sage

     Three words, barely audible amid the otherwise annoying crowd noise, was all it took to set the "I told you so" dance in motion. She was radiant in her gloating, and something told me to take note of her uncanny ability to read strangers. With my stomach still reeling from yet another triumph of my naiveté, earlier that day, I found comfort in her celebration.

///

     "Ready for lunch?", Drew asked, stepping off the red, spiral staircase that led to the lofted area of the office where the contract draftsmen worked, and in Drew's case perfected the art of minesweeper.

     It was a question I had heard many times over the two years prior to graduate school and in the two years since. "Yep, let's go."

     "I'll drive," he said, and we headed for his white Dodge Ram 2500 4x4 pickup with an extended cab and camper shell.

     "I still can't believe you bought this giant truck, when you know you're gonna be driving to Florida every other weekend to see your new woman. What's her name again?" I asked, trying to recall how long it had been since he informed me of his new lady friend. I hesitated to use the word girlfriend to describe Andrea, since Drew had to be well past fifty.

     Drew and I had discussed many things during our lunches over the years, but for some reason, I'd never asked how old he was. He seemed to know a lot about everything, especially women. So, I assumed that the breadth of worldly knowledge demonstrated in his fantastic stories must have taken at least three adult decades to accrue.

     “This one's special. Remind me when we get back to the office, to show you some pictures we took this weekend when she was in town.” He sounded almost giddy.

     I could hardly wait to eat at Warren's Restaurant and Lounge. It was a manly kind of place. Bar by night, delicious buffet by day. Pork chops sizzled from the skillet in the DJ booth. The awkward journey from the vegetables, rice and fried chicken buffet across the dance floor, to pour yourself a styrofoam cup of sweet tea, was one I had made many times.

     "I'm gonna miss this place," he said.

     "What are you talking about? Where are you heading?" I asked. A necessary side effect of making three times more money than the architectural interns you worked alongside as a contract draftsman, was the inevitable fact of frequent, abrupt departures. Drew had twice before left and returned to our firm, with the ebb and flow of our workload. I assumed he was being re-assigned to another drafting gig.

     "Chapel Hill," he replied. "I've been meaning to tell you, since I got back from Arizona. You've probably been wondering what these purple marks on my neck are all about.”

     I had been wondering about the two giant hickie-looking marks on either side of his neck, but figured it best to let him explain them.

     "I've got brain cancer, and I'm dying,” he said, and suddenly the delectable first bite of the disco pork chop I had been savoring seconds before became less appetizing. “I don't know if I ever told you, but my mother died from brain cancer, too."

     "How long have you known?" I managed to inquire.

     He went on to explain how he'd been referred to specialists in Chapel Hill six weeks prior. They recommended aggressive triangulated laser treatment on his lymph nodes, to try to slow the progression of the cancer, hence the bruises on his neck.

     As we ate, he told me he was not afraid to die. Just as age seemed something that we need not have discussed during our many lunches together; faith and belief in a higher being was something we’d had no trouble foregoing, in lieu of more entertaining subjects, until now. Now, it seemed entirely appropriate that we were discussing the afterlife, at our table under the darkened mirror ball, which assumed the instant metaphor of an electric life eagerly awaiting its next and potentially final spin.

     Drew was an odd dude. I knew that. He loved ballroom dancing, and was ostensibly very good at it. Far be it for a virile, straight, twenty-eight year old intern architect to enjoy hanging out with a fifty-something ballroom-dancing gentleman, except for the fact that he assured me it was merely a great way to meet women. I relished the stories of adventurous women he had entertained on and off the dance floor. With each potentially true, always entertaining account, I would learn a little more about my peculiar friend.

     However, I had not anticipated his belief (and apparent participation) in astral projection. He explained, with measured delivery, how he had traveled in several spiritual realms with his ex-wife soul mate. The two of them had been together many times throughout history without prior knowledge of what the arrangement would be going forward.

     "Sometimes, she comes back as the man, and I am the woman. Sometimes, we're both women. We both trust that our souls will arrive in the designated realm that we're destined for. So, you see, I don't fear dying, because that sends me on my next journey with my soul mate. I didn't bother questioning why his current ex-wife soul mate and adult child chose to live five hours away in Raleigh, and seemed to want nothing to do with him. I had heard enough. Drew was indeed an odd dude, and at this point, I was willing to forego the banana pudding in exchange for the quickest journey back to the office, astral plane or otherwise.

     I took the opportunity of the ride back to the office to discuss how Andrea had taken the news. He informed me that she had been supportive, and was prepared to stick by him. Back inside, Drew invited me to follow him up the red spiral staircase to his workspace in the loft. Not wanting to deny him the pleasure of showing off his new acquaintance, I proceeded upstairs.

     On his monitor, his screensaver revealed a middle-aged woman with short dark hair in lingerie standing in the foyer of his townhouse and looking back at the camera.

     "Nice," I exclaimed.

     "Do you like that?" he asked, hinting that there were more photos to view.

