The Adventures of Annie        by: Emmie Dee             © 2000

 

Part 3

Goodbye, Dear Friend

Sunday afternoon, after we returned from Westview, we tried to call Roger. Mrs. Cameron said that he was not doing well, and that he was asleep. Her voice sounded tired and strained, but she said she was glad we called, and I could hear it in the tone of her voice. Since she thought I was Julie, I explained that we were on our way back to college, and tried to tell her about the basketball games from Julie’s perspective. She enjoyed what we had to say, and promised to tell Roger. "Only a week ago, I could tell that he could understand what you said over the speakerphone, or what I said to him. Now, I’m not so sure. He’s asleep most of the time, which is a blessing. The doctors say it may be weeks, or it may be months. When the time comes, I do hope you can come for the services. We will make arrangements to get you here."

"We would love to, if we can," Sarah Beth said.

"It would mean so much to me," Mrs. Cameron responded. "You two made him feel loved and cared for during the worst part of his life." We promised to pray for them.

Only nine days later, the call came. Roger Cameron died peacefully in his sleep, a month shy of his sixteenth birthday. Sarah Beth took the call. Mrs. Cameron told her that his services would be Saturday, and asked if they could fly us there Friday afternoon. "But we don’t have commercial air service in Fort Russell," Sarah Beth said.

"You do have an airport, and our pilot will pick you up in our plane, if that’s all right," she explained. "Then we can get Annie at Westview."

Sarah Beth thought quickly. "No, that’s all right, Mrs. Cameron. Annie was planning to come home Friday, anyway, and she’ll need to have her car here." They arranged a time, 3:30 Friday afternoon. The next day, after we made arrangements at school, I went over to Sarah’s to plan for the trip. I had already promised to wear to the funeral a long maroon skirt and white blouse that Roger had liked so much. The black slacks and the autumn leaves top would be fine for any visitation or dinner on Friday evening.

"What about Sunday?" I asked. "What should I wear to church, since she asked us to go?"

Sarah Beth took me into Julie’s room, and pulled out a black knit dress. "Julie sent this home with us in case you needed it," she explained. "It’s her L.B.D."

"Her what?" I asked.

"Little black dress. It’s really smooth and comfortable, but dressy, too. This goes with it," she said, as she pulled out a white jacket with black trim. "This will go really nicely with the pearls." I remembered the pearl necklace that Mrs. Cameron had brought for me for my date with Roger. Sarah continued: "It’s what Julie would wear if she were going. So she wanted you to wear it. Especially since she has the gown that you wore on your date with Roger."

We packed Thursday night and I drove us out to the airport in my jeep. At least with the slacks and flats, it wasn’t too hard working the clutch. I checked myself out in a mirror, and saw the plain-but-pleasant Annie looking back at me. The autumn-leave patterned blouse looked good with my brown curly wig. Bronzed nails set off the hair and blouse. At this point, I had simple gold studs in my ears, but carried the diamond ones in my bag. I wanted to see how others were dressed before I knew what was appropriate among the more wealthy, powerful people that would be gathered.

Sarah and I waited in the small waiting room, left over from when a commuter airline had served Fort Russell. "Is that it?" Sarah Beth asked, watching a sleek jet come in for final approach.

"I was sort of expecting a Cessna or something. That’s probably a company jet for the electronics company." That’s where both my parents and Mrs. Holding worked. But as the jet braked down the runway, I saw a sideways horseshoe painted on the rudder, with its open ends pointing forward. It was a stylized "C," as in Cameron. Their ranch’s company plane was a Lear jet! Kelly Cassidy had told us that the Cameron ranch was the largest and wealthiest in the state, and now I believed her.

The jet pulled up to the tarmac in front of the terminal. A door opened, and a narrow flight of stairs descended automatically from the plane. A large ranch hand, one that we had recognized from his being at Hope Haven to assist in handling Roger, walked down the narrow steps, followed by a smaller man, the pilot. As they got nearer the door, I noticed that the smaller man was actually a woman. They all introduced themselves. Although we had her wheelchair with us, Sarah walked toward the plane, using her cane. I was concerned about the narrow steps. "Just wait here, ma’am, the ranch hand said. "We had a way of getting young Roger in and out of the plane that will work just fine for you, if you don’t mind."

"Be my guest," Sarah said.

