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Chapter 59

*Before…

Taylor’s with one of the guys that’s teaching the surfing and I sip my coffee and watch and then I set it down and see him actually get up on the board and ride it out for like fifty feet or sixty feet before there’s no room. It’s way cool he stayed up the entire time and I’m not sure that I could do that and I clap and cheer whistle at him when he’s done.
“Way to go honey, do it again!”
I see the smile on his face and the happy guy wave he gives me and him and the instructor paddle back talking and stuff. I see the guy look at me and it’s that checking me out look and something else and they do the guy thing hand shake once their sitting on the boards and riding the wave thing where they really aren’t going anywhere.
It’s so that guy giving the other guy props for his girl thing.
I actually don’t mind, he’s my guy and guys have their esteem things too….and Tay’s been knocked around just as much as me and I watch and cheer as he takes another wave and gets up on his board and I cheer him on and it’s good to see him just smile, doing something just for him and just smiling.

*And Now…

I wave when he comes up out of the water and I clap too and I’m getting looks from some of the other women there and some of the guys too. I mean it’s this thing, I guess… that you don’t see a whole lot of people doing it of couples doing it a lot these days and stuff…supporting each other.

It’s something that has bugged me for a long time the fact that people just sort of hide supporting each other so much it’s like they’re embarrassed about it like some people do over having PDA’s.

I mean it’s just sort of one of those things that I don’t get.

And I think that it’s the same for some of the people giving me looks. Because I’m actually not shy about being behind Tay. I’m also not shy about clapping sarcastically and laughing when he wipes out too and some of them are actually pretty spectacular.

Y’know when he goes in the drink and he goes back and the board shoots up and he sort of looks like he stepped on a banana peel. I’m his wife and I love him to death but I’m also allowed to say stuff like. “Whoo-hoo honey, that was awesome!”

He actually laughs when he hears me and he looks over my way and he hollers. “You wanna come over here and do better?”

“No thanks! I’m still all pruned out from the other stuff!”

“Aw c’mon!”

I put my hand over my scar and grin. “Ow my shoulder.”

And that makes him laugh which is pretty cool.

And that the look on some of the faces like the guy that’s teaching the pool surfing is kind of neat too. Y’know it’s one of those things that when I was thinking a lot of things…dreaming of a lot of things about my life if I ever got to like have one. And having a real relationship, one of those serious kind of relationships that y’know…wasn’t serious in that harsh way but like the love is like serious and the humor and…I guess.

Intense? Honest?

Yeah both of those.

I wanted to love and be loved openly and honesty and to love someone back just as openly and honestly. It’s so amazing to be able to have that now, to have found it. It’s making me smile that we have something that makes other people look at us and notice because it’s that special.

I move from hugging my shoulder to holding my coffee in both hands and watching him trying it again and just cutting loose like he hasn’t done since we’d gotten together with the girls and Tim and Billy and played a bit of catch and had that barbeque.

It’s good to watch and as hard as he works it’s actually good for us too. But he’s still in recovery of his own and after about close to an hour of this I see him flagging and he just sort of has this lazy smile on his face as he lets himself fall off that last board ride backwards into the water and I’m pretty sure that he’s done and as he’s coming in from the wave pool I make my way over to get one of the dry towels and walk over to him and sort of flip it out and around his shoulders and use it as a pull to pull him in and to kiss him sweetly.

Yeah we have a bit of and audience still and I’m still good with that really because I know Taylor, I know us and our relationship and it’s a good one and it feels really darned good to have it and to show it off too.

Okay a little vain but it’s kind of sort of a girl thing really even as much as it’s for me a trans girl thing and it’s this whole kind of ‘I’m good enough.’ That’s a feeling that sometimes especially for people like myself is hard to come by.

And the same for people like Taylor who had a whole lot of their life that told them that they weren’t good enough or like they were like broken.

We kiss for a while then he wraps his arms around me in this whole second wind sort of thing and he picks me up. Okay it’s not too high because I’m not really that small a girl really even though I’m nowhere near what I would have been if I had kept being Jaime.

