Exposure, Disclosure

The Greatest Liar, Exposure, Disclosure
© Alexandra Rios 2019
Author’s Note:
This is a continuation of the narrative which commenced with “My Awkward Phase”, which I posted here previously. Readers may wish to read that before continuing, although I have written them to stand alone.

Natives say that life cannot exist in LA without a car and money. My last days in LA proved those truisms.
I’m from Brentwood, “OJ Land”, a privileged enclave nestled between Westwood and Santa Monica. My parents bought their three-bedroom bungalow when it was a quaint bedroom community for the faculty of nearby UCLA, before home prices went sky-high.
The professors cashed out their equity, now my parents’ ranch house was surrounded by the towering McMansions of hedge fund managers whose kids went to the pricey, private Brentwood School instead of attending nearby Uni High. The future of Brentwood was private equity for the wealthy new residents and private schools for their children. We were the poorest family on our block, a throwback to Brentwood’s past.
Range Rovers, BMWs and Benzes crowded the parking lot Whole Foods on San Vicente, where paparazzi stalked celebrities as they shopped. The nearby restaurants thronged with Pellegrino-swigging trophy wives and yoga matt-toting slackers with ponytails, living large off alimony, residuals or inheritances. Botox and silicone mingled with aromas of putanesca sauce and Porsche exhaust in this land of plenty.
Brentwood was ill-suited to a transitioning transgender teen. Its self-absorbed sybarites ignored the androgynous scarecrow in ill-fitting Gap khakis and hoody who browsed its shops, fantasy shopping and role modeling on the starlets. Only the homeless veterans from the nearby Veterans’ Administration facility noticed me, and then only to beg.
After breast implants and bottom surgery, I could sit at the front table of Toscana, sharing sizzling sea scallops and chardonnay with a tanned, silver-haired sugar daddy. But now as I walked out of Jamba Juice, I heard the clerks snickering about the tranny.