That Voice from Above

After all these years, I thought I finally figured out who my upstairs neighbor is. But wrong person, mystery still unsolved, the suspense will neither kill me nor make me stronger.

We keep similar hours and I like when s/he’s home, the sounds of futzing around, soft singing, guitar strums. It’s a male voice, a tenor, that sings. I’ve heard the click-clack of high heels, a feminine footfall, twice.

I have now entered my building alongside two women who were on their way to the floor above me, not sure whether the younger and quieter one was a cross-dresser until the older of the two got in my face, pointed at Junior and accusatorily asked: “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I said. They both had a gloriousness to them, unconventionally speaking, à la a con-artist duo straight out of a long-running Broadway musical – a pair up to no good, but on the cusp of belting out a detailed and catchy diddy to rationalize all the lies and manipulations.

“No one should ever discriminate against her,” Junior’s spokeswoman kept going. “It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing or who she wants to be.”

As if I had said or implied otherwise. As if I could care less whether this was a dude or a lady. I just want to know if s/he’s the guitarist, whose birthday falls on February 11th (Aquarians are notoriously creative individualists). I was home last February 11th and it’s the only time I’ve known him or her to have had anything close to a raucous gathering. Early into it, the small crowd sung happy birthday. And did not enunciate the birthday boy or girl’s first name.