Best Girlfriends Forever - 5

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Best Girlfriends Forever – 5


By Katherine Day


(Two women, reunited after forty years from their high school days as boys, have both found ideal men who want to marry them; they wonder whether and how they should inform them of their past. Edited by Eric, who has saved the author from numerous inconsistencies. Copyright 2014)

Chapter Eleven: Welcome to the Campus

Wauconanda was nestled into a valley between two ridges of tree-covered hills, one ridge steep and high-enough to have developed into a popular ski hill for the area. Because of the location of the city, Millie chose the name “Valley Players” for the title of the college’s budding theater program. She had taken to building the program with gusto, which often left her exhausted in the evening, taking away time that she might have spent with Eric.

After the night on the porch, she did not see Eric for nearly two weeks, largely because of her own concentration on preparing for the coming school year; she carried a full teaching load with classes in modern American English and drama while handling the theater program. When she first came to the college, she readily accepted the heavy workload because it provided for extra income and would keep her busy. After the death of Jennifer, and the breaking of many ties by moving to this small town, she had been worried about becoming lonely.

“I’ll be glad to take on the extra work,” she told the dean when she was first interviewed for the job.

“I’m afraid it’ll be a lot of work, Ms. Lester,” the dean said. “We would like to create a fulltime position in drama, but the money’s not there. I’m hoping that once we get the program going we can get an endowment created for the position, and then maybe we could lighten your teaching load.”

“That’s fine, dean. I’d love to try it. Besides, I’m alone in the world now, so it’ll be a way to fill out the hours,” she said.

The dean previously taught political science at the college and had been a candidate for two Congressional elections, narrowly losing both. He was a tall, graying man of about her age; he had sparkling eyes, and typical of his political nature, he had a way of engaging people.

“Sorry to hear you’re alone,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “I’m sure you won’t be lonely for long here, Ms. Lester. We’re a friendly town.”

The glint in his eyes seemed to Millie to be flirtatious and she looked to see if there was a wedding ring on his hand. There was none.

He must have sensed her unease and quickly said, “Well, I’ll have Mrs. Swenson get you a student assistant to show you around campus. Go home and I’ll give you a call in a week whether we’re interested in bringing you on.”

“Thank you, dean, but I’d like to have a general idea of what kind of pay and benefits you might offer,” she said.

“Mrs. Swenson will give you all that information, Ms. Lester. I don’t know those details myself.”

“Thank you.”

She got up to leave and he rose from his desk, and came over to her, taking her by the waist as if to lead her out of the office.

“Let me say, Ms. Lester,” he began. “Or, may I call you Mildred?”

“That’s fine, but I like Millie,” she said, giving him a flirtatious look.

“Ok, Millie. Let me say, Millie, that I want to recommend you for the job. I’m not sure I can get you an assistant professor’s rank, since you lack a Ph. D., but I’m going to try.”

“Does that mean I have the job, sir?”

“No, not yet, since I have a committee to deal with and you may need to come up for another interview, but I think you’d be perfect for the job.”

He smiled.

The two paused as the dean was about to open the door. “May I ask something else, sir?” she said.

“Of course.”

“You’re fully aware of my background, my previous life . . . ah . . . as a man?”

The dean turned toward Millie, putting his hands on her upper arms, and looked at her: “Yes, Millie, we know all about Milton and the great teacher and person he was, and we think Mildred Lester will bring the same qualities to Dortman. The committee knows all about it, but while we won’t hide that from anyone, we won’t advertise that fact to our students, other faculty or the public. If someone inquires, we’ll tell them the truth. Sound fair to you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you choose to make your change public, that’s your business,” he said. “I would like you to let me know before you do so, just so we’re prepared if anyone raises a question about it.”

“Thank you, sir. I’d like the job very much, sir.”

“We’ll see Millie, but I think you have a good chance.”

One week later, Millie accepted the position as Assistant Professor of English at Dortman. The dean apparently had been successful in convincing the college that Millie deserved the ranking. “You’ll have a year’s probation, however, Millie,” he told her.

