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  When the film strip came out, I looked so ridiculous, I tore it up, then pulled off the earrings and wiped off the lipstick with the back of my hand.

  When I got home, I did what I should have done first. I found a snapshot of Julie and me. I was going to have to come clean sometime, but I didn’t see any other way out now. In the photo, Julie was smiling directly into the camera. I was behind her, looking off over her head. On the back I wrote, “Me and Walsh.” I put it in an envelope and sent it off to Rosemary.

  Chapter 18

  Julie!

  Why aren’t I talking to you anymore? Why aren’t you talking to me? I’m talking to someone else and you’re talking to someone else. And it’s still strange and awful, because for so long we only talked to each other.

  There’s a place inside me for you, a place where you’ll always be, a secret room that I’ve never shared with anybody. Julie’s place. But, Julie, there’s another room in my heart and it’s growing and it’s widening and opening up.… Do you care? Does it matter to you? If you knew, would you be happy, feel free of me at last? Or would you be jealous?

  Rosemary and I talk at night after my sister is asleep. She thinks I’m a girl, Julie. Which is a strange thing to say, maybe a strange thing, altogether, but it doesn’t feel strange when Rosemary and I are talking. What would you make of that, Julie? Your George talking to another girl, girl-to-girl?

  I don’t know much about her, but I will soon, a whole lot more, because I want to know about her. It worries me, though, Julie. Maybe I’m scared, too. If Rosemary steps into that room, where will we be then, you and I?

  In the Walshes’ apartment, the lights went out. I was standing on Cliff Street with all the little houses jammed together, and I was looking across the river at the city, which looked like a mountain of light. Ten thousand thousand lights, and every light a room, and in every room someone breathing.

  It was late, chilly, no one out on the street. The houses were all dark. Was Julie asleep? Maybe I’d climb the fire escape and scratch at her window.

  I became aware of a car parked in front of the house. There was somebody inside the car, two somebodies. Julie. And somebody I didn’t know and couldn’t see, but I didn’t have to see him to know it was a man.

  I crossed the street. Julie looked out the window at me. Her face in the window … the look of her. It was Julie but different, changed, older. She was looking at me and I was looking at her.

  I reached to open the door. Julie pushed the lock button down and we looked at each other through the glass like two fish in separate aquariums.

  Who are you? her look said. What are you doing? It was a cautious, careful look, the way a small fish might look at a big strange fish. If we were fish, we were two fish that didn’t swim in the same waters anymore.

  I swung away with a sweep of my arm, as if I were holding a broad-brimmed hat with a bright feather. I half bowed and let my hand sweep across the ground. And I walked away.

  Her face in the window. Her face in my head.

  Julie …

  I thought about that room in my mind, Julie’s room, and I shut the door.

  Chapter 19

  “There was a message for you on the answering machine,” Lydia said, when I came in to work Saturday morning. “I really don’t want you to have personal calls coming in on this phone.”

  “Sorry.” Lydia was tough. Every once in a while, when I’d really worked hard on something and done it to her satisfaction, she’d crack a smile and I’d think, aha! Finally won her over. Then she’d find something to correct, helpful criticism, all low-key and matter-of-fact, but still criticism. It always made me feel like I was still tripping over my own shoelaces.

  I listened to the message. “Georgie, this is Rosemary. Call me as soon as you can. ’Bye!”

  I thought about it all morning, and at lunch I went out and called from an outside phone. A man answered. “Can I speak to Rosemary?” I said. I had my hand over the phone. I was feeling a little foolish, like I was in a spy movie. Rosemary, this is Georgie. Are you wondering why I sound this way? It’s not laryngitis, and I don’t have a three-pack-a-day habit. The fact is I’m George, not Georgie.

  “Can you speak up?” the man said.

  “Rosemary,” I repeated.

  “She’s not here.”

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “Who is this?” It must have been her father.

  “Tell her Georgie.… Tell her I’ll call her later.”

  “Does this have something to do with an audition?”

