Chapter 17: An Actor Emerges

The following week was a busy one. The demands placed upon her by Professor Fenstrom as the time for the spring play neared grew more intense even as Karen had to find time for her regular school work and to study her lines for the understudy role. She hardly had time to think about Mark, although she wrote two brief letters to him during the week, scribbled hurriedly just before she went to bed.

The cast rehearsed each afternoon from 4:30 to 7 p.m., and Karen had to sit with Fenstrom, taking notes as he made recommendations for the performers. As he had done for the play in the previous semester, he turned to Karen to discuss some of the changes; for some strange reason Fenstrom expressed more interest in her thoughts than those of his associate director, an accomplished graduate student.

Fenstrom had become particularly rough on Heather, who played the role of Madge, one of the two Owens sisters who were the focus of the male lead’s varied infatuations.

“You’re playing that too flat, Heather,” he yelled at the girl.

“Isn’t she supposed to be a selfish, naíve girl?” Heather shot back, growing defensive with the professor’s constant nagging.

“Outwardly she’s shallow, Heather. But Madge is also a sensitive girl, and even though she knows she may be prettiest girl in town, she inwardly feels inadequate, compared to her brainy younger sister. You’re just not showing enough depth.” His tone showed a growing frustration with the young actress.

Karen sat mortified; she liked Heather, considered her a friend. She knew directors often could be tough, but Fenstrom seemed to be going over the top in his criticism of the girl. Nonetheless, she felt that Fenstrom was accurate in his observation that Heather had failed to bring much feeling into the part; Karen understood the part was a difficult one, since it had to outwardly portray a shallow, brainless girl while inwardly conveying a deeper warmth and sensitivity.

The rehearsal continued for a few more minutes, until Fenstrom yelled out an angry: “Stop!” He followed that with loud shouts of “No, No, No. Dammit Heather! Can’t you do anything right? You don’t understand Madge at all.”

His eyes still flashing anger, Fenstrom turned toward Karen. “Do you know your lines for this section of the play, Karen.”

“Me?”

“Yes, do you know your lines?” he persisted, his voice rising.

“I think so,” Karen said, tentatively.

“Well get up there and show her how it’s done, Karen,” he demanded.

“I’m not sure I can do any better . . .”

“Go, you can’t do any worse, and take the script in case you get lost.”

Karen knew better than to say “no” to Fenstrom in his current frame of mind. She went on the stage, almost bumping into Heather as she assumed the position.

“I’m sorry, Heather,” she whispered.

“You must be sleeping with him, Karen,” the girl hissed at her, as Karen saw Heather’s tears.

“I’m not, Heather,” but Karen doubted Heather heard her, having run off the stage.

“Stay and watch this, Heather,” Fenstrom yelled after the girl.

Heather was caught by a stage manager, who held up the girl’s flight as Karen began her brief performance of the play.

“Brava! Brava!” Fenstrom said when the segment was completed.

“You’ve got it, Karen. You’ve got Madge down to a ‘T’. Did you see that, Heather? That’s how to do the part.”

The rehearsal continued, with Heather returning to do the part; Fenstrom’s criticisms seemed to have been reduced, but the rehearsal seemed to lack the life it had showed before. The acting was dull and half-hearted; Heather played her part almost as if she no longer cared.

As Karen packed up the materials at the end of the rehearsal, Fenstrom came over to her and said: “You’d better study that part very closely, dear. I’m afraid Heather’s not cut out for the part.”

“Oh, give her time, Professor. She’ll get it. Maybe you’re a little tough on her,” Karen said.

“No, she’ll never get. She doesn’t have the soul for it and you do!”

“But . . . but . . .” Karen protested.

“No buts, Karen. Just make sure you know the part.”

*****
Two days later, Fenstrom formally gave the part to Karen, assigning Heather to be the understudy; the professor surprised the cast, including Karen, by posting the announcement of the change on the cast call board.

Heather was standing near the board when Karen entered. Heather’s expression was a mix of anger and misery; her eyes were moist and red.

She looked at Karen, saying, “You bitch. I thought you were my friend.”

Karen was confused by the girl’s behavior. “Why, what do you mean?”

“Look at the board, bitch.”

Hearing the outburst, several other members of the stage crew and cast had turned their attention to the two girls. Karen spied the board, seeing a paper entitled “Cast Changes — Picnic”

Effective with today’s rehearsals and for the run of the play, the following cast changes will be in effect:

Karen Hansson will play “Madge.”
Heather Graham will be understudy to “Madge.”

