Mrs. David Padowak

I land in Boston early, hit the interstate in my rental car while it’s still dark. I cross the Piscataqua bridge into Maine as the sun comes up, thinking one of these days I should hike up here on the Appalachian Trail. Not that I’m a huge hiker. I’d just read an article about it on the plane. It said thousands hike the Trail every year. For me, it would have to be a “skip-n-hike” kind of thing, where you travel most of the way in a car or a luxury motorhome. You’d stop at various points to “hike the highlights” of the Trail, with a few detours for fine dining and boutique shopping along the way. I ponder this idea as I continue northward.

Two hours later, I’m in the mid-coast region on a rural highway, one of those asphalt ribbons pulsing dark and light between overtowering canopy green and rolling hills carpeted in green; tree then grass, forest then farmland, leaf and branch followed by pasture and fencepost, and then I come upon one of those backwoods gas-station-slash-convenience-stores where they sell everything: all the necessities for any season, from fishing worms to de-icer, from shotgun shells to wedding dresses, from brand-name plasticized snack food to fresh-made breakfast sandwiches wrapped in foil and kept warm in those heated glass display carousels. I haven’t been to Maine in years, but I remember those sandwiches. They’re what I’ve been looking forward to most.

I pull in, fill the tank. I go inside and head straight to the food counter where two old-timers in bib-overalls are drinking coffee and chatting with the cook. “Sprung a damn leak in one o’ my waders,” says one of the old-timers. He goes on with his story as the cook, Janice, according to her nametag, steps to the counter to take my order.

I say sausage-and-egg-w-cheese, and she says, “I’m happy to make it for you, but we have those in the ready-made if you don’t want to wait.”

Janice is middle-aged pushing old. I almost feel bad making her make me a sandwich when there’s ready-mades of the same sandwich, but Janice isn’t expressing a preference, and doesn’t show a hint of frailty.

“Nope. I didn’t drive all the way up here from Georgia for a ready-made,” I grin. “I want mine hot off the griddle.”

She nods, “Hot off the griddle’s what I’m here for.”

Janice starts my sandwich while I go grab a coffee and wander around looking at handcrafted souvenirs made by local artisans and the many varieties of windshield wiper fluid. You can get a pink kind that’s good down to 20 degrees below zero, and there are two kinds—one blue, one orange—that’ll get you all the way down to minus-25. I’m reading the jokey souvenir t-shirts when I hear Janice say, “Ma’am.”

I look up and she waves my foil-wrapped sandwich at me.

“Leak was in the right boot, but I felt the water in both feet,” old-timer still talking about his leaky waders, “an’ it was warm as piss.”

“That wa’n’t no leak, Johnnie,” says Old-Timer No. 2.

“Yeah, that’s what I ‘as thinking, too. I oughta go put my waders on and piss in ‘em to see if it feels the same.” He takes a sip from his mug, winks at me over the rim.

I smile back. Janice is stuffing my sandwich in a paper bag with a wad of napkins.

“Drove up from Georgia, did ya?” says No. 2.

“Yessir.” I slide my sunglasses down a bit and look at him over the rims. “Well, flew in to Boston. Drove from there.”

He nods. “Enjoy your visit, dea-ah.”

I smile again. Janice hands me the bag, and I say, “Thank you, Janice” and carry it to the checkout counter to pay. There’s a good-looking guy ahead of me in line. Reminds me of a kid I knew in high school. David Padowak. As if I could forget that name. We used to eat lunch together in the cafeteria. Kids called him David Paddy-whack or Paddy-whack-me-off. He was so easy-going, he’d just laugh along. They’d tease him for being a homo, and he’d laugh along with that, too. Not like he could deny it, with those dark eyes of his that when you got up close you’d see were deep blue, those long, black eyelashes, jet-black hair. He probably smiled as much as he did so people wouldn’t think him a satanist. How funny it would be to run into David Padowak after all these years, a thousand miles from where we grew up.

I wonder what color this man’s eyes are. I’m looking at the back of his head, his broad shoulders. His hair has a few grays.

The person ahead of him leaves and he steps to the register.

