Chapter Four: ‘Go Where Your Heart Takes You’
When Kenny returned home from work that night, his mind was racing over the experiences of the day, primarily his role as the lesbian partner of Angela. The girl had been intent upon creating and turning him into a girl, and had indeed succeeded. Kenny realized that at the tennis courts and at the coffee shop he had been perceived only as a girl, and that this was becoming a regular reaction of people towards him. At the restaurant that evening, he had been called “miss” several times and once was hailed by a customer with a “hey, waitress, more coffee here.” He never attempted to correct the customers, often answering them with a soft voice, using the girlish phrasing that he learned at the acting camp.

Sharon, the senior waitress, was an observant woman, and watched Kenny’s actions closely; she clearly liked the boy, partly since he was such a hard-working, efficient member of the wait staff, but mainly because he seemed so open, kind and friendly.

“You really should take me up on wearing that skirt,” she had teased as things quieted down that night.

“I’m half tempted to do that,” he nodded. “It might end all this confusion. Some man even wondered what I was doing in the men’s room.”

“That camp really changed you Kenny,” she said. Kenny had told her a few weeks earlier about the fact that he trained to be a girl as part of being asked to perform as Ophelia in the play at the camp.

“I guess it did, but since I got only a little more than a week before go off to school, I think I’ll tough out these last few nights on the job as Kenny,” he said.

“Ah, too bad, I think you’d look really cute in our skirts and blouses here.” She smiled at him, and moved off to serve one of her remaining tables.

Since it was a week night, both his mother and brother were already asleep when he arrived home at 11 p.m., exhausted from the physical activities of the day, as well as the emotional stress developed by his time with Angela.

His fatigue lifted as he entered the bathroom, ready to take a shower to remove the lingering smell of the restaurant, and looked into the mirror. Even without makeup, he concluded that his face had nice girlish qualities, fairly high cheekbones, light eye brows and sensuous lips, framed by his long, darkish blonde hair. With a feminine flick of his hand, he brushed his hair to one side, smiling at the image in the mirror. And, what showed of his upper body could easily be that of a girl. He pressed the two mounds of flesh on his chest together, creating tiny breasts and a faint cleavage.

Kenny remembered what Sharon said earlier that night at work, that he’d look “so cute” in a waitress uniform. He smiled, saying out loud, “I am a cute girl.”

Then he giggled, talking again to the mirror, “Oh you’re so vain, Karen.” He brushed his hair back, flicking his wrists, daintily.

As he’d seen women do, he wrapped a towel around his head, and then looking into the mirror, smiled again. He paused, wondering whether he should spray a bit of perfume on his wrists and neck for the evening; he loved the scents, and he went to his bedroom, rummaging into a drawer where he had hidden a small spray bottle of Casual, by Paul Sebastian, a purchase he made when he and his closest friend at camp, Carla, went on a shopping trip from the summer camp.

“A lot of my friends in high school used Casual,” Carla said. “But I don’t wear perfume. Only the girly girls wore it. I think you should.”

Kenny remembers blushing at her comment, but then replying to Carla, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should,” Carla has said, and the two giggled. It was a precious moment, Kenny felt.

“Why not?” he reasoned, figuring the scent would be gone by morning.

He squeezed quick sprays onto his wrists and neck, relishing in the mild, subtle scents. Kenny went into the drawer, pulling out the light, diaphanous night gown that Mark had purchased for him. It felt so light and airy and made him feel dainty as he slipped it on over his head.

He returned to the bathroom, removing the towel from his head and brushing his hair vigorously. He decided to leave his hair untied while he slept and let it flow naturally; he realized he may have some kinks to remove from the tangles in the morning, but to his mind it added to the image he had of himself when he played Ophelia as a confused, lovely teenaged girl. He wondered if the Ophelia he portrayed was also a portrait of himself; was he not also a confused, lovely teenaged girl?

*****
Kenny’s confusion was based on what his future was to be: was he to live forever as a boy and man? Or, was he really a girl and woman? You can’t be both, he felt.

Then there was the question: How can I have a love affair with two different people? A lesbian and a heterosexual man? That question, he realized, would not need an answer if he remained male; they had both loved a girl, the lovely Karen, although Mark had walked away from Karen at a critical moment. Kenny knew that he loved — no, that was too strong a word — or was enthralled with both of them. How he longed to again be in the embrace of Mark, safely encased in the protective arms of this muscular boy! And, how he longed to be lying next to Angela, her sinewy, firmness against his smooth soft flesh! He was Karen in both places.

So, he wondered, was he boy or girl?

That night, as he slipped into the nightgown amid the scent of Casual, the answer was easy: “I am a girl. Yes, I am a cute girl.”

What would the morning bring?