  “No. I’m a friend.” I felt like a fool. Her father was going to know I was a guy.

  All afternoon I jumped every time the phone rang. Can I speak to Georgie? Rosemary would say. And what would Lydia say? Wait a minute, I’ll get him. Him. Him. Him!

  As soon as I got through work, I called from the same outside phone. I was really nervous as I dialed. Be honest, I told myself. This is what you’re going to say: Rosemary, this is George. I have something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time now.

  “Hello?”

  “Rosemary?”

  “Georgie?”

  It was her on the phone. Her voice. I’d imagined it stronger, louder, more vigorous. Her voice was almost languid and she was whispering. “Rosemary!” I was so excited to be talking to her that I forgot everything. “This is George.”

  “I can hardly hear you.”

  “You, too. It must be a bad connection.”

  “My father’s sleeping right on the couch here. I can’t believe I’m finally talking to you! Listen, he’s a very light sleeper. What’s your number? I’ll call you back from an outside phone.”

  I gave her my number. “I’ll wait right here.”

  “Call you in five minutes.”

  I waited and thought about what I was going to say to her.

  The phone rang. “Georgie? Isn’t it wonderful to be really talking? Your voice is so deep. I’d love to have a voice like that.”

  “I like your voice.”

  “Georgie, your picture came yesterday. It’s great! You look exactly the way I thought you would.”

  “I got your picture. I like the way you look. You’re really a dancer, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am! Didn’t you believe me? We have to get together, that’s all there is to it. That’s what I called you about. What’s a good time for you?”

  “Rosemary, I want to tell you—”

  “How about today? Where should we meet?”

  “Today? You mean now?”

  “Do you want to meet near the George Washington Bridge? I could be up at the One hundred seventy-eighth Street station in about an hour.”

  “I just finished work.”

  “Oh! You’re tired. How about tomorrow?”

  “I can’t … my family.”

  “Monday, then, right after school?”

  I ran out of excuses. “Okay,” I said. It was Rosemary’s idea that we both wear red berets and meet at the Port Authority downtown at four o’clock.

  Monday I left school at noon. Was I really going through with this meeting? Did I dare walk up to her and say, Hi, Rosemary, I’m Georgie? Do it fast and clean, like an amputation. But was it too brutal? What if she walked away? What if I never saw her again? I began to think maybe I could dress up a little bit, disguise myself as a girl, just till she got used to me. It was a stupid idea, but I was thinking it.

  I went home and took a silk blouse from my mother’s closet and tucked it into my pants. I put on one of my mother’s necklaces and the same pair of earrings I’d worn to the photo booth. I cinched a belt around my waist and looked at myself in the mirror. “It’s not going to work,” I said.

  As I stood there uncertainly, the bell rang. I saw the Express Mail truck parked by the curb. The mailman rang again, and I ran down the stairs, pulling off the belt.

  “Express Mail for Farina.” The mailman glanced at me, then held the clipboard out for me
to sign. It was a letter for my father, from Packwood & Patchen Environmental Surveys, Inc. The mailman tore off the outside receipt and handed it to me. “Nice earrings,” he said.

  My hand went to my ear. I’d forgotten the earrings. Heat rose to my face and I shut the door fast. I dropped the letter on the hall table and saw myself in the mirror, saw what the mailman had seen—the earrings, the tucked-in blouse. Boy pretending to be girl.

  Chapter 20

  I moved toward the back of the bus. I had the beret in my pocket. I glanced at the woman next to me. Her hands were folded over a rosary, and I thought of asking her to pray for me.

  I was at the Port Authority before Rosemary. Or at least I thought I was. I looked around, but I didn’t see a girl wearing a red beret, looking for another girl wearing a red beret.

  I kept feeling the beret in my pocket. I wasn’t going to put it on until I saw Rosemary and satisfied myself about her. I didn’t know exactly what it was that I wanted to see, but I did know that as long as the beret was in my pocket and not on my head, I could still get out of this. I could still escape.

