Intro by Carla Ann

“Tiffany, I’ve asked you how everything is going with people and the activities you’re involved in, but you haven’t mentioned how you are coping with everything.” She emphasized the ‘you,’ when she asked that.

“Well, better than I was last year,” I started. “Way better than last year… I have a lot of friends now, and I’m not getting picked on every day.” I saw her eyes boring into me looking for something else. “Alright, I don’t know how I’m doing right now.” I told her honestly.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Well for one I’m really tired of everyone guessing I’m five if I wear the wrong clothes.” I told her hesitantly. I was sure my parents had filled her in with everything anyway, “Tuesday was pajama day. Mom and I had found some cute pajamas with feet on them that would fit Amy and me, so we wore them for pajama day. We really did look cute dressed like that, and I was having a lot of fun with it. That was until the sub in English class thought that I was someone’s little sister that had come them to school that day.”

I was really surprised Dr. Reynolds didn’t laugh about it, but I continued, “Then the next day the whole squad was wearing shortalls and our hair done in pigtails and I looked to be about five again. One of my best friends even brought a doll to school to play a joke on the sub that we’d had. I don’t think she knew that it really upset me though. I’m not five, I’m twelve! Amy has grown about five inches here in the last couple months, but I’m still the same height I was last year. It’s good for cheerleading stuff because people can toss me so easily… but…” I was doing my best to not go into tears over all of this. “as long as we’ve got my puberty stopped then I won’t be doing much growing. That’s all on top of the fact that I’m never going to be able to have periods like my friends… and I’m stuck with this stupid thing between my legs,” I told her with a great deal of exasperation. “I’m so tired of having to look at it, or hide it, every time I turn around. I know you can’t do anything about it till I’m eighteen – but I wish it could be gone now!” I had gone to tears now.

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Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.

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The Legal Stuff: Dreaming of Cheers  © 2010 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2010 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
 
It’s been a long road to publishing this third book in my Standing Up to Life Series. I began writing the first book over two years ago, putting the first two books out in a quick succession of six months work. The third book became more challenging to finish as I had set my sights on only writing a trilogy. I declared myself finished last August, but found myself unhappy with the ending. Well seven months later I feel this is ready to give to you, my readers, and I hope you will enjoy it. It has not gone on the track I had expected, and indeed there will probably be at least one more book following this in order to complete Tiffany’s story. I hope you will find that your wait has been worth it.

Like the first two books I posted here, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. This time I am going to upload two chapters per week to the site. The full version should be completely posted by August. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($5.95 for the eBook).

Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy reading Dreaming of Cheers!

 

Chapter 17:

 
AFTER ALL THE plates had been cleared I moved over to an empty seat next to Mom. I scooted the chair close to her and just leaned on her. I felt her arm move around me and give me a slight squeeze while she gave me a kiss on top of my head. “You want to look at the sale ads?” she asked me.

“Sure,” I told her. No matter what happened I was sure we were going to go shopping the next day.

She left my side for a couple moments and then sat back down with a stack of them in front of her. Mindy, Stephanie, and Cami came and joined us to look through them. “What do you want for Christmas?” Mindy asked me from beside me.

“I don’t know… I don’t really have a whole lot of things in mind. I’d kind of like a new saxophone,” I said with a look up at Mom. I don’t think she was expecting that one, her eyebrows moved somehow.

“Umm… that one may not be possible Tiffany. That would be pretty expensive,” she told me.

I sighed, “I know. I’d of course go for clothes, maybe some new books, a couple new Barbies, and maybe some stuff from Bath and Body Works?” I suggested.

“I love their stuff!” Stephanie said in answer to the Bath and Body Works comment.

“So do I!” Mindy answered.

The three of us began excitedly talking about the products that we each liked from there. All three of us were in agreement on our favorite scents, I wasn’t expecting that. “I love the bubble bath from there especially,” Mindy said.

“I like the lotions a lot though too,” Stephanie said.

“So what do you want for Christmas?” I asked them.

“Well I mainly want Barbies!” Cami said, “But I’ll take some clothes and maybe some makeup?” she said in a hopeful voice that her sister answered with a shake of her head.

“Mom didn’t budge on me until I was thirteen, don’t count on her changing her mind for you,” Mindy said. “Personally I’d like some new clothes, some CD’s, and some new makeup. I don’t really have anything beyond that other than maybe a new CD player.”

