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  In the next instant a door down the hall banged so loudly it vibrated our walls and set all our pictures to rattling. A growl of Southern irritation echoed in the corridor, followed by hissing, sputtering, and the charge of angry footsteps toward the lobby. “My goodness,” Nana whispered from across the room. “Who do you s’pose that is?”

  “Ashley.” I smiled wickedly. She was right on time.

  I performed my regular getting-ready-for-bed routine, rubbed anti-itch cream that promised a “New Improved Fresh Clean Scent” onto my arms and neck, and prayed the welts would miraculously disappear before morning. I sniffed my arm, wrinkling my nose at the odor. The cream didn’t exactly smell bad. It just smelled strong, like something a desert dweller would rub onto an ailing camel. I didn’t want to think about what it had smelled like before someone had thought to improve it.

  I navigated through the darkness to my side of the bed, then sat for a full minute listening to the snores of my two roommates as they wheezed and sawed like the wind section in a symphony orchestra. There was no ebb and flow. The noise was a constant clash of whistles and snorts and grunts that filled the room to bursting. And the volume was so jacked up, I guessed we were beyond the decibel level that was considered safe for humans, which illustrated an astonishing point: This castle might be old, but it had really good acoustics.

  I listened for another minute before I realized there was no way I could fall asleep in this racket. Not without some help. I cracked the drapes to allow a narrow shaft of light to guide me, then located my shoulder bag by the fireplace and mined the contents for my earplugs and mini Maglite. As I closed the drapes again, I regarded the landscape that was illumined by the castle’s solitary floodlight—the moat directly beneath my window, an expanse of lawn sweeping toward the parking lot, two cars with police markings marooned in the middle of the lot. Beyond the spill of the floodlight lay an infertile, untillable wasteland, scarred by ancient stone and steeped in darkness. And as I stared, I thought I saw a ripple in the darkness. A movement amid the crags. A shadow within a shadow. Skulking. Slinking. Hovering. Watching the castle with sightless eyes.

  I blinked. I couldn’t actually be seeing this. Could I?

  I snapped the drapes shut and flew into bed. I needed to get a grip. I was scaring myself.

  Chapter 5

  Fueled by hunger, I showered, slipped into a black funnel-necked jersey, cropped red leather jacket, and black cigarette pants, and was out the door before Nana or Tilly stirred the next morning. I followed the signs to the dining room and stood gaping at the sight that greeted me. This room had obviously once served as the castle’s Great Hall because it rose two, maybe three stories into the air, like a great underground cavern carved into the stone. A chandelier as big as a carousel hung from the ceiling, shining light onto dozens of tables set with white linen tablecloths and fine china and a breakfast buffet that extended the length of one wall. A handful of guests were scattered at various tables about the room, but the only person I recognized was the very person I wanted to talk to.

  “Mind if I join you?” I asked as I pulled out a chair at Jackie’s table.

  She looked up from her coffee with a long face and a half-pound of concealer under her eyes. I winced. “I know you’re on your honeymoon, but there’s probably one thing more vital to honeymooners than sex. It’s called sleep.”

  “Sleep? Who can sleep with all the noise in this place?”

  “Yeah, Ashley wasn’t exactly quiet delivering all that luggage last night.” I stared hungrily at Jackie’s plate, eyeing the scrambled eggs, fried eggs, potato cakes, grilled tomatoes, fried potatoes, and three different kinds of toast slathered with jam. All right! This was like the Hog Wild breakfast special offered at the Windsor City Perkins Restaurant during harvest. I pointed curiously at a shoe-leather-black object wedged between her eggs and tomatoes. It resembled a mini-Oreo cookie minus the white stuff. “What’s that?”

  “Black pudding. I didn’t know what it was before I bit into it. It’s made from blood or intestines or something like that. Don’t eat it. It tastes like a hockey puck. And I wasn’t talking about Ashley’s crashing the luggage trolley into the wall last night. I was talking about the moans from someone’s sexual acrobatics. It kept us awake most of the night.”

  “Moans?”

  “You didn’t hear them? I thought we were the only honeymooners on the tour, but from the sound of things, somebody else was going at it until dawn. Have you seen the people on our tour, Emily? They’re all over sixty. They’re really old! Jeez, they must be spending a fortune on pharmaceuticals to maintain that kind of stamina. And our room is freezing. Like subzero. Is your room cold?”

  I shook my head. “I was pretty toasty last night, but I was sleeping with Nana, and she tends to generate a lot of heat, especially since menopause.”

  Jackie’s face lit up like a hundred-watt bulb. “Mrs. S. is on the tour? I thought the lady with the big handbag looked familiar, but the last time I saw your gran, her hair was blue, so I wasn’t sure.”

  “She’s keeping up with the times. She scrapped the blue rinse for a silver one. Blue is out unless you’re Marge Simpson or a drummer for a rock band.”

  Jackie looked around the dining room. “Where is she? I always thought you had the coolest gran. Do you think she’ll recognize me?”

