“Not having any children, I wouldn’t . . . ,” I began, but she wasn’t listening.
“I don’t know how I’m going to live this down,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I won’t be able to go anywhere in this town ever again. I’ll just stay in this bed till I die.”
“Oh, come now, Mildred. Worse things have happened, and you’ll get over this sooner than you think. You just have to get up and face everybody down. I mean, you can’t say you’ve exactly
lost
Tony.”
“That’s what he says. He says he’s still the same person he ever was inside, that just the outer appearance has changed. But, Julia, surely I would’ve noticed if he was a girl inside all the years he was growing up. Wouldn’t I?”
“You would think so,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure. Thinking again of the young Tony, I recalled that he was always more comfortable in the company of women. He was never known to participate in the games that little boys seemed attracted to. Never played any kind of ball or engaged in rough and tumble activities that we normally associate with boys. He’d liked tea parties and gentle gossip and the latest fashions. I remembered his telling me once how much he liked a dress I was wearing, and I remembered being inordinately pleased, because he was known to have such fastidious taste. I knew a number of women who had consulted him when they had questions about their wardrobes.
Maybe we’d missed seeing his real self, even though it’d been right in front of our eyes all along.
“Mildred,” I said, gathering my nerve, “Hazel Marie has had an excellent idea, and we want to see what you think of it. Tell her, Hazel Marie.”
Hazel Marie jumped in her chair. “I don’t think it was my idea. I think we all thought of it.”
“Oh, I need all the help I can get,” Mildred moaned, burying her face in a Kleenex.
I shot Hazel Marie a glare, then took a deep breath and plunged in. “Well, it’s like this. We’re thinking of having a reception or open house with Tony as the guest of honor. I mean, as a way of introducing him as Tonya, and . . . ,” I trailed off, as Mildred lifted her head and stared at me.
“Introducing . . . ?”
Hazel Marie finally gathered her courage and stepped into the breach. “What Miss Julia means is that the only way you can get past the, well, the shock of it, is to act above it all. That’s what she did when she took me in, and now nobody thinks a thing about her situation. And everybody’s so nice to me, and they will be to Tonya, too, once they get to know her, and if you don’t give them a chance to do otherwise.”
Well, Hazel Marie certainly had more insight than I’d given her credit for. Of course, she didn’t know that another round of shameful gossip was about to descend upon us. I clutched my pocketbook at the thought of it.
“You really think so?” Mildred’s voice quavered as she looked from one to the other of us.
“Yes, I do,” I said. “Hazel Marie’s right. You let them know that Tony’s alteration has brought you to your knees, they’ll talk about you all the more. But if you show them that you accept him as Tonya, they’ll soon tire of the topic.”
Lord, I hoped they wouldn’t, but I couldn’t tell her that. It never ceased to amaze me how hard it is to carry out a devious plan with complete ease of heart, and without getting mixed up, for I am essentially an honest and forthright woman.
Mildred slowly shredded a Kleenex, the diamonds in her rings glinting in the lamplight. She seemed to be giving our proposal serious thought. “It could work, maybe. If I had the courage to go through with it.” She stopped and looked up at me. “Julia, you’ve heard what they say when a son gets married? That you’re not losing a son, you’re gaining a daughter? Well,” she gasped as tears overflowed again. She sniffed loudly, then went on. “I’m trying to comfort myself with that. I mean, I guess I now have both a son and a daughter, although he’ll always be my darling Anthony to me.” Her shoulders crumpled over, as sobs overtook her. “Even,” she gasped, “even if he does have to wear a brassiere.”
“That’s something I’ve never understood,” I ventured, since I couldn’t help but wonder about it. “How did he get . . . ? Oh, forgive me, Mildred, I shouldn’t ask such a personal question.”
She waved her hand. “It’s all right. I know everybody’s dying of curiosity. Besides, I had to ask, too.” She wiped her face again. “Hormones, Julia, that’s what it is. And surgical implants, of all things, because he said the natural ones weren’t big enough.
Natural.
