom looked on, and smiled at Megan and thanked her for me.

"Well, see what you think," said Megan.

I picked up an item which had been neatly folded. It was a little creased, but not too badly. I held it up to myself, feeling more than a bit self-conscious. It was a blue and yellow silk dress, with short sleeves and a thin tie at the waist, and it felt fantastic. My mother looked more closely at the label, and then shook her head. "We can't take this, Megan. It's very sweet of you, but this is a $400 dress." I looked at the label. Calvin Klein.

"Yes, but it's two years old," Megan said. "And to tell you the truth I'm a little too meaty for it. You know how Kate Moss looks great in that stuff? I'm no Kate Moss. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it. I've only worn it once. Besides," she added "Mark gets some of these for me for free when he does commercials for them, so they don't all cost us that much."

My mother was unconvinced, and made a remark about being the only one in the family who didn't get to wear designer fashions. We went through the rest of the clothes in the cases, mostly skirts and tops and a few dresses. Almost all of them were outrageously expensive. My mother vetoed one dress as being way too much for a teenager, and I could see that another would be a problem because it had a very low back and I wouldn't be able to wear a bra with it, but everything else was amazing.

"I wish I could fit into this stuff," my Mom said more than once. I started to feel guilty, until Megan told me that we had to have some kind of fashion show. So they went back out to the balcony, and I changed into one outfit after another and promenaded out to show them. I started with the plainer stuff, feeling very self-conscious at first but relaxing as I went along. When I went out in a red shantung minidress my mother immediately vetoed it, but I could see Mark's eyes never left me the whole time I was out there. I realized I liked that. The next outfit was a black miniskirt and pale blue blouse, and I acted a little flirty, immediately sorry for it because Mark became hugely embarrassed and Mom gave me a look of strong disapproval. Megan laughed and laughed.

Most of the clothes got Mom's seal of approval, and so Megan and I went back in the bedroom and folded them up and packed them neatly in the suitcases. Megan looked at me, then hesitated, then put the shantung dress and the Calvin Klein in, too, underneath everything else. I grinned, and she held her finger in front of her lips to indicate that I mustn't say anything. Finally Megan gave me a pair of black pumps and a pair of strappy black sandals. They were a tiny bit tight, but Megan grinned and told me a girl had to suffer for her art. We both laughed.

Before we left Mark and Megan had a quiet conversation in the kitchen while Mom and I enjoyed the sunshine outside on the balcony. He carried the suitcases out to our car for us, and said goodbye as soon as he'd loaded it in the trunk. Mom gave him a brief hug, and he said something quietly to her. He looked at me hesitantly, then I gave him a small hug, too. He went back inside as Megan and Mom were saying their goodbyes. I hugged Megan, thanked her profusely again and then got into the car while they talked quietly on the other side of it. I figured they were probably discussing me, but I was pretty worn out and I just wanted to sit down. I heard my Mom say "as long as it's not weird" and "we'll have to discuss it," but that was about all I got.
 
 

 
Chapter 8.  Sunday Evening
 
 
"So you told Megan about me this morning?" I asked my Mother as we drove back. "What did you say?"

"I told her last night, when I got back from the Wilson's. You gave me quite a shock last night, you know, and I had to talk to someone. We decided this would be a bit of an experiment," said Mom, keeping her eyes on the road. "That you had a couple of things to work out. You've always been very special to her, you know."

"Megan's pretty cool," I said.

"Anyway, you know I can't afford to buy you clothes, and I'm not sure I'm all that happy about you borrowing Marcia's, so..."

"Marcia's okay, too," I said. "She doesn't mind. I think she's got even more clothes than Megan. She brought these clothes over today, I didn't ask or anything."

"I know," said my Mom, "but it's better if you don't have to borrow things from her. Mind you, we still need to get you some more casual clothes from somewhere, all that stuff of Megan's is a bit dressy."

