I gather my things and make my way to the smoking area, where I notice another bar, outside, after passing another small one in a little empty room. How did I not see these things last night?
I look around for Trevor and notice someone sitting, with his legs crossed, reading a newspaper with a stack of more newspapers on the table along with an empty coffee cup and glass of water.
“Trevor?” I say. He folds up the newspaper carefully, with a smile on his face, and places it down. “I’m not interrupting am I?”
“It’s never an interruption when it’s a friend.”
“Thanks for last night.”
“I had a lot of fun,” he says, which I’m a little surprised to hear. He was still working. This is a job no matter how much the subject of me-like people interests him. “Sit down!”
“I enjoyed it too,” I say, with a little nervousness. “But it’s a quick question, is there somewhere near here that does makeup samples? The best place to go? Steph said you’d know better than her.”
“Steph is correct. I do know better,” he says. “Go out the front door, turn left, walk about six or seven minutes up. There’s an independent pharmacy. You can’t miss it. Now go! Get even more beautified!”
I smile. “Thanks. Is there somewhere I can leave these bags?” I ask.
“There might be someone up there. But your bags are safe, don’t worry. If you want you can leave them in one of the changing rooms.”
I nod, and am soon standing outside the door marked private around the corner from the women’s toilet. I give a quick look around to make sure no-one is watching then I’m inside the store room, past the shabby door inside there hiding this all away and walking up the red carpeted stairs to Trevor’s Room.
At the top of the stairs I give a knock and say, “Hello?”
“Hello?” A girl reading a magazine says.
I walk in. She has long black hair and is wearing kind of spooky clothes. It’s not a costume and the dress isn’t goth. I don’t know how she’s dressed. Kind of like how Enya sounds, but less dramatic; more everyday.
“I’m Natasha,” she says.
“Toni. What are you reading?”
She laughs a sarcastic laugh. “Oh god, literally anything! I work in a candle shop nearby and between that and my shitty flatmates making noise all night I’ll come up here and read whatever I can find for a bit of peace and quiet.”
“Sorry about your flatmates. I live alone, thankfully. Although I’m not sure I can afford it any more.”
“Tell me about it... Did Trevor send you up?” she says with an eye roll.
“No, he did say someone was up here. I’m just storing my bags while I run outside.”
Natasha uncrosses her legs, leans forward and says, verging on conspiratorially, “I’m not sure about the doddery old man thing all being an act. I don’t doubt what he says about working in gay bars for forty years but he can’t keep his stories straight.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, feeling a little weak at the thought Trevor might be playing games. He does play games, but it’s the thought of him doing it with me...
“Has he told you how important it is to spread your wings? Not to become too reliant on routine and comfort?”
“No?”
“And some people he’ll tell this is an LGBTQ+ bar, other people he’ll say something completely different to, pretending like he’s letting them in on some big secret. He’s nice but not all there, is just what I’m saying. And no-one I’ve talked to has actually painted Trevor’s Room on the door. Ever. This place is just quiet, that’s all.”
I place my bags into one of the changing rooms. “I’ll be back later,” I say.
“I’ll probably still be here reading,” she says, with a sigh.
I walk out, out of the bar, turn left and walk a few minutes up the road deep in thought. Eventually, after some doubling back, I find a grey stone building with the classic pharmacy sign hanging out front. There’s no branding above the frontage, just an old family name. Walking in there’s carpets on the floor, which I find unusual for a pharmacy. It’s a little aged, but not unclean. It could do with some modernising. There’s a few plaques hanging high on the wall with a bit of dust on them. There’s a lot of brass, and there’s definitely all the usual pharmacy stuff, including makeup counters, it just doesn’t seem bling.
I walk up to one of the counters, at random, not that many of them are staffed. There’s a short, chubby woman standing at it, with simple, everyday, normal but nice makeup, hair tied up in a high ponytail and wearing a black and pink smock with leggings. There’s a small Pride flag pin on her breast which makes me feel just a little more at ease. “Can I help you?” she asks.