  Swarms of people rushed through the terminal. It made me dizzy watching them. I sat down and ordered a cup of coffee. Outside on the street, yellow cabs were lined up. A black man in a white gown and a white cap was handing out religious literature. A woman in a plaid jacket was selling hot chestnuts. Near the doors, a few street people with their gear in plastic bags were dozing on the floor.

  After the coffee, I bought myself a large orange juice at a stand. I was dry as a bone. Nervousness. People were coming and going in the terminal, sitting near me and behind me, eating and watching. Was one of them Rosemary, waiting to see what Georgie looked like before she raised the red beret? Waiting to see if Georgie looked like someone she wanted to know in the flesh?

  For all her openness, Rosemary might have developed a pair of ice-cold feet by today and decided that getting to know me, a total stranger, was just not a smart idea.

  I bought a soda and drank it too fast, but in another minute I was dry again. A pair of policemen passed, their black belts bulging with hardware, their eyes flicking over the crowd. One of them was talking into a walkie-talkie. Was I home, watching this on TV? Tonight’s episode: “Stakeout at the West Side Terminal!” George Farina, as the shortest, best-looking man on the staff, we’ve got a special assignment for you. Find the girl with the red beret.

  I glanced down at my hands. I usually wore my class ring on my middle finger. I pulled it off and on. My fingers were swollen. As I did it, the hair on the back of my neck rose, and I knew someone was watching me.

  I swiveled around. A girl standing nearby was looking at me hard. Really looking. She was tall, that was the first thing I noticed about her, and she was wearing a long man’s overcoat, which made her look taller. She had a long neck and pale skin and eyes so black they seemed to have been dipped in tar. The picture didn’t really say it. There was something exciting, and a little scary, about her. She looked like somebody. And it was her, Rosemary. I knew it even before I saw the red beret she was wearing tipped over one ear.

  I produced my beret, held it up, and looked at her helplessly.

  Chapter 21

  “Where’s Georgie?” Rosemary—because of course it was Rosemary—came toward me with an open, almost ferociously welcoming smile.

  I stuffed the beret in my pocket. It was hard for me to get my eyes in focus. I was thirsty and felt a desperate need for a bathroom. All that drinking I’d been doing. “Georgie?” I started laughing, because it was a crazy, terrifying moment.

  Even had I wanted to escape, there was no way I could do it anymore. Rosemary sat down next to me and put her hand over mine. “Hello! You’re Walsh, aren’t you?”

  Walsh? For a moment I didn’t get it.

  “The moment I saw you, I recognized you from the picture Georgie sent me,” she said. “Oh, I’m so glad to meet you! You two must have made up.”

  “Uh, yes, in a manner of speaking.” I kept looking at her and looking away. “You could say we’re in the process of getting together.” I stared at her. Rosemary. This was Rosemary.

  “Georgie’s with you, isn’t she?” she said.

  “No. I mean yes, she’s here, but she’s not here—”

  Rosemary leaned close to me. “I have to tell you, Walsh, I’m nervous about this meeting. I want Georgie to like me. I hardly slept last night.”

  “You, too?” I said.

  “What kind of person is she? Is she very critical?”

  “I don’t think so. No. Georgie is—she’s going to like you.” I looked at her. “She does like you. I know she likes you.”

  She slid the salt and pepper shakers around. She had a fast, nervous way of moving and talking. “On the way here, I walked uptown from Union Square and I counted twenty red berets. I was sure everyone in the Port Authority would be wearing red berets. But the funny thing is, I wasn’t even looking for a beret when I walked in. I knew I’d recognize Georgie. Then I saw you, instead, and I recognized you. I thought, That’s Walsh. He and Georgie must have made up.” She put her hand over her mouth. “I’m talking too much.”

  “You know, Rosemary, Georgie’s not going to be just what you expect.”

  “Oh, I know she’s not ordinary.”

