Chapter Eight: Backstories

Millie Lester looked across the kitchen table at Amy, her old friend, impressed with how trim and elegant she looked. Both women were in their mid-fifties, and Millie, wearing a light yellow tank top and tiny shorts, felt dowdy by contrast to Amy, who wore well-pressed navy blue slacks and a light blue sleeveless top. A simple pearl necklace wound about Amy’s pretty neck and matching pearl earrings hung from her ears, giving her an aura of quiet elegance.

“You know it’s been forty years since we were in 9th Grade together,” Millie said as she brought coffee to the table. “I was devastated when you suddenly left, Adam. Oops, I guess I’d better call you Amy.”

“Yes, you’d better, Millie,” she laughed.

“You were my best friend, ever, in high school, Amy,” Millie continued. “I never did fit in with the boys in that school. I couldn’t wait to graduate.”

“I know, and we moved around so much, too, I never had a friend like you ever in any school,” Amy said.

“Why didn’t you write me and tell me where you were, Amy?”

Tears filled Amy’s eyes.

“I wanted to Millie, I really did, but I couldn’t. It’s really a long difficult story,” Amy said.

Millie nodded. It was apparent Amy was uncomfortable talking about it, so Millie changed the subject.

“So, Amy, you’re going to be vice-president of something at the mill?” Millie asked, changing the subject.

“Yes, I’m so honored and lucky, Millie. I’ll be vice-president of special sales. The mill has created a line of stylish papers that I’ve been hired to market. I’ve been with the mill for only a couple of years in their Chicago office, but they now want me in the home office here. It’s quite a change for me after my time on Michigan Avenue.”

Millie smiled: “Ah, yes, Chicago’s ‘Magnificent Mile.’ I love that area, and all the stylish shops. You must feel a bit out of place up here in logging country.”

The other woman laughed. “Yes,” she said. “You know me. I always was hot on women’s fashions. Remember how much time you and I spent going over fashion magazines that year.”

“I loved that, Amy, and I was always envious of you and that gorgeous body of yours, so slim and curvy and me such a fatty then.”

“I remember I kept telling you chubby girls could be beautiful, too, and I remember you trying to suggest styles to your mom that I had chosen from the ads.”

Millie nodded: “And she got mad at me, a boy, telling her how to dress. Little did she know then. You know, she eventually followed some of your ideas and she really began to look pretty, again. She was a beautiful bride, Amy.”

“That’s great,” Amy said. “I always loved your mom. She was so nice, always trying to fatten me up.”

They both laughed.

“And Millie, what happened to that chubby little girl from 9th Grade? You’re so trim now and you look pretty hot yourself,” Amy said.

Millie became serious and looked at your friend.

“The truth?”

“Of course, we’re ‘best friends forever,’ aren’t we?”

“I lost all that weight after you left, Amy,” Millie began. “Frankly, I was so lonely again and so depressed, particularly when I didn’t hear from you. I quit eating and ended up in the psych place for a while; I even had to be force-fed for a few days. I was a mess.”

“Oh my dear, I’m so sorry,” Amy said, reaching over to hold her friend’s hand.

Millie accepted the other’s hand, a symbol of the woman’s warm, caring nature.

“You have nothing to feel sorry about, Amy. You had no choice and had to go where your family went.”

“I know, but still I cared for you Millie, and wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer so.”

“What I never understood, Amy, was why you never wrote to me or called. I had no way of contacting you,” Millie said.

“I couldn’t, Millie,” Amy replied.

“But why?”

“Well, if you must know,” Amy began. “It’s rather humiliating, really, but you deserve to know.”

Millie suddenly felt sorry for pressing her friend. “If it bothers you, you don’t have to tell me.”

“But you’re my best friend. I feel you should know. You see, I found out when we left then that my dad had been linked up with a criminal syndicate, the worst kind, the kind that thought nothing of killing someone and dumping them with a concrete anchor into a lake somewhere.”

“Oh my!”