Assistant Professor Mildred Lester became an almost instant hit with her students in her classrooms. Her teaching style was animated, sometimes even comedic, but she always was sure to keep her classes full of information and perspectives that would further their education. Soon, her classes became in demand, and the college convinced her to take over a freshman survey course in English literature, usually one of the toughest classes to teach, since the students tended to approach the subject with an expectation of being bored. By the third year, the course had become popular with incoming students.

Millie found it difficult to recruit student actors in the first drama program in her opening year of the drama program, but once she did she directed the students into a well-received season of two plays that found wide audience favor. By the second year, drama almost rivaled the students’ long popular music program in student interest. The plays got better and better and with the fifth year coming upon them, Millie was working hard to create a three-play season.

*****
Eric Gustafsson looked forward to his Sundays with Millie. Always a true student – even in his high school days when he was teased for being such a “square” and a “nerd” – he found comfort in two activities: his studies in science and his interest in the outdoors. A fascination with birds developed during his junior year in high school when an aunt took him along for an Audubon Club outing. He was the youngest person in the group of bird-watchers by a couple of decades but his excitement over seeing strange new birds soon overcame his natural shyness.

His enthusiasm for his new-found interest soon found acceptance among the older, mainly gray-haired crowd of club members on their early morning outings. Eric knew he had found his niche in life, and he graduated with degrees in biology and forestry, providing a highly regarded master’s thesis on migrating habits of Canadian geese. He later used that research to become an expert on how communities can control the vexing problem of the geese whose presence has troubled parks, airports and urban communities in recent years. He offered numerous humane ways to lure the geese from such problem areas.

Thus he landed the teaching position at Dortman to help build its reputation as a leading school in environmental science. Like Mildred Lester, Professor Gustafsson was the reason why many young people were lured to the small, backwoods liberal arts college in Wauconanda.

In many ways, Mildred and Eric were perfect for each other: they both were workaholics with simple life styles. Until they met each other, both worked seven days a week, with an occasional night out with one of their few acquaintances. Now, Sundays had become “their day,” a day to be together to scour the Sunday papers over morning coffee at Millie’s home, find time to drive out into the nearby forest or lake areas to explore nature and then finish up a dinner out, often driving to other towns 20 to 30 miles away since restaurants were so lacking in inspiration in Wauconanda.

It was only in the last few months that the two began spending their Sundays in this manner; prior to that, Eric’s time had been taken up with caring for his aging mother who had moved in with him when he came to Dortman some 25 years before. He dearly loved her and the two had been inseparable, since she had also enjoyed the outdoors with her son. Her death earlier that year had relieved him of the constant demands of his mother and in many ways her death at eighty-eight was a blessing in ending the woman’s suffering.

His mother’s death freed up his time but it also brought on loneliness that even his interest in nature and biology could not overcome.

Eric’s desires, however, were not as chaste as it might seem. He yearned constantly to have a woman at his side, to feel her soft warmth in his bed and to welcome his kisses, caresses and his manhood. Since his teens, Eric’s desires had found self-gratification as the only outlet, except for a few brief ventures with several women in his life. None of them worked out for various reasons, and Eric always felt inadequate in their company and in bed. Women invariably were attracted to his tall, manly body and his warm almost boyish looks. His slowly graying hair now added to his natural attractiveness. He failed to recognize his own charm and never pressed his advantage, waiting for his female partner to make advances.

Eric met the pretty Professor Lester at a faculty reception in her first months on the campus, even sharing a wine together that night. He was surprised to see the woman – who seemed to have a warm, welcoming personality – had no rings on her fingers, indicating she must be single. Usually, the women on the faculty at Dortman were married or lesbians; in the past, such realizations dimmed Eric’s interest in seeking female companionship on the campus.

With Millie, however, he felt some hope. She was about his same age, intelligent and certainly lovely. More importantly, she seemed to be interested in him in that first meeting, asking him about himself, his interests and even expressing a curiosity about bird-watching. Now, that he was alone in the world following the death of his mother, he might be ready, even at his relatively mature age, to experience a woman in his life.