"So, is that what this is, an experiment?"

She looked across at me quickly, then back to the road. "I suppose so. I did a lot of thinking last night, after you went to bed. I know you said you hadn't done this before, but there have been a lot of times I've wondered whether you were really happy being a boy. When you were younger ..." she cut herself off, and started again. "I thought as you grew up you'd settle down, but ..." She looked back at me quickly. "Anytime you want to stop this, just tell me. If you think you've had enough, just say so."

"Okay," I said. "I still feel kind of odd from time to time. You know, because I'm a boy. But somehow the world seems easier to be in. I feel like I fit into it better." I was wondering what she meant by all that stuff about when I was younger. "Does that make sense to you?"

"I think so," Mom said.

"Uh, good," I said, "because I'm not sure it does to me, really." We both laughed.

When we arrived back home there was a message on the answering machine from Paul. He sounded terribly polite. It just said that he'd had a lovely time last night, and he'd call again soon. As I heard it I thought once again about the way he'd made me feel last night, and I got goosebumps. Mom smiled softly as she watched me listening to the tape.

I took the suitcase upstairs and unpacked it, making sure everything was neat and well-hung in the closet. I couldn't believe that Megan had so many clothes she'd get rid of things like this. Mom came upstairs and gave me a couple of other things, some cleanser for my face, and some body lotion. Then we went downstairs and had a light dinner.

After dinner I helped her with the washing up before I broached the subject that had been nagging at me all day. "Mom, what am I gonna do tomorrow?"

"I've been thinking about that. I don't think you can go to school with your hair like that. If you want me to I can try cutting it shorter. But that will be the end of your experiment, I think."

I wasn't sure I wanted that, but I couldn't think of what else to say.

"Or you could just skip a bit of school for a while, until we work things out," she said. I smiled.

"I didn't think it would upset you too much to do that," she laughed. "It's okay, your grades are good. Maybe just for a short while."

So that was that. Mom had obviously decided that everything was up to me.

At that moment the phone rang. I picked it up, and heard Paul's voice at the other end. "Hello, Jenny?"

I didn't answer straight away. My first though was 'Jenny?', my second was 'Omigod it's him!'. I leaned against the refrigerator, and slumped down until I was sitting on the floor.

"Yes," I said. "Hi Paul."

I looked across the kitchen at Mom, who was putting saucepans away. She tried to suppress a smile.

"How are you."

"Great. How was your day?" I felt extremely self-conscious. My heart seemed to have a life of its own, and I tried to relax. I don't know whether Paul sensed my nervousness, or whether he was just being nice, or (this didn't occur to me until much later) maybe he was nervous himself, but we carried on the conversation in fairly stilted language for a few more minutes, until my Mom left the room and went back to the living room.

Then I relaxed and we talked for a while. Not about anything important, it was just chatter. I asked him what he was doing for the week, and he mentioned that he was going down to LA to interview for an internship at some magazine. I told him Mom and me had been to visit my aunt down in LA, and we'd had a great day. Eventually he asked me how long I was going to be staying in Santa Rosita! I'd forgotten that my 'cover' story had been that I was only visiting! Hurriedly, I told him that I really didn't know, but that we'd probably be here for a week or so while my Mom interviewed.

We talked some more, and he asked me if I'd like to go out on Wednesday night after he'd come back to town. When the phone call had begun I had decided that I'd say no, because I was scared of going out on a date with him again. I liked what had happened at the party, but... it just didn't seem very sensible to risk it again. But as we talked I was thinking of the way he'd looked at me the night before, and how nice he'd been when we first arrived at the party. I liked it that he wanted to be with me, and that he thought I was attractive. I realized as I was talking to him that I was falling for some hopeless romantic ideal that wasn't real, but the part of my brain that deals with rational thought had obviously gone into the living room with my Mom to watch the movie. So I said yes.

