TIFFANY AND THE WOMAN IN RED

 Tiffany Burke is lonely, desperately lonely, and she doesn’t have a clue how to change that fact. Every time she meets someone interesting – and it happens often – there is some reason, usually the presence of a spouse or significant other or kids, that having a relationship would be impossible with them. Tiffany is convinced it is a running joke God is playing on her putting attractive people in her path, then yanking them away when she becomes interested. She knows she should refuse to play along, but she can’t seem to help herself.

Her job as a bartender at the Guess Who Tavern And Music Hall in Asheville, North Carolina doesn’t help. She sees hundreds of people a week, and a lot of them appeal to her as possible partners, but her interaction with them is invariably brief. They order their drinks, and poof, they are gone.

It’s a stormy Tuesday night, and the Guess Who is totally dead. Tiffany absentmindedly wipes off the bar with a towel for what feels like the hundredth time. She wants a beer, or some weed. That is forbidden on the job by the unwritten bartender’s oath, but she’s about to go crazy, so she tells her fellow barkeep Stacey, a big boobed blonde in a low cut top and cut-off jeans shorts, that she is taking a break, and goes into the ladies’ room to smoke a joint.

The restroom is a happy, familiar place to Tiffany, the two stalls comforting in a crisis. It wasn’t always this way, she thinks, remembering when she came to the Guess Who as transgender open mic night performer Boulder Colorado, and was too scared to even come in here. She goes in the far stall, the one she has “claimed” as her own and takes a much needed pee while she lights up a joint. A few hits on the number, genuine Smokey Tokey Gold, the finest marijuana grown in the Great Smokies National Park, and she feels much, much better, so much better that she loses track of time.

“Tiff,” Stacey says, sticking her head in the ladies’ room door, “you okay? You’ve been in here awhile.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Tiffany replies, extinguishing the joint in the toilet. She exits the stall and washes her hands. As she leaves the restroom, she glances at her watch: 9 o’clock, still three hours to go on her shift. If somebody doesn’t come in soon, she feels like she will lose her fucking mind.

As if on cue, a woman enters the bar wearing a red dress, and red high heels. She has mounds of mousy blonde hair that fall down around her shoulders and frame a soft, almost childlike face. She is wet from the rain, and she is out of breath, like she has been running.

“What can I get you,” Tiffany says to the woman.

“Hide me!”

“Beg pardon?”

“Hide me! Quickly! I think he saw me come in here!”

“Wait, who’s he?”

“No time to explain! Hide me!”

“Ladies’ room,” Tiffany says, and comes round the bar to escort the woman to the restroom door.

Suddenly, a man in a suit and tie bursts into the bar.

“Okay, where is she?” he demands loudly.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Tiffany replies, going back behind the bar.

“Don’t play dumb with me! I saw her come in here. Now where is she?”

“I swear to God I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. Nobody has come in here, and I’ve been here for the last five hours.”

“You’re lying,” the man says angrily. “You’re hiding her. You bitches are all alike, protecting one another.”

“WHAT did you just call me?”

“Bitch. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch!”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll call the law.”

The man considers this for a minute. “Fine, but you tell her this ain’t over yet. I’ll be waiting for her when she comes to her senses and comes home.” He turns on his heel and leaves the bar.

Tiffany sticks her head in the ladies’ room door.

“He’s gone. You can come out now.”

The woman in red comes out of the restroom and sits down at the bar.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Can I get you something to drink​? On me, since you had to deal with that jerk.”

“Got any Molson?”

“Actually, we do,” Tiffany says, reaching in a cooler for a cold bottle.

“So. Aren’t you going to ask what that was all about?”

“None of my business, I figure.”

“I’ve been seeing him for about a month, and tonight at dinner he asked me to marry him. When I said I’d have to think about it, he got mad, and made a scene right inside Chez Haywood up the street. I panicked and ran, but he chased me, obviously, and I ducked in here.”

The woman takes a sip of her beer and starts playing with the label.

“A month. That’s pretty quick,” Tiffany says, leaning on the bar, and brushing back her short brown hair, wishing she had long, mousy hair like this mystery woman. She wishes she had a figure like hers, too. It fills the red dress nicely, and her bosom has a nice well-defined cleavage.