“I didn’t know that until that Friday when we left town,” she said. “The federal marshals came to our house and uprooted us overnight. Even though mom had divorced him, they felt we needed protection from the mobsters; they even thought we might know something, but I certainly didn’t. Perhaps mom did. Dad had been arrested a day earlier in Chicago and would likely go to trial on a couple of racketeering charges, apparently due to money laundering. Dad apparently had lots of information about the mob’s activities.

“Apparently, dad must have told the feds lots, because he was eventually sentenced to only ten years in the federal pen. Mom was called by the grand jury, but luckily she never had to testify. We apparently had been safe from the mob while dad was still working for them; he had continued to support us well and even though they were divorced dad stopped by often. With dad locked up now, the feds felt they needed to keep mom safe – both because they might need her testimony and for our own safety – so they placed us into protective custody and told to us to forget our past life, our friends and family and all.”

“Oh, how awful. Poor Amy.”

“It was tough, but it was for the best, and we were in custody for three years and then advised to continue avoiding our past for our own safety,” she said. “That’s why I never contacted you.”

“How terrible,” Millie said, putting her arms around her friend and hugging her warmly.

“It was at the time, for sure, but by the time I was twenty-five most of the key mobsters that were involved with my dad were locked up or dead. And, when I transitioned, I took back the name of Strawbridge and became Amy Louise Strawbridge.”

Millie looked at her friend and exclaimed: “What a story!”

“But, it all turned out for the best in the end,” Amy said. “I went off to create a new life for myself and as you can see, I’m now a happy woman.”

Millie smiled at her friend, grabbing her hand and holding it. Finally, she decided to change the subject.

“You remember Jennifer?”

Amy nodded. “How could I forget? She and Natalie were the only girls who would talk to us.”

Millie nodded: “Yes, we were pretty pathetic boys, weren’t we?”

The two couldn’t help but giggle.

“Well, I think Jennifer helped save my life,” Millie continued. “She came almost every day to visit me, and she got me interested in books again.”

“She was a sweetie,” Amy said.

“Well, I soon got well enough to return to school, and she stuck with me. We dated, like a real boy-girl date and I took her to the senior prom. We even went to college together, out at the state university. And, then a week after graduation, we married.”

Amy smiled at her friend: “That’s marvelous, but what happened to Jennifer?”

Millie suddenly broke into tears. “I loved her so much, Amy. I didn’t know I loved her at first. Remember how plain she looked, but she was the kindest, sweetest and smartest person I ever knew.”

“What happened, dear?”

“Cervical cancer. Gone eight years now,” Millie said, bursting into a full-blown crying session. “I loved her so much. She . . . (sobs) . . . was so beautiful.”

Amy left her chair and knelt before Millie, holding the sobbing woman in her arms. Amy remembered Jennifer vividly as a round-faced plain girl, who tended toward being overweight, and one who could hardly be considered beautiful. Yet, she remembered, too, the girl’s ready smile and dancing bright eyes (magnified through her tortoise-shelled glasses).

Millie recovered herself after a few moments, and gave her friend a sisterly kiss, breaking the spell by asking whether Amy might like more coffee. Amy nodded that she did.

Returning with the coffee pot, Millie said, “I’m sorry about that, Amy. I shouldn’t have broken down like that. But tell me about yourself, dear.”

“Oh honey, that’s OK. You clearly loved Jennifer, and I agree that for the one year I knew her she was one of the nicest of girls.”

“But how long have you been living as a woman, Amy?” Millie asked. “You were so pretty back in high school and I can see you’ve lost none of that beauty.”

“About 30 years now, Millie. I fully transitioned several years out of college,” she said. “I was able to get a scholarship to a university in Wisconsin that specializes in fashion design. Can you imagine? In the boonies of Wisconsin and a first-rate fashion school, but it’s there. Called Stout.”

“That must have been right up your alley, Amy.”

“It was, and though I went to school as a guy, I spent many nights performing my jazz singing in drag clubs in the area, mainly in St. Paul that wasn’t too far away.”

Millie smiled at her friend, remembering the sound of Adam’s beautiful voice and the view of Adam wearing a fashionable cocktail dress and belting out a jazz tune.