“Millie is a dream,” he wrote one night in the private journal he began years ago largely to record his observations on birds. Every so often, Eric wrote matters of a personal nature in the journal. He ended this entry with these words: “I pray this dream is real.”

*****
By the Labor Day weekend, weather in the Northwoods city takes on an autumn-like quality, with the water in the lakes already becoming too cold for swimming, except for the most hardy. A late summer heat wave brought daytime temperatures nearing 90 Fahrenheit as the long weekend approached and promised to hang on for several more days.

“Millie, let’s head out to the Goose Lake resort on Sunday,” Eric suggested as the two met for lunch on the Friday before the holiday weekend. They stopped at a popular coffee shop near campus; it was their first get-together in nearly two weeks, both having been busy with their work.

“I guess I’m free, Eric, but why the resort?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, but I never asked if you liked to swim,” he said, blushing. “There’s a nice beach there, and they have a nice restaurant.”

“Oh yes, I swim, Eric, but not very well.”

“Well,” he said, his face growing into a deeper red, “I was thinking we’d do more than swim. They have comfortable surroundings and we can lie on the beach.”

“Is the water warm enough to swim?” she asked.

“It’s a bit cool, but I think you’ll love it once you’re in.”

“But I don’t have a good swim suit, Eric. It’s kind of old-fashioned.”

“Millie, believe me you’ll look good in whatever you wear. How about it?”

*****
“Oh Amy, I don’t know why I agreed to do this,” Millie said to her friend that night as they enjoyed their after-dinner coffee on Amy’s front porch. The day’s heat still lingered even though the sun had already dipped out of sight beyond the hills that surrounded Wauconanda.

“Look, in a little while, why don’t you and I go back to your place and you can try on the suit and let me see how it looks on you,” Amy said.

“He said I’d look good in anything,” Millie said. “I’ve never had anyone say that to me. I guess he was just being nice.”

“Oh girl, you make me sick,” Amy said. “You’re a lovely woman, really you are. And you have a figure that any woman your age would die for.”

“Not as good a figure as yours, Amy.”

“Oh damn, Millie. I wished I had your soft curves.”

“But . . .” Millie began only to be silenced by her friend.

“This is silly talk. Let’s face it we’re both lovely women and we both have men drooling over us now. There are not many women our age who have that.”

Millie nodded and the two remained silent for a few moments, sipping their wine as they sat on the porch listening to the crickets and birds and occasional motorcar noises.

“But when are we going to tell these men about our background, Amy? That what is worrying me.”

Millie’s question brought a pall over the sweetness of the evening.

“I don’t know, Millie. I don’t know.”

“I think it should be soon, Amy, like this weekend. Eric I know is considering me as wife material.”

Amy nodded. “I told Anthony I don’t want to marry him, but he’s pressing me for a permanent relationship, maybe even living together. I need to tell him soon, too.”

Chapter Twelve: Reactions

The Labor Day outing turned out to be idyllic: the day was mild with a slight breeze and the sun was filtered through a light haze, softening its brightness. Millie and Eric spent much of the day under a large beach umbrella on lounge chairs rented from the resort. The beach itself was crowded with families and the cries of young children laughing, yelling or wailing filled the air.

Millie brought along two plays to read; she needed to choose one for the final play of the season before the start of the school year. Eric, too, brought along his tablet upon which he planned to work on lesson plans for the coming school year. It wasn’t long before Millie dozed off, having read only the first half of one play; Eric found himself unable to concentrate, and soon shut down his tablet. He looked over at the sleeping Millie wondering if perhaps this might not be a good time to pop the question. How would he word it, he fretted? How about: “Would you be my wife, Millie?” No, he thought, that sounded too stark. He thought of something more romantic, like “I love you Millie with all my heart. You have stolen my heart and you have made me so happy. Will you become mine for life? Will you marry me?”

No, he thought. That was too soppy, too syrupy. Besides, Eric was not one to speak in such terms; it betrayed his stoic Nordic upbringing.

Eric concentrated his gaze upon the trim, lovely woman next to him. Even her light snoring seemed adorable. It seemed obvious to him now: he had to ask for her hand in marriage. His mother – in one of her last lucid conversations of her life – had told him that she thought Millie was a lovely girl and that now that he was to be alone in life he should marry her. Millie had been the first woman that his mother had approved of among the few he had dated in his long bachelor life.

