Fletch and the Widow Bradley

38

“F L E T C H, D O Y O U believe in the soul?”

“The soul is immaterial,” he said.

Francine asked, “Is that meant as a pun?”

“Of course.”

Enid Bradley had entered the livingroom from the foyer, putting one sensible shoe unsteadily ahead of the other as if unsure of where she was going. “Hello, Mrs. Bradley,” Fletch had said. She looked worried, confused, and said nothing.

Francine entered more briskly behind her, and took her by the arm. Together they sat on the divan.

Fletch loosened his tie and collar and sat on the freestanding chair. “Sorry,” he said. Again he looked at Francine’s breasts. “I just don’t understand.” Seeing the two of them together he realized Francine was the shorter. In the photograph behind him, Thomas Bradley was shorter than his wife. “And I need to understand. I have to save myself.”

Each woman had her hands in her own lap. Francine sat the straighter. Enid always looks terrified of what the next moment will bring—you know, as if she’s afraid someone is going to say something dirty, Mary Blaine had said that night in Puerto de Orlando. Her husband usually does, Charles Blaine had answered. I mean, did.

“Fletch,” Francine asked. “Do you know what a transsexual is?”

“I can’t say I understand. I’d like to be able to say I do.”

You can’t understand everything that happens, Roberta, Ta-ta, had said jogging through the California woods … You can try to understand, of course. You can even act like you understand, when you don’t yet. But some things …

“A male can be born in a female body,” Francine said simply. “Or a female born in a male body.”

“What defines us as male or female, except our bodies?” Fletch asked.

“Our souls,” Francine said. “To use your word, there is an immaterial self independent of the material self—our bodies. I was a female born in a male’s body. That’s all there is to it. I’ve known it since I was two or three years old. As long as I can remember I had feminine desires. A great interest in feminine clothes. I had a feminine perspective on everything. I liked dolls and babies and pretend tea parties and having my hair done up. I remember the first time my father introduced me as his son, Tom, I stared at him in shock. I was a girl. That was all there was to it. I knew I was a girl.”

Francine went to the bar and began to pour out three Scotch and waters.

“I went through high school, as a boy, in Dallas, Texas. I wore trousers and sweat shirts and played on the varsity baseball team. I wasn’t a bad short stop. Gee, you know, I almost just said I could throw like a boy.” She smiled at Fletch. “I dated girls and was elected treasurer of my senior class. I became a superb actor. With every word, every expression on my face, I acted the complete male. I was the complete male. I had the equipment, and I could get it up on demand. Don’t ask me what I was really thinking, in the back seat with Lucy, or Janey, or Alice. Girls loved me especially because I understood them so well. All through college—boys’ dormitories, boys’ fraternity houses, well, all that was sort of nice. But I felt a cheater—because I was a girl.”

She brought Fletch’s drink to him.

“Can you imagine a worse conflict than being a girl in a boy’s body? Or a woman in a man’s body? No life can be worse than the life which obliges you to be dishonest with every word, every expression, in every living moment.”

She took the two remaining drinks from the bar to the divan, and, sitting down, handed one to Enid, who drained half of it immediately.

To Fletch, Francine said, “You repeated to me that some nosy neighbor of ours in Southworth told you he could hear Enid screaming and shrieking at night. That wasn’t Enid. That was me—Tom Bradley—shrieking to get out of my body.” Francine tasted her drink. “Then came the Sunday morning that I swallowed everything in the medicine cabinet. I would rather have died than continue this lie, this life, this act, the agony of this conflict within myself.” Francine’s free hand took Enid’s free hand and held it. “Enid promised to help me make the change. Enid is my dearest friend and greatest love.”

Fletch asked Enid, “You knew about this before?”

“Of course,” Enid said.

“For years?”

“Yes.”

“It’s something a husband really can’t conceal from a wife,” Francine said, “for long. I married thinking I could carry it off, carry on the act forever. But I couldn’t. You see, Fletch, a person like me has the suspicion that every male—even you—would rather be a female. I know it’s not true. I just don’t see why you’d want to be a male.”

“Why did you get married?” Fletch asked.

“Because,” Francine said, “I had a very strong maternal instinct. It was my only way of having babies. Can you understand that? Also I loved Enid, very much.” She continued to hold Enid’s hand. “I won’t ask you to understand that.”

“Are Roberta and Tom your own children?”

“Of course.” Francine smiled. “I told you. I was fully equipped. There was no reason why I shouldn’t have children—as a father.”

Fletch said, “Wow.”

Francine smiled. “Do you need a moment to catch up?”

“Enid,” Fletch said, “I thought you’d murdered him.”

“I murdered myself,” Francine said, “in the only way I could stay alive. Sometimes, young Fletch, we must do radical things to keep on living.”

Again Fletch found himself staring at Francine’s breasts.

“Yes,” Francine said, “for two years before the surgical transformation began, I took hormonal shots. They softened my body, changed the shape of it, enlarged my breasts.” The only comment I made about it to my wife was that he seemed to be getting smaller, Alex Corcoran had said in the golf club bar. “I also underwent two years of intensive psychotherapy, to make sure this was the right thing for me.”