"No, ma’am, you two are our guests." He climbed into the plane and came back with a small metal chair, with handles welded onto the arms. "Have a seat, ma’am," he said. Sarah looked a bit puzzled, but sat down. The cowboy reached down from behind, grabbed the handles, lifted the chair, and leaned it backwards, and carried Sarah onto the plane with ease. I followed, carrying our garment bags. Sandy Bernadetto, the pilot, stowed the wheelchair, retracted the stairwell, and sealed the cabin door. The seat that they used to lift Sarah into the airplane was the same height as the seats on the plane. At first glance, I thought they were vinyl, but realized they were leather—that shows my economic status. The cowboy raised arms on both seats, and Sarah slipped over into the aircraft seat. "We worked out this system for young Roger," the cowboy explained. "He loved to fly, and in his last months we took him on as many trips as we could."

I started to sit down in the seat across the aisle from Sarah. Then the pilot said, "If one of you would like to fly in the co-pilot’s seat, you’re certainly welcome. It would help balance the plane." I’ve only flown a few times, in a friend’s brother’s Cessna, but I loved it. To sit in the right seat of a Lear would be fantastic. But I didn’t want to leave Sarah Beth by herself.

"Go ahead, Annie," she said. "I’ve missed my chemo nap, so you can go up front and I’ll just snooze." I hesitated, but she motioned me forward. "Go on. You know you want to." So I did. The four-point harness was similar to a Cessna’s, so I slipped into the seat and buckled in.

"You’ve done this before?" the pilot asked. She had short dark hair, a long nose, and large, lovely olive eyes, and a great smile.

"No, ma’am," I said. "I’ve ridden a few times in a friend’s Cessna, and I love it."

"Do I look so old that you call me ma’am?" she teased. I was flustered. She laughed and said, "That’s okay. Most people think I’m too young to be a commercial pilot. Call me Sandy, okay?" Then she got down to business and had me read the checklist.

Soon we were taxiing to the end of the runway. Although the tower had cleared us for takeoff, I instinctively checked to the right and nodded. Then, as the twin jet surged down the runway, I discovered there was a big difference between the Cessna and the Lear—sheer power. I watched in awe as we quickly climbed above the mountains. Sandy guided the jet to 27000 feet, leveled off, and set the automatic pilot.

"You’re enjoying this, aren’t you," she smiled.

"I sure am!" I said. "It’s awesome to think of all that power at your fingertips. I used to think that I might become a pilot." My eyes scanned the controls as I talked.

"You should go for it if you want to," she said. "I’m living proof that gender doesn’t have to stop you."

"No, gender wasn’t part of it for me. I had a lot of things in mind of what to do with my life. Pilot, preacher, teacher, pro bike racer, then this last summer, when I stayed with Sarah and worked with her and Roger and other kids, I found something I really love. I want to go into physical therapy, or some other kind of rehabilitation work. That’s my goal."

"From what I’ve heard, you did wonders with Roger," she said. I wondered if she was referring to physical therapy or our date. She wouldn’t know about that, would she?

"Thanks. Roger was a special guy." I thought it might be wise to change the subject. "Actually, when you were talking about gender, I felt a little guilty. When I first saw you coming down the steps of the plane, I assumed you were a small guy."

She laughed. "This pilot’s uniform isn’t the sexiest outfit in the world, I’ll have to admit. I love your outfit, by the way."

"Thanks. Actually, Sarah Beth picked it out for me. I’ve been a little bit nervous about this trip. Mrs. Cameron is a wonderful lady, but Sarah and I both come from kind of poor families, and being around lots of wealthy folks, well, you know…."

"You’re right, I do. My dad was an electrician in Pittsburgh, and I was one of six kids," she said. But don’t worry about this trip. Cameron—the town, I mean—is a small town, and everybody knows the Camerons, of course, so you’ll feel pretty much at home. These are ranchers, Annie. You’ll do fine."

"So how did you get into flying, Sandy? I’ve always wanted flying lessons but couldn’t afford them, and it sounds like it would have been even tougher for you," I asked.