He didn’t know how long he was fixated upon Millie’s soft, lovely face. The woman seemed to wear no makeup and yet her face was largely without the wrinkles typical of women of her age. He mused to himself, picturing the pair standing before the altar of St. Gregory’s Catholic Church taking their vows, Millie in a simple white, gauzy wedding gown that exposed her lovely shoulders and he in a tuxedo (but no tails). They’d make a handsome couple, to be sure.

“What are you thinking about, Eric?” Millie said, shocking him out of his reverie.

“Oh, huh? . . . ah . . . you woke up?”

She giggled. “Yes, dummy, I’m awake and taking nourishment. You looked like you were in a daze.”

“Um,” he said, still shaking off the fogginess in his brain. “I was just thinking how pretty you looked.”

“Oh come on. You must have been looking at that young college girl behind us.”

“No, I was looking at you.”

“I can’t imagine I look pretty when I sleep. Was I snoring?”

He nodded. “But it’s such a cute snore.”

“That’s not what my . . .” Millie said, failing to complete the sentence, since she was about to say “my wife.”

“My what?” Eric asked.

“Oh nothing.”

“It’s OK Millie if you had previous boyfriends and even slept with them,” he said.

Millie was taken aback, since it sounded like she slept with every man she met. The truth was that the only other person she had ever been to bed with had been Jennifer, her deceased spouse and the mother of their children.

“I don’t sleep around, Eric,” she said firmly.

“Millie, Millie. I didn’t mean to say that. I just wanted to say that what we did in the past is not important. After all, we both have had a long life and we must have had relationships before.”

He reached over and caressed her soft arm gently.

“Millie, I need to ask you something now. It’s so important to me and I hope you answer will be ‘yes.’”

“No, Eric,” she said sitting up on the lounge chair, putting her feet in the sand and looking him directly in the face. “Please don’t ask me that question.”

Eric took her hands into his and looked back at Millie, her face full of pleading. “How do you know what I want to ask?”

“Oh Eric, darling, I’ve seen this coming,” she began. “I know how I feel about you. I’m extremely fond of you. I adore you so much.”

“But I want to marry you, Millie,” he said, the words bursting out of his mouth. It wasn’t how he wanted to make the proposal, so bluntly, so crudely, so unromantically.

Tears suddenly filled Millie’s eyes. “I just can’t marry you, Eric,” she said.

“But why? Don’t you love me?”

He moved over to sit next to her on the lounge chair, putting his arms around her and holding her tightly. She began crying in earnest and he wiped the tears from her face. Several beachgoers watched the scene, some obviously wondering if the two were having a fight. Besides, the sight of two such mature adults hugging on the beach was rare; such scenes were for young lovers.

Millie nodded: “Yes, I love you, Eric, but I just can’t marry you now.”

“But why?”

“Give me a minute, dear,” she said. She forced herself to stop crying.

Eric reached into the picnic basket they brought and took out a towel and helped to dry her tears.

“Is everything all right?” a tall man said, watching the scene from nearby.

“Yes, we’re fine,” Eric said.

Turning back to Millie, he said: “Millie, I deserve an explanation, don’t I?”

“Yes, Eric you do, but this place is too public,” she replied. “Let me tell you later, when we’re alone.”

The prospect of talking about Millie’s pending “explanation” hovered like a cloud upon the rest of the day, their picnic lunch, their sharing of wine and their short swim in the cool lake.

*****
“Darling, I love you dearly,” Millie said after Eric was seated on the couch in her living room. They returned to Millie’s home as she had suggested. She poured each small goblets of red wine, which sat untouched on the coffee table before them.

“And I you. That’s why we should be married, Millie,” he said. “I just don’t understand.”

“You will,” she said. “Just let me tell you why.”

He took her hand, awaiting her words. Finally she spoke:

“Eric, I have been deceiving you and I am extremely sorry for that but when you hear why I hope you’ll understand.”

He said nothing, but stared into her eyes. His gaze did nothing to make it easy for her to explain.

