Chapter Twenty-three
“W hat are you doing here, Jess?” I asked.
“You weren’t at the house, so I figured you’d be at the art show, since it’s literally the only thing going on around here this weekend,” she said.
“I didn’t mean here.” I gestured to the art show. “I meant here as in Gull’s Harbor, California, the west coast.”
“Long story,” she said.
She waved a perfectly manicured hand as if it was nothing, but I knew Jessie better than I knew myself. Truly, I had been there for all of the changes, the hormone replacement therapy, the vaginoplasty, the breast implants, even the speech therapy to get her falsetto where she wanted it. I knew this chick inside and out. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed my sisters hadn’t moved. Seriously, they resembled garden statuary.
“Jess, you remember my sisters, Emily and Sophie,” I said. “Em, Soph, this is Jessie, you remember, my friend who I left Gull’s Harbor with.”
Jessie threw her long hair over her shoulder and struck a pose. “I imagine I look a bit different.” Then she winked. She looked Em over in her thigh-high boots and miniskirt. “Look at you, Em. Baby girl is all grown up! Rawr!”
A giggle burst out of Em and she clapped a hand over her mouth but it did no good as she kept laughing.
Jessie turned to Soph next. She took in the capri pants and sleeveless blouse with a frown then reached up and tousled Soph’s bobbed haircut. “Who buttoned you down like this? We have got to liven up this cut and color. You look like you’re fifty instead of thirty-five.”
“Jess works in the theater in costume design,” I said. “She’s won a Tony.”
“No way,” Em said.
“Way,” Jessie said. She blew on her nails and polished them on the front of her top. “Not bad for a surfer boy from Cali, eh? I know my shit.” She looked back at Soph. “So, you can trust me when I say with a hotsie figure like yours, you could totally work the milf thing if you put in a smidge of effort.”
Soph went beet red, but the twinkle in her gaze showed she was pleased by the sentiment. She asked, ever polite, “So, is this your first trip back to Gull’s Harbor?”
“Yes.” Jessie gazed around the art fair. “I can’t say I’ve missed it.” Then she threw her arm around my shoulders. “I need to borrow Jules for a sec if that’s okay? We have some stuff to talk about.”
As one, my sisters looked at me and I nodded. I had no idea what Jessie was doing here but I was dying to find out.
“All right, we’ll meet up back at the house.” Soph’s tone made it clear I would explain everything later or else.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
Jess and I walked through the festival, while I kept one eye open for Liam on the off chance he was still around. Per Jessie’s request, I hadn’t talked to Liam about her and if he saw her here without warning, well, I didn’t see a happy reunion coming out of it that was for sure.
“Jessie, I’m thrilled to see you, obviously, but what are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’ll explain all when we get back to your house. In the meantime, I have a surprise for you,” she said.
“You do?”
“Yeah, come on.” Jess cut through some booths and led us to a parking lot on the far side of the town green, tucked behind the town hall and the fire station.
She hit the button on a key fob and the doors unlocked on the rented SUV which had its windows half rolled down. Then she hit another button and the back hatch automatically lifted. Inside was a suitcase, a carry on, and two cat carriers. A yowl sounded and my eyes widened. I knew that sound!
“Ah! Spaghetti? Meatball? Is that you?” I rushed forward. Sure enough my furry babies were glaring at me from inside the two plush carriers. I turned back to Jessie and asked, “But how? Why?”
“Well, since I was coming here, I couldn’t watch them for you, and I didn’t want to have a stranger do it, plus, since you can work anywhere and you clearly have a lot going on here, I figured I’d better fly them out with me.”
I rubbed my kitties’ heads through the opening in their carriers. Spag purred and Meat growled. I took that as a good sign that their personalities remained intact.
“Let’s get them home so I can hold them,” I said. “Oh, I’ve missed them and you so much.”
Jessie closed the back hatch and we climbed into the front. It was a short drive up the hill to the house. Once there, we got the kitties inside and gave them lots of attention and some food and water before letting them roam or, in Meatball’s case, sit on the ottoman like a pissed-off blob.
