The Secretary Experience

Bonnie was waiting for me in the lobby. "How did it go?"

She squealed when I told her and gave me a hug. A man in a business suit gave me an odd, disgusted look as he passed. What? Did he think we were lesbians and so what if we were? Was bigotry really so rampant in the office environment? Or could he read me? I smiled at the dawning realization that my second thought was being read. Maybe I was ready to face the world daily as Autumn. Not that it mattered; I had a job and Autumn is who I was.

Bonnie and I left my new office building. We were surrounded by busy pedestrians and loud traffic. Tall buildings jutted towards the heavens casting long shadows and trapping the summer heat. I was still all smiles as Bonnie and I walked down the street, her arm draped in mine, talking about my new job and how thankful I was that we'd gone shopping. I had a closet full of clothes ready to reveal to the whole wide world.

Other people gave me strange, questioning looks. By the time Bonnie and I reached the parking garage where we'd both parked, I was certain that glares that had been thrown my way were because people could see I wasn't a woman at all. Each step as that realization dawned caused me to walk even faster, hastening to hide myself away, pulling away from Bonnie. Maybe I couldn't take the job after all. No matter how much I wanted it, the shame of being found of was far stronger.

"What's wrong?" Bonnie asked, now racing to keep up with me.

"People are giving me nasty looks. Surely you've seen them."

Bonnie reached for me. "And? Who cares if they were? What did Linda say?"

"That I had a lovely name," I said, causing Bonnie to smile.

"Anything else?"

I shrugged, "she asked if I was transitioning. She noticed, too." I pouted at that. "I guess I'm not as good at this as I thought."

"Bull," Bonnie said, grabbing both my hands in hers. The manila folder in my hand started to fall but I was able to catch it. "Listen to me. You want this. You need this. It'll be good for you. You need something to do with your life. So what if some strangers could read you. Linda hired you knowing what you are. Which do you think is a better test? That some idiot you'll never see again may have suspected or that a place of business thinks you're more than acceptable?"

Her argument was sound so I fought back the only way I could. With petulant emotion. "I bet I was nothing but a quota hire." I snorted at that, daring Bonnie to deny my own logic.

"Who care if you were? They're in business to make money and they're not going to risk that on a whim."

Somehow that made even more sense. Still, how had I been read? Even standing there arguing with Bonnie I was receiving queer looks from passerby's. The only bright side, if you can call it that, was when a septuagenarian couple walked past. The elderly woman glowered at me, causing her husband, an older man wearing a bowler hat and rainbow suspenders to mutter, "pay her no mind." At least he thought I was a woman. He was probably going blind.

Bonnie continued her logical assault, finally wearing me down. Or at least steering me where I wanted to go. That was probably why I finally relented. I wanted to. "Fine," I huffed.

"Good," Bonnie smiled at me. "I'm glad we agree."

I didn't argue further. We parted for the day. Bonnie was heading home to Paul and I was heading to the tanning booth. My tan lines were coming in nicely and I liked seeing them. The lighter tones in my skin made it look like I was wearing that bikini even when naked. It appealed to some deep part of me that reminded me of that first day long ago when I raided my mother's closet and panty drawer. I liked it and it suited me.

I tanned for an hour, positioning that tiny bikini precisely. Every minute under those blue lamps darkened my skin save for those delectable triangles over my nipples and the tiny bit of fabric over my genitals and ass. I listened to the music, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones, and kept my eyes closed beaming at the fact that I was finally a secretary. Would it be as menial as I hoped and as exciting as I feared? I couldn't wait to find out.

An hour later I was pulling into my driveway. A car was parked there, some old, rusty pick-up truck with a small dent in the right rear bumper. I pulled in next to the truck. I watched as a vaguely familiar woman climbed from the passenger seat and raced to the front of my car. An older man, bald save for a few strands of white hair emerged from the driver's side. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt stained with red paint that for a moment I thought was blood.

I parked the car. The woman rushed to the side of my Silverado. She gave me a look, frowned, and backed away, stepping off the driveway and onto the grass.

"Can I help you?" I asked. The woman looked familiar. Had I seen her before? I rubbed my temples, feeling my headache coming back stronger than ever. I had wanted to come home, open a bottle of wine, and celebrate my new job. First, I'd have to contend with these two strangers that reminded me of something long forgotten.