“You see Eric,” she continued, figuring she’d hit the issue headon. “Until about seven years ago, I lived as a man named Milton Lester. I was not Mildred Lester until then.”

Eric looked at her, a blank expression on his face.

“But . . . but . . . I’m confused. You mean you lived as a man?”

“No darling, I was physically a man until then. I was born a boy.”

“Oh my God,” he said, taking his arm from around her shoulders and moving away from her, leaving a gap of some six inches between the two.

Between crying spasms, Millie told of her earlier life. Eric sat there, unmoving and saying nothing. He listened to her tell a disjointed story of her life. When she finished, he got up from the couch, picked up his car keys off the coffee table and left the house without saying a word. Millie looked down at the untouched glasses of wine and cried.

*****
Amy thought she’d never forget the appearance of her friend Millie when she stopped by after work on the Tuesday after Labor Day. As she drove into her driveway Amy noticed that Millie’s curtains were drawn closed and thought that was strange. It was nearly six o’clock and Millie only drew her curtains at night; she always opened her curtains first thing in the morning.

Wondering why they were still closed, she called Millie to see if her friend was all right. She got an answering machine, and left a message for Millie to call her.

A half an hour went by and Millie still hadn’t returned her call. Something’s wrong over there, Amy told herself. She knew Millie had spent the previous day with her friend Eric and wondered whether something had happened. Was Millie even home, she wondered? Or, was she lying collapsed on the floor with a heart attack? It could be anything.

Amy decided to walk next door to inquire, peering first through a garage window to learn that Millie’s car was parked inside. She knew college classes wouldn’t start for another week and thought that maybe she and Eric had decided to take a day’s extension to the long weekend. She smiled at the prospect of her friend – always such a strait-laced person – engaged in a tryst. It was a sweet thought, but it was probably not likely, since neither Eric nor Millie seemed the type who would stay away from work for a lovers’ rendezvous.

After prolonged doorbell ringing and loud knocking, Amy finally heard a faint “who’s there?”

“Millie, open up, it’s Amy. Dear, open up.” She yelled loudly, worried she’d alert neighbors.

“Go away,” Millie replied in a voice so husky and soft Amy could hardly hear.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Go away.” The voice was a bit stronger, it seemed.

“I’m going to stand here pounding on your door ‘til you open, Millie.”

“You can’t come in. I look like hell.”

This went on for several minutes before Millie finally opened the door slightly. Amy looked into a darkened living room, faintly noticing a partially full wine bottle with two glasses, still with wine in them, sitting on the coffee table. Millie stood behind the door so Amy couldn’t see her.

“Let me in for God’s sake, Millie,” Amy pleaded. She wondered whether she should push her way into the room, physically pushing her friend backward.

She heard sobs coming from behind the door and as they grew in intensity, Amy gently pushed the door open, feeling very little resistance. She entered the room and Millie fell into her arms, her crying accompanied by shaking and occasional shrieks. Amy smelled her friend’s unwashed body and foul breath as she cried, but Amy held her tightly, caressing her and slowly the sobbing subsided.

“We’re such freaks, Amy,” Millie said finally. “How could any man want us?”

Amy said nothing, but led her friend to the sofa.

“Just sit there a minute, Millie. Let me get some light on in this place and then we can settle down and you can tell me all about it.”

Millie nodded and sat primly on the sofa, her hands in her lap, looking as if she was schoolgirl awaiting punishment from the school principal. Amy opened the drapes and the brightness of a sun dropping lower in the sky flooded the room. She picked up the wine bottle and glasses to take them back to the kitchen.

“Would you like some water, Millie? Or, should I make coffee or tea?”

“Water,” her friend sniffled, still blinking her eyes from the sunlight pouring into the room.

When they were settled together on the sofa, Millie told how Eric had walked out on her, beginning to cry again as she related how Eric said nothing as he left the room.

“What are we going to do, Amy?” Millie began. “I really love Eric and would have loved to spend our life together, but he must think I’m something repulsive, someone he’d never want to touch, much less kiss and make love to.”

