Staying True - A Contemporary Romance Novel (12 page)

She looked it over. “I wouldn’t have
chosen this particular green shade, but the layout looks clean and fresh.”

“I’m not talking about the menu.”

She sat on the stool next to me.
“Spill it.”

“I adore this new massage girl.”

Shawna slapped the table. “I knew
it.”

“This is not a good thing.” I stole
the menu back from her, needing something to fidget with. “To top it off,
Jessica called and told me she’s getting early release in four months.”

Shawna simply arched her eye in quiet
solidarity.

I drummed the menu against the
cocktail table. “I don’t know if I can do this. She expects me to pick right up
where we left off. Of course, she’s different now. I have nothing in common
with this new Jessica. She’s too serious, too sensitive, just way too much. I
liked her so much better when she drank.”

“Slip her some alcohol every now and
again,” she said with a wink.

I slapped her with the menu.
“Seriously. She obsesses over my every word and reads into everything. I just
wish she could be sweet and fun and attentive without the alcohol.”

“You mean someone more like Ruby?”

“How screwed up am I, huh? I’ve been
flirting like crazy with her. She massaged me last night in my room.”

Shawna backed up. “Whoa.” She
grimaced. “Did you…?”

“No.” I slapped her again with the
menu. “God, no. I’m not going to cheat on Jessica.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Like she’s
done to you?”

Jessica didn’t technically cheat on
me. She had cheated on her boyfriend, Robby, with me. “I swept into her life
and confused her.”

“I know. You rocked her world.” She
laughed. “Does Ruby know you’re married?”

“It didn’t exactly come up in
conversation.”

“It should.” She stood up. “Better to
just get it out there in the open for both of your sakes.”

I didn’t want to tell her. I wanted
the dance. I wanted the mystery. “I will.”

“Good girl.” She patted my arm and
grabbed the menu from me. “I’ve got a bar to get ready.”

Chapter Ten

Ruby

What a gig. People loved ten-minute
massages.

I could not screw this up. Rachel and
Marcy would be accommodating for only so long before they would surely start to
get cramped from my dependence on them.

I brought in over seven hundred
dollars of business each day in the garden patio at the Gateway Suites. I would
get half of that. Not too shabby for one day of work.

As clients filtered in, tired from
their business meetings and long flights, I rejuvenated them. They tipped me
generously and walked away breezy and redefined. Yesterday Shawna fed me
clients all day. I would do the same for her today, and hopefully they’d tip
her just as generously because they’d come to her relaxed and happy.

On this morning, so many clients
poured through the garden patio that I actually had to take time for a break
around lunchtime. I headed over to the lounge to check in on Shawna.

She wore a pretty skirt, low-cut
blouse and high heels again. “You are torturing yourself.”

“I love heels.” She slid an iced-tea
in front of me.

“You’re so beautiful. I just can’t
understand why someone hasn’t snatched you up yet.”

“Honey, look around.”

I scanned the cozy lounge. A sea of
men blanketed every nook and cranny of it.

“Even you’d be dateless working in
this place.”

I plopped my face in my hands. “So no
interest in men, right?”

“I love me some curves. You can keep
the beard stubble.”

I laughed and sipped my tea. “So what
does that mean? Are you straight or a lesbian?”

“I guess it depends on who’s forming
the opinion.”

I needed to understand. “I’m
confused.”

“Don’t you have massage clients
waiting for you?”

“I’m not on a schedule. That’s the
glory of it all. So, can you stand here for five minutes and explain, please?”

She filled a glass with ice and
poured some Sprite into it. She took a good long sip, eyeing me. She emptied it
and poured herself another. She gulped that one back too. She went to pour
herself a third.

“I’m not judging. I just want to
understand.”

Her eyes filled, and she twisted her
mouth to the side. “I’m just used to people mocking me. No one’s ever really
asked to get a real answer. I surmise they just want a good laugh. I’ve been
caught in that trap a lot.”

I placed my hand over hers. “I’m not
going to laugh at you. It kind of hurts me that you think I would.”

She stared at me. “I’ve been through
a lot.” She bit her lower lip and stared out over the lunch crowd. “The short
answer to your question is this – I’m a woman stuck in a man’s body. That has
nothing to do with my sexual preference. I identify with being a woman more
than a man, even though I have the man parts.”