“I really wanted to have a singing career, but the only jobs I could get were in drag clubs or in small jazz clubs where I was able to pass myself off as a real woman. I even cut a few tapes with a jazz group in the Chicago area – that was before the days of CDs – but they never amounted to much.”

Amy explained that she later took up graphic design, and then worked for an advertising firm in Chicago.

“I worked outwardly as a guy, but always changed into women’s outfits when I got home at night then,” Amy said. “I continued performing when I could, as a woman, of course. Even got some nice reviews, using a phony name, but it wasn’t practical to try to go big time, since I’d be found out of course. My voice got a little lower, but remained distinctively feminine.”

“But then you transitioned?”

“At about age 28 I began taking hormones and a year later I had the surgery, plus some facial changes in my brows and cheeks. I really didn’t need to do much modification; I decided against breast implants, since the hormones helped to grow my smallish breasts. I only wear an A-cup, but for a skinny girl it looks fine, I think.”

“Oh my God yes, Amy,” Millie said in admiration. “You’re so elegant, dear.”

“Thank you, but sometimes I think I overdo my dressing up routine. I can hardly resist trying to look pretty, though at our age it does seem to get more difficult,” Amy said with a laugh.

“Tell me about it,” Millie replied, with a giggle.

“When did you start living as a woman, Millie?”

“About a year after Jennifer’s death, so that would be about six-seven years ago,” she said. “Jennifer understood my need to dress up and she let me do it occasionally, especially when none of the kids were around.”

“Oh you had children?”

“Yes, two. A boy and a girl. Our daughter, Diane, has accepted Millie and I have become the grandma to her two little girls. I love them so much. I’m teaching the oldest, Melissa, how to crochet.”

“And your son?”

“Kevin, oh, he’s not very happy with me, and comes over only at Easter and Christmas for an hour or so each visit,” Millie said, tears forming in her eyes. “But he won’t let his boys see me; he’s got two of them and he wants them to be macho. Thinks I’ll be a bad influence.”

“Oh dear, that’s too bad.”

“I understand it must be hard for him to see me this way, and I suppose I’m a bit selfish for transitioning, what with a family and all that.”

Amy had to cut the visit short, since she needed to dress for a lunch date she had with an attorney friend, a man called Anthony Wicker. “He’s a widower, a couple of years older, and he’s lonely, Millie, but we’re not lovers or anything. Just friends. He wants to show me the local museum.”

“Oh that’s great,” Millie said. “It’s really a pretty good museum for a small town like ours. I think you’ll like it.”

“This town is growing on me, Millie, particularly since I learned we’re next door neighbors and can be girlfriends.”

“I’m so happy you’re here. Now you’ll need to tell me more about yourself next time we get together.”

“Of course, darling.”

The two hugged, and Millie smiled as she watched her friend walk back into her house.

Chapter Nine: Truth-telling

When she began transitioning, Millie walked away from her job as a high school English teacher in a large city, drawing an early, reduced pension for nearly 25 years of teaching. During their marriage, Millie (as Milton) and Jennifer (thanks to her social worker’s job) had been able to retire the mortgage on their home, assist their two children in attending college and build up small savings. When she decided to transition, Millie decided it would be best to sell the house, leave the high school and move to a new city.

“I was lucky,” she told Amy when the two got together again a few days later. “With the money from the sale of the house and our small savings, I was able to cover my transition, plus put a substantial down payment on this house.”

“And you’re still working?” her friend asked.

“Yes, my teachers’ pension isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, particularly when you leave a bit early,” she replied. “Besides, I wanted to stay busy. And you know how I love reading and teaching.”

“You always had your nose in a book, even if it was a book of fashions,” Amy giggled.

Millie came to this small city, which still had papermaking and logging as its chief business, because she was able to find a job teaching English and drama at Dortman, a small, but well-regarded liberal arts college. Known for its open-minded attitudes, the college had no problem with the fact that Millie had only recently completed her transition.