"We're looking for George." The woman's voice quavered. Something was bothering her and why was she looking for me. "Are you his girlfr..." Her voice broke and her hand came up to her throat. She glanced at the man who was standing at the front of my new truck, giving it an appreciative look. It was a nice truck.

The woman stepped forward, reached her hands out, then took another step towards me. "George, honey, are you okay. We've been so worried." Tears were bubbling in her eyes. Eyes the same shade as mine. Familiar eyes. Eyes I never thought I'd see again.

"Mom?"

She stepped forward and embraced me. I held her back. Hard. My father, standing at the front of my car moved closer.

It was good that he did. He caught me as I fell to the earth. The day had gone dark.

Chapter 11

I awoke to the sounds of ESPN playing on the television mounted to the corner of my hospital room. My mom was standing next to my bed, holding my hand and absently stroking my thumb with her own. My father was sitting in a small green chair with wooden arms watching a segment on the upcoming NFL season. He had always been a Falcon fan though living in lower Alabama he thought he should like the Saints.

"George," my mom said.

I looked at her face. Had she been crying? I looked at her, over to my father who was now staring at me instead of the television screen, and back to my mom. My blurry vision become even fuzzier as tears bubbled and streamed down my scruffy cheeks. "Mom? Dad?" My voice broke. I sobbed, coughed, blew my nose against my hospital gown and felt my mom embrace me. I shook in her arms feeling the weight of their deaths evaporate and overwhelm me. How were they alive? They died nearly a decade ago? It had to be a hallucination but if it was it was remarkably real. I could smell the lilac scent of my mother's shampoo. I could feel the warmth of her body as I sobbed into her chest. I felt my father approach the bed to place a comforting hand on my ankle hidden by the heavy hospital blanket.

"You gave us quite a scare, son," my dad said. Was there an accusatory tone in his voice when he called me son? Was he mocking me? Or was I just expecting the worst? I could still recall the people that had given Bonnie and I such nasty looks and I could still hear that old man mutter 'pay her no mind,' as he and his wife whisked passed us.

"Sorry," I said, not lifting my head. I was too ashamed of how they found me, too broken to speak more than one word. I felt my mom caressing my head, soothing me like she had done so often when I was a little boy, every time I'd scrape a knee, cut my skin, or that one time I broke my arm riding down the hill that led into the elementary school's employee parking lot as fast as I could only to do a cartwheel over a nearly invisible chain blocking off access. My mom was there then, and she was here now.

But how?

I looked up. Bonnie was standing to my right. I smiled at her, "Hi."

"Hi," my dad said at my feet.

"Have you met Bonnie?" I asked.

My parents exchanged a look. Couples, especially married couples that had history develop a silent means to communicate. In an instance I knew my parents, long dead but somehow not, were holding one of those mute conversations. My father answered my question in a way I did not expect. "Let me get the doctor."

He turned and left the room in a hurry. I watched the door open. I watched the door close. I heard the door latch into place. It seemed so real, but I had to be imagining them. They'd been dead for so long. I could still picture their funeral and how it was the first time I'd ever been a pallbearer. I remembered sitting next to my Aunt Molly and her husband Bob in the front row staring at the pair of caskets sitting side by side. I remembered the bad breath the priest had and how it had taken a lot of effort to keep that information to myself. I recalled the chill in the morning air as I stood alone at their graves the day the headstones were installed, wanting to be the first person to put some flowers down. I remembered it all with the same clarity I had watching my hospital room door open and close. If it was a hallucination, it was a damned good one.

My accident. It had to be that. I'd been in a coma for nearly a month. Maybe I had more damage done to my brain than I thought. It sure seems like it.

"We're so worried about you, George. When you wouldn't take our calls and then when they stopped going through. We were so very worried." My mom started to cry then, holding me as I held her. I sobbed into her chest while her tears moistened the bandage on my head.

Next to me I heard Bonnie speak, "Autumn," she said, using the name she'd given me. "I thought your parents..." she didn't go any further to save herself embarrassment or to save me some pain I didn't know.

"Mom," I said, lifting my head from her breast. "This is my best friend, Bonnie."

My mom shook her head, "Georgie," it wasn't good to hear her call me that. She used it only when things were bad and she needed to soften a blow, "there's nobody there."