"Air Force, like so many pilots. The taxpayers paid for my training down these mountains a bit." I knew she meant the Air Force Academy. "Then I repaid the investment by doing the same kind of taxi service I’m doing now for about seven years. I’m still in the reserves. Actually, I wanted to be a fighter jock, but didn’t quite make the cut. To tell you the truth, I love what I do, and it’s more fun taxiing people like you and Sarah Beth than it is colonels and generals." Sandy got busy again, preparing for descent in Grand Valley, a city in the southwestern part of our state. There she picked up three more passengers, cousins of the Camerons. Since Sarah Beth was awake again, I spent the rest of the flight with her, as we traveled east over the mountains and across the high prairie to Cameron. The relatives from Grand Valley knew who we were, and they told us stories about Roger.

As the plane descended, all I saw was open prairie, with rocky hills and arroyos off to the side. I was starting to get nervous, wondering where Sandy was going to put down the plane. We were maybe forty feet in the air when I saw the runway appear before us, and breathed a sigh of relief. As we taxied to a halt, there were 2 Jeep Grand Cherokees with the Cameron "C" on the front doors, waiting for us.

The Cameron house wasn’t all that big. It was smaller than the Fort Russell City Hall, for example, and definitely smaller than our high school. It was large and rambling, but wasn’t flashy or fancy. Mrs. Cameron greeted us on the porch and hugged us fiercely. A Latino woman led us to our rooms and told us when dinner would be served. A part of me imagined that dinner would be at a hundred-foot-long table of polished wood, with lace tablecloths, candelabras, and fine china. I was greatly relieved when we went outdoors to a pavilion, and had barbecue, cole slaw, fried potatoes, baked beans, and lots of other goodies, with homemade pies for dessert. We blinked tears from our eyes when Mr. And Mrs. Cameron thanked us all for coming (there were nearly fifty, I think), and said that this was Roger’s favorite meal. We shed more tears later when we all watched a memorial video of Roger’s life, shown on a giant-screen TV. We laughed at the little toddler, smiled as the kindergarten student waved goodbye and smiled as he climbed onto the school bus, watched as he rode horses and learned ranch skills, graduated from junior high, blew out candles on birthday cakes, and then—went to the hospital. I gasped as I saw us—me in the gorgeous blue evening dress and jewelry, Roger and his parents in "cowboy formal," Sarah Beth and mom in more casual clothes. I’d forgotten about their video camera. Other people watching the video were glancing over at us, and smiling. Later, in a separate scene, I blushed and cried as Roger looked at the camera and said, "I love you, Annie." It was painful to watch the rest, as Roger, in worsening condition, would be visited by other friends and relatives. He always seemed so calm and casual. After the video, Mrs. C. invited us to stay around and tell our own stories about Roger, in informal conversation.

At one point, Mrs. C. came over to us. Sarah Beth spoke to her. "I can’t believe how well you are holding up. It’s amazing to me."

"It’s strange," Mrs. Cameron told us. "As Roger declined, I cried myself to sleep almost every night after I would leave him. The only nights that I didn’t cry were the nights that I spent on a foldout bed in his room so he wouldn’t be lonely. I guess that I did most of my mourning before he died. Right now, I’m out of tears. They may come again later, but right now, I just want to enjoy being with you and all of Roger’s family and friends. It means more to me than you could know."

The funeral was at the Episcopal Church in Cameron. The small church was crowded to overflowing. Before the service, Mrs. Cameron invited people to share memories. Some of the relatives and school friends stood up. Sarah Beth nudged me. Mrs. C. saw me jump and nodded. I had wanted to talk, but wasn’t sure I should, but there I was, walking up to the lectern. As I walked up the aisle in my maroon skirt and white blouse, the one mom picked out for me so many months ago when Annie was born, the one that Roger liked me in so much, I felt much less nervous than I thought I would.

"Uh…I’m Annie Holding. Some of you saw me in the video last night. I was the one in the blue dress, going on a date with Roger when he was at the hospital. I’m the one he said ‘I love you, Annie,’ to. Like that was totally embarrassing, but kind of wonderful, too. My sister, Sarah Beth and I, were at Hope Haven when Roger was there. Everybody there kind of hangs together, because it can be pretty scary in a place like that. Roger and us became friends. Roger broke my heart when he told me that he had been to shy to ask a girl on a date, and that he would never have the opportunity now. He was such a nice kid, so when Mrs. Cameron asked if I would go out with him, of course I said yes. It wasn’t a romantic thing. He knew that. I knew that. But we cared for each other in a tender and gentle way. He didn’t want us to see him anymore after my sister got better and we went home, so we wouldn’t feel pity for him. But we talked on the phone. Or I guess, Sarah and I talked and he listened. We’re sad that he’s gone, but glad that he’s with God now." I don’t know what made me do it, but I turned to the closed coffin and said. "Roger, I love you, too. Goodbye, dear friend." Tears ran down my cheeks as I made my way back to my pew. Sarah Beth and I hugged. Other people got up and spoke, too, and then they had the official funeral service. After the burial at a family plot at the ranch, we gathered again for dinner.