“We know your background, Ms. Lester, and we know how well-regarded you were while teaching high school,” the college president said. “We were particularly impressed with how well your high school theater program went and we hope you’ll help develop ours.”

“I presume then you know completely about my transition and all,” Millie had asked.

“Yes, and it doesn’t bother us. You’re obviously a very attractive woman and we hope you’ll become popular in the community.”

In September, Mildred would begin her fourth year at the small college, where she had built up a previously non-existent theater program to the point that it had been able to present two fairly well received plays during the previous year.

“And this coming year,” she told Amy, “We’re planning to do three plays. I’m so excited, and the kids are, too.”

“It seems you’ve found a home here then.”

Millie smiled at her friend: “Yes, I have. You know what they say about being a big frog in a small pond.”

Amy nodded in agreement, but shook her head: “It seems to be OK for you, and I hope it works for me, too. I know I miss Chicago, and all the activity already, but perhaps this small town life will grow on me.”

“Well, I’m happy, but I still find my nights get lonely without Jennifer. It seems most everyone around here is married, although there’s Harriett Blocker. She’s a widow in our social studies department, and we try to go out to dinner about once every other week, but she’s got her own children around who keep her busy otherwise.”

“Any men friends?” Amy asked.

“Not really,” Millie said. Her face suddenly broke into a deep blush.

“Oh? It looks like you do, Millie. Come on, ‘fess up. You can tell your old friend.”

“Well, it’s nothing really,” Millie said, unable to suppress a small, nervous giggle. “There’s Eric who teaches biology and he’s a couple of years older. We’ve gone hiking a few times, and he’s gotten me into birding.”

“My God, Millie,” Amy said, showing shock. “That’s outdoor stuff. I thought you hated that stuff.”

“I did, I guess, but I’m finding it’s kind of fun now, and besides Amy you’ll have to realize you’re in a place where everyone loves the outdoors, fishing, hunting and boating.”

“Not me, never,” Amy said firmly.

“Don’t ever say never dear. It may be the only way to break the loneliness up here in this woodsy area.”

Amy shook her head. “I’m too dainty for that stuff.”

“How about me? I was never much for the outdoors either, but now as a woman I don’t have to try to show how manly I am when I never really was. Eric always helps me if we run into problems, and he’s so patient with me when I can’t keep up.”

“It sounds as if you like him.”

“I do, but so far he hasn’t even kissed me yet,” Millie said her face growing a bit flush. “We’ve just shared these outdoor times together, and I don’t care if it goes beyond that, because it’s nice to get out of doors.”

“I understand, Millie, but are you interested in having a man in your life now?”

Mildred looked at her friend. “I don’t know. I kind of like my life now as a single woman and now I have you as a friend.”

Amy smiled and said nothing. It was as if the two women communicated without speaking, a sign of true and deep friendship.

*****
Eric Gustafsson finally kissed Millie on a hot, steamy night in August. The two were seated on a swing that hung on chains on Millie’s front porch where they were enjoying lemonade and trying to catch the occasional breeze that wafted through the Wauconanda River Valley where the City of Wauconanda rested. The putrid stench of sulfur used in the papermaking process permeated the dead air, but there was no escaping it. Like most longtime residents of the city, Millie and Eric both had gotten used to the rotten egg smell and didn’t really notice it. They could not have escaped the odor anyway, since Millie’s home had no air conditioning, typical of many homes in the northern city where AC was needed only a few nights each year.

His kiss was tentative at first, but Millie welcomed his warm and moist lips. She responded eagerly, pressing her lips harder upon his. She opened her mouth slightly, letting her tongue play with his lips, as if to urge that his tongue return the favor and enter her mouth. He soon took the hint and their kisses became more passionate, their tongues entering and playing together.

It lasted but a moment before Eric pulled away.

“I’m sorry, Millie. I don’t know what came over me,” he said, his tone soft and hesitant.

“Don’t be Eric. It was marvelous,” she said. Her voice was breathless.

“But the neighbors might see us,” he protested.