  “You know how you get a certain idea about somebody, and no matter what the real thing about them is, it’s hard to shake your original idea.”

  “What does that mean?” she said. She kept looking around. “You’re making me nervous, Walsh.” She ordered a glass of milk. Our eyes met and she smiled at me and patted me on the shoulder. It was more than a pat; she left her hand on my shoulder. “It’s nice that you and Georgie made up.”

  Her hand on my shoulder and those warm looks … those looks were going right through me.

  She took a sip of the milk, made a face, and pushed it away. “I hate milk.”

  “Why’d you order it?”

  “My father says it’s good for me. Don’t you always do what your father tells you to?” And she gave me a wide-eyed look, and then she laughed.

  Her eyes, those dark, tarry eyes! Rosemary. She’d been a name, words on a screen, a whispery voice on the phone. Rosemary. She was beyond anything I’d ever expected. It was wonderful to be here with her. And I could tell—I was pretty sure—she liked me, too.

  “Where did you say Georgie was? What’s taking her so long?”

  “She’s here,” I said.

  Rosemary stood up and looked around. “I don’t see her.”

  “Here,” I said, pointing to myself. “Right here. Rosemary, sit down. I want to tell you something.” It was a relief to say it. “Rosemary—I’m not Walsh.”

  “What do you mean you’re not Walsh?”

  “I’m George Farina.”

  “Who?”

  “George Farina.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute! Your name is Walsh.”

  “No. Farina.”

  “That’s Georgie’s name.”

  “That’s right. That’s my name.”

  “You’re her brother? That picture was of you and her?” She clapped her head to her head. “Oh, oh, oh! I get it. Georgie doesn’t really have a boyfriend, and she didn’t want me to know. Oh, I don’t care about stuff like that! Poor Georgie! What is she doing? Is she here? Is she hiding, waiting for you to call her?”

  “Rosemary,” I said. “Rosemary. Listen. There is no Georgie. There’s just me. George Farina.”

  “Wait a second. Now stop. Stop.” She put her hands over her ears. “Let me think about this. I come here expecting to meet my friend Georgie. Instead, you’re here. And I know you, I recognized you from the picture. Now you’re telling me you’re not Walsh; you’re George Farina. Fine. But where’s Georgie?”

  “No Georgie,” I said.

  “There is no Georgie?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, if she’s not here, tell me where she is.”

  “She isn�
��t anywhere. She doesn’t exist.”

  “I don’t get it.” She sat back in her seat. “I just don’t get it. Of course there’s a Georgie. I talked to her yesterday.”

  “No, you talked to me. George Farina. I’m George and I’m Georgie.”

  There was a long silence. Then she said, “Is this some kind of a game? Am I being set up? Is there a hidden camera here? Do you have a microphone somewhere?” She reached across the counter and picked up my collar. “I’m not very good at games.”

  “It’s not a game. I’m trying to explain—”

  She fished around in her pocket. I half expected her to come out with a gun and blow me away, but it was the photo I’d sent her of me and Julie. “That’s you.”

  “Yes. Me. George Farina.”

  “Not Walsh?”

  “That’s Walsh.” I pointed to Julie. “My old girl-friend. Julie Walsh.”

  Rosemary turned the photo over and read the words. “Me and Walsh.”

  “I didn’t lie,” I said. “It is me and Walsh.”

  Rosemary stood up and I stood, too, conscious in a way I hadn’t been before that she was taller than me. “You’re telling me that all this time I thought I was talking to Georgie on the computer, to a girl, it was you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You made believe you were a girl?”

  “Rosemary, I didn’t set out to do it, it just happened.”

  “You said you worked in a beauty parlor.”

  “I do. I work for my father. Men work in beauty parlors.”

  “You didn’t correct me, you let me believe you were a girl. You knew that’s what I thought! You never said you were a boy.”

  “I was going to, but I was afraid you’d stop talking to me.”

  “You did that on purpose. You tricked me.” And then she got really hostile. “Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want? Why did you come?”