"Are you okay, Autumn?" Bonnie asked. "You look pale."

Both Bonnie and my mom focused on me. My mother glanced to where I was looking and back to me. The frown she wore told me that she didn't see Bonnie. What was wrong with me? Surely, I was seeing things that weren't there. Was my mom an apparition? Was Bonnie? If Bonnie was then had she ever been real? But I remembered going to my parent's funeral. As much as I remembered my dad walking out just a few moments earlier. I shook my head, feeling the warmth of my mother against my face. "Something's wrong," I admitted.

"It'll be okay," Mom said.

"You'll be fine, Autumn," I heard Bonnie utter. I felt her hand on my shoulder like I felt my mother's against my cheek. I could smell my mother's perfume, the scent she always wore. It was her favorite, like Bloom was mine. I looked up at my mother and her wrinkled face. I turned my head to see Bonnie standing behind me, offering me a comforting smile and a tender hand on my spine.

The door open and my father came in. Behind him was a tall, black man with warm brown eyes and an unruly mop of gray hear on his head. "Mister McNeill," he said as he came in. I spotted a small brown stain on his lab coat. Old blood from an earlier patient perhaps. There was an ink pen in his pocket, and I could see the spiral binding of a thin notebook sitting behind the pen. "I'm doctor Townsend. How are you feeling?"

What had my father told him? My father crossed the room and took my mother's arm. He led her away to let the elderly doctor examine me. I glanced from my parents to Bonnie, to Doctor Townsend, back to my mom who was wearing an unmasked look of terror, before returning my gaze to Bonnie who was nodding kindly, offering whatever support she could give. I shrugged, "I don't know."

Townsend turned to my parents, "can I have the room please?"

He told me so much when he never addressed Bonnie. I looked at her. She stood by my side, next to the little machine hooked to my arm, revealing my blood pressure and pulse. Townsend didn't send her away. He didn't see her. She wasn't real. Which means that my parents were. But how could that be? I remember burying them and visiting their grave. I remember feeling the pain of their passing, once long ago and again just recently when Bonnie told me all about it. How can something that felt so real be imagined?

"George?"

I shook my head.

Bonnie said, "you're going to be fine."

"Thank you," I said, looking at Bonnie.

Doctor Townsend frowned. "Who are you talking to?"

I looked at him. I reached up and took Bonnie's hand. It was warm to the touch. She squeezed me every bit as tightly as I squeezed her. How could she not be real? Maybe it was Doctor Townsend I was imagining. I glanced up. Opposite my bed was a whiteboard marked with thin black lines. Doctor Townsend was listed as my doctor. Emily Cooper R.N. was listed as my nurse. After my accident I remembered seeing the same board listing my doctor and nurse. I focused on the board. Bonnie continued to caress my hand. Doctor Townsend was looking at me, his head cocked, as I stared at the white board. Something hazy was swimming towards my consciousness. Something big.

"Mister McNeill?"

"Autumn?"

I ignored them both. I shut my eyes, picturing my previous stay in the hospital and the white board opposite my bed when I awoke from my long slumber. My doctor had been Doctor Raine and his name had been printed in blue ink on the white board opposite my bed, positioned so that I couldn't miss it. My nurse's name had been listed there, too.

Bonnie was the name of the nurse that treated me in the hospital. I could still see her name printed on the whiteboard opposite my bed. The whiteboard was divided into rows and columns, making dozens of little boxes. At the top of the box, stuck to the whiteboard in black tape was the word DOCTOR. Next to that, written in blue ink, was Doctor Raine. Below that, also stuck to the board in black tape was the word NURSE. And there was her name. Bonnie. I'd latched onto that, using her name to feed my imagination, supplementing the unreal with the real, eking a whole out of a fragment.

I glanced at Bonnie, seeing her smile at me. Seeing her bicolored hair looking perfectly coiffed. She was wearing blue hospital scrubs. Is that what she wore when I first saw her in the hospital, when she was my nurse so long ago? She stood there, smiling, holding my hand. I could feel the warmth of her skin and see the concern in her eyes. She wasn't real but she was so very real to me.

"I don't know," I finally said, looking at Doctor Townsend. "But I think there's something wrong with me."