But it’s enough that he’s not really struggling with holding me a foot or so off the ground as he carries me the twenty or so feet from where we stopped over to the others and we both find one of those plastic muskoka chairs and we settle in sharing it even if it’s mostly me sitting on him.

I give him a really long kiss and I hear the “Heeeee” sound from Giselle as she looks at us through her fingers in front of her face and she’s got this really big grin on her face as she’s watching us.

I can’t help but feel that it’s a good thing? I mean not that Tay and I are in a het styled normal relationship but because we love each other. Natalie and my stepfather they only kind of sort of loved each other. I think there was a whole lot of they sort of fit each other in a lot of ways and could stand each other when a lot of people likely couldn’t.

Bleech…I really don’t care for having any thoughts to do with either of them in my head.

I smile at her and do a little finger wave which turns into a sort of peek-a-boo and hide and seek as she sort of shyly but really happily hides behind Dad or Angie or Ingrid and she giggles and does her little sound at us and I play along and so does Taylor and we’re doing that right up until we hear Hunter announce.

“Are we going back to Mavericks to eat or someplace else because I’m getting kind of hungry?”

And her mentioning hungry and food perks most of us up except for Ingrid who is sleeping in the wheelchair and I look at Tay and we both sort of look at the others and we sort of both say at the same time. “Home.”

I see Dad smile at that and I can’t help but smile back too. There’s something so special about home when that’s actually where you’d rather be instead of out to someplace else.

I really like my life, I’ve fought hard for it y’know.

Hunter looks at us and she’s a bit disappointed and at the same time I’m kind of sure that she doesn’t really get the appeal being a tweenager and all but that seems to agree with Angie and I look at her.

“Your choice on the Netflix okay?”

She brightens up at that. “Okay deal can we have pizza?”

I look at Angie who says. “I’m not the ones doing the cooking so that’s fine by me.”

I grin. “Okay, that’s not a problem either what would you like on it?”

She grins. “Anything; I even like anchovies.”

“I’m pretty sure that we don’t have them.”

Dad makes a face. “We could buy some.”

Taylor’s making a different face. “Uhm…no we really don’t need them.”

I laugh. “I’ve never really had them but I’m not sure if I like the idea of fish on a pizza.”

Dad’s getting things together. “They’re small little fillets that are smoked and salted and they’re really good.”

Taylor’s like… “They’re smelly and they’re fish, they have like all these tiny little bones in them and they’re really gross.”

And Dad’s like… “They’re not gross they’re like fish bacon.”

Taylor grumps at him. “Fish should never be bacon dude.”

And Angie and I are snorting and laughing which set’s Hunter off and Giselle not wanting to be left out lets out a bunch of jumping but not jumping up and down “Heeee’s” I think she trying to do the hee-hee-hee giggle thing but she’s not quite there yet.

They she stops and blinks at me and holds out her arms. “Potty.”

I smile and take her in my arms and go with her to the bathroom in our cabana thing with the changing bag and hear Ingrid. “I’m dying…I’m rotting out from the insides, no damned fish bacon John.”

I’m sort of grinning because it’s a little funny if not morbid sort of funny and that’s still kind of a good sign.

I’m going to call it a good sign.

Hunter comes with me and we get Giselle to use the toilet and we do so in a pretty decently clean fashion and she’s all proud of herself because that’s still a work in progress and Hunter’s doing a great job at praising her up while at the same time making sure she washes her hands and everything and I take out my phone and text ahead for the kitchen to get some stuff ready for us to make pizzas with.

From there it’s getting our stuff all packed and Ingrid takes her time once we’re all done in the cabana and she kind of breaks the rules by smoking a small joint in there but really it’s not going to hurt anyone unless they have like a smoke allergy or something it’s just going to be smelly and I use a can of bathroom spray from the diaper bag and try and mask the smell at least.

The combination’s kind of gross and it kind of smells like someone used bathroom spray to try and vainly fight a bad number two.

But…I’m still okay with this because hopefully it’ll knock down Iggy’s nausea and it’ll get her feeling the munchies a little by the time that the pizza is ready.