The next day, we were having tortillas, eggs, chorizo and homemade salsa for breakfast, eating with the family members that hadn’t left the day before. Afterwards, we were heading down the hallway with Mrs. Cameron. She looked at Sarah Beth’s hand. "Oh! Sarah! Let me see your ring. Does that mean what I think it means? You and Mark are engaged?" Sarah nodded and smiled. "That’s wonderful! Well, as long as you are able to complete your schooling, anyway. Holding on to Sarah’s hand, she reached out and took mine as well. "I’m so happy for both of you, and I’m sure that you’ll be very happy together."

Sarah Beth and I just looked at each other, then back to her with blank expressions on our faces. That didn’t compute, somehow. Finally Sarah stammered, "You know?"

"Yes, dears." She was smiling a genuine smile. We were petrified. "I didn’t know back at Hope Haven. But I suspected that you, Annie, weren’t Sarah’s sister, mostly just an intuition. My intuition proved correct after you sent in your scholarship application, Sarah. It listed your family members and mentioned that Julie was at Westview. We checked there and found that she had been employed on campus the same time that we were at Hope Haven together. So I called your mother, Sarah, and asked a few questions. She explained what had happened, and how Mark became Annie for the summer. Annie, Mark," she said, looking at me, "That takes a special kind of courage to do what you did for Sarah, and for what you did for Roger. So I’m glad that you could be Annie then, and I’m glad that you came back to see me as Annie. And please—be sure to invite me to the wedding, okay?" Mrs. C explained that the final decision on the scholarship wasn’t hers, but that she knew for sure that Sarah was a leading candidate. A few hours later, we were back on the plane, returning to Fort Russell. As the plane lifted off, I held Sara Beth’s hand, but looked out the window and whispered again, "Goodbye, dear friend."

 

Love and Death

Back home again, Sunday evening, and I was at the Holding’s house, changing clothes to become Mark again. I sat at Sarah’s vanity, just wearing my panties, slip, and bra, wiping the nail polish off my fingers. Suddenly, I started crying. Sarah swung over on her crutches and sat down on the bench beside me, and hugged me. She had taken her leg off earlier because she was tired and the physical pressure of the prosthesis was bothering her. "There, there," she consoled me. Her tears were flowing, too. "You got more emotionally involved with Roger than you thought you would, didn’t you? We both did, I guess."

We cried and hugged awhile. Finally I started wiping makeup from my face with cold cream. "It bothers me that it bothers me so much," I started. "I guess that doesn’t make so much sense. I mean, we all knew it was going to happen, didn’t we? He did, too. And so did his mother. And they all just lived with it. Dying, I mean." After awhile, I got up, sniffling, and went into the bathroom to change into my jeans and sweatshirt. When I came back, the tears started to flow again. "I-I guess that part of why I’m so upset is that I realize it could have been you. You had cancer. It could have killed you by now. When I was at the funeral, there was one time that I thought, ‘If it has to be anybody’s funeral, I’m glad it’s Roger’s and not Sarah’s.’ Then I felt so guilty to even think such a thing. Then I felt even more scared."

"Don’t feel bad. Every time we talked with Roger before he died, I had that same feeling," Sarah Beth told me. "When we were back at Hope Haven, we all knew that death was somewhere just offstage, and nobody knew who would cue it in. Would it be Roberta? Wendy? Roger? Me? If you weren’t with me, Mark—or if Annie wasn’t with me—I couldn’t have slept at night at all." I had rejoined Sarah on the vanity bench. It’s funny. All the time we were there, we hadn’t talked about death. It was as if we said it, it might happen.

"Sarah, just promise me something, will you?" I asked.

"If I can."

"Live to be really, really, old, okay?" I leaned over and kissed her freckled nose.

"Only if you will, too, and if we can always be together," she said, kissing mine.

"I will love you forever, Sarah Beth."

"I will love you forever, Mark."

We dried each other’s tears, kissed again, I finished changing back into Mark, and I drove home.

