©2026, SammyC

Author’s note: This is a return to the world of Joanne Prentiss, a series of stories that started in “Painted From Memory” and careened through “Love Has No Pride,” “Out of the Past,” and, in cameo roles, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” and “A Daughter Enters, Stage Left.” While not crucial to understanding the action in this short subject, going back and reading the preceding entries could provide some explanatory context. Also, this story serves as a prolegomenon to a new serial that will follow shortly…”Summer Girl.” Look out for that coming attraction.

Valentine’s Day was on a Tuesday that year. It had been almost a year since my GAS at St. Francis Memorial in San Francisco. I was not looking forward to the predictable banter from my co-workers about my “secretive” love life, this morning. Fortunately, it wasn’t widely known throughout the network offices that I had been transitioning for the last four years before my surgery. Outside of the Marketing & Research department, only a select few knew about it.

I was bracing myself for a long, annoying day as I peered out my office window onto the wintry scene of Sixth Avenue, still blanketed in the remnants of this weekend’s snowstorm. I decided to pour myself a cup of hot coffee in the kitchen and face the inevitable inquisition by “the girls.” As I turned to leave my office, I saw Alastair Knowles, the network’s wunderkind head of non-fiction programming, standing in the doorway, holding a heart-shaped box of assorted chocolates. I frowned emphatically. I had told him more than once in the last two weeks that I would not accept a Valentine’s Day gift from him (or anyone from the office). Not flowers and certainly not a box of chocolates.

Alastair was 28 years old. 2 years my junior. His father was a British expatriate network news correspondent who died in that tragic plane crash half a dozen years ago. His mother was a French citizen who had met his Dad as undergraduates at the University of London. Six months after they married, Alastair’s father moved to New York to work for The Times. Little Alastair came into the world 3 years later.

He came to our network after winning an Emmy Award for producing an Ed Bradley segment on 60 Minutes that commemorated the 30th anniversary of the release in 1963 of The Rolling Stones’ first record, a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Come On.” The highlight of that segment was Bradley’s wide-ranging interview with Mick Jagger, conducted at Jagger’s Poce-sur-Cisse castle home in the Loire Valley, France. The first day we met, six months ago, he ushered me into his new office and placed his Emmy statuette in my hands to admire as he smiled broadly.

Apparently one of the executives had let it slip that I was a transwoman, possibly in some “good ole boys” after-dinner chit-chat Alastair had been privy to. Even before he came aboard in September! At first, I tried to avoid Alastair whenever he was in the offices. Which wasn’t too difficult since he split his time between Los Angeles and New York. I was afraid he had some sort of kink for transwomen, a tranny chaser as the kids say. Then I heard the gossip about his skirt-chasing exploits. He only dated actresses, models, and TV presenters, it appears.

Despite being forewarned, we struck up a workplace friendship. He would be in our New York offices for weeks at a time and, occasionally, we’d have lunch together. But I told him I wasn’t interested in seeing him socially outside of work. I was tempted only once. He had season tickets to New York Jets games (inherited from his dear old Dad). The Washington Redskins were playing the Jets and I suspected Rafe Metheny would travel from D.C. to attend. But his sister Sally would probably also be there with him. And their mother! Good God, no. I politely declined Alastair’s offer.

“I told you, Alastair! Please don’t give me anything for Valentine’s—”

“Well, a frosty good morning to you too, Joanne. Goes with the weather we’re having, I suppose. Here, this is for you.” He held out the box of chocolates, waiting for me to come forward. Reluctantly, I snatched it out of his hand and tossed it on the desk, displacing some paper that was strewn across it.

“Before you go on a tirade, Jo, you should know that it’s not from me.”

I crossed my arms. “Okay, who’s trolling me. Give me the name. Is it that creep, Gunderson, in Sales? Or Montgomery in Accounting? Oh, I know! It’s your squeeze from the News Network, that Viking, Belinda. She was giving me the side-eye last time we were on the elevator together.”

“Jealous a little? No, just read the card that’s attached to the box, Jo.” He jabbed his finger in the air, pointing at the box on my desk.

Annoyed, I ripped the card out of its small envelope and was shocked to read the signature below the brief message. It was signed simply “Blaise.” My dumbstruck reaction prompted Alastair to explain.