The room was growing entirely dark. No one moved to turn on a light.

“Surgery?” Fletch asked.

“Yes,” Francine said. “Surgery.”

Fletch remembered the motion Tom, Jr. had made sitting in his bathtub, of sticking a knife into the lower part of his own stomach, and rooting it around there.

“I still have one more operation,” Francine said happily. “Then I can go home again.”

“As Francine Bradley.”

“Yes. As Francine. I can carry it off. You see, after all these years of acting, I’m not acting anymore. I really am Francine Bradley. I never was Tom.”

“You convinced me.”

“Enid and I carefully built the myth, over time, that there was a Francine. Tom’s sister. Smart, competent at business, knew everything there was to know about Wagnall-Phipps. Would take it over, if ever anything happened to Tom.”

“Your children—Ta-ta and Tom—they know the truth, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Francine said. “We thought they were old enough. They had seen enough of my pain, my agony. I guess Tom wasn’t quite old enough. Of course, this sort of thing is much harder on fathers and sons than on daughters. Ta-ta can understand my transforming myself into a woman, because she is one. We sincerely did not know, Fletch, until you told me, how much trouble Tom was in. He has to make his own life, you know. I have to make mine.”

Fletch realized he had been drinking his Scotch absently. It was gone. “And you just kept writing those memos to Blaine, and initialing them ‘T.B.’ without even knowing you were doing it.”

Through the dark, he heard Francine sigh. “In a way, that’s the worst part of a transformation like this. The little things. Changing the name on bank accounts, credit cards, Social Security. There’s always one more thing—something you forget. It would be easier if one did die and go through probate. A few months ago I got stopped for speeding on the Connecticut Throughway. There I was, a blonde, middle-aged female, in a cocktail dress and high heels, driving on the California license of Thomas Bradley. Half my identification said I was Francine, half Thomas. The policeman was deeply perplexed, poor man. He took me to the police station. I told them the truth. Do you know, they understood it. It took them awhile, but they were really very understanding and respectful. Well, they have to be now. There are thousands of us in the United States now. Thank God, we haven’t become a statistic yet. We’re still too much under-the-rug. But we exist. By the way, I still got that ticket for speeding. In the name of Francine.” She laughed. “I paid the fine, gladly. I love anything that tells me I’m Francine. I’m finally Francine! Of course,” she said more seriously, “getting a speeding ticket in Connecticut isn’t the same as having you expose me in the newspaper.”

Quietly, Fletch said, “I think you’d better tell Charles Blaine about this.”

“Oh, no,” Francine said. “How would Charley ever understand?

He’s so straight, so literal.”

“He and Mary are more understanding than you think,” Fletch said. “They have a good influence on them—her mother.”

“Oh, yes. Happy,” Francine said. “How I used to hate that woman. She is so much a woman, and so happy at being a woman, being alive. I guess I don’t have to hate her anymore.”

In the dark, Enid blurted, “What are you going to do?”

“Me?” Fletch asked.

“We didn’t murder anyone,” Enid said. “All we did is lie. Are you going to ruin us, ruin the company, because we lied? We have a right to privacy, you know. Francine has a right to live her life in the only way possible for her.”

More calmly, Francine said, “Forgive us our elaborate lies, Fletch. But you know the world isn’t ready for this. It would hurt the company. I’d be seen as a freak. Key people would quit the company. Alex Corcoran wouldn’t be able to sell a fire extinguisher to someone on his way to hell.”

“Are you going to write about us in the newspaper?” Enid’s voice was ready to sob.

“I’d like to tell my managing editor about all this,” Fletch said. “I’d like my job back.”

“He’ll print it, for sure!” said Enid.

“No, no,” Fletch said. “A newspaper knows a lot of stories it doesn’t print. There’s one now Frank Jaffe is sitting on, about where the state police used to get their police cars. This story, especially, is not in the public interest. Tom’s becoming Francine is nobody’s business but Francine’s.”

Francine snapped on the light beside the divan. Her face was charming, smiling. She said, “We never expected you to have so much persistence, Fletch. Mexico, New York, Dallas, Juneau, back here—phew!”

“We never thought you could afford it,” Enid said. She was almost smiling.

“I couldn’t,” Fletch said. “I—uh—sort of borrowed the money.”

Francine got up and took her glass to the bar. “Can we make it up to you?”

“I think I’ll be all right.”

“Francine, dear.” Enid held up her empty glass. “My glass has been empty a long time.”

Laughing, Francine came over and collected Enid’s and Fletch’s glasses, taking them to the bar.

“That was your mistake, in fact,” Fletch said. “What was?” Francine asked indifferently.

Fletch said to Enid, “When I went to your house, essentially you offered me money. Never offer a reporter money.” “Or what?” Francine asked from the bar. “Or he’ll sink his teeth into you,” Fletch said. “And never let go.”