It Chooses You (3 page)

I threw a question mark at Brigitte and she nodded yes, she’d photographed everything. So we said goodbye to Michael, nervously heaping on parting graces, and silently rode the elevator back down to the first floor. We stepped out onto sunny Hollywood Boulevard, a street I drive down every day. Now when I drove past this building I would always know that Michael was in there, living on Social Security benefits, enjoying life and desiring only one last thing — to transform into a woman. His conviction ignited me. I felt light and alert. Evidence of his faith in this almost-impossible challenge was everywhere: the pink blouse, the makeup littering the bathroom, the handmade dildo-esque wig stand. These were not signals of defeat. This was not someone who was getting sleepy at the end of his journey; in fact, everything he had lived through made him certain of what mattered now.

I had become narrow and short-sighted at my desk. I’d forgotten about boldness, that it was even an option. If I couldn’t write the scenes, then I should really go all the way with not writing them. I decided to remove myself from my computer and the implication that I might be on the verge of a good idea. I would meet with every
PennySaver
seller who was willing. I would make myself do this as if it were my job. I would get a better tape recorder and drive all over Los Angeles like an untrained, unhelpful social worker. Why? Exactly. This was the question that my new job would answer.

I had to force myself each time I dialed a stranger’s number, but I made myself do it, because this was the end of the road for me; not calling would be the beginning of not doing a lot of other things, like getting out of bed. I started with the first item for sale (a pair of matching silver champagne flutes engraved with the year 2000, twenty dollars) and made my way down the list. Most people didn’t want to be interviewed, so when someone said yes I felt elated, as if they had said, “Yes, and after you pay me fifty dollars for the interview, I’ll pay
you
one-point-five millon dollars to finance your movie.” Because that was the other problem I was now having. In the time it had taken me to write the movie, the economy had turned to dust. Suddenly all the companies that had been so excited to meet me a year ago were not financing anything that didn’t star Natalie Portman. Which kind of brought out the Riot Grrrl in me — I walked out of polite meetings in Beverly Hills with visions of turning around and walking back in, naked, with something perfect scrawled across my stomach in black marker. But what was the perfect response to logical, cautious soulessness? I didn’t know. So I kept my clothes on and drove to the home of someone who
had
said yes to me, sight unseen. A woman selling outfits from India for five dollars each.

—

—

—

I had presumed that very wealthy people didn’t use the
PennySaver
, but as we drove up to a house with turrets and perhaps even balustrades, depending on what those are, I reconsidered my presumption. And as I listened to the long tones of Primila’s musical doorbell, I considered reconsidering everything — my sexuality, my profession, my friends; they were all up in the air for as long as the chimes pealed. Was this what church sounded like? What if I became born-again right now? I crossed my arms to keep this from happening and reminded myself to be attentive to mysterious advice and coded messages. In any vision quest–type scenario, one had to be very alert; I was keeping an ear out for something like “The trees have eyes.” It would make no sense at the time, but later it would save my life.

A middle-aged Indian woman opened the door. She wasn’t wearing an outfit from India, just a normal suburban-mom outfit. She held a flyswatter and warmly welcomed us inside while savagely slapping flies.

Miranda: Thank you so much for having us here.

Primila: So do you want to tell me again a little bit more about what this is for? Do you have any brochure or write-up on things that you do, or your company?

Miranda: I’m just interviewing people. I’m really interested in just getting a portrait of the person and what they’re interested in, and a sense of their life story. I’m a writer and I usually write fiction, but this is — you know, I’m always curious about people. So this is a chance to —

Primila: You write fiction? Do you have any particular themes or any commission or fashion?

Miranda: They’re — I mean, gosh. They’re usually about people trying to connect in one way or another and the importance of that. And the different ways people sort of make that harder than it needs to be.

Primila: I’m just curious, because out of the blue —

Miranda: I know, I know. So, I know you told me a little bit on the phone, but now that I’m recording, what led to you putting — what are you selling in the
PennySaver
?

Primila: What I’m selling are some outfits from India. I have quite a few of them. I’m trying to do two things. One is get them to people who would probably appreciate it who normally wouldn’t have a chance to have this kind of ethnic costume. But the whole thing started, I think it was a year ago in July. We had gone to India, and we went to a village. My husband has a special interest in that place because his grandmother hailed from that village. Of late, because of the lack of rainfall and because of all that, the crops have been failing. These people from the village said, “Can you help us and send us money? We need a motorized irrigation system.”

So I had an open house and sold all these Indian outfits that I brought from India. I did that for two days, two Saturdays, and I raised about… I think it was a few hundred, and I sent it all there, and they got this motorized pump.

In April my husband went back, and they’re very happy with the irrigation system but now they want to expand their fields. I thought, Let me put an ad in the
PennySaver
and maybe I will reach people who want to buy the stuff. One lady came, and she got a lot because she works as an extra in the movies and she’s a Latino lady. She said sometimes they want her to dress up as an Indian lady. So she loved that.

Miranda: Where in India are you from?

