The Joiners pt 5.
by
Angharad

The two teens made their journey to the Copperthwaite's house on the bus, Cary once again in skirt and tights. The bus stop was about two houses down from theirs and Cary had voiced his concerns about being recognised again and Tara noticed since he'd been practising as a girl and learning all the songs, he sounded more and more like one. She was convinced he was pretty well foolproof.

"What if we meet someone from school on the bus?" Cary postulated.

"What if we do? You look and sound so different no one is going to recognise you and unless you wave your willie about they aren't going to know you're not a girl either." Her statement made them both laugh and a minute or two later the bus arrived and they boarded and paid for their tickets. It was cheaper to purchase return tickets so that's what they did.

They sat up towards the back of the single-decker bus, and people watched for the fifteen or twenty minutes it took them to get to Macey's. Diana was just leaving for work as they walked up the path, "Hello girls," she said, "I've made you an appointment at my salon for Friday for three o'clock, Carrie, so we can do your hair and makeup for your competition."

"Uh, okay, Mrs Copperthwaite, uh, thank you."

"Well, I know a girl likes to look her best at these things and Macey said you'd found a nice dress and shoes. Did you buy a bag to go with them?"

"No we forgot to look for one, will I need one for the competition, couldn't I just use this one?" Cary held up the shoulder bag Tara had loaned him, it was brown natural leather.

"That's a very nice bag, Carrie, but I've left a grey one of mine I no longer use which you might as well have. Macey will show it to you."

"That's very kind of you, Mrs Copperthwaite," said Cary, who had had it drummed into him that manners and courtesy will never make you enemies and may often make you friends.

"You're welcome, young lady; I have to say that each time I see you, you look more relaxed and prettier."

"Thank you, but it's all Tara's work."

"The makeup and hair may be Tara's handiwork, but this is something inside you, it'll probably sound silly, but you seem more substantial as Carrie than you ever did as a boy. Oops, I'm going to be late, better run." She trotted to her car and drove off towards the town centre where her salon was situated. She was well regarded as a hairdresser and beauty therapist and the salon, which had three other stylists, did very well.

They were seen arriving and Macey opened the door before they could knock, "What was our mum saying to you?" she asked obviously having seen the interchange.

"Just she'd do my hair for me on Friday," said Cary.

"Yeah, she told me to tell you in case she didn't see you. She's left you a bag to match your shoes, it's pretty well brand new."

"Yeah, she said."

"Tell her what else she said," urged Tara.

"That's all she said, about my hair and the bag."

"No it wasn't, she said you looked better as a girl than a boy." Tara smiled triumphantly and Cary blushed.

"I think she's right," said Macey, "I think you ought to have been born a girl."

"Who should?" asked Colm appearing in the hallway.

"Carrie, she looks tons better as girl than a boy and I think she should have always been a girl." Macey repeated her opinion.

"Dunno, but she looks pretty good to me," agreed Colm.

"Look, I'm here, can we stop talking about me and decide what we're doing for this contest thing. I mean where is it?"

"It's in the Cock and Bull pub, down off Kingsway. We could go and see it if you like they might let us see the room they're using." Tara seemed to know most about it.

"Have we officially entered?" asked Cary, thinking that if they hadn't they could save a lot of time and he could go back to being a boy again, well in a day or so, he was getting used to the nails and he did feel elegant with them.

"Yeah, I did that online last week."

"What before you asked me?" Cary sounded a bit miffed.

"Yeah, I thought me an' Macey could do something, but you were better, much better than anything we could do."
"Yeah, why don't we go and do a recce on the place?" Colm suggested, we can talk, there or come back here and say what we think about it."

So that was what they did. Cary was still a little unsure of himself as a girl but it seemed people accepted what they saw at face value and after they encountered two boys who knew Cary but didn't recognise him as Carrie, he began to relax a bit totally unaware that Colm was staring at him, but the older girls noticed and while it amused them, in the way that teenagers can find the most outlandish things amusing and the most harmless things, threatening. Macey decided she would speak to her brother about his behaviour, to at least be a bit more subtle as it was only the fact that Carrie was so naïve, that she hadn't noticed herself, especially as the front of her brother's jeans were tenting showed what he was thinking about.