Hah! If they were really natural, he’d take after me and they’d be bigger than he wanted.” She reached for my hand and held on tight. “More than ten years that boy was in New York, and all that time he was saving his money to spring this on me, and saving the money I sent to him, too, because I couldn’t bear the thought of him doing without what he needed. And he
thanked
me, Julia, for helping make his dream come true. Oh, if I’d only known.” She flung her arm over her forehead and sighed loudly. “I had to be helped to my bed when he came home looking for all the world like an aging Britney Spears, only better dressed, without a bit of warning or even a hint of what he’d done, and he knows my heart can’t take such sudden shocks.”
“It’s all right, Mildred,” I said, hoping to soothe her. “I understand that he is a most attractive woman. You can take pride in that.”
“You are the kindest of all my friends, Julia. And you, too, Hazel Marie. Do you know that the only person to befriend Tony has been Calvin?”
“Calvin?”
“Yes, you know him. He’s worked for me for several years in the yard and around the house. He drives me sometimes, too. He’s been so kind and considerate to Tony. They have a real affinity for each other. Of course, Calvin never knew Tony when he was a boy, so I guess it’s not such a shock to him. I am so grateful to him for being such a friend.” She glanced up at me. “Tony’s still in the recuperative stage, you know, and he needs care and kindness, which Calvin goes out of his way to give him.”
My word, I thought, Calvin and Tony? Of course, it was Calvin and Tonya, for all Calvin knew. Mildred, however, seemed not to have put two and two together, so I wasn’t about to add it up for her. One’s background and social class meant everything to Mildred, and I just couldn’t see her welcoming a laborer in overalls into her drawing room. Still, a shocker like this, if that’s what it was, would make Wesley Lloyd’s additional escapades seem small potatoes, indeed. I smiled to myself.
“So, Mildred,” I said, “what do you think about an open house to introduce Tonya? How would he feel about it?”
She sighed. “She would love it.” She swiped again at her eyes as fresh tears welled up and spilled over. “More’s the pity.”
=
Chapter 14’
Hazel Marie was uncommonly quiet on the drive home, but I was so busy chattering about our upcoming social coup that it took me a while to notice.
“We’ll invite everybody in the garden club, Hazel Marie,” I said, switching on the windshield wipers against another rain shower. “I’ll get their names and addresses from Helen Stroud, and of course everybody in the Lila Mae Harding Sunday School class. I expect they all knew him when, and will want to see what he’s turned into. I’ll get out my Christmas card list, and we need to check the high school teachers, too. Some of them may have been there when Tony was coming along. I say we invite everybody who has the least interest in him, and some who wouldn’t know him from Adam, but will talk about him anyway. Norma Cantrell for one, don’t you think?” I glanced over at Hazel Marie as we approached our drive, but she was looking out the window. “Hazel Marie? Don’t you think inviting Norma would be a good idea? I’d like to see if having an affair makes her look any different, don’t you?”
“Hm-m-m? Oh, yes, I guess so.” Hazel Marie was not giving the invitation list her full attention. In fact, as soon as I put the car in park, she was out of the door like a shot.
I followed her into the kitchen where she was asking Lillian, “Where’s Lloyd? Is he home from school?”
“Yessum, he upstairs with Latisha, tryin’ to do his home-work while she talkin’ to him.”
Hazel Marie went to the foot of the back staircase and yelled, “Lloyd! I want you down here right this minute!”
My eyebrows went up, and Lillian and I looked at each other. Raising her voice was not at all like Hazel Marie.
Little Lloyd and Latisha, who was still lugging that bedraggled doll, came clattering down the staircase.
“Ma’am?” he asked.
Hazel Marie propped her hands on her hips and demanded, “What are you doing in the house on this pretty day? Outside!” She pointed to the back door. “I want you out there right this minute, and I want to see a ball in your hands. Shoot some baskets, play pitch, hit a few, I don’t care what. Just get out there and roll around in the dirt if you can’t think of anything else.”
Little Lloyd’s eyes darted around, looking for some help. Latisha edged around behind him, staring at Hazel Marie like she’d never seen her before. I was just as dumbfounded as they were at this singular outburst.
“Ma’am?” Little Lloyd asked.
Hazel Marie pointed at the door with an arm so stiff that her finger trembled. “Out! You don’t need to be staying in this house all the time with a bunch of women. Invite a friend over! Go see a friend, one of the boys from school. I want to see some
football
around here!”
“But, Mama, it’s raining.”
“A little rain won’t hurt you. As long as there’s daylight, I want you outside playing like any normal boy.”