     "Yeah, Drew. I like that picture. You did alright this time," I replied in the best "buddy" response I could muster.

     "Oh yeah? What do you like about her?" he went on.

     At this point I started to wonder how he’d been able to have a scantily clad “woman of the night” as his screen saver without any complaints from the women in the office. "She's got nice legs," I said, as I turned to go back to my desk downstairs.

///

     "We just need to stop by Drew's on the way. I need to borrow his external hard drive. It shouldn't take long," I told Wendi, as we made our way to lunch on Saturday.

     Although I had never been there, Drew’s townhouse was immaculate. Every wall seemed to be adorned with tasteful artwork celebrating the female body, including an oversized image of his red-headed ex-wife reclining, above the couch.

     Fortunately, with Wendi in tow, the tour of my friend’s humble abode was appropriately short lived, and we were able to quickly retrieve the component we had come for from the spare bedroom/home office.

     It was there, in the opened closet of that second bedroom, that I spotted five identical outfits of khakis and blue oxfords, and nothing else. It was a striking visual reminder of Drew’s theory of uniformity which asserted that such a spartan wardrobe eliminated the need to decide what to wear every morning, which resulted in heaps of time saved time over the years.

     “I’m amazed at how clean Drew’s place was,” I said to Wendi as we drove away.

     “Yeah, that dude is walking around in women’s underwear, for sure,” she stated rather emphatically.

     “What?” I objected, “Drew is the most heterosexual man I know.” It was all I could do to keep from sharing all of the insight that Drew had shared with me about women over the years.

     “Do any of your other friends have statues of women in their house?” she asked.

     “No, but Drew really likes women,” I responded.

     “Because he wants to be one," she retorted matter-of-factly.

     As we drove, I revisited the interior of his townhouse, trying to recall any other bit of evidence that might support her preposterous claim. “I did find it odd that his work clothes were in the spare bedroom closet.”

     “That’s because his closet is full of women’s clothes.”

     “Nah, you don’t know Drew like I do.” I said, refusing to buy into Wendi’s notion. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

///

     Dave wasn’t a particularly chatty fellow, but when he returned from lunch at the Chinese place, he had quite the story to tell, and word of his Drew sighting quickly spread throughout the office.

     It had been several months since he’d left citing health concerns, and no one had heard from him in the meantime. Dave assured us that he appeared to be in good health, and that he was considering coming by the office.

     Dave encouraged us to prepare ourselves for what we were about to witness. Obviously, a lot had taken place since we had all last seen him. In fact, we probably wouldn’t recognize him.

     “Did you talk to him?” I asked. “Is he wanting to come back?”

     “I don’t think so,” Dave snickered.

     “How did he look?” one of the principals asked.

     And I’ll never forget what Dave went on to tell us.

///

     I heard him enter the front door of the office, and I heard the amazement in the receptionist's voice. Surely, the old man would tell him to leave, as he passed the principal's corner office before he got to the studio.

     I could not bring myself to turn around when he spoke to the architect whose office was adjacent to my workspace.

     "Drew, how you doing, man?" Dennis said, in what could only be described as one of the most awkward exchanges I've ever overheard.

     "It's Sage now," replied a soft, almost whispering voice.

     And suddenly I was face to face with the amply-chested brunette stranger in a red blazer and white pants. A wave of gut-wrenching anguish swept up from somewhere deep in my stomach.

     "Just keep on walking, Drew. I don't even want to look at you."

     "I'm sorry," she said with tears in her eyes.

     "Just keep walking," I said sternly.

     "I'm sorry," she said again. "I don't recommend it unless you absolutely have to."

     She made her way to Liz's desk, and Liz, to her credit, was much more cordial. Commenting first on her outfit, then on her fantastic boob job.

     I grabbed my wallet and keys and left quickly for lunch, and never once did I consider asking Sage if she wanted to join me.

     My stomach hurt for the rest of the day. Thank God it was Friday. Thank God Wendi would be on her way to Myrtle Beach in a couple of hours. Thank God, the white Dodge Ram was no longer in the parking lot when I returned to the office.

     Why wouldn't he have told me he was thinking of becoming a woman?

     Why did he lie and tell me he was dying?

     Why would he lie about the marks from the surgery to remove his Adams apple?

     Why did he share so many intimate stories about women with me? Was he tracking my responses?

     Who in the hell was that in the photo on his computer?

     When you eat lunch with a friend nearly every weekday for three years, you think you know him.

     What happened to the Drew I enjoyed hanging out with? I guess he did die. The betrayal hurt the most. Three years invested in a relationship that was built upon a lie!

     I've not spoken to nor seen the stranger since, as far as I know.

///

     "Drew's a woman," I whispered loud enough for her to hear over the noisy, hungry crowd.

     "I knew it!" Wendi exclaimed as she commenced a little dance. "How did you find out?"

     "Well," I began, and thankfully the buzzer in her hand alerted us to the fact that this would be a dinner we'd both remember for a very long time.