“I was sent here to get some samples?” I say, a little shake in my voice.
“Have you worn much makeup before?” she asks.
“Literally once in my life,” I say, blushing.
“You’re coming from Light Avenue, aren’t you?”
“Is that bad?” I ask, thinking of what Natasha said to me about Trevor.
“No, not at all,” she says. “We get a lot of business from there, which makes sense with it being what it is, I guess.” She tilts her head side to side as she’s saying this to me, looking at how the light catches on my face, I guess. “When did you last shave?”
“This morning,” I say.
“What time?”
“Maybe around eleven.”
“Blonde? Wispy?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Do you mind if I bring someone on a ride-along? I want to try something with you.”
“What’s a ride-along?”
“They’re new staff and we’re training them in, I want to teach them some things.”
“That’s not a problem,” I say.
She walks off for a few minutes and I inspect the various tubs, tubes, pots, vials and so many things I have no clue what they are. She arrives back with a young looking woman, maybe nineteen or twenty years old who looks more nervous than I feel.
The older worker turns to her and says, “Skin tone?”
The young woman says something in a technical language I cannot decipher and I can see her trying to be confident while still thinking and looking at me closely.
“Hair? Facial and otherwise? Eyebrows?”
Continuing on the trainee repeats some of the same words the older woman says as if trying to remember them, as well as some new words.
“Correct,” the older woman says, often. And they keep going with this for a few minutes while I stand feeling operated on; picked over.
“OK, thanks, you can go back to what you’re doing.” And the younger woman leaves trying to contain a pleased look.
The remaining woman picks up an unbranded, white paper bag the younger girl was carrying and says “OK, that was great. Thank you. Now do you want me to go through the basics of putting this on?”
“A friend said it’s all on youtube, literally everything, millions of hours,” I say.
“Your friend is correct. And you can pause and rewind youtube, unlike me. Now what was new about you, I have done it a few times but not that often, mostly on younger girls, is the BB cream.”
“What’s BB cream?” I ask.
“It’s like foundation but a lot lighter. It’s softer, much less cover. It’s easier to get a natural look with it. It has a good sunscreen in it far more often than regular foundation and it’s just less heavy on you. You have soft skin and not much hair so I think it’ll work. It should... If it does please come back and tell me. It’ll be important.”
“The friend said I should go with just a little bit more expensive stuff, not the cheaper or teenage aimed stuff.”
“For foundation she’d normally be incorrect. The teenage stuff is made a little heavier to cover acne and bad teenage skin. It provides more coverage for...” She rubs her face like she has a beard. “And for really heavy stubble there’s some stuff that’s designed for that, and scarring, and covering tattoos. You do not even need to go near that barring a catastrophe!”
“No catastrophes, please,” I say.
“There’s loads of samples in the bag, enough for weeks, and all different things. Find what suits you, play around with them, then slowly build up what you need. You might need some other things, some things that can’t really be sampled, so we’ll walk around and pick them up. You have a little money to spend?”
“I do. Some,” I say.
“Before anything makeup you need care. Some cleansers, moisturiser, and all that. Just get whatever until you find what works best for you. You have Normal skin, by the way. Not dry or oily. That could change if you come on or off hormones. Do you wear sunscreen?”
“If it’s really sunny...” I say.
“Always, always wear sunscreen, especially if you work outside. Do you?”
“No,” I say.
“OK, the BB cream should be enough if you’re in an office all day, for the next few months anyway, but if you’re not wearing that, or a foundation with SPF in it, put on sunscreen. You will thank me when you’re fifty. In the summer arms, legs, absolutely everywhere. Multiple times a day.” We walk around the store picking various things up with her putting them in a basket until finally we’re near the checkout. “Do you need anything else?” she asks.
“I literally have no idea,” I say.
“I mean from the pharmacy, or in general. I’ve touched on most of what you need and there’s a few things that are just bonuses in the bag. Of course some women don’t wear makeup, almost ever. Or never. Just please do the facial care. And wear sunscreen.”