He calls the checkout lady Darla though she doesn’t wear a nametag. This guy’s a local, I think. Memory does funny things, but it sounds like David Padowak’s voice, too, or what I imagine David would sound like after twenty-something years. He’s in a t-shirt and cargo shorts. He could be a tourist, but it’s hard to tell; men dress the same for everything.

Darla puts his items in a paper bag. “Ok, David. See you around, hon,” she says, and I think this is too much to be a coincidence.

“David Padowak?” I say, pronouncing it correctly, pad-o-walk, as I pull off my sunglasses.

He turns around and looks at me and his face blooms into a big smile. “Amy Forester? Well, how about that?” he laughs. “What a funny place to run into you!”

“Well, it’s just on the other end of the Appalachian Trail.” I assume the funny place he’s referring to is Maine. “Do you live here?”

“I do. I do.”

“Wow. How do you like the winters?”

“Oh, they’re part of the fun. And you’re what, on vacation?” He throws a quick glance around the store to see who I’m traveling with.

“Yes. Sort of. I’m here to take pictures and gawk at the scenery, but it’s a work trip.”

“Wow, that’s amazing! Are you a photographer?”

“No, a journalist. I mean, a reporter. I’m doing a piece on women traveling alone. Safety versus fulfillment, is it worth the risk… yadda yadda yadda.”

“Ooh, interesting assignment. So you’re staying around here?”

“Yeah, somewhere. I’m headed up the coast a ways.”

“Well, if you have time you should come out to the house, meet the fam.”

“You’re married?”

“Yep. Two kids.”

Wow, I think. Now I understand why he’s in Maine. People take a live-and-let-live approach here, and gay marriage is one thing, but a gay couple adopting kids is really progressive.

“I would love to meet your family!” I say, with an enthusiasm that probably sounds fake, but I mean it. I’m happy for him. I always felt sorry for him back in the day. There were other gay kids in our school, but David couldn’t hide it, his look, that whole androgynous thing. I thought of him as the conspicuous homo. And the other kids were so mean. He didn’t put up a front like the other gays and homophobes, didn’t stand around holding his balls like they were cannonballs, or brag about his love of burnt steak. He’d always have a different girl on his arm, trying to pass for straight, but it was so obvious. The other gay kids steered clear of him lest they be outed by association. I can’t wait to see what he’s doing in Maine. And who, I mean, I wonder what lucky guy snatched him up?

We exchange phone numbers, and I get back to my day of driving and stopping and taking pictures of anything that could be described as “quaint,” “bucolic” or “natural beauty.” I do what vacationers do: smell the air, feel the sun and say Ahhh, get ice cream at the Tasty Treat. I was planning to go until I hit Canada or snow, whichever came first, but I’m stopping too often to make it that far. Too many sights to see. Boats. Bookshop. Blueberries. Lobster. Iconic MOTEL sign. Click. Click. Clickety click.

While I drive, I think about David, his husband, his kids. His dad ran the fancy-schmancy boys prep school in our town, but it was shut down over an embezzlement scandal involving state money. David ended up in public school with several other rich kids, most of whom blended in just fine because the district enforced a strict dress code policy that included uniforms, but David’s poise and clean fingernails always gave him away. And those working-class hos would fling themselves at him, trying to turn him. But it wasn’t about sex for David. It was him, heart and soul. I remember him sitting down with a plate of nachos, pushing it at his buddies: “Anyone want any? Greg? Bobby?” Those guys were such jerks. “I don’t want your nachos, David. If you want to suck my dick, just ask.”

I stop at a food truck in a marina parking lot. I’m eating one of those famous red hot dogs, gazing at a fleet of sailboats anchored in the harbor, when David texts to follow up on his dinner invitation. I text back, “sure, i’m up the coast, be back in your NOTW tomorrow, 4 or 5 if that works”.

“NOTW?” he replies.

“neck of the woods”

“Ah,” he texts, followed by, “NW. TYT. WBTCWYGH.”

“??”

“No Worries. Take Your Time. We’ll Boil The Crab When You Get Here.”

I reply eye-roll emoji and “see you tomorrow dork”.

He replies with laughing emoji and sends his address.