Little Lloyd sidled around her and headed for the door, Latisha right behind him. They both kept their eyes on Hazel Marie, wondering what would come down on them next.
Latisha piped up, “I think he pretty normal, far as I can tell.”
“Latisha,” Lillian cautioned her, but quietly.
As the children left, I sank down into a chair, realizing what was troubling Hazel Marie. I wiped my face with my hand.
“Hazel Marie, I don’t think you have to worry about Little Lloyd. He may not be much interested in athletic activities, but he’s not at all interested in fashion.”
Hazel Marie’s eyes flashed. “I’m taking no chances.”
“Law!” Lillian cried, suddenly understanding the cause of the tirade we’d just witnessed. “You think that chile be another Tony Allen? He not ever gonna come in here in a dress! Why, Miss Hazel Marie, he all boy!”
“Yes,” Hazel Marie fumed, “and I expect Mildred Allen thought the same thing when Tony was his age. I tell you, Miss Julia, this whole thing scares me to death. Lloyd’s never had a constant male influence in his life. His daddy, well, we won’t go into that, but you know. Coleman was so good with him. But now he’s married, and even though he stays in touch, it’s not the same. There’s only one thing I see to do.”
“Sit down, Hazel Marie, and calm yourself.” I swung out a chair for her. “Pushing that child into activities he’s not interested in is not going to help. You have to look at his talents and his aptitudes, and it seems to me that those indicate a wholesome masculine trend.”
“Like what?” she asked, taking a seat and leaning her head on her hand. “Help me, Miss Julia, I’m so afraid I’m raising him wrong, I don’t know what to do. All I could think of while we were at Mildred’s is that one day I’d be bawling my eyes out over Lloyd and the way he turned out.”
“Now you listen to me,” I said, getting in her face as much as I dared. “You have to look at that child the way he is, not the way you fear he is. Now, I know he’s not rowdy and boisterous and into sports and wrestling and such like. He’s not even very muscular, but that’s genes for you. But he is not girlish, and he’s not interested in dolls or fixing hair or dressing up in your clothes. He has manly interests.”
“Like what?” she asked again.
“Well, he’s a wizard with that computer you got him. And he knows numbers and figures, and is ever so much help to me in keeping my records straight. He knows property values, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days soon he’s going to get into buying and selling. He has an analytical mind, Hazel Marie, and he’s smart as a whip.”
“Everything you just said applies to any number of girls, and to you, too, Miss Julia,” she said, startling me with the truth of her observation where I was concerned.
Lillian decided to add her two cents’ worth at that point. “I still say that chile all boy. I oughtta know, ’cause I brung up three girls an’ he nothin’ like any of ’em. Now I give you, he don’t act too much like some of them boys what show theyselves ever’ chance they get, but you can thank the good Lord for that.”
The kitchen settled into silence after Lillian’s summary, as we all faced up to the dearth of masculine activities and attributes of the only male—young though he was—in the house.
“Maybe,” I said, acknowledging my own sudden concern, “maybe he just hasn’t found the sport that suits him. Tennis, Hazel Marie, we ought to try him with tennis. Or swimming, or I don’t know, horseshoes or something. A lot of people, I mean a lot of
boys,
aren’t into team sports, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. Maybe he needs a sport where individual talent can excel.”
“That won’t be enough,” Hazel Marie said. “What he needs is somebody who’ll show him what it means to be a man. If we’re not careful, Miss Julia, all he’ll know is us and tea parties and spring clothes and where hems will be next season.”
“Well, I don’t know what we can do about that, unless the three of us suddenly take up football or something.”
She took a deep breath and said, “I know what to do about it. A mother just has to make sacrifices for her child, and that’s what I’m determined to do.”
My eyes popped open. “You can’t be thinking of sending him to a military school. Hazel Marie, I beg of you, he is not the military type.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t bear to send him away. No, the thing to do is move back in with J. D. There’s nobody more masculine than he is, and Lloyd loves him to death. You know, those few months when we lived with him, Lloyd was copying everything about J. D. He even copied that little swagger that J. D. gets sometime. No boy could live with J. D. Pickens and grow up to be anything but a real man.” She pushed back the hair that kept flopping in her face. “I said I wouldn’t live with him ever again until he was ready to marry, which looks like never, but for Lloyd’s sake, that’s what I’m going to do.”