I nodded assuring her safe ground.
“Go on.”

She tilted her head, narrowing her
eyes, testing me.

“Go on.” I reassured her with a
squeeze to her hands.

“I view myself as a lesbian because
I’ve always considered myself a woman, and one who adores women.”

I squinted trying to understand.

“And just in case you are questioning
this, a transgendered person’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with his or
her gender identity. The two are unrelated. Trans people are lesbians, gays, bisexuals
and straight too.”

“So, the women you’ve been with, how
do they identify with you? I mean are they lesbians, bisexuals, straight?”

She exhaled, twirled her glass, and
then volleyed it back and forth between her hands. “Ruby, dear, I’ve experienced
sexual encounters with all kinds. As you can see, by my single status, it’s not
easy for them. If I’m having sex with a woman, she might be viewing me as
either a lesbian or straight.”

“Why don’t you just get an
operation?”

She picked up the glass and placed it
into the bin behind her with a laugh. “You know what I am growing to love about
you?”

I arched my eye waiting.

“I just adore your innocence. You’ve
got no filter, and I surprisingly take no offense to that. Most people I’d want
to slap for asking me such an invasive question. It’s not invasive coming from
you.” She leaned back on the bar counter.

“I’m just trying to understand,
that’s all.”

“We can pick up on this later. You
should get back to work.”

I peeked around the side lounge door
to my private oasis and didn’t see anyone standing there waiting. “I’ve got
about five more minutes to chat.”

She scanned the room. “No one is
flagging me down, either.”

“Then tell me more.”

She studied me, then leaned in and
spoke lower. “Surgery is a serious commitment. So much has to happen before
that is even considered.”

“Like what?”

“I have to go through a period of
time where I’ve been documented as living what’s known as the
real-life
experience
. This pretty much means fully adopting my gender role as a woman
in everyday life.”

“Well, that’s easy. Aren’t you doing
that already?”

“It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve
been living as a female here for about nineteen months now, which is the
longest ever for me. Usually in the past, when someone harasses me, I freak out
leave town and start over again.” She pushed a napkin around in front of me.
“It’s just not an easy process. I’m lucky here because people are just really
cool about it all. This has definitely not been the norm for me.”

“So, you’ve been running around for
most of your life?”

“I’ve lived in ten different cities
running away from this decision. I run to get away from the transgender life.
It’s easier sometimes to just be male, even though sleeping on a bed of sharp
nails would hurt less. I don’t get the stares, the abuse, the ridicule, or the
funny looks that I do as Shawna. You should see when I have to use a public
restroom as Shawna. The stares are crazy. Being Shawn is easier in that
respect. I don’t have to put up with any of that crap. However, I hate being
Shawn. So, I always get pulled back into needing to stay true to myself because
the urge to live as I am truly intended never goes away. So, I start the
process all over again. The psychotherapy, documenting the real life
experience, all of it.”

“So you haven’t been tempted to run
this time?”

“This time is different.” She scanned
the room as if taking it all in for the first time. “This place is home. I
belong here.” She landed back on me and smiled as peaceful as if she just
stepped out of church with me and my grampa.

“You like bartending, don’t you?”

“I don’t like it.” She paused
dramatically. “I love it.”

“It’s not confining being behind that
bar all night long?”

“I’ve never felt freer.” She looked
away wistful. “I like that people need me here. This place needs me. No place
that I’ve ever worked needed me like this. No one stares funny at me when I
dress up extra girly like they did at my office jobs.”

“Office job?” I shivered. “I’d rather
die.”

“Yeah. I earned my master’s degree in
computer science while I was Shawn.”

“What? And you’re tending bar? The
two are just so different.”

“I hated it. So boring, you know?
Sitting in front of a computer all day long killed me. Especially when I became
Shawna and wore nylons. Those things just dig into the tummy when I’m sitting.
I’d end up with gas pains until the wee hours of the night.” She flipped her
hair over her shoulder and fanned herself. “It’s getting stuffy in here just
thinking about it.”

“What did people say when you went
from Shawn to Shawna?”