“I know. What do you think I should do?”

“Hey, don’t look at me, I’m just a bartender.”

“I thought bartenders were supposed to know the answer to everything.”

“Not this one. Do you love him?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. How should I feel after only a month?”

“Confused is probably about right.”

The woman drains her beer, and asks Tiffany for another, which she quickly provides.

“I’m Tiffany, by the way, but most folks just call me Tiff.”

“I’m Margot, with a ‘t’ on the end of it.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“God, Molson is so much better than Budweiser, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and most of the beers you have here in the States.”

“You’re not from around here, I take it.”

“Alberta,” the woman replies, finishing off her second beer, and motioning for another. “Edmonton. That’s one of the reasons I was supposed to jump at marriage, so I could stay in the country legally.”

“That’s so random, an illegal alien who isn’t from Mexico or Central America.”

“I’m here on a tourist visa that expired a week ago. I’ve got practically no money, and I can’t get a job, so marriage was seemingly the only option. But God, he could be such a jerk, and get really mean sometimes. I really shouldn’t have moved in with him, but I needed a place to stay. Makes me wonder what I see in men in general. Maybe I’m a lesbian at heart. But hey, you’ve probably got other stuff to do than listen to my petty problems.”

“Look around,” Tiffany replies, gesturing to the empty room. “Your problems are a lot more interesting than staring at this empty space.”

“Well thanks for listening,” Margot says, downing the last of her third beer. Tiffany thinks she hears Margot starting to slur her words, but it’s probably just her overactive imagination. “I’d better go.”

“Where are you going? He said he’d be waiting when you got home, and he sounded kinda mad.”

“I’ll figure something out, I guess,” Margot says, picking up her pocketbook and sliding off of her stool, stumbling a bit as she does.

“You’re not driving, I hope.”

“No. I came in the car with, well, him. I guess I’ll walk, though in these shoes it’s gonna be a pain.”

“Wait,” Tiffany says, not really conscious of what she’s doing. Something clicks inside her. It’s that same old thing, falling in love with somebody she has just met. She wants to help Margot, but she also hopes to get lucky by doing it. “I can cut out early, and you can come home with me.”

“That’s really very kind of you, but I couldn’t impose.”

“It’s really no imposition.”

“What about roommates? Won’t they mind?”

“I live alone. Well, me and the cats.”

“Well, if you insist . . .”

“I do. Hey Stacey, I’m cutting out early. Family emergency.”

“Family emergency my ass,” Stacey replies. “Just be sure and use protection.”

Outside, Tiffany leads Margot through the rain, and around the corner to her vintage VW bug, covered in psychedelic flower stickers.

“Oh, cool,” Margot says, climbing into the passenger’s seat. “What year is it?”

“Sixty-six.”

“Wow, that’s old. Must be hard to find parts and service for it.”

“Actually, you’d be surprised. There are still a lot of ‘em on the road, and places that specialize in Volkswagen service.”

Tiffany starts the car, and the engine makes that distinct clicking sound Volkswagens make. She pulls out of the Guess Who parking and turns onto Haywood Road towards Patton Avenue.

“Joint?” Tiffany says, reaching into her skirt pocket, and producing two reefers.

“Should you be doing that while you’re driving? What if you get stopped by the cops?”

“Oh, relax,” Tiffany replies, lighting one of the joints. “We’re not going that far. Besides, this is Smokey Tokey Gold.”

“Smokey what?”

“Smokey Tokey Gold. The finest weed grown in the Great Smokies National Park.”

At Patton she turns left, and goes about a mile, to a two-story building with a bakery on the bottom and an apartment on the top. Tiffany parks the car in back, and leads Margot up a long, steep flight of stairs. She opens the door and lets Margot inside.

Tiffany’s apartment is cluttered with the flotsam of Tiffany’s clutter. There is a kitchen table covered in composition books, with one edge given over to a bunch of prescription bottles. A TV sits atop a set of shelves made of boards and concrete blocks that also has a bunch of paperbacks on it. In front of the TV are a coffee table, a blue sofa and one red chair, covered in dirty clothes. Two guitars stand in one corner, surrounded by more notebooks. There is a small kitchenette, with pans and bowls stacked on the counter, and dishes in the sink.