*****
Kenny rapped on the door to Mrs. Burkhalter’s apartment, across the hall, shortly after 10 a.m. the next morning, knowing the old lady likely had finished watching her favorite morning television show. It was a warm morning and he was dressed lightly, wearing a white tank top, dark blue shorts and sandals. His hair was tied back in a pony tail. In his hands he carried several blueberry muffins he had baked that morning.

It would be his first prolonged visit with his onetime baby-sitter since returning from the camp. He had stopped by a few times for brief visits and she had urged Kenny for a longer visit.

Most young men might feel it an imposition to spend time with an elderly woman, but not Kenny. He had always relished these moments with Mrs. Burkhalter, with whom he had learned to crochet and knit. He had helped her with baking, cleaning the apartment and laundry, times when the old woman shared stories of her life as a onetime actress, confessing about her many boy friends (usually with self-deprecating humor) and some of the stars she had met. She was an obvious beauty in her young years — and still was a lovely woman now in her 80s — but she had none of the qualities of a diva, being humble and always more interested in Kenny’s life than her own.

“My darling,” she gushed as he entered her apartment, running to hug him. He kissed her lightly on the lips, and she took his hand, dragging him into the kitchen.

“Aunt Harriet, you look lovely today,” he said, placing his muffins on the counter.

“I bet you baked these, Kenny.”

“Just for you. I know how you like them. Remember you taught me how to make that recipe.”

“I do, I do,” Harriet Burkhalter said, her voice still strong and clear despite her age, likely due to the voice training she must have had as an actress. “And now you make them better that I ever did.”

“That’s impossible. You were always such a great baker, Harriet,” he said. In recent years he had dropped the “Aunt” in addressing the old woman, and called her “Harriet,” something that pleased the woman. Their relationship had grown through the years, even though Mrs. Burkhalter was no longer needed to watch over Mrs. Hansson’s boys. It was like they were just friends who enjoyed each other’s company.

He was about five when Harriet Burkhalter first began watching the two Hansson children. By the time he was eight or nine, Kenny found he could tell the woman just about anything that was on his mind and he found a sympathetic ear. Soon, he began telling her about his feelings, including things he would never have told his own mother.

“Have you mentioned this to your mother, Kenny?” Harriett Burkhalter said one August day, just after his 11th birthday. Within a month, Kenny was to enter the 6th grade at Jefferson middle school, beginning a whole new experience after his grade school years at Whittier School.

“No, she just wouldn’t understand, Aunt Harriet.”

“Oh I think she would, dear,” the old woman would say. “She’s very smart woman, your mother is.”

Kenny knew his mother was smart and that she loved him and cared only for his best interests; but his mother also was a reticent person, usually keeping her thoughts to herself.

“I just know she’d not like to hear what I feel sometimes, since it’s not what she expects me to be, Aunt Harriet.”

“And what’s that, Kenny?”

“Oh to get good grades in school and maybe be good in sports and grow up to be a big owner of a company or something,” he explained.

“Well, you’re about the smartest boy in your grade, I understand, Kenny. You’re mother should be proud of you.”

“She is in that, I guess,” he said beginning to feel like he was going to cry. Oh, how he hated to cry, but he’d been doing it so often once he hit the 6th grade.

“What’s bothering you then, my darling boy?” she said, taking his slender hands in hers and looking him square in the eye.

“Oh auntie,” he said, as his crying now became audible. He felt so ashamed.

Mrs. Burkhalter took him in her arms, and held the boy firmly, patting his head. Kenny smelled the scent of her perfume (she liked “Charlie” in light doses) and found sweet comfort in the old woman’s protective arms.

“Just cry all you want, dear,” she said, “And then if you want you can tell Aunt Harriet whatever you want.”

It was that day that Kenny finally let another person hear what was causing him such sadness.

“I get called a girl or a sissy or a fag all the time, Aunt Harriett,” he blurted out, his face still stained with tears. “I can’t fight back.”

He began to cry again; Mrs. Burkhalter just held him, saying nothing.

“I don’t like sports and I’m no good at them,” he said. “I don’t dare get into a fight. I’ll get beat up. Oh it’s awful.”

“Don’t you have any friends in school, dear?”

He thought for a minute, finally saying. “Yes, there’s one, Jason. Jason Stein, but he gets teased too.”

“Why does he get teased?”

“They call him a ‘kike’ and ‘jewboy’ and stuff like that,” he said.

Harriet Burkhalter nodded, obviously realizing that Jason was one of the few Jewish lads in the community.

“And Auntie, he worst thing I ever did was take that pot holder I crocheted for mom into a ‘Show and Tell’ at school,” he began, crying again. “I was so proud of it, but the boys just laughed at me, and some of the girls, too, and they began calling me ‘Mary.’ That’s not my name.”