 

Normal, Normal, Normal

We knew that life would never get back to normal again. We also knew that we had to build a new normal. The next day, we were back at Fort Russell High. I was Mark, and had to remember to act like Mark. We had to work hard to catch up on homework that we missed during our trips to Westview and Cameron. Football season had ended, and basketball was picking up steam. We tried to make it to a few games. Sarah Beth’s old friends still hadn’t become comfortable with the "new" Sarah Beth yet, but Joanie, the girl with spina bifida, was fast becoming a close friend.

A couple of weeks after Roger’s funeral, the Monday before Thanksgiving, it was a warm day for November and I bicycled a few miles after school, and swung by Sarah’s house. She and Joanie were both up on the porch, sitting in their wheelchairs. "Hi, you two!" I called out. They both smiled and waved me up to the porch.

Joanie grinned. "I just thought of something," she said. "We all get around on wheels. Except yours are inline and ours are side-by-side." Her hands gestured down to the wheelchair wheels. The wind picked up, so we all went inside to Sarah’s room. Mrs. Holding was puttering around the corner in the kitchen. "One reason that I like to visit you, Sarah, is that it is so handy to get around in your house. They did a nice job of remodeling it for you."

"Yeah," Sarah answered. "And the ‘they’ were my dad, mom and sister, and Mark’s folks. No professionals at all, except for some of the plumbing fixtures. This was actually part of our dining room, but they walled it off, added an accessible bath, and moved all my stuff in."

Joanie rolled over to the wall-length closet area. "Neat stuff," she said, looking at some of Sarah’s outfits. "Hmmm," she said. "Some of these outfits look like they’re too tall for you." They were Annie’s clothes in that section!

Sarah responded. "Oh, they’re just my sister Julie’s, things she didn’t take to college with her. "You remember her, don’t you?"

"Sure. I always loved watching her play basketball. Nice and friendly, too. But these clothes don’t quite look like her style." Okay. So now we have a detective in the wheelchair.

"That’s why they’re here," Sarah explained. She told her about the aunt that always sent Julie frilly, feminine clothes. Fortunately, she didn’t tell her that I had worn every last outfit.

We all sat around talking about school, the teams, the cliques, the teachers, the usual stuff. The thought came back to my mind that with a new girl friend, maybe Sarah wouldn’t need Annie as much. Should I feel relieved? I don’t know. Part of me felt disappointed. Part of me felt jealous. As I sat on the vanity bench facing into the room, I wasn’t even aware that I had picked up a bottle of frosted pink nail polish and was rolling the bottle around the palm of my hand with my thumb.

Joanie noticed. "Want to do your nails, Mark?" she laughed.

I blushed and sat the bottle down so quickly that it knocked over two or three other bottles of nail polish or makeup. Flustered, I sat them all upright.

Joanie was laughing louder. "Boys get flustered so easily about makeup and stuff. You never know until you try it, Mark. You might look good with painted nails. Are you chicken to try?" If only she knew. But she couldn’t know.

I tried to smile. "It’s just not my color," I said. Both girls rolled in closer to me, grinning. Should I pretend to act the male with his macho threatened? I glanced around, and made sure that the nail polish remover bottle was still there and full enough. "Well, okay. If you want. But I get to take it off when you’re done." Joanie did my left hand in pink and Sarah my right one in my traditional blue.

About midway through, Sarah Beth told Joanie "This isn’t the first time he’s had his nails painted blue." I gasped. I liked Joanie okay, but I sure didn’t want to trust her with knowledge about Annie.

"It isn’t? Well, tell me all about it," Joanie grinned. I have a really low standing heart rate from my cycling, but I could swear my heart was pounding as if I were sprinting at the end of a race. Trust Sarah, I told myself. Trust Sarah.

"Mark didn’t have much say in it," Sarah Beth explained. "Last Spring, before I got sick, Mark would come over to our house after school and after bike riding. A lot of times he’d fall asleep in that recliner in the living room. One day my sister and I had on blue nail polish, and he teased us. Well, he fell asleep on the recliner and woke up with blue nails." Joanie laughed. "We were pretty mean to him. Later on, though, he did us a big favor and we promised not to paint his nails while he was sleeping any more."