Millie nodded. The problem of living in a small town was obvious: people usually noticed everything and someone might easily see these two older people kissing and start talking. Millie didn’t want to be known as an “easy woman,” a reputation that would be harmful in this city where many residents proclaimed their Christian values and abhorred such behavior. Some residents had indeed been wary of the college where Mildred taught, considering it an abomination to Christian values.

“You’re right, Eric,” she said, fearing that her voice betrayed her reluctance at ending the kissing episode

It had been eight years since she had last kissed another person with such loving passion, the last kiss being the one Millie – as Milton – pressed upon his wife Jennifer’s dry, parched lips as she lay dying in St. Vincent’s Hospice. Then, the kiss was accompanied by tears.

The kiss on the porch came on the fifth date between the two, and Millie felt a growing attraction to Eric, who despite nearing sixty, appeared to be much younger, his hair showing only hints of gray and his body erect and firm. He was used to the outdoors, having adopted canoeing along the state’s many rivers and lakes as a hobby. He was popular with his students and regularly organized trips into the wilderness as part of his biology class activities.

Despite his obvious “hunk” qualities, Eric seemed to be shy and unaggressive in his love-making; Millie realized that it was she who initiated this long-belated kiss, had wanted it to continue and had been disappointed when he ended it.

*****
“I’m worried, Amy,” Millie confessed to her friend, as the two conferred on Saturday morning over their lattes at the Kaffee Klatch, a popular spot in the midst of Wauconanda’s downtown. The two had begun biking together on off-days, usually hitting the river trails and finishing off at the Klatch.

“About what?”

“Eric and I are getting passionate, Amy, and I’m afraid I’m falling in love with him,” she said, her voice soft and tentative.

“So what’s wrong with that? He seems like a nice man,” her friend said, smiling.

“Oh he is, and so considerate and everything,” Millie said. “A girl couldn’t ask for anything more in a man.”

“Does he love you? Have you two been sleeping together yet?”

“No. He’s only kissed me once, Amy,” Millie said, her voice growing tense.

Amy put her hand on Millie’s and smiled.

“Are you sure he feels the same about you then? Seems to me one kiss doesn’t seem like much.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does. He’s just shy, I think.”

“What’s your problem then, Millie? It seems like you’ve got a nice man on the hook. Just enjoy, dear, that’s if you want a man around all the time.”

Millie looked about the room, seeing groups of mainly younger people wearing shorts and tank tops, looking young and vigorous and fresh-faced.

“Amy, should I tell him about Milton?” blurting out her concerns.

“Doesn’t he know?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Millie said. “When I applied for the job here, I was totally truthful on the application, and the search committee that hired me fully knew of my transition, along with the university president and the chair of my department, but they all agreed that no one else need know.”

“And you’ve been here several years, and no one else has found out yet?” Amy asked, showing some surprise.

“I guess I’m flying a bit under the radar for now, but some day I fear the news will come out, if anyone checks into my background closely.”

“Yes, especially as you grow that drama program and it becomes more and more successful,” Amy added.

“I guess I'd better tell Eric,” Millie said.

“Yes, and the sooner the better, my dear.”

Millie got a sick feeling in her stomach just then. How could she tell Eric? What should she say?

Chapter Ten: Dilemmas

Even though Amy had no desire to fall in love with her friend Anthony, she found herself beginning to wonder if she was becoming more and more attracted to this small-town attorney, an attractive widower with two grown children and two teenagers still at home. The man had stability, a comfortable income (though that was not Amy’s problem, since she had built up a nice nest-egg for her senior years) and unexpected worldliness she thought she’d never find in such a backwoods community.

Amy had never told Anthony of her background; she felt guilty about keeping him in the dark. Having lived nearly all of her adult life as a woman, there was little in her background to betray her past, and it was easier to enjoy her time with Anthony without telling him. While several chief executives of the company were aware of her gender change, they felt it unimportant, mainly due to the acknowledged talent she had brought to the firm. She realized now that she was being hypocritical by urging Millie to confess her past while seeking to hide her own from Anthony. Perhaps she should tell Anthony the truth now, too.

