His Fair Lady (17 page)

Josie’s eyes stung, and her nose felt hot inside the way it did when tears were close. She blinked hard twice and sniffed. She would not cry. There was nothing to cry about. Yet.

They faced each other. She barefoot and vulnerable in her pajamas and robe, he in his jeans and leather bomber jacket, the same clothes he’d worn to rehearsal.

“Mark, you’re freaking me out.” His silence was scaring her.

“Maybe that’s because I’m pretty freaked out myself.” He shoved a hand through his hair, a gesture of nerves she’d seen only a few times, when he was facing someone or something he didn’t know how to deal with.

Josie opened her mouth to ask again what was wrong, but Mark spoke first.

“There’s no good way to ask this, so I’m just going to put it out there. Josie, are you transgender?”

It was her worst nightmare come to life. All the oxygen was suddenly gone, from her lungs, from the room, possibly from the entire world. Unable to breathe, Josie pressed a hand to her chest as her head grew light, and she steadied herself with a hand on the back of the desk chair. She tried to speak, but no words would come. Apparently none were necessary. He must have seen the answer on her face.

“Jesus Christ, it’s true.” Mark scrubbed both hands down his face.

Ignoring the icy pain around her heart, Josie found her voice. “How did you know?”

Mark lowered his hands and stared at her with wild eyes. “Does it matter? You should have been the one to tell me. How could you not tell me something like that?”

So someone had told him, which meant he hadn’t been sure until now. She thought of the unknown girl and the broken stall door in the ladies’ room. That meant she had seen, and talked. How many other people knew? But she couldn’t think about that now, not with the fate of their relationship hanging by a fraying thread.

“How could I have told you? What would you have done if I had said, oh by the way, I’m a transgirl? Not bothered much by that, are you?” She laughed, a harsh bark of sound that might have come from a stranger. “I’ll tell you what you would have done. You would have kicked me to the curb and run screaming, just like you’re going to do now.”

“You have a pretty low opinion of me.”

“Then tell me it’s not true. Tell me you’re fine with it, that nothing’s changed.”

She waited.

He said nothing.

“See? I knew it.” She flung out her hands in a helpless gesture and whirled away from him.

“You know dick! You didn’t even give me a chance. You just decided I couldn’t handle it and—”

Propelled by anger and hurt, she turned back to confront him. “Handle it? My identity is something you have to handle, like finding out you have cancer?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you meant.”

“It is not. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Oh please! If you were so okay with this, you wouldn’t be standing in my living room at two in the morning berating me for… For what? For not outing myself to save your precious sensibilities?”

“You lied to me! All this time you’ve been lying about who you are. I’m not going to be with a goddamn liar.”

“I never lied. You never asked if I was trans.”

“Are you serious? Like I’m going to walk up to every hot girl I want to score with and say, excuse me, but did you used to have guy junk?”

Too angry to feel the full sting of his words, Josie fired back. “Why not? Are you afraid what you might find out? You poor sensitive thing, you must be so traumatized finding out you were trying to get in the pants of a transgirl. How will you ever get over it?”

“I don’t have to listen to this bullshit.” He stalked to the door and jerked it open.

Kyle stood on the landing. It was a contest which of the three of them was most surprised. Kyle recovered first.

“Um, whoops?”

Mark laughed. “So she’s a liar, and you’re an eavesdropper. Nice. You two are perfect for each other.”

He pushed past Kyle and started down the stairs.

But Josie had more to say. She marched to the door and, passing Kyle without a second glance, leaned over the railing and called down the stairwell, “That’s it, you transphobic jerk. Run away because you can’t deal with wanting to fuck a transgirl. And just so you know, since you’re too cowardly to ask, I still have my guy junk.”

The front door slammed, the echo reverberating through the house. He was gone.

Something broke inside Josie, but surprisingly, no tears came to her eyes. Where had they gone? It would have been a relief to burst into wild sobs, but the pain was too huge. It solidified in her chest like an icy fist and blocked all the emotion she should feel.