She released Kenny from the hugs, asking the boy if he’d like some lemonade. He nodded, and she went to the kitchen. Now, seven years later, on another August day as he was about to begin a new educational experience in college, he remembered he felt so much better telling her about the secret that had been plaguing him for much of his grade school years.

“I did make some good friends with Amy and Sue in grade school, Aunt Harriet,” he said when the widow returned with the lemonade. “We did lots together, the three of us, like watch tv or just hangout together. I showed them how to sew things, too, on Amy’s mother’s sewing machine. Remember how you taught me to use the machine.”

“Oh, I did, dear. You were so eager to learn.”

“Maybe I should be called ‘Mary’ and be a girl, auntie?” he asked suddenly.

Mrs. Burkhalter held up her hand, stopping him.

“No dear, you’re Kenny and you’re a precious boy,” she said. “But there’s nothing that says a boy can’t like to sew and crochet. There’s nothing to say that a boy has to be an all-star quarterback or one of those silly things. There’s nothing to say that you can’t enjoy being with girls and playing with them.”

“But that’s not like other boys,” he said. “And I’m not strong, either.”

Mrs. Burkhalter smiled at the boy, then said quietly, but slowly and firmly. “My darling boy, you are who you are. Be proud of it. You can strengthen your body, if you wish, but the important thing to remember, is that you should stay healthy and fit. If you want to go, into running or tennis just to stay fit. Finally, go where your heart takes you. You’ll never go wrong.”

Kenny never forgot Mrs. Burkhalter’s advice that day. He said that phrase nearly every day of his life in the seven years following until this day in August a few weeks after he turned 18: “Go where your heart takes you.”

*****
“Your mother told me you played Ophelia in Hamlet at the summer camp,” Harriet Burkhalter said, after the two had seated at her kitchen table.

She made cappuccino for the two to enjoy with Kenny’s baked treats. Kenny marveled at this women, now well into her 80s, who had mastered such modern gadgets as the cappuccino machine, the computer and the I-pad. “If one doesn’t keep the mind fresh, it just dies on you, dear. Besides, how am I to keep up with my two daughters and the grandkids, otherwise. They never write, so I had to figure out ‘Facebook’ to keep up with them,” she once explained.

“And, I saw some pictures from the camp’s website,” Mrs. Burkhalter continued, “You were absolutely stunning as that girl.”

“Really?”

“Oh my gosh, yes. I must say you looked so much like Jean Simmons in the Olivier movie, only sweeter. May I tell you, it must have been impossible to tell you were a boy?”

Kenny blushed.

“I guess they did a good makeup job,” he said.

“You looked so pretty, Kenny. Did you like playing a woman’s part? Did it bother you?”

Kenny was slow to answer, considering how to phrase his answer. “Well, it bothered me a little, but once I got started rehearsing, I have to admit I loved it.”

“I’m sure you pulled it off beautifully dear,” she said.

“Everyone said I did, but maybe that’s because the Professor McIver insisted that I live 24/7 as a girl to get used to the mannerisms, etc. I lived for about four weeks as a girl named ‘Karen.’”

“McIver? Stanton McIver?” she asked.

“Yes, Stanton McIver.”

“Oh my dear, I played down in the Milwaukee Equity company with him when he was just starting his acting career about 30 years ago,” the old woman said, her eyes glistening. “He was a beautiful young man, but damn I was 30 years too old for him. I know this, he loved the ‘method acting’ system, so I can see making you live as a girl. That must have been tough for you, Kenny.”

He laughed, realizing it sounded more like a girlish giggle.

“Not really,” he confessed. “I had four girls take over and transform me. And they helped make me pretty. Is your computer up and running now? I’ll show you a picture of the five of us, plus two boys.”

Harriet led him to her second bedroom, converted into an office and sewing room, where a computer screen showed a picture of a lovely young woman in 1950s style hairdo (an obvious studio portrait) on the screen-saver. “You were so pretty, Harriet,” Kenny said as he sat down.

“That’s good in the acting business until you turn 40,” she said. “But that’s life. Besides I had Adam Burkhalter and he gave us two beautiful daughters. What more could a woman want?”

Kenny nodded and attacked the keyboard, finding the photos from the camp that had been posted on a photo site. There were about a dozen, and Kenny flicked through some scenes from the play, stopping on a photo of five girls (or who appeared to be girls) taken outside the theater building at the St. Albert’s campus. The girls were in tank tops, or tee-shirts with abbreviated short sleeves and skirts of varying lengths.

“Now let me guess which of those girls is you,” Harriet said, squinting closely at the screen.

“Are you the one in the print skirt?” she asked.

“Yes, right in the middle,” he said.

“Kenny, you were the prettiest girl there. Your hair, your face and even your arms and legs are so feminine, so lovely.”