He seemed very pleased, and told me it would just be a casual night, maybe dinner and a movie, he'd pick me up at 7.00. As we were saying our goodbyes he sounded nervous again, as he told me he'd really enjoyed seeing me the night before, and was really looking forward to Wednesday.

I looked at the phone when I hung up, trying to work out what I'd just gotten myself into. Then I noticed the clock on the microwave. We'd talked for over an hour! I went back to the living room, and Mom gave me a little smile that said she knew exactly what I'd been feeling. Looking at her I all of a sudden felt very confused about what I'd just done. "Mom, is it okay if I go to the movies with Paul on Wednesday night?" I blurted out.

"Do you want to?"

"Yes." I paused. I think so... I said yes.

Mom looked at me seriously. "Is he a nice boy?"

I wondered about that. He'd been very nice to me so far. But I knew he wanted more from me than just a kiss. "Yeah, I guess so."

"What will happen if he finds out you're ... not really a girl?'

"I don't know, Mom. I don't want to think about that."

She looked at me thoughtfully, and said "Well, I want you to be careful. I'm really not sure this is a good idea. It can't lead to anything good... But I guess Megan's right, I'd worry as much if you were a girl."

"Thanks Mom." I made a mental note to phone Megan and have a talk to her. She seemed to be playing a big part in all this.

We didn't say anything for a while, and watched a pretty awful movie together. Halfway through I started feeling a little cold, so I went upstairs and got a sweater Marcia had given me in her parcel of goodies earlier in the day, a light cotton one with a pretty detail around the neck. When I came down again Mom smiled and said "there's one other thing that happened today."

"Which was?"

"Well, I'm still not sure about this, because I think it might be going a bit fast, and I'm not even sure if you'd want to."

I was curious, and trying to think about all the things that had happened today.

"How do you like Mark?" Mom asked.

"Megan's Mark?" I said. "He was pretty nice today, I thought. Considering the surprise. In fact, he was much nicer to me than he usually is."

"Mark had a little talk with Megan after he saw you today," Mom said, "and he thought you were quite the beautiful young lady. He asked Megan if she'd ask whether you might pose for some photographs for him. Tasteful ones of course, nothing, you know ..."

I didn't say anything. At that moment I knew we'd entered some strange parallel universe, and some dwarf that spoke backward was gonna enter the room and do some David Lynch thing.

"I said I wasn't sure," Mom said. "I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it. But Megan was terribly good to you today."

"Um -- he wants to photograph Jenny, right?"

"Yes," said Mom. "Fully clothed, of course. He is a terribly good photographer, you know. Megan thought you might think it was fun, something to remember this little experiment by."

I thought of the photographs Marcia and I had taken yesterday. I already had a record of all this. And I wasn't sure I was confident enough to have 'serious' photos taken. "Uh, I don't know why he'd want to. He takes photographs of thousands of beautiful girls," I said. "I mean ..."

"I'm sure it will all be okay," Mom said.

"Okay then," I said. I still wasn't sure why Mark wanted to, but Mom was right, Megan had been great today. And Mark had been very nice, too.

As I went upstairs later that night my head was spinning a little bit. I brushed my teeth, put some peroxide on my earlobes where they were pierced, cleaned my face and took off all my clothes. Somehow my body seemed kind of weird and unformed once I took off all the underwear and the fake breasts. I pulled the t-shirt on again and got into bed. Idly I touched my chest, near where Paul had tried to touch it. I wondered what it would feel like, if he could. Then I wondered why I was thinking about him so much. It was just because he was the first person to like me sexually, wasn't it? Shaking my head, I tried to put him out of my mind and eventually went to sleep.
 
 

 
Chapter 9.  Monday to Wednesday
 
 
Next morning I woke at my usual time, then remembered what Mom had said and rolled over to go back to sleep again. But a few minutes later Mom knocked on the door and came in when I didn't respond. She sat down on the end of the bed and shook my leg under the covers.