I think if I need anything else and something occurs to me. “Do you have ear plugs?” I ask.
“Cheap or expensive?”
“That’ll fit any ear. For sleep.”
She says to the woman behind the checkout desk, “Foam earplugs,” then to me, “I hope you remember me when you’re having fun with youtube. And please, please, come back and tell me how you got on. And spend money, it’s how we can do this,” she says, just generally waving but I’m not sure what at.
“Thanks,” I say. And soon I’m carrying two bags back from the pharmacy to the storage room in Light Avenue and up the stairs to Trevor’s Room.
Natasha is still in there, still reading, and I feel like I’m interrupting but I bought them so there’s no point wasting them. “Have you tried earplugs?” I ask her.
She looks up from her magazine, “What do you mean?”
“For your noisy flatmates... You probably have,” I say. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. They might not work or they’re uncomfortable. You’ve already—”
“No, I haven’t,” she says. “It didn’t even occur to me but it’s obvious.”
“OK, don’t be annoyed,” I say, fishing around in the paper pharmacy bag. I pull out the earplugs and hold them out to her. “They’re cheap ones. They might work?”
“You are so precious,” she says, in an almost deeper voice. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, I was getting makeup samples and it occurred to me.”
“If you ever need candles or are just bored, or something, I don’t know. Maybe you want to listen to whooshy music? The place I work is down the road about fifteen minutes. You can’t miss it, it looks like how this stupid costume looks.”
I look at her dress again and remember what I thought before. “Like Enya sounds,” I say.
“Oh, fuck you, Enya. Just fuck off! I used to like her stuff, really, but non-stop, over and over?” She pauses. “At least we’re not selling rocks randomly picked up off a beach as healing crystals or some bullshit!”
I laugh. “Sorry, I didn’t realise Enya was a touchy subject.”
“No, I’m sorry to Enya. Sorry Enya!” she says, looking to the sky. “She likes cats, apparently. And lives in a castle. That makes her good in my books.”
“I’ll be downstairs if you want to go for a drink,” I say.
“In the noise? No way. But if you want to get away from it I’ll be up here a little while more.”
I smile at her, put away my shopping with the rest of it and go back to the main room to wait for Alan; my old friend and the new me who I’m becoming very comfortable with.
Looking around the bar after returning from Trevor’s Room I realise don’t want to bother anyone. Well, not anyone. I wouldn’t bother anyone. I can’t bother anyone, I only know Steph and Trevor and they’re actually working. Instead I sit at the long bar I didn’t realise was there last night, up on high cushioned stool with a back. It’s quiet with only two other groups sitting at the long counter.
“What can I get you?” a tall woman asks me.
“Draft beer, please.”
“Any particular kind?”
“Something low on alcohol?” I ask, after a few seconds of thought.
She pauses for a moment and thinks. “What kind of beers do you like? Fruity? Dry?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“OK, I’ll try this one on you,” she says.
I think of this bar actually being really fancy, far fancier than the basic small places me and Steve would go to, just for an hour or two, and ask “Is it expensive?”
“Not particularly,” she says, placing a glass of beer in front of me. “Do you want me to open a tab for you?”
“Is cash OK?”
“Cash is always OK,” she says. So I hand over some money and she’s soon back placing my change in front of me.
I pick up the beer, taste it and say it’s really good. She tells me the name so I know, and something occurs to me. Which for some reason I just blurt out. “Why is are so many people so nice here?”
“All our customers are nice,” she says, with a smile.
“The staff?” I say, hoping I managed to pull off my fake, annoyed scowl.
“The honest reason is the pay is good and the training is good,” she says. There’s an evenness to her tone and simplicity to her words so I believe her.
“Why would good training help? To get a better job?” I ask.