I make one side trip while we’re in the mall and the others are getting all ready and into the vehicles and stuff and I pick up some pretty nice salami and pepperoni at one of the grocery places. You know the stuff that’s on the same shelf as the prosciutto and serrano ham and stuff. And I got some fresh herbs and some fennel.

I’m smiling as they pull up to the outside entrance to the grocery store and pick me up and we head for home.

Yeah as good, as amazing as the day has been it’s really good to be home and that makes me smile all the more and we all troop inside carrying all our stuff and we get showered and the chlorine off and into comfy clothes.

I slip into actually one of my racy sets of under things and just toss on a pair of yoga pants and a grey tee shirt. I have plans for later but at the same time I just want to be comfortable and I head downstairs and after a quick check on things as Taylor was doing I get the stuff for pizza from downstairs that I need and pile his arms high and push walk him upstairs.

“C’mon lets go, it’s still our day off.”

“Hey! I was just helping out a little.” He’s almost laughing though as I’m pushing him.

“Checking’s one thing but helping leads to staying.”

“Jenna.”

“Nope, a whole lot of nope mister. It’s still our day off and we have company.”

He laughs. “Okay, okay! Easy that tickles.”

We get upstairs and we kiss and slip into the kitchen and we start cooking together. It’s different than for the diner, this is a lot smaller and it’s pretty intimate too. Well right up until Giselle comes in. “Me helps.”

I grin at her. “You sure can you wanna help with the dough?”

She bobblehead nods.

First is the dough and I had them set aside some of the sourdough that we use for some of the rolls and sandwiches. She’s having fun trying to make shapes and spread the dough out until she sees Tay flipping the dough and she’s transfixed or she is until I take out the blender.

“Buttoms!” Yes she said it with the m in it.

I take some canned tomatoes and a colander and we squish the tomatoes through it to trap the seeds and I add the pulp and juice to the blender with some black pepper and some really good olive oil and a table spoon of tomato paste and brown sugar both and we blend it up. There’s salt in the canned tomatoes and the paste is pretty savory but it helps thicken and smoothen it and just that little bit of brown sugar brings it all together.

Some people do garlic and herbs and stuff but those are more like toppings to me and I just really like this sauce and it’s easy. But you do have to heat it and stir it until you see the first boiling bubbles. It’s done then and cooking it helps kill that tinned taste.

The it’s time for the toppings as Taylor has the dough all done and he’s getting Giselle to sploosh on the sauce and they both take the ladle to spread it out.

We do a couple one is just cheese with good parmesan on there first and then some white cheddar and then lots of mozzarella. Giselle loves that and does her cute laugh of “CHEESE!” And I’m laughing as Tay picks her up and holds her while she takes handfuls of cheese and puts it on the pizza with an evil chuckle.

We do a cheeseburger pizza which is the same but with chopped crispy bacon and cooked ground beef.

Then there’s the one I wanted to make with the prosciutto and the serrano but to go with both of those I added artichoke hearts from the jar with the Italian herbs in the broth and some red onion and a little chopped garlic and some big red olives that I squeeze off the pits and then this little drizzle of balsamic vinegar then in the over without cheese to crisp the cold cuts and get them sizzling then when that’s done I add pomegranate seeds a sprinkle of black pepper then the cheese and back into the oven.

The last is my take on a loaded Italian pizza with extra sauce first then the Genoa salami and the pepperoni and some Italian sausage that’s cooked off crispy out of the casing. That all goes in to crisp up then I take a mixture of thinly sliced fennel and some really thinly sliced onions and add some sliced red and green peppers with the skins charred off and some chopped red fresh chili peppers, chopped garlic and a few capers and when the pizza eats are sizzling I add the toppings and then the cheese.

Giselle left as soon as I was thinly cutting the onions and she heads right for Hunter saying “K-tooms pwease.”

Tay gets some lemonade made and we carry the food inside to the living room and the big coffee table and plates and all the cutlery and Hunter punches in Disney’s Atlantis for us all to watch.

I get a slice of the balsamic pizza and bite and chew and look around just really happy, not just happy but content too.

Which is actually kind of better than happy right?