Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

course.”
    Anna rubbed the cat’s chin with her forefinger.
    “She’s older than the others,” the staffer added. “Will that be a problem?”
    “It hasn’t been for me,” said Anna.
    She looked up at me warmly. “Let’s take her home.”
    By the time we’d arrived at Anna’s apartment, heavily laden with pet paraphernalia, she had already named the cat Ninotchka. She’d first seen the film as a gender-confused nineteen-year-old and since then had nursed a serious thing for Garbo. “We can call her Notch for short,” she said, “after her most distinctive feature.”
    We didn’t call her anything for a while, since she crawled under Anna’s ancestral oak armoire and refused to come out. All that remained of her was a tiny disembodied voice going “ack” from time to time, like a cricket stranded in the woodwork.
    “She’s just getting her bearings,” Anna said blithely as she poured me a glass of sherry at the kitchen table. Her hand, I noticed, was shaking a little.
    “Can I help with that?” I asked.
    “What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll spill on you?”
    I smiled at her as she poured her own drink.
    “A toast to Ninotchka,” she said, lifting her glass.
    I clinked my glass against hers. “Wherever she may be.”
    “And listen to me, dear: If I die before she does, she’s not to go back to the shelter.”
    I admit I was rattled by that. “Well, “I said, “aren’t we melodramatic this afternoon?”
    “It’s a practical consideration, dear. Don’t be silly. You just never know.”
    No, you don’t, do you? I was thinking of dear, departed Harry, the poodle I thought would surely survive me. Or other positive guys who maxed out their credit cards, counting on death to cut them a deal, but ending up broke and alive. Not to mention the virus-free friends who’ve recently dropped dead of heart attacks. The end can come—or not come—to anyone at anytime, and no one knew that better than Anna. Her mother had died at ninety-something, still running a brothel in Nevada; her daughter hadn’t made it far past fifty. Assumptions of any kind are a luxury we can’t afford.
    “All right,” I said. “If that happens…we’ll take her.”
    She patted my hand in gratitude.
    “You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m sure we’ve got something she can live under.”
    Anna glanced toward the armoire. “Careful, dear. She can hear you.”

    Around twilight Jake showed up, letting himself into Anna’s flat with the key she had given him. He’d brought her a bag of persimmons from the Farmers Market and a ridiculously large block of toilet paper from CostCo. He stayed for a few minutes in hopes of meeting Ninotchka, but the cat, not unlike Garbo herself, wanted to be alone.
    When Jake headed back to his own flat, Anna turned to me with a gleam in her eye that I’d come to recognize over the years. “He’s seeing someone, you know.”
    “I know,” I said evenly.
    “What’s the matter?” she asked, reading my expression.
    I explained—perhaps a little too delicately, considering the audience—that Jake was not as comfortable with his “birth genitals” as his boyfriend wanted him to be.
    “I thought his boyfriend was gay,” said Anna.
    “He is. And he relates to Jake as a guy. He just likes the idea of…”
    “A vagina,” said Anna. “You can say it, dear.”
    Anna had become too much of a parent for me to discuss this issue with any degree of nonchalance. “Jake says he can’t relate to his vagina, that it’s basically…a foreign object to him. To use it having sex with his boyfriend would be like…denying his essential masculinity. If you follow me.” I smiled at her helplessly. “ Are you following me?”
    “I think so, yes.”
    “Was it like that for you?”
    “Like what, dear?”
    “Did you feel that way about your penis?”
    “Well,” said Anna, widening her eyes above the rim of her sherry glass, “let’s just say I wasn’t especially attached to it.”
    I smiled, relieved that she’d lightened the moment.
    “You know, dear, some kids today are perfectly content to do without the surgery. They figure that gender is mostly in the head anyway, so why tamper with the parts that are specifically designed for pleasure? Why not let your head have the last word and leave your groin to enjoy itself? That way…if you were born female, say, like Jake…you don’t end up with…you know…some unfortunate, unfeeling—”
    “Frankenpecker.”
    Anna