No other changes will be made.

Heather is to be praised for her hard work in the role of Madge and she has a great future as an actress.

These changes were made to fit the nature of this play and do not reflect upon the skill and talents of the two actors.

Eric Fenstrom, director

“Oh my God,” Karen said, genuinely surprised.

“See there,” Heather persisted. “You must be sleeping with him, Karen.”

“No, Heather, that’s not it. I haven’t slept with him and never will.” Karen said.

“You lie,” Heather said, her voice rising. “He took me off the part just because I refused him, and now he’s adopted you and left me out of it.”

“Heather, listen to me. I tried to argue with him, to give you a chance with the part. Really, I did.”

Heather’s emotions continued to overwhelm her. “I studied so hard for the part,” she said. “I thought I was perfect for it, but then you came along.”

“Heather, I didn’t, I tried . . .”

“Don’t lie to me. And to think you’re not even a real girl. You’re just a sissy boy under all that pretty girl looks. You’re just an imposter. Maybe he just likes to play with girly boys like you.”

Heather began beating on Karen, using her fists like she was hammering nails. Karen just turned to the side to absorb the soft, ineffectual blows or her arms and back.

“Stop it,” another girl yelled, pulling Heather away from Karen.

Karen turned to see Janet Backus, a senior girl who played the part of Rosemary, the old maid schoolteacher in the play. She was a tall, angular girl whose superior strength easily subdued the attacking girl.

“Heather, you don’t know anything about the professor’s reasoning in the change,” Janet said. “I don’t think Karen had anything to do with it. I’ve worked with him for four years now, Heather, and he’s got his own mind about these things. With him, it’s all about the play.”

Janet’s words seemed to have a cooling effect on Heather. She followed Janet to a bench nearby where the two sat down together, and Heather began to cry in earnest.

Karen kneeled before the crying girl. “I didn’t want to do the part, really, Heather, since I’m so busy with other things, but Fenstrom persisted. Really, that’s it, and I would never sleep with him. I’ve already told him so.”

Heather looked up, and the two girls’ eyes became linked in a long gaze. Slowly, Heather’s expression softened and she nodded tentatively, as if she finally had heard Karen’s words and understood that Karen had not contrived to rob her of the lead.

“Oh, Karen, I’m sorry,” Heather said, reaching out to pull Karen into a hug.

“That’s all right, dear,” Karen said as the two hugged briefly.

Janet got up from the bench. “Here, Karen, you sit down next to her now.”

Karen joined Heather on the bench, and Heather reached over to hold Karen’s hand.

“Karen, can you ever forgive me for those awful things I said to you just now?”

Karen smiled. “Yes, I know how disappointed you were. I forgive you.”

“They were awful. I shouldn’t have called you that, Karen. You really are so much of a girl.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, letting out a brief giggle.

Their conversation was interrupted by Janet’s voice that boomed out:

“All right folks, there’s nothing to see here.”

Heather looked up at Janet and said: “Thank you for intervening.”

“It’s for the good of the play, after all,” Janet said, a twinkle in her eye, since the girl had used a phrase that often emitted from Fenstrom’s mouth.

“Heather, I’m sorry about all this,” Karen said.

“I know you are, Karen, and I should have realized I just didn’t understand what Fenstrom wanted. I never felt comfortable with the part.”

“I know and it’s probably the most difficult part in the play, since Madge is supposed to be a brainless, uncaring beauty queen on the outside, but an insecure, sensitive, loving girl inside. I’m just worried I won’t be able to handle the part.”

“You’ll do it, Karen, I know you will.”

Suddenly the stage manager’s voice sounded over the loudspeaker system. “Two minutes. Cast, get your places on stage. We’ll begin from the top. Two minutes.”

“You’d better go, Karen,” Heather said. “I’ll be cheering from the wings.”

Karen gave Heather a warm hug, and stood to await her time to enter, which would not be until about five minutes after the opening curtain. As she waited in the wings next to Janet who had a longer wait before entering, Karen felt a shiver. She was certain her legs were shaking; it finally dawned on her that she would soon be in the spotlight. Would she fail as Heather did? Her stomach was all in knots, and she felt her morning banana, orange and yogurt breakfast about to rise into her mouth as sick bile.

*****
Thankfully, Karen finished Act One without a stumble, though she wondered if she maybe said her lines a bit too woodenly. She had been so concentrated on not forgetting a line that she felt she didn’t capture Madge’s character at all.