"Well, I think he’s cute with the blue and pink," Joanie laughed. She looked at me. "But don’t worry, Mark. You’re still a real guy in my book." At least they didn’t take things any further when they were done with my nails. We talked awhile longer, and I made a big thing about pretending to start out the door with the polish still on my nails, then coming back in and having them take the polish off, as if I didn’t know how.

 

Good News and Warnings

They say that good things come in bunches of three, and it worked for us. In the same week, Sarah and I both received notices of our acceptance to the state university, pending our graduation from high school. The third piece of news was even better. Sarah Beth was through with chemotherapy, we hoped for good. Her test results from the local hospital showed no evidence of recurring cancer. Sarah was scheduled to go back to the children’s hospital at the university for more sophisticated tests in early December. We agreed that I would make the trip with Sarah and her mother, and that Sarah Beth and Annie would visit Roberta. The little girl was still in the hospital, but out of the isolation setting. Again, good news—her body was not rejecting its new heart.

Sarah was initially happy and excited at all the news, but in a few days she was in a funk almost as blue as my nails. She would sigh a lot, not talk much, and generally act more depressed than I had seen her since the first few weeks after her amputation. She didn’t act angry at me or anyone else, just low. She got up in the morning, dragged through school, went home, napped, and studied a bit in the evening, or just stared at the tube.

"Would you like a visit from Annie?" I asked her one day. "You haven’t said anything about her for awhile, but I’m sure that she could arrange a visit."

"No!" she almost shouted. She paused, then lowered her voice. "I can’t depend on Annie forever. That’s not fair to you, or to us. I’ll be glad to have Annie’s company when we go visit Roberta, but that will be enough. Thanks for asking, though. You are one sweet guy." She kissed me, but without much passion. Later that day, she told me "I’ll be okay, Mark. I really will. The doctor told me that a lot of patients have a big emotional letdown when they finish with chemotherapy."

"Letdown?" I asked. "I’m not doubting you or your doctor, but it seems like you’d be relieved that it’s over. Delirious, even."

"It seems that way," Sarah admitted. "And I am glad that the chemo is finally over. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But Doc Wainwright said it’s like soldiers in a war. They’ve focused themselves so long on survival and victory that when it’s done, they have to change gears mentally and find a whole new way of approaching life. It was so wonderful to hear that the cancer may be gone, but now it kind of sets in that for the rest of my life, I’ll just be a girl—a woman—with a big limp, not able to keep up with anybody. People will stare at me and wonder what’s wrong, or they’ll pretend not to see me. And I keep on feeling that if we do get married…."

"When we do…." I interrupted.

"Okay, when we do, I’ll hold you back and eventually you’ll resent me for it." Well, from there, I gave her my pep talk. I knew it wouldn’t cure her blues in general, but I could reassure her about how I felt, and about our relationship. "And one thing that you need to think about," I added, "is that now that we’re admitted, if we get good scholarship help, we can get married next summer. How does August sound to you?"

That earned me a kiss. She must have liked the idea. I know that I did. We dreamed aloud about the possibilities, and agreed to ask Rev. McGrail to come help with the service. "I have a goal," Sarah said. "I’m going to walk down that aisle without a cane or crutch. I might have to lean on dad’s and your arm a lot, but I’ll be up there without a prop—unless you count this, of course." She tapped her prosthetic leg. It was good to see her cheerful again, at least for that evening.

Mr. Holding was home that weekend. He had been away a lot, driving his semi the maximum hours possible to help pay medical bills for Sarah. "Are you doing anything this evening, Mark?" he asked. I told him no. "Why don’t you come along with me for a little fishing after supper?" We had gone fishing a few times through the years, but it had been awhile.

"Sure," I said. It was just the two of us. I volunteered to drive, and took the jeep. We drove to a river access east of town, across the railroad tracks. I drove down to the gravel bar, and then we hoofed it fifty yards through the willows. We had a little luck, mostly catfish. In his slow drawl, Mr. Holding told me some good trucker stories, and we had a few laughs. To our west beyond the city, the foothills fell into purple shadow, while the mountain peaks still glistened from light from the hidden sun.

He was quiet for awhile. He shifted a bit, and his mouth turned down like he was trying to find the right way to say something serious, something he didn’t really want to talk about.

"I hear you got made," he finally blurted out.

I didn’t know for sure what he meant. Was he talking sexually? "Uhhh—what do you mean," I asked.