“I didn’t know you knew each other. Blaise is in the city to meet with the execs to discuss possibly directing this docu-series we’re planning on the 10th anniversary of the network. I think all the parties came away pretty excited about working together after our all-day session yesterday. However, he’s going back to Cali tonight. Some music video for Green Day, I believe.”

I was still holding the card in my hand, my eyes a million miles away.

“Don’t thank me. Blaise practically shoved it into my chest and ordered me to deliver it to you this morning. And he expects to meet for lunch at noon. Hopefully, it’s something ritzier than Sbarro’s. I’ll come by a little before 12… Jo?” He waved his hand before my eyes. I blinked.

“Sorry, Alastair. I’m just…surprised. I’ll be here.” He walked out, giving me one final sheepish glance.

Blaise Howarth. A name from the past. A ghost from the past. Even though it had only been a year since we last spent time together. He had visited me in San Francisco while I was recovering from my surgery. My Aunt Lori, with whom I’d been staying, had surreptitiously contacted Blaise to inform him of my presence in the city by the bay. Of course, it led to a few days of intense, even turbulent emotion until Blaise returned home to Los Angeles. I thought we had settled matters between us. Finally. The hurtful words he had shouted at me when we parted twelve years before still formed a deep wound in my soul. I will not, could not ever forgive him. No matter how much I liked…no, loved him. I was a silly teenager trying to live like a real girl. He felt betrayal. I tried to explain. To apologize. It was useless. Then, more than a decade later, he showed up unexpectedly, with words professing love. Begging forgiveness. I could not. I did not.

“Why didn’t he just meet us in the lobby,” I asked Alastair as we crossed West 49th Street, heading uptown. The sun had finally come out, its warm rays taking the edge off the cold air that was just a few degrees above freezing. My green cloth winter coat was buttoned up to my chin. I wished I hadn’t left my wool beret in my office. And I’d forgotten to bring the box of chocolates. I wanted to return it to Blaise.

“You’ll have to ask him. I’m just following his explicit orders.” Alastair stopped and turned to grab hold of my shoulders. He looked down at me, his handsome face framed by his long brown hair. “Look, I thought I was doing both of you a solid. I don’t know what’s between you two but it seemed like a storyline from one of those mawkish rom-coms. You don’t seem too happy to see this guy. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“It’s a long story and it’s kind of cold right now. Let’s just keep walking, o.k.?”

“I thought we were good friends, Jo. I guess not—”

As if summoned from cold, thin air, Blaise appeared in front of us, walking leisurely toward us, a smirk on his face. His eyes were trained on me. He hardly noticed Alastair standing beside me.

“Joey.” He reached out to me. I thought he was going to try to kiss me but, instead, he caressed my cheek. “I hope my hand isn’t too cold, Joey. But I had to touch you. To confirm that you’re real.” He leaned in to kiss me gently on the lips.

I whispered my reply. “Blaise…”

“Joey?” Alastair interjected.

“Everyone called me Joey when I was…younger.”

“We were 18 when we met,” Blaise noted. “So are you ready to do lunch?” He took me by the arm. I noticed Alastair wasn’t right behind us.

“Alastair? Coming?”

“I’ve got some phone calls to make. Maybe I’ll join you guys later. Bye.” He turned around abruptly and started to briskly walk away.

“You didn’t think I’d have lunch with you if Alastair didn’t come along?” I asked.

“When I found out yesterday that he knew you. He said you were buddies. Whatever. I figured a little subterfuge…you know. Still hate me, Joey?”

“No, I just thought we’d said everything that was needed to be said last year in San Francisco. I truly believed that I’d never see you again—”

“Sorry to disappoint you. I still have things I want to say to you. I guess it’s a last chance to say them. At least have lunch with me today. And maybe listen…”

“Like I said last year, Blaise, a lot of water has passed under the bridge—”

“Does that mean you could see your way to forgive me?”

“I forgave you, for all intents and purposes, last year, when we said goodbye at Lori’s apartment your last day in San Francisco. But that doesn’t mean we have a future, you and me. I’m not Joey, the wet behind the ears teenager who wanted to be a real girl, and you’re not Blaise, the rebellious, troubled youth who never received enough love from his parents. Are you capable of love? Even now at 30? Do you even realize how much you hurt me?”