“Not a misstep, Miss Hansson,” Fenstrom said after the rehearsal to Act One ended, his voice gaining in deep sarcasm. “You couldn’t have played that part any more flat and woodenly. Have you no more emotion in you than that? Can’t any of you girls do that part like human beings?”

Karen nodded, realizing the director was right.

“I hope you understand, Karen. I picked you just because I felt you understood Madge, not because you know your lines. A robot could have played it as you just did.”

“Yes, sir.” She acknowledged the professor’s criticism, grateful that his words were said in a gentler manner than they had been to Heather.

“Remember, Act One is the easy act for Madge; she’s supposed to be a bit flighty, supposed to be a clothes horse, but by Act Three, you’ve got to make Madge’s emotions come to life and to be real, and that means you must plant the seeds of that sensitivity in Act One.”

Karen nodded, realizing that she’d have to study her lines intensively over the next few days, since the rehearsal schedule called for doing Act Two the following day and Act Three on the day after that. Maybe Ramini would have time to help her, she thought.

*****
Ramini was more than helpful; when she had heard of Karen’s possible role in the play, she had gone to the University library to find a script of the play on her own and found a VHS copy of the movie, in which Kim Novak played Madge. She had studied both, plus an online discussion about the play.

“I can see why Fenstrom wants to do this play,” Ramini said. “It’ll really test the acting ability of all of you, since it has such a simple plot, requiring more than a superficial reading.”

Karen was impressed with her roommate’s interest in the play.

Thus, Karen’s task of reading the lines almost developed into Ramini being an acting coach; Karen found that they sometimes disagreed with how to interpret Madge, but Karen felt the discussion helped her to understand a girl like Madge. Karen at first believed that Madge — as the playwright had created her — was like so many other shallow, brainless girls who paid constant attention to looking pretty, wearing accessories and fussing over clothes. Karen found that uninteresting and tiresome in a girl. Karen felt she could be truly feminine without such concentration of externals; after all, wasn’t she a girl on the inside before she became a girl on the outside?

“That’s it, Karen,” Ramini exclaimed at the end of a nearly two-hour session. “You’ve made Madge sound real, and not just a clothes horse.”

“Thanks to you, Rami,” Karen said. “I hope Fenstrom agrees.”

“I hope so, too, dear. You’ve told me how he likes things done his way and his way only.”

“I’m dead tired, Rami,” Karen said. “It’s midnight.”

“Me too, but I’m so grungy I need a shower.”

“Me too,” Karen nodded. “You can go first.”

“No you can, Karen, you must be so tired.”

“We both are tired, honey.”

Ramini’s expression changed suddenly, a smile popping onto her face.

“Let’s shower together,” the small girl suggested.

Karen considered for a moment and then smiled: “Yes, let’s.”

Though the two had seen each other naked before, they both found the new experience in the shower to be particularly erotic as they took turns soaping each other up. Both girls bathed with a creamy soap made for soft, tender feminine skin, and Karen moved her hands over the slender, dainty body of her friend. She cupped the tiny mounds of flesh on Ramini’s chest, causing the girl’s nipples to harden in her fingers and moved her hands to Ramini’s tummy, which was soft and spongy.

“You’re getting a little tummy, Rami,” she said, kissing her friend as the warm water cascaded down them.

Ramini’s hands had found Karen’s burgeoning breasts, and cupped them gently, her fingers playing with the nipples. The two pressed together, each massaging the other, their lips touching as they kissed. Karen felt Ramini’s hands leave her breasts and move down, following the silhouette of her body.

“You have a most lovely feminine body, dear,” Ramini said. “Those pills must be working.”

“Yours, too.”

“But not as fast as yours; I bet you’ll be a b-cup soon.”

Slowly, Karen felt her penis grow hard; it rarely occurred anymore, she knew, obviously due to the testosterone blockers she was taking, along with the estrogen pills. She felt Ramini’s hands playing with her tiny penis.

“What a cute little thing, Karen,” Ramini said.

“It never was much, Rami. Pretty pathetic for a boy, eh?”

Ramini giggled as she tickled Karen’s penis, and in response Karen returned the favor; soon they were playing with each others and giggling together. The humor of the situation — two apparent genetic boys playing with each other’s sorry male appendages — overwhelmed their earlier erotic sensations.

“We’d better finish up, Rami,” Karen said finally.

Just then, there was a rapping on the door.

“What are you two doing in there?” It was the voice of Doreen sounding masculine and demanding.

“We’re finishing up, Doreen,” Karen said.