As they walked they chatted like normal teens gossiping and giggling all the way to the front of the Cock and Bull hotel. The bar was just opening and the man unlocking the door asked them what they wanted.

"Um, you're doing the karaoke competition on Friday, right?"

"Yeah, why you want tickets?"

"No, my sister here, is taking part and we wondered if we could have a look at the room?"

"It's in the function room, don't see why not, hang on I'll get the key." It transpired that the man they had spoken to was the manager of the place and it was his idea to run the contest. He was impressed that someone so young had enough interest to suss out the place, most of the competitors just arrived, sang out of tune, bought a couple of drinks and left reckoning that the judges were bent and their talent was unrecognised. That it had been unrecognised in a dozen other places, didn't seem to be forming a pattern, to them at least.

The function room was quite large, big enough for dances, which they held there regularly as well as other shows and events, like wedding receptions and even wedding ceremonies as well. It had cost quite a bit to register it as a wedding venue, but Jack, the manager, thought it would pay them back within a couple of years.

Cary hadn't thought about the size of the room before and he wondered if his sort of act would be suited to it, most of the Carpenter stuff was almost intimate ballad sort of songs.

"How good is the sound system asked Macey?"

"Do you know anything about them?" asked Jack.

"A bit, canni've a look?"

"If you like," he went behind a small desk in the corner by the stage and turned on a couple of switches. "Who's singing?"

"I am," said Cary.

"Want to try the machine?" He handed the microphone which was a wi-fi one to Cary. "Chose a song, it's got thousands."

He typed in the song name and then chose the version he wanted to sing to. The opening bars of the music began and he closed his eyes and waited for his place to start.

'I think I'm gonna be sad
I think it's today, yeah
The boy that's drivin' me mad
Is goin' away.
Oh he's got a ticket to ride.'

The dulcet tones of Karen Carpenter began to fill the room and Jack gasped and watched the youngster performing, completely unaware of the reaction she was having on the others. The two girls had stopped talking and Colm just fell totally in lust with his friend.
Jack began to see opportunities of the sort that Rob Carpenter had been concerned about. He'd taken out his phone and was recording the girl singing as he had a friend who would be very interested in this individual, who sounded just like Karen Carpenter. Whether she won the karaoke or not, there was money to be made and if they got a couple of musicians and a couple of backing singers, they could launch a tribute act that should be very popular and they could appear at his hotel every so often and bring the punters in, in droves. He was almost clapping his hands in glee when the girl finished her song.

"Hey, kiddo, what's your name?"

"Carrie," replied Cary.

"Carrie what?"

"Would you believe Carpenter?"

He laughed, "No, but if that's what you want to call yourself, that's fine."

"She's Carrie Joiner," said Tara realising that giving their real name would be an easy lead for someone to track them down as there were only half a dozen Carpenters in the phone book.

"Joiner, carpenter - yeah, I like it. Can you sing us another?"

"If you like, which one?"

Jack walked over to the machine and selected 'We've only just begun,' knowing it was a harder song to sing well, and five minutes later, he'd recorded it on his phone and knew he was sitting on a potential goldmine. He'd have to act quickly to grab her before someone else did and as soon as the teens left he'd call his friend who was a theatrical/musical agent and tell him to be there on Friday evening. Jack's day was looking better and better and Cary's life was about to get a deal more complicated.

The rest of the day the teens spent traipsing round the shops and in the music shop, Cary was able to buy a book of the musical arrangements of the Carpenter's songs. It was aimed mainly at people playing electronic keyboards or guitar, but it did have enough for him to work out the drum sequences. It wasn't cheap, but then neither was his drum kit, and he hadn't played it for ages, in fact he had thought about selling it but perhaps he'd keep it for now and see if he could do a Karen Carpenter and sing and drum at the same time.

When they got home, Penny spoke to Tara and told her she's ordered the breast forms and the padded panty. "They were quite expensive."

"Don't worry, Mum, I'm sure Carrie will appreciate and use them quite regularly, the bloke in the hotel let us try the karaoke machine and he seemed to like Carrie's singing. It's where she'll be singing on Friday."

"Well, of course, he did, she has a wonderful voice and sings very well. Diana and I will have to come along to cheer her on."

"Won't Dad come as well?"

