Summer of Ramona

I found the key to the little house right where my Aunt Rayette said she had hidden it, taped to the underside of a plastic birdhouse wedged in the crook of a walnut tree in her backyard. An old-fashioned brass key to the back door of the bungalow, still bright with color despite having been concealed pretty much in the open air for two years.

Aunt Rayette had won the little bungalow from one of her rich boyfriends as a result of some bet she would never spell out. The circumstances, like most of Rayette’s romantic life, remained a mystery because that’s the way she liked it. According to her, at least.

Rayette worked as a flight attendant for a charter airline called YourSkyWay. A  lot of the people she told when to buckle their seatbelts and whether or not they had any Anejo for a fresh margarita left were two classes above S-tier wealthy. Another boyfriend/passenger had supplied the cherry red Miata in the driveway.

Currently, Rayette was jetting between the UAE and various European capitals, serving peanuts to diplomats and oil company executives negotiating new agreements for the next five years or so. Something like that… she was, necessarily so, pretty tight-lipped about just who traveled on the planes she worked on.

But she didn’t need her little vacation cabin in  Salt Port, NJ, and so it was an available lilypad for my exigent need after I got kicked out of my parents’  house near the beginning of that summer.

Memorial Day weekend, both my parents were supposed to be gone for four days, visiting her parents in Oklahoma, for Mom, and a quick business trip for Dad on Friday to Minneapolis then he would fly to OK to catch up with Mom. But instead, he decided he didn’t have the kit he wanted with him or something, and he’d stopped off in St. Joseph, where we lived, to pick up what he’d forgotten. Little treetop airline route with short turnaround.

And there I was on the couch with my legs freshly shaved, wearing Mom’s silk bathrobe, my makeup all spiffy,  and painting my toenails Fantasy Pink when Dad walked in. It was not a pretty scene. Dad had previously known about my crossdressing, but Mom and I had convinced him that I’d outgrown that phase.

It didn’t make things less incendiary that the robe had fallen open a bit, showing some of the breast development I’d acquired from female hormones ordered online. Not a lot there, AA at most with dark pointy nipples, but it was definitely more girly than Dad expected. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t give him a heart attack.

*

Two days later, I was living in a motel near Kansas City. Mom was in the doghouse, too, and the big fight between them was what to do with me. Dad favored military school, or, seeing I was already eighteen, outright enlistment. In the Marines, I guess, Dad’s old outfit.

I moped around the motel room wearing a pair of Mom’s denim capris, sandals and a crop top that said Grrls Rrule with a drawing of a pigtailed skateboarder. The shirt was mine, picked up somewhere when no one was paying attention and kept hidden…for emergency relief when the gripping doom of being male overwhelmed me.

At least I’d been able to wear it in my own room, but now it was nearly a tenth of all the clothes I had with me. Sad little scrap of cloth with a defiant slogan, it couldn’t sustain me. I didn’t have a car or any money, and I couldn’t help but think it was a long walk to the nearest bridge.

When the phone rang, practically in the middle of the night, I glared at it, suspicious of any sort of news it might be wanting to deliver. When I answered, I recognized Aunt Rayette’s voice, “Hey, kiddo!” she said with some of her professional level brightness and optimism coming through.

I burst into tears. “Ray,” I sobbed. “I… someone called you…? What did they tell you? I’m afraid, I’m terrified!”

A little sidenote. We’re both named Ray after my grandfather, Ray’s and my dad’s father (Raimondo Alexander diBelleza). She’s Rayette (Dolores Marie Ramona Annette), and I was named Raymond Alexander but called myself Ramona in private. Rayette was fourteen years younger than Dad (Phillip Raymond diBelleza), making her just eight years older than me. And someone I looked up to and wanted to be like all my life.

“Your mom called me,” Rayette explained. “She wants to get you further out of reach of your father.” (Mom had driven me to KC herself, then gone back to St. Joe.) “So there are tickets to Atlantic City at the American Airlines counter, plane leaves in about three hours. Stopover in Philadelphia, where there should be a package waiting for you, again, American Airlines counter. Got all that?”

I repeated it all as well as I could. I’m not blonde, but most of my relatives and teachers treat me like a ditz for some reason. I blame it on the curly hair.

Anyway,  things went like Rayette planned. I made the flight out of KC, picked up the package in Philadelphia, which included a prepaid debit card and a note that I had $500 I could use, but not to splurge. With tip, the Uber ride from the AC terminal to the address in Salt Port rounded off to $60 bucks. The driver even carried my one bag to the front door so he deserved the tip.

So there I was with the key in hand, standing at the door of the bungalow with my travel bag at my feet. I guess the key had corroded a bit or got something on it, cause I could not get it to turn. “It’s stuck!” I said, maybe a little louder than I intended.

“Maybe I could turn it,” said a voice behind me, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I tried  to turn around and tangled my feet with my suitcase and sort of lurched off the step into a flower bed with two-foot high rose canes exploding with salmon-and-white blooms. And thorns.

Luckily, I was wearing denim jeans, but one stabby prickle got through to my shin. “Owch!” I said, still discombobulated because this guy was standing like, right there! I hadn’t heard or seen him at all, and he had apparently walked right up behind me!

“Who are you?” I squeaked. Then I repeated myself. “Owch!” When I’d moved, the thorn that had gotten through my jeans was dragged across my skin.

“I’m your neighbor,” he said, sounding reasonable. “Let me help.” And without waiting for me to say okay, he stepped a bit closer, wrapped his hands around my waist and lifted me out of the flowerbed.

Had I mentioned he was a big guy?

I’m not small, about 5’9” and 125 pounds, but he didn’t even grunt as he set me down on the grass. I just stared up at him, distracted by… feelings. Especially the ones inside my panties.

“You must be Rayette’s little sister. You look just like her,” said the giant, grinning down at me.

I nodded without thinking. Well, I did think one thing, about his thinking I was a girl!

“I’m Alvin,” he said. He pointed with one of his big old hands to the house across the street. “I live over there. Take care of my grandmother.” He stopped talking to just look at me, smiling.

He must have been 6’3” or more, built like football player. Dark blond hair, blue eyes, a beach tan, and it was only early June. He wore a colorful shirt with palm trees and parrots and a pair of khaki cutoffs, and some kind of sandals.

I put a hand up to make sure my mouth wasn’t hanging open.

He must have thought I was going to offer to shake hands cause he put out his big ol’ paw right there! And rather than stare at it, I let my hand drop into his.

He shook my hand, squeezing gently, putting his other hand over mine. His hands were warm, maybe from the sun, and a bit rough like he did chores or made stuff with them. “Alvin,” he repeated. “Alvin Twelvetrees. My grandmother is Sylvania Twelvetrees.”

Had I asked his name, even though he had already said it? But such odd names…. I think I giggled.

“What’s your name?’ he asked gently, still cupping my right hand in both of his.

I had to think. What name was I going to tell him? He already thought I was a girl. I didn’t want to break that illusion. Could I tell him the name I used for myself, that I had never told anyone?

It took an effort to speak at all. “Ramona,” I whispered.