“That’s it,” she says. “If you manage to last a few years here, even as a basic bartender, you can walk into pretty much any big bar in the city as a shift supervisor, at least. Some places you’ll be a manager. Some places will even let you run the entire thing. The reason most of us figure is because they teach you how to do it well here. Really well. I mean it does, I’ve been here four years. And other bars know this place so it looks good on the old résumé.”
I nod, and take a drink. “I’m sorry, that’s your tip,” I say. Pointing at my change.
“No, it’s not,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s too much,” she says, again smiling.
“Isn’t that for me to decide?” I ask.
“Normally it would be, for most people, but you don’t go out much and you actually have no idea how to tip,” she says. And I can see she has customer service painted all over her face, along with a glint in her eyes.
“Does everyone in here know me?” I ask, raising my arms in exasperation.
“Yes. All the staff, at least,” she says, still smiling, and having fun. “But it would have been obvious you haven’t gone out much to any bartender worth their salt the moment you ordered, certainly not to places like this. If someone took advantage of you it’d be pretty scummy.”
“OK, what’s the correct tip? That you’ll accept?” I ask counting out how much of my $20 is left.
“Poor service, this much,” she says, moving the small change to one side. “Average service...” She drags a bill over. “Good service, which should be the norm...” More bills and coins are rearranged, with some dragged to the side. “Exceptional service?” The rest of the coins go back and more bills come over. “If they’ve done something you’ll rave to your friends about how nice they are, and how you should all go again, you buy them a drink. Which they clock into the till and then drink when their shift is over. Some places they’ll drink with you, but that’s not too common any more. Got it?” she says.
I nod.
“I deserve this, agreed?” she says, with some cash in her hand.
“Yes,” I say. “Absolutely!”
“And don’t get all caught up in the moment and try to buy me a drink. Drunk people will get emotional and start buying everyone everything and no-one remembers they did. Guys will buy bartenders drinks and if they’re hitting on us, and it’s obvious if they are, we’ll think they’re fools.
“Girls will buy things too, but now we’re getting into foggy, rainy night territory of socio-politics when it’s just me and you and I’m polishing the same glass for hours. But you’ll figure it out.”
“Will you watch my drink while I run to the toilet?” I ask.
She lifts it up and places it behind the counter. “Safe as Fort Knox!”
I stand and begin to walk to the toilet. At the end of the counter I see Natasha is approaching. “Are you coming down here for a while?” I ask.
“Going home to try your earplugs,” she says. “I might finally get some sleep.”
“I hope you do,” I say, and we wave at each other as I smile then we go our separate ways.
Soon after I’ve pee’d I’m back at the bar with the bartender putting my drink in front of me. “Your friend bought you a drink,” she says. “Just let me know when you want it.”
“What friend?” I ask.
“The one you were talking to when you got up.”
“Thanks,” I say. Natasha didn’t have to do that. The earplugs were about two bucks.
The drink is there now, so I guess I might as well drink it but I don’t want people doing things as an exchange.
I pull out my phone and am browsing, slowly tipping away at my beer when I remember I need to message Sally that things are OK between us.
I hope G soothed her nerves but even then I have to say the right thing.
I’m staring at the screen worrying about how to phrase it when I realise there was two of us at it and no-one should feel bad. “I’m sorry too. You said no more fights earlier in the night then we both did silly things. I left you alone for hours. But the silly things weren’t bad things. Everything’s OK. And I want to see you as soon as possible.”
I no sooner put my phone down when it buzzes again. It just says, “I love you. I’ll see you soon.” And I think the exact same thing so send ‘I love you, too’ back.
I finish my drink, wanting another, but the bartender somehow knows with it freshly poured and placing it in front of me. I smile at her, then notice Steph who taps her on the shoulder. They walk away a little and converse for a couple of minutes before the bartender goes out the door at the side of the bar. Steph comes to me after checking in on everyone else. “How are you doing?” she asks.
“Good,” I say. “That bartender is really nice.”
“Yeah, she’s very good at what she does. We’ll be losing her soon. She has a great job lined up.”
“She showed me how to tip,” I say.
