Can You Lend a Hand?: A Gradual Feminization Novel

Chapter One

Earning a degree should be a celebratory time in one's life. The glitz and glamor of graduation day with students outside on the university quad, hurling their hats in the air as the Dean sends them off into the real world. Everyone's got jobs, partners, apartments... Sure it's freakin' terrifying to stare out at the void of adulthood and face it head-on, but there's beauty in that. I've been thinking about that lately... and how I'm experiencing the exact opposite of it.

While I have my cynical, negative days, I generally consider myself a positive person. I like to look forward, not backward, and I love the concept of helping people. In fact, it's probably why I pursued and succeeded in getting my Associate's Degree in Nursing. Yeah, yeah... I know, not a doctor... but everyone knows that nurses are the lifeblood of any medical setting. They take shit from both patients and doctors, holding down the fort from impending chaos. Plus, who the hell wants all that debt from medical school? And so that's exactly where I'm at today: I'm officially Anderson Saffron, ADN! Done and done!

But of course, it's never really that simple. To loosely quote Jeff Goldblum's Jurassic Park character, "Life finds a way... to fuck things up."

I'm currently in a packed-to-the-brim Kia hatchback, driving from the suburbs of Chicago to the quirky, tourist trap town of Old Buffalo, Michigan. Why? Well, I guess my parents watched me graduate and were inspired to shake up their own lives as well. They sold their house (my childhood home), quit their jobs, and bought a condo in Puerto Rico. For a couple of boring suburbanites, this felt like an insane move. First of all, they've never even been to Puerto Rico. But mostly my parents have always been practical, level-headed people. I guess the itch for warmer weather and a fresh start at retirement was simply too irresistible.

Knowing I'm still without a job, they graciously offered to let me accompany them on their life-restart. Call me a sucker, but I decided to stick with the midwest... even if it means living in Southwestern Michigan with one of the oddest people on the planet: my mother's younger sister, Aunt Trinity.

You could fit everything I know about Aunt Trinity on a single index card. Despite being only a two hour drive away, she'd never been a real part of my life. Not for any malicious reason, but when you're so clearly the family oddball, you tend to forge your own path. From everything my Mom told me, she lives life on her own terms.

My phone dinged with around 15 minutes left in my trip, cruising down an empty Red Arrow Highway. It was Aunt Trinity, sending what must be her third or fourth ever text to me.

'Please be quiet when you pull up so you don't disrupt filming. Thanks!'

Quiet? Filming? What the hell was she talking about? I had no idea what this lady even did for work — or play, for that matter — but I figured a simple thumbs-up emoji would suffice. I could pester her all I wanted once I arrived.

You'd think I'd have at least scouted out Old Buffalo before agreeing to spend the summer here, but you'd be wrong. Though at first glance, it at least seemed I hadn't immediately fucked up. The downtown was cute and quaint. Touristy, sure, but not in a Hollywood Boulevard gift-shop-every-ten-feet kind of way. The town had adorable cafés, grocery chains, and parks. At a stoplight, I noticed signs posted all around promoting upcoming fairs and community events. After all, even tourist towns need to cater to their locals.

Maybe calling it a tourist trap is an overstatement. From what my mother told me, Old Buffalo has three types of people: working class folks, wealthy lakeside land owners, and the tourists who rent houses from those wealthy lakeside owners. As my GPS led me closer to the lake and toward bigger homes, it was becoming clear that Aunt Trinity was indeed in the Old Buffalo upper class.