The two girls quickly rinsed, dried each other off and put on their nightgowns, leaving the bathroom with towels wrapped around their bosoms.

“It’s all yours, Doreen,” Karen announced.

“It’s about time,” Doreen said. “I could hear you two lovebirds down the hall. It’s good Angela isn’t here, Karen, or she’d beat you and your girlfriend here black and blue. You know how jealous she is.”

“Don’t tell her, Doreen.”

“Don’t worry, hon, but remember you owe me.”

“What?”

“Just remember,” was all Doreen said, before she entered the still steamy bathroom.

Ramini looked inquiringly at Karen: “Is she still hot for you, Karen?”

“Seems that way, even though she’s got a friend, Rami. She’s a tough one.”

Karen had plenty on her mind that night, but by the time she was done putting her hair up, she was so tired she plopped into bed and fell asleep.

*****
“Brava, brava,” Professor Fenstrom shouted excitedly as the cast finished the rehearsing the next day. “You guys aced it, especially you, Karen. You put more into Madge’s character.”

“No sir, it was all of us, particularly Jason. He picked up the feeling, too, sir,” Karen said from the stage, blinded by the stage lights so that she couldn’t see the professor at his director’s seat.

“Yes, you did, Jason. You two have developed the relationship between Madge and Hal so marvelously. And the whole cast! But girls and boys, we can’t rest on our laurels; tomorrow we do Act Three and that will be a challenge for all of you.”

The cast exchanged “high-five’s” as the spotlights slowly dimmed and the cast and crew exited the stage to leave the theater.

Back in their room that night, Karen gave Ramini a long kiss and the tiny girl looked puzzled: “What was that for, not that I didn’t like it?”

“We aced the rehearsal today, thanks to you,” Karen said. “Can we do Act Three tonight?”

“Sure, but in about an hour, I gotta complete a paper,” she said.

“I need to do about an hour of homework, too,” Karen said.

“Won’t we need a shower when we’re all finished tonight, Karen?” Ramini said, adding a wink.

“Of course, but maybe we’d better not Rami. The other girls might not like it.”

Ramini pouted in response.

“You’re so cute when you pout, darling,” Karen said.

Their line-reading exercise was intense, since Ramini felt Karen was overacting in showing her apparent lust for Hal; as the evening wore on, Karen also felt she was not handling the part properly. Part of the problem, Karen felt, was the question of whether, in the play, Madge was being tempted to leave her home for an uncertain life with the wastrel Hal because of her lust for him or because of a natural desire for freeing herself from the stifling life of a dusty prairie town. By the time they finished the reading, Karen was totally confused; their shower that evening was quick and sensible, despite Ramini’s pleading for intimacy. Karen slept only fitfully, worried about how to handle Madge in rehearsal the next day.

For the first time that night, Karen questioned why she wanted to endure the pain of becoming an actress; the desire to make Madge appear real on stage consumed her, and she felt inadequate to meet the need.

“I almost feel tonight like an imposter in doing Madge,” she told Ramini. “It’s like when I pretended to be a boy. I couldn’t do it.”

“Honey, becoming Madge will be much easier than being a boy for you,” Ramini said. “Believe me, you never were a boy.”

*****
When rehearsal ended the next day, Karen felt empty, as if she hadn’t delivered what was needed to show the depth of Madge’s decision-making; yet, she had been puzzled because Fenstrom that day rarely interrupted the rehearsal for instruction, as he so often did. When the actors ended, there was dead silence in the auditorium. There were no enthusiastic words from Fenstrom as there had been the previous day, but there were no nasty criticisms, as there often were.

Finally, Fenstrom arose from his seat and emerged from the darkness as he walked on the stage and into the stage lights.

“That was a very affecting job, boys and girls,” he said simply. “Just keep doing Act Three as you all delivered it tonight and you’ll have the audience with you. We’ll see you tomorrow and we’ll redo certain parts of Act One and Two. That’s 4:30 again, boys and girls.”

Karen was stunned by the matter-of-fact way in which Fenstrom dismissed them. In spite of his words indicating that the cast had handled Act Three appropriately, Karen felt dissatisfied with her own performance; she felt she had been too hesitant and tentative in the process.

“Karen, would you please stay her a minute? I need to talk to you.” Fenstrom asked as crew and cast began leaving the stage.

“Yes, sir,” she said, a knot forming in her stomach as she pondered over the reason for the request.

He beckoned her to follow him over to a small table and two chairs set up in the wings, away from the others, giving them a modicum of privacy.