“Did you notice she gave you weird change?” Steph asks.
“What? How do you mean?”
“A weird mix of coins and bills. The non-obvious mix.”
I shake my head. I didn’t notice. “Wow. She really is good.”
Steph nods. “And you should know this already but you never have to tip me. Ever. But if you want to buy me something nice I like chocolate. Literally anything chocolate. I’ll go as loopy for a Snickers as I will for fancy Belgian stuff, but not too often because bar workers tend to eat like crap if they can.”
“What about Trevor? I ask.
“He likes smiles,” Steph says, when I feel an arm on my shoulder.
I turn around and Alan is standing there. “Hi,” I say.
His eyes are wide and he almost pulls back from me.
“It is you. I went everywhere looking for you. You look the exact same but so different. I don’t know what to say. I’m really lost for words!”
“Just sit down,” I say. “It’s not a big deal.” It isn’t. It shouldn’t be.
I slide a stool back for him as he’s taking off his jacket, then he’s sitting down and saying, “It’s a huge deal. How long have you known?”
“Not as long as you,” I say, blushing.
“I didn’t know anything,” Alan says. “I only knew Friday night. I had no clue before then.”
“I didn’t know until Saturday,” I say, feeling completely foolish.
“How could you not know? Look at you! There’s no way this hasn’t been on your mind for years.” Alan looks me up and down as though he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
I’m getting embarrassed by Alan’s gushing and say, “I really didn’t know. It was all repressed or something. Then, boom, Friday night happened. And Saturday morning I thought Why not keep doing this?”
“Did you always like men?” he asks. But it’s not mocking. It’s not even really curious. It’s almost like he’s challenging me to come up with something, anything.
“Alan, please, you’re embarrassing me,” I say.
“OK, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll try to calm down but Toni you frightened the shit out of people.”
“You mean you and Steve?”
“Well, yeah,” he says. And now it’s like he’s on the defensive.
“How is Steve?”
“Let me get a drink,” he says, and picks up a cocktail menu. He looks at it for a few seconds. “This one looks nice, what do you think?”
“I don’t know, I guess. I don’t really drink cocktails,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” Alan says. “I know that.” And he looks around the bar in wonder. “This place is fancy, I should have come here before.”
“It’s a nice bar.”
“And you came here last night?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“And you enjoyed yourself?”
“Yes!” I say. Do I really need to tell him that? I’m back here again. And he’s with me now!
“Fucking good. At last! Fucking hell, Toni.”
“What?!” I ask. I can feel the tension in my voice coming through my throat.
“Let me get a drink. What are you drinking?” I tell him the name of the beer as Steph is stepping forward. He looks to her and says, “Can I get two of what Toni’s having? Please?”
“Some ID?” Steph says, and I look at her a little surprised but she doesn’t take her eyes off Alan.
“Of course,” Alan says, and takes his wallet out of his pocket, then his passport card out which he hands to Steph. She looks at it for a few seconds, back and forth between the card and him.
“Thank you,” Steph says handing the card back. “One or two beers? They’re low alcohol, if that’ll put you off.”
“No, not at all. Take for two, and Toni can have hers when she wants it, if that’s OK?” Steph nods. “And can I open a tab?”
“Not on your first night in here, no,” Steph says. “We’ll take as we go.”
Alan has a grip on my leg until his beer arrives. Then it does arrive he gulps down a little of it and loosens up on me. “What were we saying?”
“You were saying it’s good I enjoyed myself, At last.”
“Yeah. Fucking hell Toni, you had us all worried.”
“Why?” I ask.
“How do you feel now? Put aside any scared or frightened about the newness but how do you feel, as Toni?”
“Pretty good?”
“You’re fucking glowing you look so happy!” Alan says, with his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
“Stop being weird,” I say. He is being weird, I tell myself. I know it.
“How am I being weird?” Alan asks.
“So happy, this, and At last, that. It’s weird. I’m just me,” I say.