As she continued to gaze down the stairwell, Kyle came up behind her. He slipped his arms around her waist and hugged her, saying nothing. Grateful for the silence and the bottomless well of his understanding, she turned, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held on.

* * * *

It took every ounce of courage she possessed as well as a strong sense of her responsibilities to the other cast members to get Josie to the next night’s rehearsal. In spite of a chilly wind and heavy gray clouds threatening rain, she walked to the theater. Her feet felt like lead and her belly filled with dread at the thought of seeing Mark. But Mark or no Mark, there was no way she could not show up for tech-week rehearsal. They were days from the opening of the show, and they were counting on her.

Thankfully the path leading to the theater was deserted. Josie shivered and shrugged deeper into her coat.

How many of the cast and crew now knew about her? Would any of them say anything? Would they see her differently? If anyone did say something, what should she do?

Stop it! Don’t think about that
. There was nothing she could do to put that jack back in the box, so there was no sense in beating herself up with it.

Okay. So.

Josie took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked into the theater.

As she hurried down the side aisle toward the stairs that would take her up to the girls’ dressing room, Josie spotted Mark. Already in costume, he stood center stage in the middle of the scenery for act one, scene one, while Byron and Kierra made some adjustments to the lighting.

Josie quickened her steps and tried for inconspicuous. Not that Mark would say anything to her, not here, she was sure, but neither did she want to see the disgust in his eyes.

He thought she was a liar. He thought being trans was a condition that had to be handled.

She shoved these thoughts away—no time for that now—and ran up the narrow spiral stairs and into the chaos of the girls’ dressing room.

The space was a riot of half-dressed women, all talking at once. A girl named Joanna who Josie recognized as both a maidservant and an extra from the ballroom scene ran by in her bra and panties. In one hand she held a feather boa and in the other a tiara of paste diamonds.

Josie saw Vi and Brianna with their heads together at the makeup counter. As if they sensed her arrival, both looked up with twin expressions of guilty curiosity. So they knew.

She could do this thing, had to do it.

Pretending normalcy, Josie forced her lips into what she hoped looked like a natural smile and hurried to the curtained cubicle where her costumes hung. She had only minutes to get into her flower girl getup and do her makeup. She’d timed it just so to avoid any unnecessary conversation that was not absolutely show related. But when she reached the open cubicle, her flower girl dress wasn’t hanging in its customary place.

The hat and boots and basket of silk violets were all on the shelf where they should be, but the dress wasn’t there. Quickly Josie fanned through the rest of her costumes. The outfit for the horse race, the ball gown, her dress for the “Rain in Spain” number, they were all in order. But where was her flower girl dress?

Maybe Franny had hung it up in the wrong cubicle after— But no, that wasn’t the dress Franny had mended. So where was it?

Josie glanced into the cubicles on either side of hers; one belonged to Vi and the other to Brianna. Neither held anything but the costumes for Mrs. Pierce and Freddy’s mother respectively.

“What are you looking for?”

Josie turned and found Vi standing behind her.

“My dress for the first scene isn’t here. I thought maybe it got put in your cubicle by mistake.”

Vi riffled through her costumes. “Well, it’s definitely not in with my stuff. Brie, have you seen Josie’s flower girl dress? Is it in with your stuff?”

Brianna turned from the mirror. One hand held her hair in the elaborate updo she wore in the first scene. She stuck a hairpin in place, then removed several others from her mouth. “What?”

Vi repeated her question. Brianna walked to where her costumes hung, poked through the various garments, then shook her head before returning to the mirror.

“What am I going to do?” Josie asked.

“Was that the one Franny needed to hem?”

Josie shook her head. “No, that was—”

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s find Franny. Maybe she knows where your dress is.”

Franny said she hadn’t taken the dress and didn’t know where it might be.

“Let’s look through everyone’s costumes. It has to be here.” But just as Vi began to organize a search, Nino’s disembodied voice called for everyone to take their places on stage.

“What am I supposed to do?” Josie twisted a lock of hair around her fingers.

Vi patted her shoulder. “Just go on like that. We’ll tell Kierra what happened, and we’ll look for it later. It has to be here somewhere. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. C’mon.”