"Just because you don't have to go to school doesn't mean you don't have other things to do," she smiled.

I tried to squash the pillow down over my head, as though I wanted to go back to sleep, but she pulled the sheets back and slapped me on the ass. "Up!" she commanded before she left the room. I got up and went to the bathroom to shower. When I came back I saw she'd laid out some more clothes for me on the bed. I looked at the black skirt. Somehow I really felt like wearing a pair of jeans today. Maybe I was getting tired of the experiment? I put on the skirt anyway.

My hair was more difficult to do anything with. It was a bit flat on one side, and looked as though I'd slept on it strangely. I tried to brush it out, but that seemed to take out the curls that had remained from when Marcia had done it. Eventually I gave up, and figured I'd ask Mom to help me with it, so I tied it up behind my head. Strangely, even without make-up, I still looked pretty girlish. I stopped trying to figure that out and went downstairs.

Mom told me she had to go out for a while, but that there were all sorts of things that needed doing around the house while she was gone. Inwardly I groaned, but I knew it was only fair. I usually helped out with most of the cleaning around the house, and I hadn't been doing my fair share over the past few weeks, so after she left I set to work. I had the house looking pretty great by the time Mom came back.

"Time to go shopping," she said, as soon as she'd come through the door. I was puzzled. Wasn't that what she'd been doing? She got me to go upstairs and put on some mascara, then took my hair out and re-brushed it before putting it back in a headband instead of the ponytail I'd been wearing it in. Then we set out.

We went to a nearby Mall. As we entered I saw two guys looking me over, and I smiled to myself and ignored them. I felt good about the way I looked, and I'd stopped being afraid that people were gonna think I was a boy. Well, at least for the time being. It seemed everyone was pretty clueless as far as that went.

Mom took me immediately to a store that I knew Marcia shopped at for a lot of her casual stuff. We browsed through a few racks of clothing until I realized she was actually planning to buy me a few things. I protested that we didn't have the money, and she told me not to worry about that, that she'd been out taking care of that earlier in the day. I protested a little more when she told me to go try some stuff on, but I needn't have worried too much as all the cubicles in the fitting room had little latches on them so no sales assistants could burst in while I was dressing.

We left the store with a couple of pretty nice casual blouses and tops, two casual skirts and a sweater. I was worried about where this money was coming from as we sat down to have lunch. I was pretty hungry because I'd skipped breakfast, so I was tempted to have a burger, but Mom saw the look in my eyes and ordered salads for both of us. She laughed when she saw my slight disappointment, but told me that having to watch one's weight was one of the things about being a girl that wasn't so easy.

I noticed the boys I'd seen as we entered again. They were across the mall pretending not to be looking. I mentioned them to Mom and she stole a quick glance. "Kind of dorky," I said dismissively, and she laughed out loud.

"Well, aren't you the choosy one" she smiled. I blushed again, and we began talking about how teenage boys could be so awkward and transparent in the way they related to girls. The conversation was kind of weird, really, because neither of us even considered the whole time that I was a teenage boy. I enjoyed talking to Mom about it, though. She told me about her dates before she met Dad, and how dumb some of the guys had been, and how she probably settled on him because he was the first guy who had been able to look her in the eyes instead of the breasts. I could kind of understand that, because Mom was pretty stacked, but it was funny the way she talked about it.

We lingered over lunch. It was a rare thing that we ever ate out. I didn't know what Mom had done about our money situation, but she obviously wasn't worried about it and I decided not to ask so she could enjoy lunch.

Mom told me she had an interview for a job early next week. I told her that was great, though I was secretly worried that it would be like the others she'd interviewed for and she'd be disappointed when they gave it to someone else. Not that Mom hadn't been great at her old job, but when you've been out of work for a while maybe it's harder to convince people to hire you. That's what Mom had said a few weeks earlier, anyway.

