Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 30.2: 1994, Georgina

Chapter 30.2: 1994, Georgina

 

The pink roses sitting on my tea table were catching the early morning light like silk. 

"I hope they're okay," Ruiz was saying, sitting nervously in her usual spot on my couch across from me. "Ambrose found them in the garbage behind a floral shop. He goes there sometimes because he likes flowers and they throw them out when they're still okay. They're not dirty or anything. We have loads of their cast off flowers in his room. Lots of sunflowers, because he knows I like sunflowers...sorry I'm talking too much..."

"They're lovely," I assured her, leaning over to smell them. Their fresh scent overwhelmed my nose and filled my head with bliss.

"Oh, good," Ruiz breathed, smiling purely for the first time in ages. 

I smiled back to her, truly, because of what she was wearing. She adjusted her long yellow boho skirt nervously and was looking down at her white stocking'd feet. I watched her lean back on the couch, her pretty white crocheted bolero moving with her. She started to finger the ribbons that kept the bolero closed neatly over her chest on top of her fitted pale yellow shirt of silk gauze. The whole look was just darling with her natural loose, curly, brown hair. 

Inside, I felt proud of her. What had changed? I knew this was definitely not an Audrey Hepburn look. This was truly Ruiz, pure and simple.  Even displayed proudly on her bolero was the little ribbon brooch adorned of crystals that I had given her, finally out of the dark. So much had seemed to change with her over a month and a half, but she did not say much.

"You look very pretty," I said, trying to break the ice, trying to get her to talk about her outfit.

"Oh, thank you! Si, Ambrose's drag mother made this bolero for me for Christmas. She couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to me, so I'm wearing it now." She was beaming, spreading the front silk bow out to show me in full. She seemed to be thinking for a moment, then smiled again, looking down at her clothes. "In fact, these are all her clothes. I don't have any casual things. You see the yellow? That's her favorite color. I like red, but its okay. I like yellow, too. She said we'd go shopping together after Christmas when the crowds aren't so much."

"She wears casual women's things?" I asked innocently, but not innocently. My eyes watched her face carefully, studying it for her response. In my brain, something like radar was blinking and waiting to detect what she said like a beacon to my heart. 

I wanted to know about Ambrose's drag mother. My heart wanted to know about something Ruiz had mentioned about a month and a half ago that it could not stop reminding me of. Miss Cha Cha's car. That name. Miss Cha Cha. There was no way, but things were slowly adding up and with every clue my radar beeped faster. With this clue about yellow being her favorite color the radar was beeping in force.

"Oh yes. She's transgender like...us," Ruiz said, pausing. Her eyes flicked at me and she blushed, still not used to saying it out loud.

Cha Cha was...? I felt numbed a little bit. Was this really the same Cha Cha I had known? Was it possible? Feeling numb, I couldn't think of anything else to say and I mentally kicked myself for it. 

Now that I thought about it, when I had known my Cha Cha, he never seemed to want to wear boys' things. Always, he was wearing Carl's daughter's dresses or a costume. In fact, I could not for the life of me remember a time when he was wearing anything fully for a boy. Even when we went out shopping or to a restaurant he would be wearing an old coat of Carl's daughter's that didn't seem to belong to any gender. It all made so much sense, if this Cha Cha was the same Cha Cha.