“Let’s stop here, Joey.” We were in front of a florist shop. Normally, there would be benches of potted plants, buckets and hanging baskets in front of the display windows, sometimes covered by a garland covered awning. In the depth of winter, everything was brought inside. I knew this shop fairly well. The last time Rafe had come to visit me, a couple of years back, he’d given me a bouquet of blush pink peonies from there that made me burst out in tears in the middle of 51st Street on a sun-splashed summer morning.

Clutching a bouquet of red roses in front of me like a bride in some avant-garde Spanish film, our server led us to a corner table in the art-deco themed upscale restaurant intriguingly named The Monkey Bar, located in the Hotel Elysee on Madison and E. 54th Street. Where the elite meet to eat. In our case, to have lunch.

“I’ve never been here, Blaise. Some of the execs at the network have dinner with clients here though. The girls in the office tell me stories.”

“Bacchanals, eh? I’m glad to hear you’ve never been asked. I couldn’t endure the thought of some greasy Hollywood goon putting his hands all over you.”

“What a silly thought, Blaise. I live the life of a nun practically. For years, actually. I’ve told you about Rafe and Elizabeth. And they were both years and years ago now. I haven’t even spoken to Rafe more than twice in three years.”

“What about this dude, Alastair. He seems pretty smitten with you. Couldn’t stop talking about you at dinner last night. He said you guys have lunch together a lot.”

“Lunch? More like snacks. Pizza and the occasional hot dog from a street vendor. When Spring comes around, the whole block around our building is lined with food carts. I will say that the guy who sells bananas is one I patronize almost daily…” He smirked. “You had dinner here?”

“No, it was some Japanese place downtown in…uh…Soho, I think. The sushi was o.k. but I prefer the fish tacos from El Tarasco in Manhattan Beach. That summer we met, Joey, the best fish tacos you had to go to Baja to get. We never made it down to TJ, did we?”

“Alastair and I are office buddies. He’s dating Belinda Sorensen, that news reader on the network. I look like a mutt compared to her. And, for what it’s worth, I’m not interested in Alastair in that way.”

“I’d go for the Wagyu Cheeseburger if I were you, Joey. You always ate like a teenage boy—”

Under my breath, with a snarl. “I was a teenage boy, moron.”

“Just joking, Joey. Sorry. It’s my stupid sense of humor.”

“Nothing’s changed, has it, Blaise?”

“I’m having the fish and chips myself.”

“Funny, that’s Alastair’s favorite.”

“Oh, they have fish and chips food carts?”

“Just drop it, Blaise. Alastair and I aren’t an item.”

“Good, you’re saying I’ve got a chance?”

“$35 for a cheeseburger, $40 for fish and chips? You must be taking in a lot of cake for those music videos you direct.”

“My clients are very generous. And very satisfied. Your network is paying for it anyway. After all, they’re pursuing me, not the other way around.”

”An apt description for our present situation.”

Blaise frowned.

“Well, it’s been real nice seeing you again, Blaise. I don’t know when we’ll have the chance to meet up again. I’ve got to get back to the office. I’m already way over my allotted lunch hour.”

Blaise was helping me into my coat. “Call your boss and tell him you’re taking the rest of the day off. Something of a personal nature needs your immediate attention. I’m sure he’ll—”

“She! She won’t be understanding.”

“Live dangerously, Joey. Your buddy Alastair told me your boss is in LA this week. How convenient for us. Just call your assistant. I know she’ll understand.” He laughed and I was going to reply but, at that moment, our server came to us with Blaine’s red roses in a vase. She handed it to me.

“You almost forgot your roses. I must have had quite an effect on you during lunch. Don’t argue, babe.”

The server cracked a broad smile. She must assume we’re a couple.

“You can make the call from our room.” He winked at the server. I believe she actually blushed.

As we walked into the lobby of the hotel, I asked, “Where are we going?”

“To our…that is, my room. I’m staying here. After you make your phone call and we’re settled in, I’ll have room service bring up some coffee and tiramisu. Sounds good?”

“You’re abducting me!” The small number of people in the lobby looked up from their newspapers at us.

“She’s kidding, folks. Lovers’ spat. You know how it is.” They smiled and raised their newspapers back up. The elevator arrived and Blaine gently pushed me in.

“You don’t have to sit in that uncomfortable chair, Joey. Come sit by me on the bed. It’s rather cushiony.”

“I’ll just stay here, thank you. And call me Joanne. That’s my name now. It’s been for four years.”