I make it to Bar Harbor with not enough light left to look around. I grab dinner, check into my motel, call my editor to confirm plans for tomorrow. I’m driving back down the coast to somewhere close to Boston for an easy jaunt to the airport the following morning. I tell her about the antique clock I bought to put on the mantel over my fake fireplace.

“Jewed the guy down twenty bucks,” I say, “almost what I paid to ship it home.”

She laughs. “You’re terrible,” she says.

I tell her about my dinner plans with David and his family. “They’re men. Gay couple.”

“Where does he live?” she asks. “Is it out of the way?”

I give her the address.

“Amy, it’s all the way at the end of a peninsula,” she says with a slight tone. She’s looking at street view on an online map.

“Yeah? So?”

“Looks like a long way from help if this guy turns out to be a creep.”

“He’s not like that, Bea. He grew up rich. This is probably his summer home. He probably winters in Vail. Ooh, no, Hawaii!”

“What if he turns out to be, just, regular terrible? How well did you know him?”

“We were friends. For a while, anyway.” I tell her about the nachos.

“For a while? What happened?”

“Kids started calling me ‘fag hag.’ And, you know… high school is so brutal.”

“Oh, Amy.”

“I know, I know, I’m the one that turned out terrible.”

Bea laughs.

Next day, when I get close to the mid-coast region, I stop off at a grocery store for a bottle of prosecco. I type David’s address into my maps app and the blue line leads me all the way down one of Maine’s famous peninsulas to an adorable cottage by the sea. Cedar shingle siding, flat blue trim, colorful buoys hanging about, just like you see in calendars. It’s near the mouth of an inlet protected by several barrier islands, similar looking cottages trimmed in different colors clustered around, but standing at the edge of his yard you can see a narrow strip of ocean all the way to the horizon. I park in the gravel driveway behind a white Subaru. David and a woman walk out of the house to greet me.

“Amy, you made it!” says David. “Welcome, welcome!”

He approaches with open arms as I climb out of my car.

“We’re so glad you’re here.”

He hugs me and then steps back, keeping a hand on my shoulder, and introduces me to the woman.

“Amy, my wife, Tina.”

Wife? I think it, but I don’t say it. That’s the kind of thing that arouses a wife’s suspicions. It would sound to her like David ran into an old girlfriend and didn’t mention he had a wife. But I’m thinking, why does David have a wife? I smile through it. I shake her hand, gush over how cute they are together. I had driven out here expecting to find David, his husband and two kids. He did mention his husband, didn’t he? Then it hits me: No, he said come meet ‘the fam.’ Fucking hipster lingo.

I look at Tina a second time in the dawn of this new light.

She’s perfect. She could be his sister. She’s David minus twenty percent: twenty-percent smaller head, twenty-percent narrower shoulders, twenty-percent smaller gorgeous butt, and rounder in those yoga pants. Twenty-percent larger bust. David’s perfect nose, on her, is pert and cute. Her eyes twinkle like his. Perfect teeth. A few age lines and her chest is freckled, but she’s girlishly pretty. Doesn’t have his blue eyes, though. Hers are green.

We stroll around their yard. It’s a perfect Maine day. Sunny, light breeze. I smell salt and roses. The turf curls over the bluff and drops in craggy steps five or six feet to the water. I’m in sandals and the grass grazes the sides of my feet. There’s a cute work shed, a three-sided firewood shed, everything in cedar shingles and blue trim, bouquet of pink flowers hangs on the shed door, all very lovely, but I can’t stop thinking, This is all so gay; how is David’s partner not male?

David calls to two kids on a nearby dock. “Boys, come on, my friend’s here!”

The boys gather up their things and start making their way on a low-tide path below the shoreline. One of them carries a bucket that sloshes water with every step.

“I hope you don’t mind we’re not feeding you lobster,” says David. “Our fish market is all decked out in political paraphernalia these days, so we haven’t been buying lobster. But we can get crab right here for free.”

“Oh, I love crab,” I say, but I don’t give a shit about the crustaceans, I’m curious about these kids. Their heads pop up over the bluff looking like David and Tina in miniature.