That opened a thunderstorm of activity. Dozens of doctors and nurses came in. I had more blood drawn; had more tests done. Bonnie stayed at my side, offering support, and making inappropriate jokes. My parents stood outside my room, peering in when they could. The look of terror on my mother's face broke my heart knowing that I was the cause of her concern. Bonnie couldn't quite comfort me enough to erase the shame and hurt that I felt.

A new doctor came in. He was as round as a water tower. It was as if his girth was trying to compensate for his diminutive height. He had a thick beard and equally thick glasses. He wasn't wearing a lab coat; he was wearing a light blue shirt buttoned to the collar and a gray and blue paisley tie not quite fastened at his throat. He looked disheveled but I got the impression that it was a practiced look, like he wanted to give off a frazzled appearance. "Hello, George," he said when it was only Bonnie and I in the room. "I'm Doctor Gustafson, and I think it'll be good to get to know each other."

His smile was genuine; his cheeks lifted with his grin. He flipped through a file in his hand. "I've ordered up an MRI. You'll be taken down shortly. Are you okay with that?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that question. I knew there was something wrong, but did I want to know how bad? Was it better to live in denial? No, I decided that it was better to know. "Yeah. I think that'll be good."

He didn't mention Bonnie, but I knew that she wasn't really there. I could see her. When she made a joke, I'd laugh as if the joke were made exclusively for me. Exclusively by me. I could feel her comforting hand on my shoulder and how she'd give my arm a squeeze when she would hear something I knew to be disturbing. If she wasn't real, then she was a damned good facsimile.

Gustafson sat with me a few minutes. He didn't say anything, he just observed as I lay in my hospital bed, my brow creased with worry. He'd nod when I would look away from his stare and towards Bonnie or the TV in the corner now playing the weather channel. Looks like it was going to rain all weekend.

I had my MRI and three hours later Doctor Gustafson was back. This time his slightly dopey facade was gone. "We're going to have to go in, George. You've got some pressure building up and you're bleeding internally."

The tone in his voice told me how bad it was. His answer to my next question confirmed it. "When?"

"Now."

And that thunderstorm became a hurricane. Doctors and nurses and orderlies swooped in like a buzzard on a decaying carcass. The wheels on my bed were unlocked and I was whisked away down a crowded hallway into a much more deserted part of the hospital. I was moved from my bed onto another table, this time with surgical lights hovering just out of view. Bonnie was there with me, telling me everything was going to be okay. "I'll keep you safe, Autumn, honey," she said. It wasn't the last time she spoke to me. That came later.

I spent the night in a medically induced coma and was pulled out of it on Friday morning, three days before I was to start my new job. Bonnie was standing by my bed, holding my wrist. She was checking my pulse. Had the real Bonnie done that? Isn't that what those machines were for? My mom was sleeping in the chair opposite my bed. My dad wasn't anywhere to be seen. "Mom?" I said.

She didn't stir.

"You're awake," Bonnie said, smiling at me. "I'll get the doctor."

I nodded though my head felt watery and lethargic. I watched Bonnie leave the room. I saw the door open and close. I heard it click shut. Exactly as it had when my father had gone to find a doctor prior to my surgery.

"Mom," I said again, no louder than the first time. My throat was sore. My mouth was dry. My lips felt cracked. "Mom," I tried a third time.

Bonnie came in and a moment later a nurse whisked in behind her. "Hello, Mister Sweet," the nurse said.

"I've got your back," Bonnie said at the same time.

"It's good to see you awake," the nurse concluded.

"How am I?"

The nurse smiled, informed me that she'd have Doctor Townsend up in no time. She checked the machines attached to my hands and arms. Checked the catheter affixed down below and the half-full urine bag hanging off the bottom of the bed. She made some notes in my file and left the room, offering me a smile as she departed. I took that as good news. Mostly because I wanted to.

I looked at the apparition standing by my head. "Can you wake my mom, please?" Intellectually I knew she couldn't, but I wasn't exactly thinking clearly just then. Besides, hadn't Bonnie just fetched the nurse? A hallucination couldn't exactly do that, could she?

Bonnie crossed the room and shook my mom. As far as hallucinations went, it was a damned good one. My mother's arm moved under Bonnie's ministrations. How had she done that? I knew she wasn't real. Or maybe I just thought she wasn't. I still wasn't entirely sure.

"She's really out of it. She was up all night worrying about you," Bonnie said, returning to my side.