He sighed. “Shit. I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”
“For what? It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s not—I mean, that had to have been tough.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I survived.”
“You did,” he agreed. “And I’m pretty sure we’re all better off for it.”
Damn him. Smooth motherfucker. “I was in foster care for a long time. I didn’t know my parents. They were… I don’t know. I was told a little bit of who they were and what… some of the stuff they did, but it’s not like I think about them a lot.”
“You don’t?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “This isn’t a therapy session.”
“Nope. Not at all.”
I relaxed slightly. “Good. Just so we’re clear. But I know what it’s like growing up in foster care. My last fosters weren’t bad people, but I don’t think they knew how to handle me.”
“And you had caseworkers?”
I laughed, though there wasn’t much humor in it. “Six.”
He whistled lowly.
I nodded. “Part of it was turnover, part of it was a couple of them didn’t know exactly what to make of me and shuffled me off to someone else. It’s not every day you meet a gender-confused nine-year-old.”
He was watching me closely, the pen seemingly forgotten in his hand. “That must have been rough.”
“It could have been worse. I think I was more than they could handle. They didn’t understand gender dysphoria, though I think they tried. She did, anyway.”
“Your foster mother?”
I made a face at that. “We didn’t really get to the whole Mom and Dad thing. But I get your point. Hell, I didn’t even understand it, and when you get a little older, your hormones are normally all out of whack, and everything is confusing. I couldn’t find the right words to explain to them why I felt the way I did. I couldn’t make them understand why some days I woke up and wanted to wear a dress or put on makeup. And it didn’t help that one of the caseworkers used the term transvestite as an explanation.” I tried for a smile. I thought I almost made it. “That was almost better than saying there was something wrong with me mentally. I heard that more than a few times. Imagine being a kid with identity issues and being told it’s because of a mental illness.”
Jeremy looked stricken. “Christ.”
I shifted in my seat, trying to find the right order to my words. “I fought back against it. I probably wasn’t the most… well-mannered kid. I fucked up a lot. And looking back, I think it was the only thing I knew how to do to get everything out of my head.”
“How did you cope?” he asked. “I mean, there had to be something, right? You’re more self-aware than most people I know.”
It was a terrible time to learn that I apparently had a thing for soft compliments given to me by a man behind a desk. “I got lucky. I was in this thrift store. I was supposed to be in school but decided to skip that day. I was barely seventeen and wearing this terrible dress that didn’t fit. I don’t even remember where I got it, but I’d woken up that morning wanting to buy something new, something I could wear to school. I hadn’t done that before, and I’d finally worked up the nerve to try it and see what happened.”
“That’s brave,” he said quietly.
I shook my head. “I wasn’t thinking in terms of bravery. It was about doing something right. About feeling comfortable in my own skin. I knew I was probably going to get shit, but if I got it while being dressed how I wanted to be, I thought I could take it. So I ditched school and went to this thrift store, because even though I had these big ideas, I still only had seven bucks to my name.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Thrift store it was, then.”
“Yeah. And I was looking through this rack of clothes, getting really pissed off that I couldn’t find what I was looking for. I remember wanting a skirt. That’s all I wanted. Just a skirt. I couldn’t tell you why, but it had to be a skirt. And it had to look… nice. I didn’t want something flashy or revealing or anything. I just… I needed it. It’s hard to explain.”
“You’re doing a good job so far,” he assured me. He set down the pen and leaned forward, elbows on the desk again.
I tore my gaze away from his arms. “I was about to melt down or, at the very least, give up, when this skinny dude appeared right beside me, looking through the same rack. I thought at first that he worked there and that he was going to tell me to leave because I shouldn’t be looking at women’s clothes, and just who the hell did I think I was? He was muttering to himself, but I could see him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, and right before I ran in the opposite direction, he pulled out this terrible something that had sequins and feathers and held it up to his waist and asked if I thought that would look good when strobe lights were flashing on it.
“And then I thought he was making fun of me, and I was about to punch him in the throat because this motherfucker didn’t know who he was messing with, when he held out his hand and introduced himself. I’ll never forget what he said, the asshole. ‘I don’t know you, baby doll, but you’ve probably heard of me. Though what you see before you might not seem like much, I transform into someone spectacular when I take the stage. Helena Handbasket, at your service.’”
Jeremy’s jaw dropped. “Helena Hand—wait, Sandy? Who I met at the wedding? That was Sandy?”