Both Amy and Millie now had the same plumbing systems as other women and both were past child-bearing age. They knew that men could enjoy sex with them just as they could any genetically born female. Amy had had several affairs in her past, all of which were steamy ones, though short-lived since she was not interested in a permanent relationship.

“My God, Amy, you’re the hottest woman I’ve ever been with,” said a husky ex-football star she had bedded several times in Chicago.

She was aware that her gender reassignment surgery seemed to have made her easily reactive to sexual stimulation, and that she had noisy, almost violent, orgasms in bed, usually exhausting her male partners. Even the strong, sexually well-endowed ex-footballer collapsed after an evening in bed with her. Amy saw little reason to tell her male partners about her past; it would seem to make little difference anyway, since there was nothing about her body that would betray her birth as a male.

When she was in her early thirties, she married a starry-eyed musician, a jazz bass player who had a sensitive, romantic soul. Adrian Holter was a couple of years younger and was mesmerized by Amy’s tall, slender frame, sparkling eyes and natural beauty. The two had clicked musically, sexually and intellectually, a combination that seemed destined for a long marriage.

The two met when Amy joined the Horace Hampden jazz quartet as a featured vocalist, helping to propel the group into even more renown throughout the Midwest. Since Adrian and Amy were the only two unmarried players, they naturally gravitated to each other and began to go out for a late night snack after their gigs. It was only six years after Amy’s sexual reassignment surgery and she was wary of any longterm relationships, but having Adrian as a friend grew comfortable.

“Everyone hoped I’d become a basketball star,” Adrian confessed to her one night. “I was always the tallest kid in school, but I was no damn good. Just too awkward.”

Amy nodded, realizing how your outward appearance often dictates what expectations people might have for you, even though you might not. After all, wasn’t she as a youth expected to do boy things, when dolls and dresses and Billie Holiday were her passion?

“The coaches in school convinced me to try out for the team,” he told her as they sat over their omelets at two-thirty in the morning at an all-night diner that thrived on serving the after-hours crowds from the closing bars.

“How’d that go?”

“How would you expect? It was a disaster. I ended up crying after one game. I quit and no one seemed happier to see me go than the coaches.”

He laughed at his self-directed criticism.

“That’s awful,” Amy said, picturing the scene in the locker room where Adrian would be seen crying in front of his teammates and coaches.

“It wasn’t really,” he said. “No one expected me to play basketball anymore and I happily joined the orchestra on the double bass.”

The two talked many hours, often about themselves, but Amy was careful to disguise her earlier life as Adam.

Several months later, Adrian suggested the two begin living together. Up to that point, their relationship had been chaste, outside of some kissing, hugging and caressing. Amy kept refusing his advances with an excuse that was partially true: that she made it a policy of not having relations with any of the musicians in the bands with which she sang.

Amy believed the two of them could hit it off and, since she was having trouble paying her rent since she was still paying off loans she got in order to have her surgery, she agreed it might be a good idea. Before they were to actually make the move, she felt that she needed to inform him of her former life.

“Adrian, my friend,” she began to confess as he drove her to her apartment after one of their early morning meals, “I need to tell you something before we get too involved.”

“What?” he said. They had stopped in front of her apartment.

“You’d better come up, I think, before I tell you.”

He protested that it was late; they both had day jobs the next day. Amy persisted and Adrian finally agreed, following her into the apartment building.

She led him to her tiny kitchen and the two sat down at a small table.

“Adrian, you need to know something about me,” she began.

“What? I know you so well. What’s to know?”

“Adrian, I was born a boy,” she said flatly.

Adrian looked at her a confused look blanketing his face.

“Did you hear me? I was born a boy and I have had surgery to make me a woman.”

He shook his head. The man said nothing but stared directly at her.

“Say something,” Amy pleaded, tears beginning to form.

“You? A boy?” he said finally.

“Yes, but I’ve been living as a woman for more than ten years now and had sexual reassignment surgery six years ago,” she explained.

“I can’t believe it. You’re all woman to me.”

“I’ve always been a woman inside, Adrian,” she said. “It was only my plumbing that was screwed up.”