“What is it, professor?” she asked once she was seated opposite him. As she had done since she resisted his advances months earlier, Karen was careful to keep their relationship impersonal.

“I’m really impressed with your acting in this part, Karen,” he began. “You handled the Third Act, which is a difficult one, with great feeling. I think the rest of the cast fed off you in this scene, and the Act just came so alive.”

“I did?” she said hardly believing his words.

He smiled; the professor could show a warm smile that captivated others at times, perhaps the reason why in his younger days as a “leading man” he seemed to win (and break) the hearts of so many women.

“Professor, I felt so . . . ah . . . how should I say it . . . ah . . . tentative out there tonight. I didn’t know how you wanted to play it, as a girl in deep desire for Hal or as one wanting bigger things in life than to live in a small Kansas town. You didn’t tell me, sir.”

His smile broadened. “Do you think Madge knew what her motivations were in the play? Did the playwright Inge tell us what they were?”

“No, sir. I just thought there was a particular way it should be played.”

“No, honey,” the professor said, his voice soft and gentle. “That’s the genius of a good playwright. He gets the audience wondering about the characters, and your own puzzlement over Madge’s motivations showed that marvelously; you were reflecting Madge as if she were real.”

“So I should keep playing Madge as I did tonight?”

“Yes, honey,” he said his voice growing intimate. “Since you’ve now officially been confirmed for the part, that’s how I want to play it on opening night and for the run of the play. You’re Madge.”

“Oh professor, really, for sure?” Karen said, at first unbelieving his words, but quickly realizing they were for real.

“Yes, now, go home and get a good night’s sleep,” he said, reaching over to touch her hands.

It was without thinking that Karen rose slightly up from her seat and leaned over the table and kissed the professor quickly on his cheek. “Thank you,” she said, quickly withdrawing herself, ashamed of the impulse that prompted her to kiss the professor for giving her the part. It was just the natural thing for a girl to do and it meant nothing romantic, but Karen wondered if the professor would read more into the kiss than that.

He smiled at her and said. “Now, Karen, that’s enough of that. Just practice up on the rough spots in Act One, OK?”

As she left the auditorium, Karen began thinking over how she felt while performing Act Three that day. She had truly been uncertain as to how to handle the role, and it was that uncertainty that brought life into her performance. She recalled that during the rehearsal her mind flashed to Mark, and his rejection of her. She found similarity in Madge’s feelings when it appeared she might never again see Hal, unless she acted to stay in his life. Perhaps as she acted she had substituted her real life Mark for the fictional Hal.

“You almost had me in tears tonight,” Heather said, surprising Karen and interrupting her thoughts.

“Oh hi, Heather,” she said. “I did?”

“Yes, Karen,” the girl said, as the two walked away from the auditorium along the dark sidewalk.

“Thank you, and I better tell you that he has now given me the part for sure, Heather. I’m sorry.”

“I figured he would, Karen. You deserve it,” Heather said. “Just don’t get sick on me and then I’ll have to do the part. I’ll never do it justice as you did.”

“You’ll do fine, Heather,” Karen said. “But I promise you, I’ll be there opening night.”

“You’d better.”

The two giggled briefly.

“You’re a true friend, Heather,” Karen said finally.

“What are friends for, dear?”

*****
Karen’s excitement over being made the lead in the play was beginning to overwhelm her thoughts, and she felt her heart racing as she hurried back to her room; she had an English paper to complete that night, and for the moment even that daunting chore (which might take her ‘til past midnight) didn’t seem to put her off. At the moment, she felt that she could do almost anything.

During the long walk in the dusk of an early May evening, Karen soon realized she faced two weeks of anxiety and horror as she prepared for the play. What if she suddenly froze on stage and forgot her lines? How would she react if one of the actors (perhaps the boy playing Hal) were to miss a cue? Then, an old horror filled her mind — her gender transition.

While she hadn’t kept her born gender a secret, few in the cast and crew knew that she was anatomically a boy. Her outward appearance was convincingly feminine, no question about it, but there still was the matter of her birth certificate, her driver’s license and the fact that in the first semester of school she was “Kenneth.” Professor Fenstrom knew, of course, as did Heather and perhaps one or two more; to them, she had become a lovely, talented young lady.

Still, she realized, the fact would eventually come out; someone might tell the local newspapers or write a blog about her; it was inevitable.