“The coffee and dessert should be up any minute. Look, Joanne, I’ve got a 6 o’clock flight back to LA and I’m pressed for time. We can just sit here staring daggers at each other for three hours or—”

“Or what? Listen to you plead your sorry case? We went through all of this last year. Remember? After you left, I didn’t eat for two days. Lori said it was affecting my recovery. I’d managed to erase you from my mind. Now you’ve popped up to remind me of all the pain you caused me.”

“But you seemed so happy to see me when I surprised you in San Francisco. And it was Lori who asked me to come—”

“She admitted later it was a huge mistake. And I was in a very vulnerable emotional state after the surgery. You just took advantage of it. Then the bad feelings resurfaced.”

“The bad feelings were because your ‘boyfriend’ Rafe Metheny couldn’t bother to come see you after your surgery. What did he tell you? He was too busy with work. When Lori called me, I was in the middle of a commercial shoot in Vancouver. I dropped it like a hot potato. They fired me and tried to claw back my advance.”

“If that ain’t love,” I sang in a sarcastic tone. “You called me a freak! A mutant! You wouldn’t listen to my explanations. You just stormed away in your car and refused to speak to me when Lori drove me to your grandmother’s house the next day.”

“I thought you were just afraid I’d tell my gran about what you really were—”

“And what is that?”

“O.K.! O.K.! Lori explained the whole thing to me after you went back East. I tried to call you and apologize but your mother said you didn’t know who I was. You didn’t want to pick up the phone. I stopped calling after a few weeks.”

“Even if I picked up the phone, it wouldn’t have changed anything. You’re telling me that you would have turned gay for me? It was an impossible situation.”

“I don’t know. It’s a moot point. You’re a woman now. We’re both single and free. Let’s give it a try. That’s more than Rafe Metheny was willing to do.” Blaise got up from the bed, walked over to me, and fell to his knees.

“I love you, Joey. Forgive me. Please.”

“I can’t, Blaise. I..I just can’t. If I do, I’ll lose all respect for myself. I’m in a good place now after all these years in the wilderness. Don’t drag me back.”

“Remember the day we were on my Dad’s boat and we sailed from Redondo Beach to Marina del Rey? You looked so happy, Joey. We can be happy like that again. Believe me.”

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Southern California. Clear blue skies above us, clear blue water below us. Blaise’s father lived on a 45 foot sailboat docked in a slip in Marina del Rey. On this day, he had invited Blaise and I to sail with him and his girlfriend Bonnie from King Harbor in Redondo Beach near Torrance where Blaise lived with his grandmother and little sister to Marina del Rey. Counting the roundtrip sail time and the time we spent at a jazz festival near the Marina, the entire outing took almost 10 hours. Blaise drove me home around 11PM, where we met my father at the door. When I called Lori from King Harbor to tell her I was on my way home, I hung up before she could warn me that Dad had returned early from his business trip. That was the beginning of the end. The night ended in tears for me and the screech of angry tires speeding away for Blaise.

It was true what Blaise said about my blissful state of mind on that day, on the deck of his father’s sailboat. I had been nervous about meeting his father and his girlfriend but they were awfully welcoming and complimentary. Bonnie pointed out all the most interesting sights along the coast as we followed the coastline from Redondo Beach to Marina del Rey while Blaise played First Officer to The Captain, his dad, in the cockpit.

Although they didn’t think I could hear them talking in the cockpit, their conversation turned to the subject of me. While Bonnie narrated our roughly 8 nautical mile voyage up the coast, I honed in on what they were saying about me.

“So, Blaise, is she the one?”

“Yeah, Dad, I really like her. She’s like no other girl I’ve ever known. Smart, funny, and…”

“Pretty? What do you know about her, really?”

“All I need to know, Dad. Her father is a structural engineer. He’s part of the team that built the Pacific Gateway Tower that’s opening soon. Grandmother’s moving her office there.”

“The less you mention your grandmother the better, o.k. sport? Now, she’s just visiting this summer, you told me?”

“Well, she’s leaving next week. Going back to New York. She’s going to attend Columbia!”

“Columbia? Columbia’s not co-ed. You must mean Barnard. It’s like Radcliffe and Harvard. One’s for men, the other’s for women. But they’re technically the same.”

I winced when Blaise’s father corrected him. I didn’t count on Blaise finding out that Columbia was men-only.

