Almost a Daughter

“Would you still like me if I wasn’t a girl?”

Her voice was so low he wasn’t sure he heard right so rather than answering right off, he just stared at her. She tossed her head to one side, sable hair storming over her shoulders, glanced back at him for a quick second, clear eyes blue and penetrating, then turned away. Not a girl? Jordyn sure looked a girl. His body responded to her whenever she was close to him the same way it did all girls. That involuntary stiffening, the want, that indecent want, a clawing need. And yet, and yet…

Her chest was flat though there were times when she turned just right that Andy thought he could detect a slight swell beneath her blue uniform shirt. But lots of girls were flat-chested. And her voice was definitely that of a girl. Well, perhaps it was a little deep. But not overtly so. Was it?

“Sure,” he said, suddenly conscious how nothing else in his body language said so. “I’d still like you. I would.”

They had met at the campground in Saint Augustine. He was a maintenance worker who mowed grass, trimmed weeds, and mended fences, things a man without an education might do. Jordyn helped out in the office answering phones and escorting campers to their sites. Their paths crossed a few times a day. He had to admit, the allure he felt for her was intense, immediate, demanding, but he sensed something holding her back from reciprocating.

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“Oh, I’m more than sure. I like you, Jordyn. I like you a lot. I think about you all the time.” Stop it, Andy. Quit now, before you frighten her off. Like all the others. Still, he couldn’t help wondering if what they were doing might be considered a date, whether or not he ought to take her hand in his while walking to the dock. Inviting her to his place to go out on the boat had been a spontaneous reaction to Jordyn saying she’d like to go fishing sometime, how she’d never been. The boat wasn’t that big but he kept her in good repair and she was fine for going up and down Murphy’s Creek. Plying the St. Johns River was pushing things, though, what with the larger boats liable to swamp her.

He kept to the shoreline fishing the shallows using Cajun sausage that he long ago discovered was a favorite of the catfish lurking under sunken logs and in the tide pools. He taught her the art of flicking the fishing pole using the subtle movement of her wrist to direct the angle of the baited hook dangling beneath the lead sinker to the chosen spot.

Her laughter was like music, her delight that of a child.

Andy remembered there were a couple of them in high school. Boys who dressed up like girls. They were teased incessantly, especially in physical education class. Not that he had anything against them. But neither did he stand up to the bullies whenever the girly boys were surrounded by tormentors, a thing that sometimes still troubled him.

Was it possible?

“So what are you saying, Jordyn? That you’re a boy?”

“Do I look like a boy?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, Andy. I didn’t mean to sound put out. It’s just…”

He waited, sensing perhaps she might open up if given time. The day was splendid with a cooling Florida breeze in their faces. Though it was December the weather had been unseasonably warm the entire week. Clouds were building to the east out over the ocean but the sunshine was bright and hot.

“If you like me the way you say you do, then you should know something about me. Before things go too far.”

The way she sat silhouetted against the greenery, well, he wished he’d’ve brought along his camera. He’d used his phone to take her picture earlier, before setting sail. She objected, tried to cover her face at the last second. It was like she didn’t want him to examine her too closely, afraid of what he might discover.

“Too far?”

“You know I like you too. Right?”

“Yes. I mean, I hope you might.”

“Well, I do. And I know how I’d feel if it turned out you weren’t who I thought you were.”

“I don’t get it, Jordyn. If you’re not a girl and you’re not a boy, what else is there?”

“I’m a mixed up mess, okay? No. That came out wrong. It came out like I was mad at you. It ain’t your fault, Andy. You’ve been nothing but good to me. Remember that time you went back to the maintenance shed to get a golf cart to tote my guitar home for me so I wouldn’t have to carry it while riding my bike in the dark?”

“Well, sure I remember. You’re my friend, Jordyn. Like I told you, I didn’t want you hitting one of those potholes in the dark and falling down.”

“And I’m telling you there wouldn’t nobody else do that for me. Nobody. Not one other person in the whole world. And the way you support my singing. What’s with that? Why are you so good to me? Why can’t you be like everyone else?”

“Like everyone else? Why, because I like you, Jordyn? Is there something wrong with me liking you?”

“Yes. There is something wrong with you liking me. You make things harder than they have to be. Yes, there is absolutely something wrong with you liking me. I don’t deserve it. You don’t know anything about me. Listen. I don’t want to do this. I can’t. I thought I could but I can’t. Can you take me back? Please?”

The following Monday she wasn’t at work. Her camper was gone when Andy drove past her site. Panicked, he went to the office to ask Beth, the receptionist, if she knew when Jordyn was coming back. The woman turned to him, studied him a long second, silent, chewing her lip. Finally, she said how Jordyn had called sometime over the weekend, left a message that she had to go out of town abruptly. “The way it sounded, she might be gone for a while, Andy. Something about a family emergency.”