That thought bothered her as she walked into her room, a wrapped sub sandwich in her hand that she had picked up on the walk home. Her plan was to put on a pot of coffee, and turn to writing her English paper. Professor Jonathan Barry Highwater, an effeminate twig of a man who favored wearing silken scarves under his corduroy, light brown sport coat (with patches on the elbows), had assigned the students to write from 750 to 1,000 words on something they had observed, emphasizing the descriptions in the writing.

Karen loved to write, but she was a slow, careful constructor of sentences, and was concerned how quickly she’d be able to finish it; it had to be submitted for a 10:15 a.m. class the next day. She chastised herself for not beginning the essay days earlier. She’d had a week to do it.

Fortunately, Ramini was out for the evening, attending a Bollywood movie with a few Indian girls who were also students at the University. Karen was pleased her friend had found several girlfriends to share her life; it truly was important, she knew, for girls like her and Ramini to find friendships among other girls, to be accepted by them.

She racked her brain to think of a topic for her paper: should she describe the theater or the backstage crew at work? Finally, it dawned on her: she’d describe Ramini, but of course, she’d change the name of the person she was describing. In fact, why not leave out the name totally? It inspired her the more she thought about it, realizing that she could spend the entire essay telling of Ramini’s exquisite femininity, only at the end revealing she had been born a boy. In a sense, too, she’d be describing her own life, wouldn’t she?

Karen decided to take a quick shower to clear her head, and put on her flannel pajamas, since the room was cool due to the furnace being off for the season; the evenings were still cool, of course. She examined her nude body as she prepared for the shower, seeing in the full-length mirror attached to the back of the bathroom door a body of soft, smooth flesh, with slender undefined arms and tiny mounds of breasts displaying pointed nipples with growing areolas. Her body was that of a young lady, except for the tiny protrusion beneath her tummy.

She noticed that she could see ribs showing underneath the breasts; she knew she was losing weight, and that had bothered her doctor at the Gender Clinic. Normally, Dr. Bargmann told her, girls on estrogen gained weight and what was occurring with Karen went against most expectations.

“You’re working too hard, Miss Hansson,” the doctor had said. “And you’re under stress, too. Please take care of yourself, dear. You need energy.”

“Oh, well,” Karen told herself. “I’ll worry about my health after the play.”

She was pleased with how quickly her body was responding to the hormone treatment, how much more feminine she had become, as her hips filled out, her butt seemed to grow fleshy and her skin became smoother and softer.

She realized soon that time was a-wasting. She finished her shower, put up her hair quickly and emerged to begin her paper, eating the sub sandwich as she wrote on her laptop. The words describing Ramini came unusually quickly and she wrote with speed, finishing well before midnight, even before Ramini returned to the room that night.

It was only then that she checked her text messages; there had been several, since she had heard the tiny “dings” as they came in. The first one was from Whitney Roberts, and she clicked onto it.

“Karen: Can u see me at noon tomorrow in front of library? It’s URGENT. Your friend, Whit.”

Karen puzzled over the message, wondering what was so important that Whitney needed to see her; their friendship was rather casual and they saw each other only about once every other week, usually at a student hangout for a few cokes and pizza. Karen genuinely liked the boy, but felt no romantic interest in him. She suspected he felt the same toward her, and she had begun confiding in him about her puzzlement at her troubled relationship with Mark.

Whitney had been a sympathetic listener, and what Karen liked about him was that he tried not to offer any solutions to her dilemma and was content to let her vent her feelings. About his only advice to her had been to show patience with Mark and to continue to show that she cared about Mark.

She texted back that she’d be able to see him at the appointed hour since she had a free period then. As she completed answering her other text messages, Ramini finally returned to the room, her face absolutely aglow.

“I had so much fun tonight with the other girls,” Ramini said excitedly, her tinny voice rising to higher girlishness. “They were all excited over my date this weekend with Aaron, and I must have tried on a dozen saris for them.”

“You’re wearing a sari to the dance with Aaron?” Karen asked, surprised since Ramini rarely wore clothes of her ancestral land. Karen had considered Ramini a totally “American” girl, having been born into a wealthy family in a Milwaukee suburb and raised as any other girl would have been in her neighborhood.

“Yes. Aaron suggested it,” Ramini said. “I think he wants to shock his friends at St. Al’s.”

“Well, I think your beauty will do that by itself, Rami.”

“You’re a doll, Karen,” the girl said, hugging Karen. “I’m going to wear a white silky sari, Karen. It’s so lovely on me.”

Karen pictured Ramini, her dainty figure wrapped in the lace of the sari. “You’ll be like a lovely flower from India, my dear.”

Ramini giggled and the two hugged.