Primila: Bombay. My dad was a meteorologist at the Bombay airport. So we built a house right near the airport. A huge, big three-story house.

Miranda: And can you tell me your earliest memory?

Primila: Yes. I was two years old. I was traveling on a ship from Bombay to England. It was like a big doll’s house. In those days people didn’t fly, they went by cruise liners. I was just two and I can remember so clearly. My name is Primila, but I would tell everyone my name is Mrs. Haggis. I don’t know why or how. My mom tells the story of how this little girl — I had ringlets — there would be a group around me saying, “What’s your name, little girl?” And I’d say, “Mrs. Haggis.” I insisted that was my name.

I’d never even eaten haggis, so I don’t know where it — or maybe I’d heard about haggis and I thought, you know, that’s an English dish.

Primila showed me around her house. It was immaculate and girlish, with white carpet and arrangements of large dolls dressed in frilly dresses. And though she knew I wasn’t a reporter or anyone of consequence, she began to tell me about herself the way Michael had, as if this interview really mattered. It occurred to me that everyone’s story matters to themselves, so the more I listened, the more she wanted to talk.

Primila: I write poems with a theme or a message. “Each Day Is a Gift” was a theme. Then after Thanksgiving I wrote “Ten Reasons to Be Thankful.” There’s another one, “Look for the Rainbow” — because I’ve had so many things happen and I try always to still be upbeat and positive, no matter what. I lost my sister very tragically to cancer years ago. She had fourth-stage colon cancer. She was thirty-five years old with four little kids. They wouldn’t give her the visa to come to America, and she was in the last month. I talked to the embassy in India and every time it was no, no, because they didn’t believe it — she looked so healthy and so they didn’t believe.

It was Thanksgiving here in America. So the next day I woke up and I said I’m going to call the top official. His name was Tom Fury, I still remember. And they’d never let you through. It was all this hierarchy of people. Finally he came on the phone and I said, “Mr. Fury, I just want to tell you one thing. If my sister doesn’t make it, I’ll be at peace because I’ve done everything I can. And she knows how much we love her.” But I said, “Whoever has been instrumental in denying her this last opportunity will have to live with that for the rest of their lives and will have to answer for that on the Day of Reckoning.” That’s all I said, and “Thank you so much.” And this had been going on for three months, not granting the visa.

At 2 a.m. the phone rang. It was my mom in India. “Primila, you won’t believe this. The embassy called. They’ve granted the visa to the whole family.” And when my brother went down to get the visa, they said this had never happened before in the history of the embassy.

She passed away on December 24. We buried her on December 31 at Forest Lawn. Then I kept her children and raised them. So whatever happens, I always try to share things that we can learn from what happens in our lives, how we can help others.

Miranda: And what do you do for a living?

Primila: I’m director of rehabilitation at a hospital. I’ve worked there twenty-three years. I’m so passionate about my work that in twenty-three years I’ve never had an unscheduled absence. I never picked up and said, “I’m not coming in today.” But today I locked my door — I always lock my bedroom door when my husband’s in India — and I realized my purse was still inside with the car key. I didn’t know what to do. I went up and I shook the door. It wouldn’t open. So I thought, What do I do? Let me call my son. My son tells me, “Mom, you’ve never called in sick. I’m busy. Maybe today’s the first time in your life — you have a reason: you don’t have a car.” I said, “Are you kidding? I would never do that.” The day I drop dead I won’t show up at work. So I went up again and I just shook the door and I managed to budge it.

Miranda: You broke down the door?

Primila: Yes.

Primila took us upstairs and showed us the door, hanging off its hinges, and then she pointed out two places in the house where a tiny square of wall had been removed. She asked me to guess what these holes were for, but I said I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Primila: Okay, I’ll tell you because it’s a funny story. One day I was at work and my nephew Benny calls me and he says, “Auntie, I’m hearing voices from the wall. Not from the roof, but from the actual wall.” I said, “What nonsense.” But when I came home I listened, and sure enough, in the closet, behind the wall — in the wall — there was a little
meow meow
. So my son-in-law cut a hole in the closet wall and he put a little food there. Then in the morning there was the cutest little black and white kitten, just two weeks old.

And then a week or two later, just behind the water heater, he calls me up and says, “Auntie, there’s another
meow
going on there.” And sure enough, we cut a hole there and another kitten came out. And then it happened again! There was a tree that had grown over our wall, so the cat from there had climbed up, made a hole in our roof, and got into our attic to have her kittens. And then they were falling through the insulation. My daughters are married and I’m waiting for grandchildren, but the joke is that the stork brings only four-legged babies to my house.

Before we left, she showed me how to wear a sari properly. As she wound the fabric around my hips I realized I would join the Latina actress when Primila told her story about people who had answered the ad. I had thought of myself as outrageously forward, but
PennySaver
sellers weren’t hung up about inviting strangers into their homes. So I didn’t have to be so nervous — I could drop the
Leave It to Beaver
voice and focus on the secret clues each person was trying to convey to me.