“So she’s a smart girl as well as being a looker. Seems like you reeled in a nice catch. But how is this relationship going to continue when you’re 3,000 miles apart? Columbia’s just across the street from Barnard. Maybe she’ll meet the Blaise Howarth of Manhattan. Did you ever think about that, son?”

“We like each other a lot. We talked about staying faithful while we’re away at school.”

His father guffawed. “You sound like a married couple. You’re just kids. A whole lot of life is ahead of you. Things change. You’ll change. She’ll change.”

“No, I won’t. I love her. I really do, Dad.”

“I don’t want you to be hurt, Blaise. You’re only 18. Just enjoy your time with Joey. Don’t try to make plans that may never come to fruition. It’s my advice to both of you. You don’t want to hurt her either, do you?”

A frisson that overcame the warm breeze enveloping me as we sailed up the coast made me realize I was in a precarious position in regard to my summer with Blaise. The dude was in love with me. I hadn’t expected to feel the same toward him but… His grandmother thought I was just some nice girl from back East who could provide her troubled, rebellious grandson with a stable, normal friendship that would keep him on the straight and narrow. No one expected The Spanish Inquisition. Err, I mean either of us falling in love. That wasn’t the assignment I was given.

Well, super spy girl, how do we disentangle ourselves while gently bringing this boy back down to Earth? I pondered this question all through the afternoon with the jazz festival going on. There were times when some passages from a tenor sax or electric guitar moved me to uncontrollable tears. Blaise squeezed my hand in these moments, thinking I was emotionally swept up in the music.

But all that pondering came to a crashing end when my father opened the front door to see me arm in arm with Blaise, dressed in a floral sun dress and a floppy beach hat, Lori’s makeup reflecting the moonshine on my face.

Through tears, I looked at Blaise as he stayed on his knees, begging my forgiveness.

“I loved you, Blaise. I really did. But I…I can’t…”

“We were just kids, Joey. We’re older now. We…I mean…I know more about life and what love means. I’m ready now. Ready to pledge my love, my life to—”

“Stop it, Blaise. It’s impossible!”

“Listen, I’m going to be in France this summer, shooting a promotional film for Piaget. You know, the jewelers. It might be a 3 or 4 week shoot. We’ll be in Paris and the South of France too. Come with me. We can make a whole new start. Like it should have been. Say yes.”

I took his hands and lifted him up to his feet.

“We had a moment, Blaise. But that moment has long ago passed. You are where you are in life. You’re a successful film director now. You’re the man your dad and grandmother never thought you’d become. Go on and live the life you’ve earned. And me. I’m who I always knew I should have been from birth now. We’ve both achieved our wildest dreams. Let’s be happy and let the past stay in the past. I can’t be the Joey you fell in love with when we were 18. Too much has changed. Your dad gave you good advice, Blaise.”

“What? What advice?”

“Think back to that summer and you’ll remember. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I told my assistant I’d be back by now. Goodbye, Blaise. Good luck.” I reached up and kissed him gently on the lips.

“Wait a minute!”

“Yes?”

He handed me the vase of red roses.

“You know how to reach me if you change your mind.”

“Goodbye, Blaise.”

Three weeks later, Alastair was sitting in my office sharing the news that he and Belinda Sorensen, the Viking news reader, had split up.

“Do you need a shoulder to cry on? Because you’re going to have to pay for the cleaning bill.”

“Nah, it was a doomed relationship from the beginning.”

“Why?”

“We were really incompatible when I think about it. The only thing I really liked about her was—”

“Her boobs?”

“You have a point there,” Alastair smirked.

“Two actually,” I parried.

Alastair pointed at a mauve colored envelope lying on top of some papers on my desk.

“That’s a colorful envelope. Party invitation?”

“Yeah, sort of a party. It’s a wedding invitation.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Rafe Metheny.”

“Oh.”

He snatched up the envelope, pulled out the card and read it.

“Accept it. Go! You know you want to.”

“I don’t think so. I told you about Rafe’s mom. And his sister Sally. Oh my God. The other thing is…who would I get to be my plus one?”

“It’s a two-day thing, right?”

“Yeah, the welcome dinner is Friday night, the ceremony and reception are on Saturday.”

“No problem then. We’ll miss one day of work—”

“We?”

“Of course. I’m your plus one.”