I started a pot of coffee for us, and we sat in the kitchen while it brewed. I took out milk and sugar, knowing how Jessie liked her coffee, and when the pot was done, I brought it to the table.
I poured us each a cup and said, “Okay, I have been more than patient. What’s going on?”
“Dante is going on.” She sounded glum.
“What’s wrong with Dante?” I asked. “You two didn’t break up, did you?”
“Not yet,” she said. “But he told me I either have to woman up and tell my parents about me and us or he will leave me.”
“Oh.” My mouth stayed in the shape of an O for a solid minute before relaxing.
Jessie’s parents had no idea their son was now their daughter. Because they were very conservative and traditional, Jessie had never told them. When she moved to New York, the many miles between them had made it easy for her to hide her gender reassignment so she had.
“Why now?” I asked.
“Because he’s asked me to marry him,” Jessie said. Then she squealed and held out her left hand, which sported a chunky Tiffany Soleste diamond engagement ring.
“ Squee! ” I cried. For the record, I am not one to make that noise. I grabbed her hand to take in the ring and gently turned it to let the diamond sparkle in the sunlight. I let go and then clapped my hands, bouncing in my chair. I was so excited for her. “Congratulations, this is the best news ever.”
“Except for the minor detail of telling my parents.” Jessie sighed. “He said he won’t marry me until I tell my parents the truth and introduce him to them. He’s flying out here in two days. Jules, I have two days to tell my parents everything or I lose the love of my life.”
“Oh, wow,” I said.
We both stared into our coffee cups. This was big time. Jessie had spent the past nine years carefully cultivating the bogus image of a New York ladies’ man to build up the cred with her very macho father. Her mother was forever begging her to find a nice girl to settle down with so she could have grandchildren. To say they had no clue about Jessie’s transition was putting it mildly.
Her mother had long hoped that Jessie and I would marry, but despite what everyone believed, Jessie and I had never been a couple. Obvi. I alone knew the real reasons she had fled Gull’s Harbor with me all those years ago and even now I was afraid to ask if her situation had changed.
The truth was that Jessie had left Gull’s Harbor because, one, she knew she was really a woman inside a man’s body and that her parents could never accept that and, two, she was desperately in love with her best friend, Liam, my boyfriend! Being near Liam every day and not being with him was killing Jessie so she decided to leave.
On that fateful night, when Babs and I had the mother of all blowouts, Jessie had found me walking on the side of the road. Her car had been packed to bursting as she was leaving town. When she heard about my situation, she asked me if I wanted to come with her. I didn’t even hesitate. I jumped in the car, and we took off. Halfway to New York in the middle of Oklahoma—Oklahoma OK, my ass—Jessie confessed to me that she was really a woman and, oopsie, she had been in love with Liam for years.
The crazy thing was that Jessie had never resented my relationship with Liam. She had loved us both. Although she was in love with Liam, she had frequently wished that she’d been in love with me instead because she thought she’d get over me more easily than Liam. I understood this completely. Liam was the sort of person who inspired deep and abiding love, which was probably why I had never gotten over him either.
The thought of what Liam would make of Jessie’s arrival made my stomach cramp. Maybe Jessie coming out to everyone was for the best. I hoped I wasn’t being selfish for acknowledging how much easier it would make things for me and Liam, but it totally would. I wouldn’t have to keep the secret anymore, which was such a relief.
“Since you’re here and about to have a tell-all, would it be all right if I told Liam?” I asked.
“Yes.” Her answer was decisive but then she added, “Just let me tell my parents first. I can’t risk them finding out secondhand. It would kill them. You understand?”
“Absolutely, of course,” I said.
Jessie looked so bleak that I reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
“It’ll be okay,” I said. “Do you want me to go with you to talk to them?”
“No, every time my mother sees you, she gets fixated on the two of us giving her bambinos.” Jessie shook her head. “It would just confuse her.”
“Gotcha,” I agreed.
We spent the next hour role playing different ways for her to tell her parents while the cats scampered around the house, mostly Spaghetti, which was a vast playground for them compared to my tiny Brooklyn apartment. We debated what she should wear, super girly dress and heels or more like a long-haired guy and pretend to be a gay man. Jessie rejected that because she knew Dante would never go for it. He wanted full transparency. Oh, boy.