Alan nods, a little shock on his face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “This is new to me. And I’m happy for you. And I’m excited.” Again with the eye popping.
“I’m still me!” I plead.
“OK. Maybe I need to get to know you better before we start on the big stuff. I’m Alan. You must be Toni. Have you been up to anything interesting lately?”
“I went shopping today,” I say. That was easy. Simple. To the point.
“Did you get anything nice?” Alan asks.
“How’s Steve? Really,” I ask. I need to know. He was such an asshole to me and I want to know if he’s still being a dick.
“Weirder than all this,” Alan says, but it’s not the exuberant tone in his voice any more.
“Tell me about it, please.”
“Well if it’s weird for you that I’m excited, it’s just weird for him because he thinks you’re a dude.”
“Yeah.. Does he not know about trans people?” I ask. Even I knew about trans people. Obviously.
“He does, but he doesn’t think. And you are happier. Which is making me happy,” Alan says. “And things are different, which is making Steve agitated. He’s been talking about Lads Night like nothing happened. And something happened, Toni. Please don’t deny it. Allow yourself to be different, and excited, and upset. Hell even be angry!”
“You’re treating me funny. I am a little angry!”
“Good!” Alan says. “Because you never got angry before. You’d just get pissy or mopey and annoy everyone.”
“Well everyone can fuck right off then!”
“Damn right! Fuck them!” Alan says, and he takes another gulp of his beer. “This is why you’re different. Apart from looking different, and it’s not the clothes making you look different, it’s that you’re set better, you’re actually feeling things. I can see you being you! You didn’t show things — feelings — until the other night. And if you did you ignored them, or tried to bury them.”
I take a sip of my beer and start to listen to the sound of the bar.
“Don’t ignore your feelings, Toni. I don’t want you to become a happier you without me,” Alan says. “Talk to me.”
“It’s weird that you’re treating me differently. And don’t say I am different!”
“OK... You tell me what’s different.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Then we’ll sit and we’ll drink. And that’ll be fine, because I’m sitting and drinking with you. And I want to sit with you.”
I take a drink, put the glass down and sniff. “People are being nicer to me,” I say.
“People were always nice to you, Toni. You’re a nice person. You were always a nice person. People want to be nice to you. Steve can be an asshole sometimes so even nice people treat him badly. And he deserves it. You did it Friday night.”
“I did not!” I say, getting heat up.
“You were teasing him about pulling your thong aside and, you know...” Alan makes a popping sound with his lips.
“He deserved it, though,” I say.
“Yes, of course he deserved it. He absolutely deserved it. But do you still think it wasn’t mean?”
“No,” I say.
“Oh please, Toni. He was uncomfortable with what was happening and you teased him. And you kept going, pushing him. You didn’t give him a chance.”
“Yeah, but he was being mean first!”
“So? You see? You were being mean, he just deserved it.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say. And I turn around in my chair. “How do I look? Be honest, please”
“So, so happy. Glowing. And I’m happy too. I get to see who one of my best friends is and she can only be an even greater version of who she was,” he says, with a smile.
“I really am,” I say, and I realise I’m smiling too.
“OK, now the weirdness is over, I hope, or at least toned down I need a cigarette,” Alan says. “Is there a smoking area here?”
“You don’t smoke!” I say to Alan.
“I do when I’m out and when was the last time you and me were out?”
“Three weeks ago,” I say.
“At night?” Alan asks, eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, OK, you’re right. Can I come with you? How about we move outside?”
“If you’d like to,” Alan says. So we pick up our drinks, coats and my bag, and walk outside to the find a table.
I pass Trevor who’s doing his old man, check IDs and check vibes routine. And past the outside bar, towards the back where Sally was being drunk last night.
It’s completely different when it’s not so busy. Like there’s actually air to breathe outside here.
We find a free table and sit ourselves down. Alan pulls out a pack of smokes, takes a cigarette and lights it. Inhaling deeply he lets out a plume of smoke and looks at me. “So...” he says with a sly smile.
