Four Girls and a Guy - Suzanne Jenkins Page 0,4
walked in. “I’m sorry about your yoga mat,” she said, drying her hair with a towel.
“I’ll buy a new one. Sit down and I’ll get you coffee. I guess I have to be your slave today,” Alison said.
“You don’t have to, Ally. It’s my own fault. Where’s Laura?”
“She had to work, so you know she’s pissed off,” Alison said, setting a mug of coffee in front of Joan.
“Well, in all fairness, she’s an adult, too,” Samantha said. “Ha! We should all know better.”
“Did I hear Tom’s voice? I hope he didn’t notice me, you know, on the floor.”
“He didn’t,” Samantha said. “He was just as drunk as we were. It’s going to take a week for my liver to get back to normal, and then we go back to school. Yippee!”
“Me too,” Joan said, frowning. “Where the hell did the summer go?”
Where did the summer go? Alison asked herself. The anticlimax of graduation had shocked and saddened her. Four years of college under her belt and acceptance into a prestigious medical school should have buoyed her up. Instead, lack of confidence wreaked havoc, and the fear of failure had almost paralyzed her.
Her wonderful father, a physician active on the medical board of the local hospital in their Southern California town, had hinted to her that he was available to her if she ever needed to talk about pressing intimate matters.
But she wouldn’t do or say anything that might hurt her father. Alison was the princess, the longed-for daughter after an onslaught of boys. John’s brother Mike had six boys; Charlie had two. Only brother Steve had two girls.
Alison’s brothers were all firefighters like their cousins and grandfather. She was the only child who had even the slightest interest in becoming a doctor. Starting early, one of her first toys was the game Operation, followed by a doctor kit.
Beautiful Alison was placed up on a pedestal by her father. From birth, her curly black hair was just like his. Watching her grow up was observing a beautiful process unfold. Never an awkward stage, everything about Alison spoke of elegance to John. Even her aquiline nose hinted at nobility somewhere in her genes, but she laughed it off. “I have the hooked nose of my Italian grandmother, Isabelle,” she’d say.
Mother Lisa was the exact opposite, thinking her daughter a tomboy, hating the child’s unruly curls and threatening to cut them off if she didn’t attempt caring for her hair herself. Although Alison would have preferred to have a brush cut, the hair issue became an icon between her and Lisa. She wouldn’t cut it just to spite her mother.
Open with John about some of her most intimate hopes and dreams, Alison drew the line at the gender question. Level with him about wanting to be a guy? No. She was confused herself; there was definitely no black and white. Why did society demand that she fit a certain set of criteria?
Lisa Bernard Saint. Lisa refused to acknowledge anything about her daughter that didn’t fit a rigid, specific mold of womanhood. There was no way any daughter of hers could be anything but a regular heterosexual female. Every gift-giving opportunity was spent presenting Alison with exactly what Lisa wanted her to have to facilitate femininity at its most flamboyantly made up, shaven and perfumed. She returned to Chicago from Christmas vacation with enough Victoria’s Secret bullshit for her roommates to last them for a long time to come.
“I wish my boobs were as big as yours,” Laura said. “I love this bra and panty set, but these cups are out of control.” She’d stretched the bra over her chest and posed from side to side. “Hopeless.”
“Stuff it with foam rubber,” Joan said.
Laura took her advice and bought a pair of falsies on eBay; problem solved. The roommates had their entire makeup and clothing requirements met by Lisa’s care packages to her daughter, while Alison used none of it.
“She must know you aren’t wearing her stuff,” Samantha said. “I’ve seen family photos, and besides having that fresh-scrubbed look, you always have jeans and a T-shirt on unless it’s summer and you’re wearing shorts.”
“My mother buys me things that will help keep the fantasy alive that she’s concocted that her daughter is a straight woman who will marry a man and have a bevy of children. Some of that is true. I plan on marrying and having kids someday. But I’m attracted to men. I’m a transgender man attracted to men.”
“You’ll find someone who is