In the end, we decided it would be best if she just came right out and told them, while wearing her best Tadashi Shoji and carrying her favorite Kate Spade bag. Much like Babs, Jessie firmly believed that fashion makes the woman.
Em and Soph hadn’t returned by the time I walked her to the door. Jess was staying at a nearby resort, believing a full spa treatment might help her get through the next couple of days. I wondered whether I should call my sisters or deal with the as yet unanswered text from Liam on my phone. Probably, I should deal with the text. I glanced at his house wondering how his conversation with Courtney had gone. I was trying very hard not to worry, not to be jealous, and not to fret. I was failing exponentially at all three.
“Hey,” Jessie paused on the doorstep. “I’ve been all about me and you look worried. Is everything okay?”
And that, right there, was why Jessie and I had remained besties all these years. We knew each other’s tells and genuinely cared about one another.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. She had enough on her plate. She did not need to add worrying about me to it.
I studied the woman who had been my friend when I had none, who had let me cry all over her shoulder when my heart had been shredded over leaving Liam. Together, we had carved out new lives for ourselves three thousand miles away and for the most part we had succeeded, and yet, here we were back in the place it had all started. It just proved that you could never outrun your past, no matter how fast or how far you ran.
“Come here,” Jess said. “Come in for the real thing.”
She held her arms open, and I stepped into them, comforted by the familiar feel of my gal pal, her warmth, her own particular scent, a delicate perfume that always reminded me of nights out in the city. Despite the pain of our mutual heartbreak, we’d had a lot of good times, too.
“It’s going to be okay, girlfriend.” Jess pushed some of my curls back from my face and kissed my forehead like a mother comforting a child.
“Am I interrupting something?” At the sound of Liam’s voice, Jess and I jumped apart.
Jessie’s eyes were wide with shock. She hadn’t seen Liam since we’d left nine years ago. This had to be excruciating. I clutched her hand in mine. I had no idea if Liam would recognize her or not, but if I lied to him now, I knew with a certainty I’d only felt about one other thing in life—white chocolate is not really chocolate—that there would be no coming back from it. Still, it wasn’t my secret to tell. I left it to Jessie.
“Not at all.” Jessie squeezed my hand once before letting go. Then she did the bravest thing I’d ever seen anyone do. She turned and looked Liam right in the eye and said, “It’s good to see again, Liam.”
Liam frowned. He studied Jessie’s face. There was no light of recognition. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”
Jessie’s expression was bittersweet. “A long time ago.” She looked at me and I nodded. Jess turned back to Liam and said, “It’s me, Jessie, well, Jessica now. Jessica Lopez.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed and then went wide. He turned to me, two spots of color burning on his cheeks. “Is this a joke?”
“No,” I said, my throat tight. “No joke.”
His head whipped back to Jessie. I saw the second the recognition hit. Jessie had always had fine features, a real pretty boy, with wide brown eyes, a thin nose, and full lips. And her smile, her smile was a killer, with full lips over straight white teeth, I’d seen her dazzle lesser men with that smile. She gave him a shy version of it now.
“Surprise,” she said.
Liam shook his head. He staggered back a step. He looked at me. “How long?”
We didn’t need him to spell it out.
“I started transitioning the minute we got to New York,” Jessie said.
“So, you’re a...” Liam gestured wildly at her.
“A woman?” Jess asked helpfully. “Yes.”
“But I thought—” He glanced between us. The hurt in his eyes made me wince.
“Liam, I’m sorry,” I said. “Jessie and I were never that. We’re friends.”
“Best friends,” Jessie said.
It was the wrong thing to say. Fury rose up in Liam like I had never seen before. A vein throbbed in his temple and he looked like he wanted to hit something or someone.
“You were my friends,” he snapped. Liam looked at us with such anguish, I thought I might get sick. “You were my best friends. Do you have any idea how I felt when you two disappeared? My best friend and my girl. It fucking destroyed me.”