Millie reached over and drew her friend against her. She knew what Millie said had some truth; they were “freaks” and men always seemed to want soft, feminine women and could never lose the idea that their lover once was a man as well. Yet, she didn’t want Millie to lose hope that someday she might indeed find a man who would love her totally and completely, or that Eric might eventually understand her friend and become that man again.

“Give him time, Millie. I’m sure he must have been in shock. You really are a most feminine woman and I know he never suspected you were anything but.”

“He left with such suddenness, Amy. As if I were an untouchable.”

“Give him time. He’s a scientist, after all, and I know he’ll look into everything he can about transgendered persons.”

“I don’t know, Amy. I don’t know.”

The two cuddled together for a few minutes.

Millie broke the silence. “Amy, we have each other, don’t we?”

“Yes we do, my dear. Yes we do.”

*****
Amy feared that Anthony Wicker’s reaction to learning that the lovely woman he had been dating had once been a boy would be to reject her, just as Eric Gustafsson had done to Millie. It was logical; both men had spent their adult lives in a backwater timber town and likely had no acquaintance with or knowledge about trangendered women.

She wondered whether she should inform him about her transition. After all, the two had a perfectly great relationship and didn’t need to formalize it into a marriage.

Yet, she knew that Anthony was about to propose to her; the signs had been obvious. At his urging, she agreed to prepare her favorite dinner for him and his two teenage children; on a pleasant Sunday in August, she prepared her terrific lasagna at her home kitchen and took it over to Anthony’s house for a dinner.

The meal and the day had been a tremendous success. His two teenage children, seventeen-year-old Heather and fifteen-year-old Trent not only adored the lasagna, but warmed up to Amy easily. She had worried that the children would resent her in that they’d consider her a replacement for their deceased mother whom they missed terribly, even though many years had passed.

She was angered at Anthony, however, for telling the children that Amy used to be a singer; she had told him during their early dating that she liked jazz, and had even sung a bit. She had even tried her hand at professional singing career she had admitted to him, without specifying it was largely in drag.

Heather’s eye lit up with the mention of Amy’s singing talents.

“I wanna sing so bad, Amy, and I’m in the jazz singing club at school. Maybe you can give me some hints.”

“Oh, I don’t know that I’m that good,” Amy said. “But I’m glad you like jazz. Maybe you can sing for me tonight or sometime.”

Heather thought a minute and then answered. “Only if you sing, too.”

“I’m pretty rusty,” she answered.

“No you aren’t. You sang just beautifully when we were out at the karaoke place last week, Amy,” Anthony said.

It turned out to be a great evening of fun – family fun. Amy still retained her piano skills and accompanied Heather in her singing, which was spirited if a bit raw in spots. They were joined by Trent who brought out his saxophone and got in a few timely licks. Even Anthony strummed along on a guitar. They all joined in singing around the piano, belting out old favorites like “Old MacDonald’s Farm,” “Bill Bailey,” and “On Top of Old Smoky.” And, they laughed a lot. It was a joyous evening.

Amy accompanied herself in singing a few jazz standards, including her favorite, “God Bless the Child,” which Heather immediately recognizing it as a Billie Holiday favorite.

When they finished the songfest, Anthony gave Amy a tour of the house. It was a large colonial-style home built with great attention to detail right after World War II. He showed her the master bedroom, which had recently been redecorated, and proudly pointed out that there were “his” and “hers” walk-in closets. The “hers” closet was empty except for a vacuum cleaner and a few other cleaning supplies.

“We’ll take those out and my next wife will have the whole closet to herself,” Anthony said, winking at her.

Amy grew red. “Whoever that will be will be a happy woman,” she replied, a bit coldly.

“I’m sure she’ll love it here and we’ll love having such a lovely woman in our lives.”

With that, Amy closed the closet door. “I guess it’s time to go now, Anthony. Have to get to work early tomorrow.”

“Of course,” he said.

Driving home that night, she knew that Anthony had laid the seed for a proposal of marriage. What could be more obvious? An empty closet, indeed.