  I bolstered my courage and charged straight ahead. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” I said delicately. “I don’t think she’s going to understand what’s happened to you, Jack.”

  “Why wouldn’t she understand? Oh, no.” Her voice became a confidential whisper. “Is it because…she has some degenerative mental disorder?”

  “It’s because she spent seventy-six years in Minnesota.”

  She pondered that for a moment. “Huh?”

  “Minnesotans are pretty isolated out there in the middle of the country, so they stay focused on what’s important to them. Hard work. Church. Family. World Wrestling Alliance death matches. They don’t have to face too many issues outside the norm, which means a lot of seniors are clueless about issues that are fairly common to the rest of us. You were a guy, Jack; now you’re a girl. How that happens is a really confusing issue to people of Nana’s generation.”

  “They’ve done a slew of documentaries on the subject. Didn’t she watch TV in Minnesota?”

  “Her cable networks were pretty limited,” I prevaricated. “She watched things like the Hockey Channel, the Speed Skating Channel, the Ice Fishing Channel.”

  Jackie paused, her bottom lip suddenly quivering in a pout. “Don’t lie to me, Emily. I’ve been through this kind of humiliation before. You don’t want to tell your grandmother about me because I’ve become an embarrassment to you. Admit it. You’re afraid how people will react if they discover you were married to a man who’s become a woman.”

  “If you tell Nana someone is gay, she’s thinks you mean they’re happy.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “For years she had you coming out of a wardrobe instead of a closet.”

  “A wardrobe? Is that like an armoire?”

  “She was taught by nuns!”

  “I went to a party dressed in a nun’s habit once. It’s so freaky. I’ve had this strange aversion to patent leather ever since.”

  “I’m telling you the truth, Jack! Nana just doesn’t get it. But if you insist on telling her about your operation, that’s your prerogative. I’m simply surprised that you’re so obsessed with people knowing who you were instead of who you are.”

  The expression on Jackie’s face shifted from hurt to guilt. “Do you really think I’m obsessing?” She fluttered her hands like hummingbird wings. “Of course, I’m obsessing. I always obsess. You’re right. I shouldn’t insist that people know about my sex change. It’s more important that they see me for who I am instead of who I used to be. You’re so insightful, Emily.” She squeezed my hand with heartfelt emotion. “Okay. Our little secret can remain our littl
e secret. No need to spill the beans to Mrs. S. I apologize for questioning your intentions. But not everyone is as understanding as you, especially people in my immediate family. Talk about narrow minds.”

  “That doesn’t include your husband, does it? I mean, you told him about your operation before you married him, didn’t you?”

  She clutched her throat in distress, her plum nail polish the perfect complement to her dusty mauve sweater set. “Of course I did! It would have been so dishonest not to. How can you even ask such a thing?”

  “You were pretty weepy when I saw you on the bus yesterday. It made me think something might have gone wrong on your wedding night.”

  She lowered her eyes to her plate and sniffled. “You know me so well, Emily. Something did go wrong. The worst thing you can ever imagine.”

  I lit on the most likely possibility. “Your husband freaked out when he saw you without makeup?” I’d heard this reaction was epidemic among bridegrooms south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

  She shook her head and stuck her hand into her pocketbook for a tissue. She looked as if she was going to cry again. I hoped she was wearing waterproof mascara. “Worse than that.”

  “There’s something worse?”

  She blew her nose at a decibel level that rivaled cannon fire. The sound echoed upward for three stories, filling the room and rattling the flatware. Heads turned. People stared. I smiled at the guests whose names I hadn’t learned yet and whispered to Jackie out the corner of my mouth. “I hate to tell you this, but you blow your nose like a guy.”

  “I know,” she snuffled. “I haven’t mastered nose-blowing yet. I can’t figure out how to do it daintily. Being female can be a real bitch at times, Emily. It’s so restrictive. No groin scratching. No butt slapping. No belching. No spitting. How do you remember all that?”

  “It’s pretty easy, unless you watch a lot of professional baseball. Getting back to your wedding night. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. That’s the problem.”

  “Nothing? You mean—”

  “I mean, I’m still a virgin!”

  I sighed in commiseration. “Yeah, me too.”

  “You? How can you be a virgin? You jumped my bones every chance you had when we were married.”

  “Talk to my mother. It’s a long story.” As she dabbed tears from her eyes, I suddenly realized the upshot of what she’d revealed. “Wait a minute! If you’re still a virgin, does that mean you and your husband never…that before you were married you didn’t…you know…do it?”

  Jackie’s eyes looked like bottle corks on the verge of popping. “Emily! I’m not that kind of girl!”

  “You were that kind of guy!”

  “That was different. Guys are expected to have loose morals and sleep around. I was only following the norm.”

  “So what does that say about me?”

  “That you were…easy?”

  “WHAT?”

  “Bad choice of words. You were…willing. Jeez, people get so freaked out about semantics these days.”