While we were in the middle of talking about the job she was going for she suddenly looked at her watch and said we had to get going. I went off to the ladies room while she took care of the cheque. I felt a little self-conscious about going in there on my own, but only for a second.

After I came out she bustled me off to the other end of the mall. As we walked I realized what was happening. She was gonna take me to the salon to have my hair cut! I looked at her questioningly. "Marcia did a good job," she said, "a very good one considering, but I think you could do with a little more style if you're going to keep doing this."

"But Mom, Marcia only cut my hair in the first place because we couldn't afford to get it cut!"

"Well, now we can," she said firmly as we entered the salon. "Besides, I made appointments for both of us when I called. If I'm going to make an impression at this interview it's time I had mine done as well."

I tried to act as natural as I could as the girl in the salon greeted us. Surely someone would notice I wasn't a girl in this kind of environment if I had my hair all wet? Mom squeezed my arm gently to reassure me.

A short time later I was sitting in a chair, under a wrap, as the stylist ran his hands through my hair. "You girls, you always wreck your hair so with the bleach," he said in what I thought was an unutterably affected French accent. I had to keep from laughing.

He misunderstood my smile, and said "It's no laughing matter, we will have to give you a treatment before we can do anything else."

His name was Claude, though I didn't believe that for a moment. "Well, that was okay," I thought. My name wasn't really Jenny. That made us about even. And obviously Claude was clueless about me pretending anything. I relaxed and enjoyed the fussing.

A long, long time later Mom and I emerged. Mom had to wait a while for me, because Claude decided to be very fussy over the way he restyled my hair, complaining all the time that whoever had cut my hair last had been very sloppy. I decided I'd have to share this with Marcia, but only if I could imitate the way Claude said it exactly.

Mom looked great, and she seemed to feel so much happier. Her smile increased when she saw me. Claude had made my hair shorter, but had styled it so that it flipped a little at the ends and looked more sophisticated than the way Marcia had first done it. It was more Alicia Silverstone than Tori Spelling (thank goodness!). It looked like money had been spent on it, and it shone fabulously.

Before we left the mall Mom took me to the lingerie department of one of the bigger stores. She successfully discouraged the sales assistant from helping us, which I was relieved about, and we bought a couple of bras and a half dozen panties. I was beginning to get more than an inkling that Mom was secretly enjoying my "experiment."

That night I cooked dinner, reasonably well I thought. At least Mom was polite enough to be appreciative. As I was going to bed that night she gave me a hug and told me she'd had a lovely day.

Tuesday passed fairly uneventfully. Marcia came over in the afternoon. She was pretty impressed by my hair, which I'd managed to do in the morning much more successfully. We talked about a lot of things, but eventually of course the conversation came around to the fact that I still hadn't stopped being Jenny. Marcia wondered why my Mom was taking it all so well.

I told her truthfully that I had no idea, but that -- from being in tears originally -- Mom had seemed to come around entirely to liking 'the experiment'.

"You seem to have adapted to it pretty well, too," Marcia remarked, one eyebrow raised.

I was shocked. Was she disapproving? If she didn't like it, how come she'd invited me to dinner later in the week? My fear must have showed, because she hugged me and told me that anything I wanted to do was cool with her. "But we should talk about it when you feel you can," she said.

I started to say something, and she cut me off. "Not now, when you've had some time to absorb all this. Okay?"

I showed Marcia some of the clothes that Megan had given me, and she was knocked out. She tried a couple of the dresses on, too. She looked great in the red shantung, but she was a little big in the chest for the Calvin Klein, which definitely looked better on me. It felt funny, to think that, but it was true. Was I terribly vain?

We sat in my bedroom for a few more hours, talking about the things we always talked about. As she was about to leave to head home for dinner, she brought the conversation around to the subject of Paul. I admitted that we were going to see one another the following night. Marcia hugged me and told me to take it easy with him. I assured her I was going to be very, very careful.

