She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan

realized I still had the rest of the night free. My mother’s optimism lifted me up. It wasn’t too late to make the best of things.
    I went back to my parents’ bedroom. Onion’s bra and T-shirt were lying right there. I sat on the bed and picked up the bra. I held it in my lap for a moment. It was warm, the bra.
    I closed my eyes, thinking. If you have breasts, I thought, they go right in here. If you’re a girl, you wear one of these and you probably don’t even think about it, it’s just what you do.
    I thought about it for a while. I definitely liked Onion’s taste in clothes better than my mother’s and sister’s. It would have been a great relief to have been a person in life whose body fitted into them. There was no reason I shouldn’t put on her stuff—heck, she was passed out upstairs. But I didn’t do it. It would be too creepy and, quite frankly, a little bit rude. I owed Onion a certain respect, even if she had passed out naked in her own puke in my parents’ bathroom, and it wouldn’t be polite to wear her shirt. So I picked up the bra and the T-shirt and carried them up to the room where Onion was lying unconscious and laid them on the bed next to her. I stroked her hair.
    â€œYou’re going to be okay,” I whispered to her, then kissed her lightly on the cheek.
    I went back downstairs and sat at the piano bench. The second half of my Hi-C and bourbon was still there, the ice cubes melted. “Good evening,” I said. “It’s great to be back in Philadelphia.”
    I started up with “Mrs. Robinson” again, seeing as how I hadn’t even got to the chorus last time. I was still in the key of G, back in a crazy jam. I was a sixteen-year-old transsexual, high on fruit juice, and I had a naked girl passed out in my grandmother’s bed upstairs. Life is a mysterious thing, was my conclusion.
    The doorbell rang, and I stopped playing. “Jesus,” I said. “It’s like Grand Central Station in here.” I finished the bourbon in one gulp, went to the front door, and opened it wide.
    A guy in a Santa Claus suit was standing there. He held a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one hand.
    â€œMerry Christmas,” he said.
    â€œMerry Christmas,” I said.
    â€œAre you St. George?” he asked.
    This question wasn’t quite as insane as it might sound at first, because St. George was actually the name of one of the Hunt boys. I wasn’t him, though.
    â€œAre you Bill?”
    Another Hunt sibling. I shook my head.
    â€œWell,” Santa said. “Are you Hoops?”
    Hoops Hunt was the oldest of the boys. His real name was Al, and Al Hunt later grew up to be a famous journalist with
The Wall Street
Journal.
He’s also a regular on
Capital Gang
, one of those shows where reporters shout at one another. He’s married to Judy Woodruff, the CNN newswoman.
    â€œWell, I don’t know,” Santa said, annoyed. “Who in hell are you, then?”
    â€œI’m Jim Boylan,” I said. “We live here now. The Hunts moved. Dr. Hunt died.”
    â€œOh,” Santa said. He felt stupid now. “I been away. Vietnam and all.”
    I nodded.
    â€œWell, jeez,” I said. “You want to come in?”
    â€œMaybe just for a second,” Santa said. “It’s freezin’ out here.”
    He stomped across the threshold. Cold rain was falling on Onion’s car. “You want something?” I said. “A drink, or whatever?”
    â€œNah,” Santa said. “I just figured I’d stop in. They been having this party for twenty-five years.”
    â€œI know,” I said.
    â€œI thought about this party a lot when I was over in ’Nam and all. Thought about it a lot.”
    It suddenly seemed very sad to me, this guy in his rented Santa suit, thinking about coming home all those years for the Hunts’ party and finding only me.
    â€œSo