On stage Josie felt conspicuous for her lack of a costume. Her jeans and sweater looked out of place among the vintage evening attire that served as costumes for the first scene.

“Mark, what is all over your back?” Kierra walked to the edge of the stage and motioned Mark over. “You have makeup all over you. Franny, get Mark another jacket and clean this one up. Josie, where’s your costume?”

As succinctly as she could, Josie explained the mystery of the missing flower girl dress while the wardrobe girl changed Mark’s jacket for another one.

“Hey, I saw that dress,” the kid playing Freddy said.

“Where?” Kierra and Josie asked at the same time.

“In our dressing room.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Kierra exclaimed.

She sent Franny to get the dress.

“But what if there’s naked guys in there?” the costume girl asked.

Kierra addressed the boy playing Freddy. “Ben, go with her. Franny, you wait outside and let Ben get the dress. Josie, you go too and get your dress on. Tout de suite, people! We have a show to do.”

Once she had the dress in hand, Josie ran back to the girls’ dressing room. Since the place was deserted with everyone out front, she didn’t bother with the changing cubicle, just yanked off her jeans and sweater and tossed them over the back of a chair before pulling the dress over her head. As she straightened the skirt, something fluttered to the floor. She bent down and retrieved it. It was a torn scrap of notebook paper. In block printing it said,

You belong with the boys, you tranny freak!

* * * *

The next morning, she took the note with her into the kitchen and showed it to Kyle.

“I’ll go with you to see the director, if you want.” Kyle’s eyes were troubled as he handed the note back to her.

They stood in their kitchen, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Josie took the note and stared down at it briefly before stuffing it in her jeans pocket. She turned to the cabinet over the sink and reached down two mugs. She set them on the counter.

“I’m not going to the director with this. I’m not going to anyone with this.”

“And why not? Joes, you have to tell someone.” Kyle got the half-and-half out of the fridge. He poured a healthy dose in each cup as the coffeemaker gurgled to its climax.

“I’m telling you.” Josie grabbed the carafe from the machine. As she poured, the last few drops of coffee dripped onto the heating element and sizzled.

“That’s not what I mean. It’s not enough. You have to tell someone in authority. Josie, what if they try to hurt you?”

“It wasn’t a threat. It’s just…” She sipped her coffee and scalded her mouth. She set the cup down. “I don’t want to make it bigger than it is.”

Kyle’s expression said he didn’t know how she could make it any bigger, that it was big enough.

“Don’t poke at me about this, Ky. Please?”

Kyle sighed. “All right. But I’m driving you to and from campus from now on.”

“Forever?” Josie smiled, trying to lighten the mood.

“Maybe.” Kyle didn’t smile back.

“So you’re going to be my bodyguard?”

“Somebody has to look out for you.” Kyle topped off their mugs from the pot.

“God, Kyle, you’d make somebody such a good boyfriend.” She went to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed his stubbly cheek.

“Yeah, yeah. Quick trying to suck up.” He hugged her tight. But when she would have stepped back, he held on. “Josie, promise me something?”

“Okay.”

“Promise me if anything else happens, you’ll go to the director and campus security.”

Josie hesitated. “Nothing else is going to happen.”

“I won’t point out how you can’t possibly know that. But if you’re so sure, it shouldn’t be that hard to promise.”

He had her there.

“All right, I promise.”

“Good.” He kissed her, a very brotherly peck on the lips. “I love you, Joes. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

“I love you too.”

She only hoped she would be able to keep that promise.

Chapter Thirteen

“Mom?” Mark let the screen door slam behind him, then closed the inside door more softly. His mother hated door slammers.

“Not the mama!” Chris poked his head out of their mother’s kitchen and waved. “C’mon in. Mom’s not home yet.”

Damn. He was due at rehearsal in an hour. Not that it mattered all that much if his mom wasn’t home. Mark wasn’t even sure why he’d come. Not to talk, since he doubted his mother could understand the whole transgirl fiasco, or if she did, he wasn’t sure her sympathy would lie with him.