“They sent me home on my first day
dressing up as Shawna. I showed up to work wearing two-inch heels and a pretty,
red dress that scooped low in the front and came up to just above my knee. I
wore a new wig I had custom-made and strutted into work as me, Shawna. My boss
nearly choked on his bagel when he saw me and immediately headed to his phone
to call HR. The rep came to me and asked that I follow her down to the
administrative offices. They told me I disrupted the workflow and sent me home.
Apparently, I had created a wind tunnel so fierce that I supposedly threatened
the entire workforce that day, and thus the meltdown of several hundred client
accounts. I could come back to the office if I dressed appropriately. So the
next day, I didn’t show up. I never even sent them a letter of resignation. I
just dumped the big project I was working on into their laps and let them
figure it out. That’s when I left town again and headed here to New England. I
liked its quaintness.”

“The Gateway Suites shines like a
beacon to us in need.”

“Sure does.” She played with her
hair. “I just happened to be driving and crying, something I did often back
then, and I glanced over at the Gateway. I needed a place to stay for the night
and decided to treat myself to something classier than a motel with
cockroaches. After I checked in, I went down to the lounge for a drink. That’s
when I met Nadia.”

“Nadia to the rescue.”

She chuckled. “I told her I needed a
job. She said they needed someone to serve food. So, I put on an apron that
very night and started serving nachos, calamari, potato skins, and mixed drinks
to the crowd who didn’t care that I wore a wig and high heels. I brought their
food to them, and they loved it. So they tipped me generously and chatted with
me all night long as they watched football on the big television screens. I
found a home that very night.”

“I could sit here all day long and
listen to your story.”

“I’ve got a table waving to me.” She
waved back to them. “I’ve got to get over to them, and you’ve got to get
massaging.”

I stood up and reached over the bar
for a hug. Her eyes grew big, and she flagged her arms around not knowing what
to do with them. I laughed and pulled her into my embrace. She turned red and
giggled.

* *

I once dated a girl named Trellis who
knew how to bake the best casserole dishes. She also knew how to bake extremely
moist cookies. She would hand me a plate of them on every date, letting me know
that I played on her mind as she spooned cookie dough onto baking sheets and
melted along with the high oven temperature. At first, I thought this was
adorable.

By the fourth time of hearing how
much I swept into her mind, though, I began to choke on the confines of her
tight focus on me. This girl didn’t know anything about me, yet, she admitted
to me that she dreamed of me taking showers with her, sleeping in her arms, and
spending lazy summer days by the poolside reading magazines together.

She had concocted this entire future
for us that required I settle in beside her at every waking hour. She knocked
on my apartment door for our fifth date to go to the Performing Arts Center to
hear Rascall Flatts in concert. I ignored her. I spied on her through the
peephole of my door and watched as she practiced her smiling face all while
balancing her cookie plate in one of her delicate hands. She propped her other
hand on her hip, then changed her mind and dropped it. Next, she fluffed her
hair, wiped her teeth with her finger, and smiled again before she broke into
her tenth knock. She knocked a total of twenty times before her smile turned
upside-down.

I felt sorry for her, but who had
time for such a clinger in life? I would never settle down with anyone who
baked cookies for fun. I wanted to live, be daring, be bold, and sample life’s
greatest treasures. I couldn’t do that if I lugged around twenty extra pounds
from eating cookies every moment she stepped in front of me. She smothered me.

Most girls did. They became obsessed
after two dates. They started planning our future together, committing me to
endless nights of strolling through city parks hand-in-hand staring up at the
moon with love dripping from our bodies. If I held their hand too quickly,
love, not lust, rested on their eyes, expecting me to jump into their bed, and
ultimately their lives, signing document after document of legal papers
announcing me their benefactor, their partner for life, their soul mate.

I just wanted to sip martinis, flirt
with no restriction, and allow the euphoric rush of the moment to sweep us up
into the heavens. Then, once we landed safely back on the ground, we go our
separate ways and agree we had a spectacular, mind-blowing evening together. As
soon as strings attached, the fun disappeared. The euphoric ride ended
abruptly. The thrill of the chase ceased.

The chase. That’s what I loved. Once
I caught up to my object of affection, the adrenaline subsided. Most women
craved companionship and that lasting bond. Not me. I just wanted to find
someone who could have fun and not get all possessive and start prepping
wedding vows and selecting table cloths and curtains and color schemes for a
shared condo she envisioned after just one kiss.