Middlesex

Milton was so convinced that everything was going to be okay that on Tuesday morning he flew down to Florida on business. “No sense cooling my heels in this hotel,” he told us.

“You just want to get out of this pit,” I said.

“I’ll make it up to you. Why don’t you and your mother go out for a fancy dinner tonight. Anyplace you want. We’re saving a couple bucks on this room, so you gals can splurge. Why don’t you take Callie to Delmonico’s, Tess.”

“What’s Delmonico’s?” I asked.

“It’s a steak joint.”

“I want lobster. And baked Alaska,” I said.

“Baked Alaska! Maybe they have that, too.”

Milton left, and my mother and I tried to spend his money. We went shopping at Bloomingdale’s. We had high tea at the Plaza. We never made it to Delmonico’s, preferring a moderately priced Italian restaurant near the Lochmoor, where we felt more comfortable. We ate there every night, doing our best to pretend we were on a real trip, a vacation. Tessie drank more wine than usual and got tipsy, and when she went to the bathroom I drank her wine myself.

Normally the most expressive thing about my mother’s face was the gap between her front teeth. When she was listening to me, Tessie’s tongue often pressed against that divot, that gate. This was the signal of her attention. My mother always paid great attention to whatever I said. And if I told her something funny, then her tongue dropped away, her head fell back, her mouth opened wide, and there were her front teeth, riven and ascendant.

Every night at the Italian restaurant I tried to make this happen.

In the mornings, Tessie took me to the Clinic for my appointments.

“What are your hobbies, Callie?”

“Hobbies?”

“Is there anything you especially like to do?”

“I’m not really a hobby-type person.”

“What about sports? Do you like any sports?”

“Does Ping-Pong count?”

“I’ll put it down.” Luce smiled from behind his desk. I was on the Le Corbusier daybed across the room, lounging on the cowhide.

“What about boys?”

“What about them?”

“Is there a boy at school you like?”

“I guess you’ve never been to my school, Doctor.”

He checked his file. “Oh, it’s a girls’ school, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“Are you sexually attracted to girls?” Luce said this quickly. It was like a tap from a rubber hammer. But I stifled my reflex.

He put down his pen and knit his fingers together. He leaned forward and spoke softly. “I want you to know that this is all between us, Callie. I’m not going to tell your parents anything that you tell me here.”

I was torn. Luce in his leather chair, with his longish hair and ankle boots, was the kind of adult a kid might open up to. He was as old as my father but in league with the younger generation. I longed to tell him about the Object. I longed to tell somebody, anybody. My feelings for her were still so strong they rushed up my throat. But I held them back, wary. I didn’t believe this was all private.

“Your mother says you have a close relationship with a friend of yours,” Luce began again. He said the Object’s name. “Do you feel sexually attracted to her? Or have you had sexual relations with her?”

“We’re just friends,” I insisted, a little too loudly. I tried again in a quieter voice. “She’s my best friend.” In response Luce’s right eyebrow rose from behind his glasses. It came out of hiding as though it, too, wanted to get a good look at me. And then I found a way out:

“I had sex with her brother,” I confessed. “He’s a junior.”

Again Luce showed neither surprise, disapproval, or interest. He made a note on his pad, nodding once. “And did you enjoy it?”

Here I could tell the truth. “It hurt,” I said. “Plus I was scared about getting pregnant.”

Luce smiled to himself, jotting in his notebook. “Not to worry,” he said.

That was how it went. Every day for an hour I sat in Luce’s office and talked about my life, my feelings, my likes and dislikes. Luce asked all kinds of questions. The answers I gave were sometimes not as important as the way I answered them. He watched my facial expressions; he noted my style of argument. Females tend to smile at their interlocutors more than males do. Females pause and look for signs of agreement before continuing. Males just look into the middle distance and hold forth. Women prefer the anecdotal, men the deductive. It was impossible to be in Luce’s line of work without falling back on such stereotypes. He knew their limitations. But they were clinically useful.

When I wasn’t being questioned about my life and feelings, I was writing about them. Most days I sat typing up what Luce called my “Psychological Narrative.” That early autobiography didn’t begin: “I was born twice.” Flashy, rhetorical openings were something I had to get the hang of. It started simply, with the words “My name is Calliope Stephanides. I am fourteen years old. Going on fifteen.” I began with the facts and followed them as long as I could.