“It can’t be true, Amy. I was going to ask you to marry me. I’ve been looking at engagement rings. My mom loves you.”

Amy nodded and began to cry. Adrian got up from his chair and left the apartment.

*****
Their after-hours meetings ended and for two weeks Adrian and she never talked except when the demands of their music required it. Several of the musicians, aware of the relationship between the two, saw their change in attitude and talked with each of them, wondering what was wrong. Both said “nothing.”

He surprised Amy after a performance by asking her to join him for a walk at a nearby park that overlooked the river. It was a well-lit location and safe; Amy agreed.

“I want to marry you, Amy,” he said after they were seated at a bench. It was a warm, sparkling night, with a nearly full moon causing the ripples in the river to shimmer fluorescently.

“What? Even after what I told you?”

“Yes, Amy, please. I’ve never loved anyone as much as you,” he said.

“But, Adrian, I’ll never be able to have children.”

“I know, but we can adopt, Amy. Please be my wife.”

She accepted and two months later the two were married in a civil ceremony at a hotel, with Horace Hampden, their band leader, officiating. He was an ordained minister. It seems every musician in town attended the truly eventful ceremony.

For nearly two years, everything went well. Both found their sex life to be stimulating and exciting. Happiness abounded, but when they began to consider adoption, they ran into difficulties: their incomes were too chancy, typical of freelance musicians and performers, and accredited adoption agencies turned them down.

Two weeks before their second wedding anniversary, Adrian announced he wanted a divorce. His reason: he wanted a wife who could produce a child.

*****
“After that, I vowed never again to get married or to enter into a long-term relationship,” Amy told Millie, as she finished relating the event. The two were sitting on Millie’s porch, having doused themselves in bug spray to ward off the mosquitoes that warm summer night. They had a bottle of white wine sitting in an ice bucket and had nearly emptied it. Both wore shorts and tanktops, exposing trim feminine bodies for which most women of their age would die.

“But now, you’re beginning to question that decision?” Millie asked.

“Well, yes. Anthony is such a perfectly fine man, considerate and warm and caring, plus he can be a ton of fun. I’ve never met anyone quite like him.”

Amy’s eyes positively glistened as she discussed him, and her friend saw clearly that her friend was smitten with the man.

“But, if you tie up with him, you’ll likely spend the rest of your days in this small town,” Millie said.

“There would be worse fates than that. I love his kids and they seem to adore me. Besides this town, even with all its hunting and fishing and outdoors bullshit, seems to be growing on me,” she giggled.

Millie nodded. “I’ve found this a good place to live, and it’d be perfect except for the nine months of snow and cold we get here.”

“But the other three months seem to make it all worthwhile, don’t they?” Amy giggled.

“I think you’re in love, Amy,” Millie answered.

“Let’s toast to that,” Amy said raising her glass. Millie raised hers and the two touched glasses. They sipped their drinks and daintily placed them back on the small table between their two porch chairs.

Millie reached for and held her friend’s hand: “I’d love for you to stay around, Amy. You’ve so brightened my life, just as you did during that one year we were in school together.”

“And you have brightened my life, darling, back in those days in high school and again from the moment we met over the back fence when I first moved in here.”

*****
Millie had problems sleeping that night. She brooded over her budding love affair with Eric, wondering whether she should tell him about Milton and if so, when and how. She also knew that if both she and Amy continued to nurture the affairs with Eric and Anthony their own friendships might change; often once a man enters a woman’s life, she knew, they lose contact with their old friends, and Millie felt she’d be devastated if she again lost her friendship with Amy.

In the house next door Amy went to bed in air-conditioned comfort, but she slept no better. Like Millie, she worried about how and when to tell Anthony about her birth as a boy. She also had found that in few months she’d been in Wauconanda she had found her friendship with Millie to become compelling and needed. How would the love that Millie and she shared for each other be affected once Anthony was in her life? Also, how serious was Millie about Eric?

She tossed and turned under the covers, while 60 feet away her friend lay clad only in a light summer baby doll nightie, hoping for occasional breezes that would cool her sweating body.