"Oh. I’m sorry. I meant like getting found out, not like the other way. Mrs. Cameron. You know." He sipped from his beer can. "The Missus told me about it. Scared me to death, did it you?"

"Yeah, it was pretty scary, but she’s a classy lady. She handled it better than I thought she would," I admitted.

"If she hadn’t been so classy," Mr. H reflected, "You and Sarah both could have been in real trouble. I know if I had a son—and you’re like a son to me, Mark—and I found out that a girl he dated and kissed was really a guy, I might have done something really bad." I started to remind him that it was his wife who told who Annie really was, that she could have just said that Annie was a family friend or cousin or something. But I knew that if she had lied and gotten caught in a lie, it would have only made things worse.

"Yeah, it scared me to death to do that for Roger," I admitted. "But if I hadn’t, the poor guy would have been---well, I don’t know."

"Mark, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have done it. What I’m trying to say is that it could have gotten you and Sarah Beth both into trouble." He shook his head, and watched his fishing line, just glancing over to me.

"Sarah Beth?" I wondered. He explained that Sarah Beth could have lost her opportunities for a scholarship, and the Camerons, powerful people that they were, could have made all sorts of trouble for all of us.

"I’ve heard that my daughter still dresses you up as Annie every now and then. Now that she’s home and everything, and planning to marry you, it might be a good idea just to stop this Annie business for once and for all. I worry for you if you get caught." He still looked out toward the river as he talked.

"But I have been careful, I just don’t wander around in a dress, for heaven’s sake," I protested.

"Even at home, though, it bothers me," he admitted. "Even though I’m not there very much, ‘cause I’m trying to make ends meet. I know Sarah Beth loves you like anything, but I wonder if she’ll respect you if you keep on being her own Barbie doll?"

"Sir," I responded. "Annie hasn’t been around much for awhile. There’s still some people like Roberta who need her from time to time, and sometimes Sarah Beth still needs Annie. She’s been a lonely young woman. So I can’t say that I’ll never be Annie again, but I’ll try to avoid it."

"Please." That was all he said. It was getting dark enough that we reeled in our lines, pulled in the stringer, and walked back to the jeep.

Less than a week later, after dinner, my dad coughed and mumbled, and he asked me too to try and stop being Annie. "It’s just getting out of hand," he told me. "I’m afraid it will get you into trouble sometime, or beaten up, or raped, or killed. Or I’m afraid that you might get to liking being Annie too much."

"What?" I asked.

"I’m glad that you want to be Sarah’s husband. But I don’t think I could handle it if you became someone’s wife someday." I had done a little research on the Internet, and tried to explain to him that transsexuals had a strong desire to become a member of the opposite sex even in childhood. I didn’t have that desire. I was comfortable being in the role of Annie, but it was just a role. I enjoyed being Mark, and I wanted to be the father of his grandchildren. Dad still came down hard on me, saying that he didn’t want me to be Annie again, and definitely didn’t want to see me being Annie again. I told him that I couldn’t promise not to ever be Annie again, since that might involve breaking other promises, but I would try to respect his wishes. Two "man-to-man" discussions in a week. It made me wonder if they had talked together or something. I also wondered if they had talked Sarah out of asking me to be Annie, and if that could be a part of why she was so bummed out and depressed.

 

Happy Holidays?

The Holdings made the trip to the children’s hospital without me, in spite of our earlier plans. Sarah Beth and her mom stopped off to see Roberta, who was out of the cardiac care unit and thriving. Sarah Beth told me later, though, that Roberta was sad not to have her silly friend Annie come to visit. The news from Sarah’s tests was wonderful, though—it confirmed that there was no more cancer. They recommended three-month checkups for the first two years, followed by six-month checkups for the next several years just to be sure.

By mid-November, Sarah Beth’s bald scalp was starting to get fuzzy again. That and the positive checkup gave us something to be thankful for. Sarah’s friendship with Joanie seemed to be going well. I was really startled one day to go into Sarah’s room and see her and Joanie sitting there, with Sarah’s artificial leg propped in the corner and her wig on the wigstand. Sarah is a private person, and up to this point I had been the only teenager in Fort Russell to see her without these items. That meant that in addition to just being friends with Joanie, Sarah was really coming to trust her emotionally.