As she was leaving, I was already getting nervous about what I'd agreed to with Paul. Part of me wanted to see him again, but another part of me was convinced I was gonna pay for all this eventually.

Wednesday evening rolled on. By mid afternoon I was really nervous. Mom didn't help, I could tell that even though she seemed to like everything else she still wasn't crazy about me going out with a boy, though I did notice a wry smile every now and again as I worried aloud about what he was going to think of me and what I'd wear and an endless supply of trivial matters. Paul had said he'd pick me up at 7.00, and I had chosen what I was going to wear by 3.00.

Then I put all that away, and chose something else.

Then I put everything away again, and decided I wasn't going.

I was on the verge of calling Paul when I realized I didn't have his number.

That was stupid of me.

I rang Marcia to see whether she had it, and of course she came straight over to talk me into going out.

It was 6.00 by the time I agreed, and 6.30 by the time I was out of the shower.

I took off my robe as Marcia chose one of the skirts I'd bought on Monday and a satiny dark blue blouse. She turned around with the blouse and saw me standing clad only in my bra and panties. I could see her look me up and down, and I immediately tried to cover myself with my hands. I guess she'd noticed that there wasn't any bulge in my panties. In a rush of fear about what would happen if Paul found out, I'd taped my penis back after the shower before I put on my underwear. It wasn't exactly comfortable, and I hoped desperately I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom, but I felt safer. Marcia was about to say something after she looked at my crotch, but instead she thought better of it and smiled at the way I was covering myself.

"Don't be embarrassed," she said. "I saw you like this the other day, remember? I'd just forgotten how great you look." She walked over and poked the jellied pad that was substituting for my left breast. "These look kind of real from a distance. Feel pretty real, too. You're gonna do fine, don't worry." Then she kissed me again, lightly, on the lips. "You really are amazing, you know that?" she whispered.

I dressed, and Marcia helped me with some light make-up. "There," she said, combing my hair and pinning it up on one side. "You're gonna kill him."

"I just hope he won't kill me," I said nervously. My confidence seemed to be evaporating.

"Jenny," Marcia said, looking me squarely in the eye, "everything is gonna be just fine. Didn't you have a great time with him the other night?"

I admitted that I had.

"Well obviously he had a great time with you, too, or else he wouldn't have asked you out. He thinks Jenny is great, and you seem to be very good at being Jenny. So just be Jenny tonight, okay?"

She was right. The doorbell rang, and Marcia led me down the stairs. "I'll slip out the back, okay? Have a great time!"

Mom had answered the door, and was showing Paul into the living room as I entered from the kitchen. They both smiled as soon as they saw me, and I immediately felt better. Paul told my Mom where we were going, and promised to have me home by midnight. He was very polite, and he looked great, and I could see my Mom was even a little impressed. She gave me a light kiss as we were leaving, and whispered softly "be good!"

"I didn't know that was your Mom on Saturday night," Paul said, as he opened the door of the car for me. "I would have been a lot more polite to her if I had known."

"It's okay. She had a headache then anyway, she wasn't really up to chat or anything," I said, trying to slide into the seat gracefully, and being careful not to wrinkle my skirt. I was still a bit nervous, but as Paul got into the driver's seat he smiled at me and I felt much better. Before he started the car he leaned across and turned my face toward his, and kissed me. Any thoughts I had about not wanting to be with him evaporated. It was the lightest, most gentle kiss I'd had so far, and a little buzz of electricity went through me.

Why did I like this so much?

We went for pizza before the movie. I let Paul do a lot of the talking over dinner, while I picked at my one piece. I could hear Marcia's voice in the back of my head telling me to eat like a lady.

Paul was really interesting. Most of the guys I knew at school seemed pretty dorky to me, although I'm sure they thought I was the all time misfit champion of the world. But Paul was interested in other things besides sports and cars and computer games. I asked him how the internship trip had gone, and he said he liked it a lot and thought they might accept him. The work would be very menial, just gofer stuff, but it was a highbrow magazine, about art and style, and he was very impressed with some of the people they had writing for them. He told me he wanted to write for a magazine like that someday.