*****
The opportunity to confront Anthony with her transgendered status presented itself on the Sunday after her conversation with Millie. Anthony invited her to a Saturday visit to a nearby casino, run by the Chippewa Indian tribe, which was noted for its top-rated, first-class restaurant.

“The casino? I’m not interested in gambling, Anthony,” she protested.

“We won’t gamble, dear, but their restaurant is the fanciest in the area, and I’ve reserved a special table for us,” he said.

It truly was a special table. It was set off by itself, separated from other diners by a clever design of drapes. The room was decorated in the style of the French can-can era done with true class. The place was awe-inspiring.

“I’ve been in restaurants all over the world,” Amy said. “This place is a high-class as any I’ve seen, and to think it’s built right in the backwoods.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Anthony said. “The tribes have hit a gold mine with this casino-business, which is OK since they were so poor before. Now they can really do things up with style.”

The dinner and wine were first class and after dessert had been served, Amy and Anthony relaxed with a cognac.

“Darling, I have something special for you tonight,” he said, reaching into the inside of his suit coat and pulling out a small, velvet covered box.

Feeling this was coming, Amy reacted immediately.

“Anthony, no, not yet. I need to tell you something before I take your gift,” she said firmly.

Anthony continued to hold up the small box and urged her to take it and open it. She took it from his hand, but set it down in the middle of the table, unopened. She spoke slowly and directly.

“Anthony, I know what this is. This is an engagement ring and I’m sure it is beautiful and that any woman would be pleased to wear. I know too that you are a marvelous man with two marvelous children. And, I know as well that you all but proposed to me the night you showed me the empty closet in the master bedroom suite.

“But, before you ask me to marry you, I need to tell you something.”

“And what would that be? That you’re a mass murderer?”

“Don’t be silly, but I need to tell you that I not always the woman you see before you. You see I was born as a boy and . . .”

“Oh that! I know all about that,” Anthony interrupted her.

“You what?”

“No one told me, but I suspect a couple of bigwigs in your company know that, Amy. You know I’m an attorney and I used to be a prosecuting attorney and I know how to check people out.”

“You checked me out, without my knowledge?” Amy yelled.

“Very discreetly, Amy dear, but I needed to know what kind of woman I’m inviting into my house and to live with my children. And, I hope you check me out, too.”

Amy was confused. She hated that he checked her out, but she could hardly blame him.

“And you know all about my early life as Adam?” she asked.

“Yes, but I also know you are about as complete a woman I’ve ever known and the most beautiful and intelligent and caring and fun. And I love you. I hope you love me.”

Amy slid over on the banquette seat, moving tightly against him. She looked into his eyes, raised her lips and the two kissed.

“But your children, Anthony? How will we tell them?”

“Don’t you worry, Amy. I’ve already talked to them and they know and understand. Heather has gay friends and also knows a former boy student at the high school who is currently transitioning. She’s cool with it. Trent’s not so sure, but after our songfest and your lasagna, I think he’s been convinced. They both love you.”

“You rascal, you. You already had this planned out. Don’t I have a say in this?” Amy said, smiling at him.

“Of course, dear. You can always say ‘no.’”

“You know I couldn’t say ‘no.’”

“Actually, I didn’t, honey,” he said, his tone more serious. “You’re such an independent woman and I wasn’t sure you wanted to hook onto a backwoods lawyer like me.”

“Oh, Anthony, I love you so. Yes! Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes.” She flung her arms around this marvelous man.

She left the casino that night proudly displaying a sparkling, dazzling engagement ring. She nestled into the arms of Anthony as they strolled out of the restaurant and into the cool Northwoods August night.

(To be concluded)

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Comments

"Yes! Yes! Yes! "

"A thousand times yes.”

Way cool, yay!

DogSig.png

Poor Millie

littlerocksilver's picture

In a way, this will be a double blow to her. Maybe 'what's his face' will come around. I hope so.

Portia

OMG! How completely wonderful.....

For Amy! Yes yes yes! Now we just need Eric to realize how much of a horses @ss he's being. I mean really, if his own dearly departed Mother said Millie's the "one", what should it matter about her past. After all Momma always knows best! Katherine dear, another lovely chapter hon. Loving Hugs Talia