We had the traditional Thanksgiving dinner at our house, and then about six, I went over to the Holdings to raid the pies. Julie was home, along with her roommate Karrin. I hadn’t met Karrin before as Mark, and as we were introduced, I watched her face carefully for signs of recognition. She just smiled and asked about my sister, who Julie had explained was out of town visiting relatives.

Julie pulled me aside a little later. "How is Annie, really?"

I sighed. "Annie hasn’t been around much lately. Both sets of parents have been discouraging her coming around."

Julie looked pensive. "Don’t they think that there might be some sort of connection between Sarah’s sadness and Annie’s disappearance?"

"I guess not," I said. "Actually, though, the doctor said that this kind of letdown is normal. I just wish I knew how long it would last."

"Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, you know I’ll do it." Julie had that determined look on her face, her "game face" on the basketball court, the same look I saw when she first talked me into becoming Annie.

The weather closed in, so my bike riding season was over. I still helped Sarah with her exercise routine. We Christmas shopped together. With Mr. Holding out on the road, I helped the Holdings put up their outside Christmas decorations. School was—well, school. A few kids acted like jerks around Sarah, making stupid comments, but Sarah was getting good at ignoring them or coming back at them. "One nice thing about all this," she told me one day. "No more PE. So now the coaches don’t wonder out loud why I’m not athletic like my sister anymore." The best part for me was to see her strength and appetite return as the chemotherapy drugs filtered out of her system. Still, though, she was blue.

The Holdings celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, and the Jansens on Christmas morning. So Sarah and I get to do the unwrapping and family togetherness thing twice in twelve hours. We gave each other some favorite CDs, I gave Sarah a necklace at her house, and she gave me a Nike winter coat to replace my dying one. When we were alone, Sarah asked me, "Did you like those dresses that Julie and I gave each other?" They were beautiful, I agreed, a simple soft knit, Julie’s a soft green and Sarah’s a soft maroon. "I ordered them online. I ordered one for Annie, too, in blue. I guess that I should send it back and get Mark something more practical."

I hesitated. I don’t think that Sarah had mentioned Annie in more than a month, except in remembering earlier times. I felt discouraged that both of our fathers had tried to convince me that Annie shouldn’t come back. "No," I told her, grabbing her hand. "Keep it. Keep it for Annie."

Sarah’s father had been home for Christmas, but New Year’s Eve found him somewhere in the Midwest—eastern Iowa, I think. My folks always play cards with some of their friends on New Year’s Eve, so I decided to spend the evening with the Holdings. Julie was there, too. They both wore the gorgeous dresses that Sarah and Julie had given each other at Christmas. We were finishing a video with Sarah leaning her head on my shoulder, when Julie said, "It’s a shame that Annie can’t be with us this evening. She meant so much to us this year."

Their mother spoke up. "Julie, we all loved Annie, but maybe it’s time to move on. You know what your father would think."

"Yes, I know, but he’s not here, is he?" Julie responded.

Her mother squirmed. "No, he’s not. But that doesn’t mean that we—you—should be doing things behind his back. Besides, Mark may want to be Mark. You two keep putting him on the spot. Don’t Mark’s feelings count?"

"Sure, they count," Sarah said. "More than anybody else’s in the world to me. Mark, you never have to be Annie again. But if you would enjoy being Annie tonight, it would be fun to see the three of us in these outfits, wouldn’t it?" She smiled.

"Sure," I found myself saying. "I’m sort of in an Annie mood tonight—if it’s okay with you, Mrs. H."

"Go ahead, I guess, if it’s really okay with you, Mark." So I went to Sarah’s bathroom, slipped on my padded undies and bra, applied foundation, painted my nails blue (of course, given the dress), and when they dried, slipped on the smooth, soft blue dress. We did look good together, and we were all laughing and joking the rest of the evening.

"If I stay as Annie until a minute after midnight," I said, "I can say that I was Annie for two years." So that was the plan. I was enjoying being Annie again, and Sarah was having more fun than she had in months. We all hugged and kissed as the clock struck twelve. Then, a few minutes after, when I was just about ready to go change, the doorbell rung. I was thunderstruck to see dad and mom when Mrs. Holding opened the door. They were thunderstruck to see Annie.

"We thought we would come by to see if Mark wanted a ride home," my dad said. I wasn’t sure whether he was ready to cry or shout. He just talked so very softly. "But I guess we were wrong. Mark isn’t here."

Could it be that Annie’s first visit of the new year would be her last?

(more to come)

 

 

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