“There’s one more photo,” he said, clicking to a picture of Kenny (as Karen) standing next to a blonde, husky boy. The boy has one arm draped around Kenny’s shoulder. He is wear the same blue tank top and print skirt from the other photo, and the two are looking at each other.

“And who is that hunk?” Harriet said, using a term that a younger girl might say.

Kenny giggled, his voice seeming to grow higher.

“That’s Mark. He played Hamlet.”

“It looks like he’s in love with you. What a lovely couple you two make?”

“Oh Aunt Harriet, that’s what I want to tell you,” Kenny said. “And I hope you won’t be shocked.”

“At my age, nothing shocks me dear. Come let’s sit down on the sofa in the living room, and you can tell me everything.”

When they were seated, Harriet again took Kenny’s hands. Her hands were bony and heavily veined, but the palms were smooth and soft.

“I hate how my hands look now, dear,” she began. “I used to have pretty hands, just like yours are now, so slender and smooth. You have lovely hands.”

“Like a girl’s, right?” he said on impulse.

“Yes, dear.”

Kenny smiled now, moving his fingers caressingly within her grip. He loved this woman so.

“I’m in love with that boy, Mark, and I wish I was a girl. That’s what I wanted to say, Harriet.”

“Oh my darling,” the old woman said. “I’ve wondered about that for a long time. And, I was so worried I had helped you in that direction. Teaching you crocheting and sewing and letting you help me do the chores around here. Those are usually women’s activities, but you liked doing it so.”

Kenny shook his head. “No it wasn’t your fault, Harriet. It was me. Just me. I dreamed I was a girl so often, and then at Summer Camp it all seemed to come out so naturally.”

Harriet paused for a minute. “I know I encouraged you to do more physical activities, just to help you fit in better.”

“And I did them, Harriet, as you know. Lots of tennis and even the cross country team and I swim a lot, too. And I feel better, too.”

“But you still feel like a girl, right?”

“I think so, and I also am so in love with Mark, and he wanted me only as a girl, not as a boy or gay lover.”

With that Kenny told Harriet Burkhalter the entire story, including his recent affairs with Angela. “Auntie, and I felt so good with Angela, too, but only when I was a girl, and that’s the only way she wants me, too. She just loves how girly I am, more than she is.”

“Oh my poor darling,” Harriet said. “But dear, you shouldn’t fret. It’s better to be loved by two people than by no one.”

“But they both want me as Karen. They don’t want Kenny.”

Harriet paused for a moment, as if considering what to say. “And does that seem wrong to you,” she finally asked.

He nodded. “Yes, auntie. I’m a boy, aren’t I? Not a girl.”

“Life is not always so simple,” she said. “Believe me, dear, I saw plenty out in my days in Hollywood, even back then, when I knew men who wanted to be girls. And I knew several who often dressed in women’s clothes when they could. You might not remember Jeff Chandler, but he always played macho guys, and it’s rumored he kept a closet full of women’s things.”

Kenny nodded. He was aware of transsexuals and transvestites and crossdressers. Was he one of them? Such people seemed foreign to Kenny, who was living in a small manufacturing city in the Midwest.

“What should I do, auntie?”

Harriet smiled, kissed him lightly on the lips, and said: “Go where your heart takes you.”

*****
Kenny left Harriet’s apartment feeling pleased that he had finally confessed to someone he loved about his feelings. Yet, Harriet’s final words, “Go where your heart takes you,” disquieted him. It was as if she said, “Go, if that’s what you want: Be a girl.”

He was sure that was what he wanted, he knew it. It was where his heart was. But to get there? That would take courage and strength. It would mean revealing himself to his mother and brother! Would his mother react in her stern manner and reject the idea, calling him selfish and self-centered? Would his brother laugh at him and call him sissy and pathetic? Would his friends think he was a failure as a guy, something they always must have suspected anyway?

Oh, the challenges were so great. But that was where his heart seemed to be taking him, didn’t it?

Harriet Burkhalter had advised him to tell his mother immediately everything he had told her.

“Don’t hide your feelings from her, dear,” she said. “She loves you deeply. I know that she’s proud of you and she won’t want to hurt you. Most of all she won’t want you going through life unhappy.”

“I know Harriet,” he replied. “But she’s so stern sometimes.”

“That’s just her nature, darling. Wasn’t she proud of your performance as Ophelia? And, didn’t she go along with your Karen impersonation with Mark’s family?”

“Yes, but she thought it was all part of the play-acting we were doing.”

“Tell her, anyway, and don’t let her know you confided in me first. She’d be so hurt.”

He nodded in agreement. He had to tell his mother. It would have to wait, since the afternoon had been consumed with his visit to Harriet Burkhalter, and he had to hurry to get ready for work at the restaurant.