"I doubt it, he'd rather play with his train set and Diana's husband is only interested in things which contain the word, golf."

Tara burst out laughing, "Boy's toys."

"Quite so," agreed Penny and they both laughed.

"What's so funny?" asked Cary who'd been touching up his makeup and hair, which both women noticed immediately.

"Only that neither your dad nor Macey's will come to the karaoke contest."

"Glad to see someone's got some sense," said Cary going off to try and drum to the music in the book he'd just bought. He was unconsciously becoming a clone of the dead popstar and potentially playing into the hands of people like Jack and his friend.

Cary seemed uncaring that his father wouldn't be at the competition but then he had no idea that exactly what his father had predicted as possible, was coming to pass. If he had, he'd have run for the hills and never sung a Carpenter's song again. Instead, he had pulled the dust covers of his drum kit and was tapping away in tune to his iPod and the music book he'd bought. He was quite musical, as the singing had shown and he could play the piano, but not as well as he'd like and hadn't tried harder because that was Colm's instrument, even though Cary was actually a better pianist, he didn't like to show up his friend, but he began to think, he could sing and play the piano, he was sure he had seen Karen Carpenter doing that on at least one video. Maybe, he'd like to try that, he'd seen people on the internet performing , probably in their bedrooms and they were making money from it, so why shouldn't he. Obviously, he'd have to do it as Carrie, but he liked his hair long and the makeup wasn't too hard to do, though what happened if his voice broke? Then he'd be stuffed.

Suddenly, he was seeing his potential and it was all linked into keeping a girl's singing voice. He looked to see how he could stop his voice breaking and the answers he found on the internet seemed to imply he needed to get his hands on some blockers, he even found out where to buy them, though most authorities strongly advised seeing a doctor. Was Diana Copperthwaite right, was Carrie a more substantial person than Cary? Only time would determine that.

"You're really getting into this Karen Carpenter sound alike thing, aren't you?" Penny asked her son, who was increasingly looking and acting like a second daughter.

He blushed and shrugged.

"I've ordered some breast forms for you, they'll be more realistic than rolled socks."

"Oh wow, thanks, Mummy," he suddenly gave her a hug and pecked her on the cheek.

"Goodness, I guess you like the idea." She couldn't remember the last time he had hugged her let alone kissed her. She quite liked it. "So, if I told you that I'd also ordered you some padded panty things to enhance your hips and bum, would I get another hug?"

"Definitely," he said hugging and kissing his mother again, " and if you ordered me some hormone blockers to stop my voice breaking, you could have as many as you like." He blushed profusely when he realised what he'd said.

"You want to stop yourself becoming a man?" She wasn't sure what she felt about that, sure he seemed at home being a temporary girl, but if he started messing with hormones and things, that was a whole new ball game and she needed professional advice for that.

They knew their family doctor socially as well as professionally. Rob had designed and supervised the building of the new surgery, and Judy and her husband Ben had been their GPs for years. Penny snuck off and phoned the surgery and left a message for Judy to call her back. Playing at being a girl, even cross-dressing regularly didn't worry her, but once you start doing things to your body, it becomes more difficult to stop and the changes aren't simply getting your hair cut or letting it grow out, it becomes a medical thing and words like sex change start to materialise.

After Carrie had said about the hormone blockers, she asked her if she wanted to be a girl full time? Carrie had blushed a deep crimson and said very quietly, "Maybe."

Penny was still reflecting on this when the phone rang, it was her friend and doctor. She told her what had happened and that both she and Rob were happy to go along with Cary being Carrie at times and even to taking part in the karaoke contest but mention of the hormone blockers upped the ante somewhat.

"So he's spending the whole week as a girl to try and win this karaoke thing?" asked Judy.

"Yes, he's turning into Karen Carpenter before our very eyes."

"Oh, God, I hope not, that poor woman had more issues than Private Eye. Is he there now?"

"Yes, he's upstairs practising his songs."

"Could you bring him in, in half an hour?"

"Yes, he's in girl mode, is that okay."

"It's fine, in fact, I think I'd like to meet his alter ego. Right, I've booked him in as Carrie Carpenter, so there shouldn't be any problem with reception. I've also blocked any appointments for an hour."

"Oh that is brilliant, Jude, see you then."