“I’m sorry,” Jessie said. “We never wanted to hurt you.”
Liam laughed but there was no amusement in the sound. “Never wanted to hurt me? I wanted to die that summer. I even tried to kill myself on Devil’s Backbone a time or two.”
Jessie blanched. It was as bad as Ten had said, but I knew it would have been worse if I had stayed. Babs had made sure of that. It was time to tell Liam the whole truth.
“Liam—” I began but he cut me off.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it. There’s nothing you can say to me to make this okay. Do you know how many nights I spent picturing you two together, feeling like a tool, hating you both but still loving you, too?” He looked at Jessie. “You were my best friend! Did you really think this would have changed anything between us?”
A tear streaked down Jessie’s cheek. She reached for him but drew her hand back. “I couldn’t do it anymore. Don’t you understand, Liam? It was killing me.”
Liam sucked in a breath and stared at her. He shook his head and buried his fingers in his hair. “You should have told me.”
Jessie nodded. Liam was right. We all knew it, but we’d been young adults navigating stuff that was bigger than us when this went down. Then he turned on me. He dropped his hands from his hair and took a step toward me. Frustration poured off him in waves of heat. “And you, you left me without a word. No note. No explanation. Nothing.”
There it was. The hurt he’d been pushing down, down, down, until Jessie’s appearance ripped the lid off his pain and anger.
“You broke my god damn heart,” he said.
“Liam—” Now I was crying, too. There was so much I needed to tell him.
“Save it,” he growled. “You know what? I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can’t. Keep your secrets and your bullshit and stay out of my life, both of you.”
He turned and stormed away, leaving wreckage in his wake, which was only fair as I’m sure that’s what we’d done to him all those years ago.
Jessie and I went back into the house. I took a tissue and handed her the box.
“This is a mess, isn’t it?” she asked.
“A bit,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” She shrugged as she dabbed her eyes.
“Are you still in love with him?” I could feel my shoulders rise up to my ears. I didn’t want Jessie to be in love with Liam in that way. I knew it was selfish, but I wanted Liam all to myself, and I wanted Jessie to be okay with it, so I didn’t lose her friendship, too.
“Nah.” She waved her tissue in the direction of the door. “He was a crush. An intense first love crush, but I think he’s a bit too manly man for me. I mean, he’s totally hot, but I’m much more into the suave and debonair type these days.”
“A metrosexual like Dante?” I clarified.
“Yeah, I’m so in love with him, Jules,” Jess said. “Otherwise, I’d be happy to lie to my parents until my dying day.”
“Well, I for one am glad you’re going to tell them the truth,” I said. “As we surfers know, the only way out of something is through it.”
“I know. I’m sorry I caused a problem for you, Jules,” she said. “I knew he’d be angry, but I figured since you two were doing the horizontal mambo again, he’d mellow out about us leaving town together.”
“Well, he’s likely still feeling betrayed. He doesn’t know about Babs and our huge fight, her ultimatum, or that she’s not my mom,” I said.
“You haven’t told him about Babs?” Jessie asked. “Why not?”
“We’ve been a little preoccupied,” I said. “And I just didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want the past to taint the present and I’m struggling to figure out how I feel about everything never mind explain it to someone else.”
“Jules, I say this with great love, but you need to get your shit together,” Jess said. “I know it was one hell of a complicated mother-daughter thing you two had going, and I can only imagine how much more complicated it became when you found out she wasn’t your mother, but this is stuff you tell your boyfriend, like, right away. I hate to say it, but you need to figure out whether you want Liam in your life or not and if you do, you have to let him all the way in...and not just in your womanly portal so to speak.”
“Oh, god, I’m such an idiot,” I said. “What am I going to do, Jessie? He’s the love of my life and I’ve probably lost him...again.”
Jessie wrapped her arm around me and pulled me in for a hug. We were standing in the kitchen in front of the window, which looked out across the yard into Liam’s house. I saw his silhouette in the room opposite just before the window shades slammed down. The thought of losing him permanently twisted in my chest like an unsharpened knife blade. I really didn’t think I would survive it this time.