“Can I have one of those?” I ask, pointing at the box.
“You don’t smoke!”
“How do you know?”
“Because you don’t!”
“Please, I just want to try. Just to be able to say I’ve had one once. You know, actually trying things while I can,” I say.
He looks at me disapprovingly, opens the box with a look of disapproval and hands me a cigarette, “Who am I to stop Wonder Woman?”
I light it, trying not to cough, which I don’t. I actually don’t cough. And just as I exhale wondering what all the fuss is about my head begins to spin, and I feel dizzy and floaty. I lift my hand to my head and say, “Woah!”
“Head spins?” Alan asks.
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing onto the table but things are coming back to normal quickly.
“That hasn’t happened to me in years,” he says as I take another drag, somehow liking the feeling. “Now, please, don’t get addicted. Do not ask me for another one!”
“No, I just wanted to try, to say I have,” I say.
“What else do you want to try?” Alan asks, getting back to the good stuff.
I take another drag, trying to look all mysterious and sophisticated, and I’m sure I do when I speak up with smoke blowing from my lips. “Well... A boy gave me his number yesterday. G didn’t want to talk about it but I’m guessing you do,” I say, taking another drag.
“Was he hot?” Alan asks.
“He was nice...” I say.
“Yeah, but did he make you want to jump his bones? Was he hot? Come on, details!” Alan says, clapping a rhythm.
I feel like a teenager gossiping and talking about crushes, and about a foot tall with Alan being like this. It’s so different, and fun in a different way, but not weird. It’s really, really fucking fun, in fact; fulfilling.
“I thought about him in the shower...” I whisper, eyes casting about. I’m not trying to be coy rather this is uncharted territory.
“Oh, you’re going to have such a great time!”
“What’s it like? Being with a man, I mean...”
“I’ve never been with a man as a woman,” Alan says, plainly, shaking his head.
“Oh come on, Alan.”
“Just relax and enjoy it. Don’t feel pressured into anything. Take it comfortably and you’ll know what to do. I’m not saying anything else...”
He crosses his arms and looks at me kind of suspiciously.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “This all makes sense.”
“What does?”
“You’re Toni, my female friend. My girl-friend. It’s just natural and works.”
“I still look like a dude, though, really. Everyone here is nice but I’m not changing reality just by putting on clothes.”
“That’s what I would have thought, but no. Not at all. I thought I’d see old you kind of nervous, maybe a little excited. Maybe too excited but this is all normal. And it’s not at all wrong. You’re not Tony with a y any more. Your a woman who’s one of my best friends; Toni with an i. I’m already forgetting about the old guy, sort of. Or replacing him with you in my mind. You’re you, nothing else.”
I feel the thing in my chest again. It isn’t colours, now; it’s not colours like a kaleidoscope. It’s filling in. It’s becoming whole, and permanent. It’s becoming solid.
I take a breath, what feels like a new breath with a new body. Then I remember something. “Tony with a y has to return when I go to work tomorrow,” I say, cringing.
“But you’ll have one more drink?” Alan asks.
“Yeah, one,” I say. Then we have three, just chatting like normal. No arguments or weirdness. No mention of Steve, even though I want to. No Lads’ Night In. And then it’s getting a little bit late and I’m forcing myself into the back of the minibus to make my way home — kinda light headed — with the bartender who’s driving me smiling at me in the mirror the whole way back.
Getting home I get undressed, change into the Minnie Mouse night dress that makes me laugh, again, and begin to get ready for work tomorrow. I lay out my shoes, chinos, my too weird, bulky man underwear, and a shirt and jacket.
Lying into bed I’m forcing all the thoughts out of my mind, thoughts about getting up and showered tomorrow, about getting the bus, as Tony, and being Tony at work, and people treating me like a nobody, and no-one knowing or caring about who I am. And hopefully, eventually, the day and the week passing quickly so I can get home, get to the weekend and get to be me again.
I just know it’s going to be a long, long day of misery.
Five, long, long days.
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