Tina introduces me, her hand on the taller kid’s head, “This is David Jr.,” she says—David Jr. sticks out his hand saying pleasedtameetcha—“and the little one is Henry.” Henry had climbed into the yard with his brother all chatty and smiley, and now he stands half hidden behind his dad, peering at this Southern stranger.

I smile at Henry. I look at David Jr., then David Sr., then Tina. There’s a story here, but I can’t get at it directly, so I say, “David, we didn’t have but a moment to chat yesterday. Now, you’ve had me wondering all day how you ended up in Maine?”

“Oh, Tina’s from here. We met in college. I don’t know if you remember, I went to Dartmouth…” They had graduated, married, she works in local government, her parents live nearby and “they’re getting older…”—David and Tina stare at the ground for a moment with that solemn look—“He can teach high school anywhere…,” Tina goes on with the blah blah blah. I’m listening for clues, but nothing they say hints at why or how David stopped being gay. Her family isn’t religious. She isn’t…

Maybe she’s one of those trans women. The thought leaps into my head before I see it coming. Of course! I feel so old-fashioned not seeing it sooner.

“Have you been together long?” I ask.

“Uh, yes, since college, as I said. We started dating our sophomore year.”

“Oh, I mean…”

I don’t know what I mean. I feel my neck turn red and let my gaze follow the line of the inlet out to sea. How does that even work? Trans women can’t have babies; the surgery they get is all cosmetic.

“I bet you get a pretty sunrise here,” I change the subject.

“Oh, they’re absolutely gorgeous,” says David, and I steal a glance at his wife’s tits.

David and the boys take the crab bucket to a corner of the deck where there’s a propane burner set up. Tina leads me inside the house, offers me a can of seltzer. We stand in the kitchen admiring the view through a wall of windows looking out over the water.

“David says you’re doing a piece on women traveling alone. Is it for publication?”

Did they use a surrogate? Did they use Tina’s sperm or David’s? Or can you mix them? “Um, yes, I write a column for the Atlanta Singer. It’s sort of an experiential piece. We’re exploring the world through the lens of, what if women always had equality? I’m traveling as if women were safe wherever we go, so, hello, Maine,” I say with jazz hands. “I just have to imagine, what if the whole world was like Maine?”

“Well, it’s not a danger-free zone,” says Tina, “but the rest of the world could do a lot worse than Maine. No doubt about that.”

There are family pictures tacked to a bulletin board in a phone cubby next to the fridge. David and Tina and their kids on a beach. David and Tina and their kids on a mountain. David and Tina and their kids with a moose. The kids I just met in the yard are ten, maybe twelve. The pictures go back to their early childhood and further. There’s one of a much younger David and Tina sitting next to Santa with a single shrieking baby on Santa’s lap, the two Davids in father-and-son Dartmouth sweatshirts.

Tina looks at the pictures with me. “Little Davey did not like Santa. He’s never really warmed up to Christmas at all, in fact.”

So we’re talking reproductive technology of twelve-ish years ago. I look at her face in profile. Yep, cosmetic. They definitely used a surrogate. I’m starting to see it—the faint mustache, the squareness of her jaw, the definition in her forearms—but I say nothing, like it’s totally normal. It makes me feel proud, like, this is what an ally feels like.

Further up the bulletin board there’s a picture of someone on a frozen lake in snow bibs and a bright, red jacket holding a hockey stick and a bottle of gin. The edge of another photo is covering the person’s face, but they’re the right size to be Tina. Tina from college days. A young Tina. Maybe not Tina, but Tim, or something, but the person has long hair spilling down over their shoulders. I reach to move the photo covering their face, but the boys thunder in from the deck through a sliding glass door. They run through the kitchen and clomp up the stairs. David comes in behind them and joins us in the kitchen.

“Those are some big crabs the boys caught,” he says. “Amy, I hope you brought your appetite.”

“How does one catch crabs out here on the coast?” I ask. “I only know how to catch crabs in the city.” I say it smirking and the joke lands, catches Tina off guard. She laughs hard and my ears pick up her masculine undertones, but I’m impressed with the results of what must have been years of voice training. Even her little snort sounds feminine.