“But where’d she go? What’d she put down as a home address?”

“Come on, Andy. You know I can’t give out that information.”

“But Beth…”

“Did you not hear me?”

He had the keys to open the office and he knew the code to shut off the alarm so later that night Andy went back to the campground. It took a bit of snooping but on Jordyn’s application he found an address in Bradenton. Her parents? A place to start.

It was three in the morning when he pulled up in front of the home. It seemed a lot like the place he’d grown up in, a suburban ranch-style house on what looked to be a quarter acre lot on had once been the edge of town, now surrounded by newer homes on even smaller lots. Jordyn’s camper was parked in the driveway.

He slouched down behind the wheel and tried to sleep but his mind was racing. What the hell was he doing? People got arrested for what he’d done. He’d at least be fired for sure. He just remembered. Dammit. The security cameras in the campground office had probably recorded him entering in the middle of the night and pilfering the file cabinets. Not good.

When he woke the sun was already well up and he was sweating in the heat. He hadn’t even remembered falling asleep. Looking into the rearview mirror, he ran his fingers through his hair, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, got out and walked up to the front door.

About the time he was mustering the courage to ring the bell, the door opened.

“Andy? What are you doing here?” He shrugged. Jordyn turned as if looking at someone behind her, pushed him out the door, shut it behind them. “I thought that was your car sitting out there. How long have you been here? I can’t believe you. Are you stalking me?”

“No…”

“Then leave. What makes you think I want to see you?”

“I guess I thought…”

“Thought what. That we had something together just because you took me fishing one time? Well, we didn’t. You… you just don’t know anything about me. Please. Go. Just leave.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because… I think… I think I love you, Jordyn.”

“No. No you don’t. Just stop. You don’t love me, Andy. You can’t love me.”

“Okay. Then tell me you don’t love me. Tell me and I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again.”

“Why are you being like this?”

“Because if I don’t, I’ll always wonder.”

“Wonder? Wonder what? Andy, please. Please leave.”

The door behind them opened a crack as an older woman’s voice sounded.

“Louis? Who’s here?”

“Nobody, mom. Go back inside.”

“Louis. Be polite. Why don’t you invite your friend in for breakfast?”

“You had breakfast, Andy?” He shrugged again. Sometimes no answer was best. No, he hadn’t. He wanted to tell her how he’d arrived in Bradenton before the sun, had sat outside waiting for the dawn. Instead, he followed Jordyn inside. It smelled as if someone had burned the bacon.

“Louis? Your name is Louis?”

“My first name is Louis. I go by Jordyn. That’s my middle name.”

“So you are a boy.”

“What. Just because my name is Louis? That’s mighty presumptuous of you.”

“What’s all this whispering about over here?”

“Nothing, mom. Mom, meet Andy. Andy, this is my mother.”

“Hello, Andy.”

“Hi.”

“Call me Gladys. Or Gigi. So how do you know my son here…”

“Mom. Stop. We worked together in Saint Augustine. And I am not your son. You know that. I’m your daughter.”

“Louis…”

“It’s Jordyn, mom. I go by Jordyn now.”

“You’ll have to forgive Louis. Andy? Is that your name?”

“Yes, ma’am. There’s nothing to forgive, though, Gladys.”

“Did I hear you right? Are you in love with my Louis?”

“Yes. I mean I’m in love with Jordyn.”

“Well, then. You need to know something. Louis was born both with little boy parts plus those of a girl, Andy. The doctors called it intersex. They wanted to do surgery, to assign him one sex or the other, but we thought, well, he was so little. We thought he might outgrow it. We both wanted a boy so that’s how we raised him. Only when he got older…”

“I was never a boy, mother, and you know it.”

“Oh, stop yelling at me. I’m your mother.”

“And you, you can leave now, Andy. Now you know the truth.”

“None of that matters to me, Jordyn. I love you for you.”

“No you don’t. You don’t even know me. How can you love me for me? I have a dick, Andy. A dick. Tell him, mom. You’ve told him everything else. You might as well tell him about my dick too. Oh, just leave me alone. Both of you.”

Jordyn got up from the table, opened the back door, stepped through, and then slammed it behind her hard enough to rattle the panes of glass in the window across the room.

“If I were you, I’d follow him, Andy. Go on.”

“Her, Gladys,” he said. Andy wasn’t sure he ought to berate the old gal but he did feel as if he had to stick up for the girl. To help her tell the truth. “Jordyn’s a girl, not a boy.”

He found her standing out by her camper, keys in hand. She looked so alone. He walked up behind her. Folded his arms around her. Told himself this was it. If she pulled away this time, he’d leave. Do his best to forget her.

But she didn’t.