I just enjoyed hearing him speak. We went on to the movie, which was a French film about a woman who loses her husband and has to find a new life for herself. I'd never seen a subtitled movie before, but I was surprised how easy it was to read the words and still see what was on the screen. Paul put his arm around me as the movie began, and I snuggled into him as much as I could considering the arm of the seat got in the way. Throughout the movie he stroked my shoulder and neck lightly, which I loved. If I hadn't been engrossed in the movie I probably would have started purring.

Midway through the film I reflected that so far our date hadn't been anything like what I'd expected. From stories I'd heard at school, I knew that most guys thought going to the movies was just an excuse to feel a girl up; the movie didn't matter at all. I wondered momentarily why Paul hadn't tried to touch my breasts yet. I could feel his hand resting on my shoulder, his fingers only inches from my left breast as he caressed me gently, but he made no move to go further.

I became involved in the movie again, and eventually found myself crying, which was strange as I never cried a lot in movies before. Paul looked across at me when the credits were rolling and smiled at my teary face illuminated in the glow from the projector. Then he leaned across and kissed me again as the house lights were coming up.

After I'd been to the ladies room and repaired the damage to my make-up, the two of us walked the length of Main Street and back, holding hands and talking. The moon was still bright, and it was a quiet night now that it was late. We got back to his car and he kissed me again before I got in.

I was getting better at kissing, I thought. Or he was doing something that was relaxing me more. I liked the feeling when he held me. I liked being with him. Everything felt so ... alive, so bright, so good. I'd never felt so good about being with someone.

He drove me back home, and we sat in his car after he stopped the engine. He reached over to me, and I to him, and we kissed some more. I put my hand on his leg, then I felt his hand go to my breast for a moment, and cup it lightly. All of a sudden I wanted my breasts to be real. I wanted him to like them, to like me.

I caught myself, then. What was I thinking? I stiffened and he moved his hand from my breast to my face before pulling away slightly.

"I ... I have to go inside," I said abruptly.

"Just stay a few minutes longer," he said softly. "I'll walk you to the door."

He put his hand on my knee, and began stroking my leg, too. "You're beautiful. You know that," he whispered.

I blushed, though he probably couldn't see it. We kissed again, and again, and I felt his hand go to my breast once more. He was about to slide his hand inside my blouse when my hand inadvertently brushed past his crotch as I was moving it from his leg. I felt the hardness of his erection, and I started. He sighed, kissed me again, and then I decided it was time to get out of the car.

He walked me to the door and embraced me. "I have to see some more of you," he smiled. "Before you go."

I smiled back, unsure what to say.

"How long will that be?" he asked, with a strange look in his eyes like he was talking about something else.

"Uh..." I was unsure what to invent, so I tried a diversion. "Marcia's having a dinner on Friday and she's invited me - would you like to take me?"

"Okay. It's just next door, isn't it?"

He remembered from Saturday night.

"Yes," I said, "but it would be..."

"I can walk with you," he smiled. "Again."

And with that he gave me a final kiss and hug, and walked back to his car. I opened the door to the house, and stood in the doorway until he drove off.

The light was on in Mom's bedroom as I walked past. She called to me, softly. I went in, and saw that she had been reading, waiting up for me. I sat on the edge of her bed, and then flung myself at her and burst into tears. I was so confused. I had just had the best time of my life, nerve-wracking though parts of it were. I was deliriously happy, but part of me knew that everything wasn't real, it was just crazy. So I cried and cried.

Mom held me till I stopped crying. Then she made me get undressed down to my underwear and get into her bed. She went to her dresser, came back with some cleanser and removed my make-up, then held me again, still without saying anything, until we both went to sleep.
 
 

 
To Be Continued...