The boys stomp back down the stairs and we head outside for a walk on the rocks while the crab water heats up. Tide is coming in. Henry gets close to the water on some steep rocks and Tina bellows at him: “That’s far enough, Henry!” It makes me feel welcome, being allowed to hear that, like she’s letting me inside her safe family bubble, way down here on the end of a peninsula twenty miles from civilization.

“How did you guys find this place?” I ask.

“Usual way,” says David, “real estate agent gave us a list. Everything else was further inland, and the same distance from town as we are here, but here we can catch fish right out of our back yard. It was a no-brainer.”

“How long ago was that? Did you have the boys already?” I’m probing, asking a question to which most women would include in their answer, “…when I was pregnant with [name of child]…”

“Nope, they came with us. We moved from Lewiston after the shooting.”

Damn, I think, to the lack of information about pregnancies, and Shit, I think, for my question having brought up a painful memory.

We return to the house. Crab water’s almost boiling. The boys go inside to play video games.

“I’ll go set up for dinner,” says Tina. “Amy, you stay out here and watch the crab boil.”

“Aye, aye,” I say, in the spirit of the ocean.

The crabs are in an ice chest. David snatches them out one at a time with tongs and drops them in the cauldron, puts the lid on, and that’s all there is to that.

Tina brings out plates, etc., sets up the table on the deck. She brings the side dishes: buttery mashed potatoes and a salad in a big, wooden bowl, but the salad’s store-bought, she tells me—spinach with walnuts and mandarin oranges.

I say it looks good to me.

David pulls the crabs out of the pot and tosses them in an even bigger bowl. Tina calls the boys and we eat with the sun drifting low. Crab eaters provide a lot of coaching and instruction when new people eat crab—“Break that knuckle with the pliers… Good, now grab the meat with your fingers and pull straight out… don’t forget to dip it in the butter”—which gives me an excuse to watch Tina eat. I’m really seeing it now, the way she tears the crab apart, works the shell-cracking pliers like an auto mechanic, rips out the meat with her teeth.

Henry gets into the shell cracking, too. Hell, so do I. I break open a leg and water squirts me in the face. Henry laughs. He’s warming up to me. Everyone’s in the spirit of it.

“This is so good. You guys eat like this every day? Sorry, I don’t mean guys as in guys. I should’ve said y’all.”

David shrugs, “Not every day, but we almost could. We get lobster on occasion from our neighbor. He has a few traps out here in the inlet.”

“Don’t forget scallops, Daddy,” says Henry through a mouthful of crabmeat, his eyes smiling, face smeared with butter.

“You love your scallops, don’t you, bud,” says David.

“Yep, he’d starve if he was allergic to shellfish instead of gluten,” says Tina.

As if by instinct, all heads swing in David Jr.’s direction. His face is clean, his crab mostly intact, one leg slightly fissured and only partially disgorged of its tissue.

“Davey’s more of a steak man, aren’t you, hon,” says Tina.

David Jr. beams a fake smile at her, one that looks practiced, like it’s the face he’s been told to put on for countless family meals in which shellfish was served rather than hoofmeat.

Everything seems so clear now—I look at Henry and then David Jr.—except the genetics, but I hazily recall an article I skimmed over once in a nail salon about doctors inseminating lesbians with DNA from their partners. I wonder how they do it, but I figure I’ll look up the medical science later. For now, I just feel so happy for David. Tina seems like a genuine gal. I imagine David meeting and falling in love with—Tim, maybe, at the time—who turns out to be not gay but transgender. And now she’s a lady, but with a body that fulfills David’s natural desires. It’s perfect!

I realize I’m having indecent thoughts about friends and clear my head, but I let my heart linger on the emotion for a moment.

The boys excuse themselves and head upstairs. David pushes back from the table. “I have to give Henry his pill,” he says, and heads inside with a stack of dishes.

Tina leans back in her chair with her wine glass. A breeze scatters a few hairs across her face and she combs them away with her fingernails, shiny in clear polish.

“So, how did you guys meet?” I ask.

“Oh, that’s such a boring story. It was at a party on a frozen lake. David and I stopped by the drink table at the same time.”

“Hmm,” I say, sounding interested.