“Nice,” Margot says, following Tiffany into the apartment.

“Well, it’s home. Here, let’s get you out of that wet dress. I have a robe around here somewhere. Let me move some of these dirty clothes so you can sit.”

Margot pulls the dress off, revealing an equally red bra and panty set. She sits in the chair, while Tiffany rummages through the clothes and finds the robe, a short, skimpy pink thing.

“Here ya go,” she says, sitting down on the sofa. “So, you’re from Canada?”

“Yep.”

“How on earth did you end up in Asheville from Edmonton?”

“Friends, eh? Said it was beautiful, and they were not wrong. But they didn’t tell me how expensive it is. I don’t see how people can live here.”

“Working forty hours a week and cutting back on expenses.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, things like food and prescriptions.”

“You’re kidding, eh​?”

“I wish I was. Can I get you something to drink? I’ve got water, orange juice, and Dr. Pepper. “

“Listen,” Margot says. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

“Yes?”

“It’s kind of, well, personal, and I don’t want you to take offense . . . “

“Try me.”

“It may be because I’m drunk and confused, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like to kiss another woman.”

“Okay,” Tiffany says, “full disclosure, I’m not a cis woman.”

“A what?”

“A genetic woman. I’m pre-op transgender.”

“But you look so . . . real.”

“Thank you. Given all the money I’ve spent, I ought to.”

“Can I kiss you? Please? Just once, to really see how it feels?”

“Um, sure.”

Margot sits down on the sofa next to Tiffany, leans in, and plants a long, wet kiss on her.

“Why have I been involved with men all this time? They’re such jerks,” Margot says. “Not nice like you. Where the hell have you been all of my life?”

“Your first time kissing a trans woman. This calls for a joint,” Tiffany says, opening a small box on the coffee table, and taking out a reefer. She picks up one of those electric lighters people use for grills, and lights it. She inhales a lung full of smoke, then passes it to Margot.

“I’ve never tried this before,” she says. “How do I do it?”

“Never? At your age?”

“No. I guess I’ve led a kind of sheltered life.”

“Well, it’s easy peasy, you just take a big lungful and hold it.”

Margot takes a puff of the joint and has an immediate coughing fit.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.”

They pass the joint back and forth in silence.

“So, what do you do in Canada?”

“I teach high school physics.”

“THAT sounds like a hard job.”

“It is, eh. Most of the little bleeders don’t want to be in there and behave very badly. Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from strangling them. What’s it like being a bartender in Asheville?”

“It’s not bad. The money isn’t all that great, but I get to meet all kinds of people.”

“Like me, eh.”

“Well, I don’t take most of them home,” Tiffany says, laughing.

“Thank God I was one of them. Look, I really should be going.”

“Nonsense. It’s almost midnight. You shouldn’t be out there roaming around in the dark by yourself. Spend the fucking night.”

“Well, if you insist.”

“I do. I’d invite you to share the bed, but it’s kind of small, so you can take it, and I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“Ah, come on, we can make it work.”

“Okay,” Tiffany says, and leads Margot back to the bedroom, feeling slightly embarrassed at the clothes strewn on the bed and the floor. “Sorry about the mess.”

“Don’t be. It’s who you are.”

This really blows Tiffany’s mind. A woman who doesn’t mind clutter? Priceless.

“I don’t really have any, uh, pajamas,” Tiffany says apologetically. “I usually just sleep in what I wore to work and change the next day.”

“I can sleep in my underwear,” Margot replies. “I don’t mind.”

“Suit yourself, I guess. What time do you like to get up? I’ll set an alarm on my phone.”

“Oh, whenever you do is fine.”

“Okay, I usually aim for about 7, but sometimes I don’t wake up until noon. If you wake up hungry, help yourself to what’s in the fridge. Good night.”

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Give me one more kiss.”

“Okay,” Tiffany replies, raising up on one elbow to meet Margot’s mouth. This is insane, she thinks. Here I am in bed with a total stranger. She’ll probably wake up, realize what she’s gotten herself into, and bolt, run back to ol’ whatshisname. Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted.