Planting Trees

Jacky peeled her sweatshirt over her head, looking toward the sun, squinting. "Hot day."

Kevin treated himself to a quick up-down. "You're looking sweet in your husband-beater."

"Thanks," she answered flatly. "I live to have my eye candy status affirmed."

Ignoring the quip, he asked: "Do you have a confidant?"

"Yeah. My teddy bear. No one wants to hear the shit going on in my head."

Smiling sardonically, he put the shovel aside. "I actually like your attitude."

"I'm a real Dale Carnegie girl. We need get these maples in the ground, else Donny's going to have one of his many pissy fits, yell at me again, maybe piss his pants, stomping his feet like Donkey Kong." She produced a pack of cigarettes. "Got a light? Of course, you don't."

"Fuck Donny."

"Not with your dick, pal."

Again, the smile, rolling off his knees, sitting. "Maybe about a million years ago, I was seeing this guy." He squinted, counting in his head. "Thirty-odd years."

"Oh, we're sharing now?" She sat.

"He liked to blow me."

"You were seeing?"

"I guess you could call it dating, kinda."

"You're gay." The inquiry was a statement.

"That's a complicated question."

"Tell me about it." She rolled her eyes. "Sometimes it takes a lifetime to come out, even to yourself."

"Funny thing is, I never told him I was a cross dresser."

"Oh, now we're really sharing. Shouldn't you start out by saying: 'Father forgive me, for I have sinned?'"

He chuckled bitterly. "Yeah, maybe. I've not told many people over the years I was a cross dresser."

"Do you cross dress still?"

"That's a complicated question, too. Cross-dressing is, I hate to use the word disorder, but I will, a compulsive disorder. Like smoking, or drinking for the alcoholic. We just gotta do it no matter what."