“He poured himself a cup of tonic, so I grabbed the gin and skated off with it.” She scrunches her cute nose, winks; “Made him chase me,” she says, with a provocative, one-shoulder shrug.

“Aww,” I smile.

So that was her in the photo, and she had long hair because… she was… presenting as a woman… ??

“Wait,” I say, feeling bold on prosecco, “were you already out when you and David started dating?”

“Out? What do you mean?”

“Out. You know, as a woman.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”

“Well, I’m assuming you and David started dating when you were still a man.”

“I don’t… What? Why would you assume that?”

I know it’s partly the prosecco, but I’m feeling very close to Tina. I’m speaking to her more intimately; woman to woman, you might say. “I mean, I can tell. Not that you look mannish or anything. And, of course, we all have a mix of masculine and feminine. I mean, you’re all woman in my book…”

“Thanks?” she says. And then, “Look, I’m not sure how much it matters, but I feel like there’s a misunderstanding. I have always been a woman, and never tried it the other way. Maybe I’m reminding you of someone else?”

I smile and nod in that old, conspiratorial fashion. “I mean, I wouldn’t’ve had a clue if I didn’t know your history, but listen, you’re in a safe space when you’re with me.”

“O…k?” She smirks, almost laughs.

I smile and nod, feeling very connected, but Tina goes silent as she sips her wine. She turns to the side and looks out to sea. I start to lose my confidence. I feel my chest sinking in.

David returns with the prosecco bottle. He’s looking at us like he can’t make us out in the fading light. He looks at her, then at me, then at her.

“What are you guys talking about?” he says, like he can tell it’s something weird.

“Well, David, your interesting friend from high school thinks I used to be a man.”

“Used to be a… What?” says David.

“Oh my god, did I… am I… what did I…” I stammer. “OhmygodI’msosorry!”

“Not to worry, though, hon,” Tina goes on. “She says she wouldn’t have suspected a thing if she didn’t know my history? What exactly did you tell her about me?”

“Me? I didn’t tell her… I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about. Amy?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, “he didn’t say anything. I just… assumed… I mean because… David. You’re gay.” I whisper the word gay.

“Oh my god!” says David, shaking his head. His face drops dramatically into his hands.

“Why would you think that?” says Tina, sounding like an evening news anchor.

“I mean, he shared his nachos. The other kids… They teased him mercilessly. I didn’t believe it. I never thought… David, you always took it so well.”

“I took it well. Is that what gave me away, Amy? Because I always took it so well? It’s because I was in on the joke.” He laughs, remembering it. “Yeah, I had a bit of a pretty boy look when I was a kid,” he says to Tina. “People used to tease me. Mostly my friends. Taught me not to take myself too seriously.”

“I’m so sorry. I feel like a total shit.”

“Don’t bother. What’s there to be sorry about?” David laughs.

“Not you, David. Tina.” I turn to her. “Tina, I hope you’ll forgive me. I really didn’t…” I trail off. I don’t mean what I’m saying. I give her a fresh look in the dawn of this new light. One of those working-class hos got lucky, I think. Kind of butch, honestly.

I look around at their beautiful yard, the deck glowing softly in the kitchen light coming through the sliding glass door, the postcard-perfect cottage, postcard-perfect sunset fading over the ocean, scraps of a fine meal David’s boys just fished up out of the water. I think of David and Tina and their boys on a mountain. David and Tina and their boys on a beach. Tina in the red jacket on a frozen lake… I imagine Tina breaking through it, sinking in the frigid water, arms flailing, her frightened face pummeled by ice chunks, and then the scene turns to summer and it’s me in a bikini holding that bottle of gin. Then the lake freezes over, my hair turns brown and it’s Tina again in her red jacket and snow bibs, saying, “Darlin, this lake freezes solid enough you could drive a truck on it, but you’d have to be a working-class ho to know that.”

She’s just sitting over there in her deck chair, but I can feel her sneaking glances at me through her prosecco glass. I climb back out of my head and look at her. I give her one of those smiles that women give women sometimes that says, I’m just going to smile at you, honey, ‘cause I can’t tell you what I really think. I’m disgusted at myself, and David. I mean, if I’d known all those years ago he was straight, I would’ve been Mrs. David Padowak.