  I glared at her. She cast a furtive glance around and grabbed my hand, pleading in a desperate voice. “All kidding aside, Emily, this is serious. I don’t know what to do. You’ve gotta help me.”

  Uh-oh. Ripples of heat pricked my neck. “This doesn’t have anything to do with male sexual dysfunction, does it?”

  “No! Tom’s not the one at fault. I am. He wants to do it, but…I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She leaned across the table to within a half-foot of my face. “Everything is so new down there, Emily.” She dipped her eyes to the area below her waist. “I don’t want Tom to mess anything up. I mean, what if he’s not a perfect fit, or his aim is off, or he puts too much oomph into it. I could be ruined for life. I can’t help it. I want to keep everything intact for a while longer. I want to savor the newness. Do you think I’m being selfish?”

  “You didn’t consider this before you got married?”

  “Who has time to think about sex when you have all those bridal magazines to pore over? Do you know how many separate publications appear on the newsstand each month? It’s overwhelming. And that doesn’t include the special double issues on honeymoons and modern contraceptive techniques. Eloping didn’t help. Everything happened too quickly. I need more time, but Tom isn’t being very understanding. Will you talk to him?”

  “Me? Why would he listen to me?”

  “Because you’re a woman.”

  “So are you!”

  “But you’ve been a woman for decades longer than I have. That makes you more credible.”

  “Tom—is that his name? Tom doesn’t even know me!” I regarded the Golden Irish Vacations name tag that hung around her neck, zeroing in on the surname for the first time. “Your last name is Thum? You married…Tom Thum?”

  “Don’t even think about going there, Emily. I’ve had it up to here”—she made a slashing motion across her throat—“with the midget wisecracks. Or is it more politically correct to say ‘little people’? Of course, you say ‘little people’ over here, and everyone is looking around for a leprechaun. Anyway, Tom’s parents were sadistic wretches to name him what they did. And Tom does know you. In a sense. I’ve told him all about you. Unfortunately, that seems to be part of the problem.” She winced slightly. “I talked you up so much, he got a tiny bit jealous. He thinks the reason I don’t want to have sex with him is because I still have ‘a thing’ for you.”

  “WHAT?”

  “That’s why you need to talk to him. You have to convince him that you and I are no longer an item. And then you might want to explain to him the psychological reasons behind why I can’t have sex with him right now.”

  I stared her eyeball to eyeball. “Are you NUTS?”

  “You can do it, Emily. You’re the most clever person I know. You’ve gotta buy me some time. The success of my marriage depends on it.”

  Uff da. No pressure there.

  Her facial muscles froze suddenly as she looked over my shoulder toward the doorway. “Oh, great. Don’t look now, but Miss Georgia Peach has entered the room. How often do you think she has to dye her hair to keep her roots looking so good?”

  I rubbed my temples in thought. “Exactly how much time do you need to savor your new parts, Jack?”

  “Do you suppose her skirt could possibly be any shorter? I have headbands that are bigger than that. And she’s wearing my sweater set! The same style. The same material. The same color. The bitch.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “It looks better on you.”

  “You think so? You’re not just saying that?”

  I watched as Ashley sashayed across the room to an unoccupied table by the buffet. “Okay, listen to me, Jack. You need to make a date with yourself to lose your virginity. Savor the newness for another couple of weeks, then on the appointed day, lose it. Write it in your day planner if you have to. The trick is, you need to give yourself permission to be indulgent with yourself, and then you need to do your thing with Tom. That way, you both get what you want. Trust me. It’ll work.”

  “Like the Nike commercial, right? ‘Just do it.’” She exhaled an anxious breath. “What if Tom doesn’t go along with it?”

  “You have the rest of your lives together. Will two weeks matter that much?”

  “I guess in the scheme of things, two weeks isn’t so very long.” She gnawed thoughtfully on her bottom lip until she worked her plum lip liner right off. “Will you still talk to Tom?”

  “No! He has no reason to be jealous of us because there is no us. You told him the truth. He’s simply going to have to believe you.”

  Jackie nodded. “You’re right. That’s a trust thing. We’ll have to work that out ourselves. But I love the idea of sex by appointment! It even sounds a little naughty. I think Tom will go for it. I knew you’d find the solution, Emily. I’m so excited!” Grabbing my shoulders and pulling me toward her, she gave me a loud, mushy kiss on my lips.
“There! That’s for being so nice.” She scrutinized my mouth as she pulled away. “I like that lipstick. Do you suppose I could borrow it sometime?”

  From across the room I noticed Ashley looking our way with the oddest smile on her face. Lovely.

  A half hour later I stood outside Etienne’s door, feeling pretty good about myself. Maybe advice-giving would turn out to be my greatest strength in the escort business. People would seek me out for my wisdom and counsel. For my levelheadedness and logic. Emily Andrew: Adviser to newlyweds, seniors, and transsexuals. There was no situation I couldn’t handle. No problem I couldn’t solve. Was I pumped or what? My hives didn’t even itch anymore.