“Well since we’re going around I basically want the same thing as Tiffany, maybe minus the Barbies though,” Stephanie said.

“Are you too cool to play with Barbies?” Mindy asked her with a shake of her head.

“You don’t still play with them do you?” Stephanie asked with her eyes open wide.

“Sometimes! You know just because you become older doesn’t mean you can’t occasionally be a kid still Steph.” Mindy told her.

The four of us got to talking some more about Barbies then, and somehow the video got brought up. “Mom said something about that to me, what was that? You like got to go to New York or something for it?” Mindy asked.

“You got to go to New York?!?” Stephanie asked.

“Yeah. My friends and I made this movie with Barbie dolls for a school project. One of my friend’s dad’s is the manager at one of the TV studios in town and we got to use their equipment. It came out really nice actually, and so Mattel came down and ended up paying us for it.” I laughed a bit, “That was before everything…” I became a little more somber then, “It was kind of awkward at the time because they sent each of us this gigantic dollhouse, and a whole bunch of new Barbies!”

“Wow!” Cami said, “I wished I could see this video, it sounds cool!”

“Mommy did you bring a copy of the video?” I asked. She had moved to the other side of the room to help out with something.

“I did, it’s in the car. Do you want me to go get it?”

“I’d love to see it!” Cami said. I had just now discovered that she was a fanatic with anything Barbie, so this sounded great to her.

“Hold on a few minutes and I’ll go grab it.”

“So how much did you make off of it?” Mindy had just asked when mom returned.

“Quite a bit,” I told her as we followed Stephanie to the living room and put the video on the TV there. Caleb came in right about then and joined us, along with my Aunt’s and Aunt Linda’s boyfriend, my grandmother also joined us. The girls were absolutely rolling on the floor on the funny parts. I was amused by their intense reactions. I think a lot of it came from everyone needing to laugh after everything that had happened that day. I stopped it when it got to the credits. This was one of the old copies before my name had been changed on the credits…. I didn’t want to see my old name on it, especially not today.

“That was awesome Tiffany!” Stephanie said. The Barbie hater actually like it! I was kind of surprised. I think she must have had a lot of friends at school that thought they were too cool for Barbie; I think that was where most of her hang-ups were coming from. I on the other hand was part of the ‘cool’ click, and most of us still played with Barbie’s.

My Aunt Linda asked, “Wow! Is that something you want to maybe do for a career some day?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know, it might be kind of fun. Just not with Barbie’s though… I think we’ve worn through that one.”

Cami must have gotten bored of talking after a bit because she asked, “Could we go play Barbie’s?” to the three of us.

I shrugged, “Sure, but I didn’t bring mine with me — I left them at the hotel.” I’d brought two with me just in case, but didn’t even think of it with all of the stress that morning.

“I’ve got enough for everyone,” Stephanie said surprisingly enthusiastic about playing with them.

“I’m game,” Mindy said with a smile, and the four of us went back to the playroom where we’d played the board game the night before.

Stephanie began digging through some plastic containers and brought out outfits and dolls for everyone to play with. The four of us spent a lot of time just giggling and laughing. Cami led us through most of our time playing though. I think we all decided that we were playing Barbie’s for her sake more than ours. She was happy the whole time.

“So Tiffany, you said something earlier about eventually looking like you’ve always been a girl?” Stephanie asked.

“If everything goes like it’s supposed to.” I told her.

“What all will they do to you?” Mindy asked.

“Well for me it’ll be a lot easier than before I started… Because they started me on hormones last month, I’ll have breasts and… fat in the normal places girls get it. My body shape will be pretty much the same as any girl that was born with a girl’s body.”

“What about… umm… down lower?” Stephanie asked.

“Well they’ll eventually remove what I have and turn it into the normal part.” I told her.

“Won’t that be painful?” Cami asked.

“Yeah, it’s going to be, but it’ll be worth it.” I told them.

“When will they do that?” Mindy asked.

“Probably not until I’m eighteen.” I said annoyed.

“Why that long? If everyone’s sure this is who you are?” Mindy asked.

“Well mainly because doctors don’t like doing it before then… but it also has to do with growth too… My birthday is in September, so that would put it happening during when I should be in the first semester in college. I’m kind of hoping maybe I can get them to do it a bit earlier even though I won’t be eighteen yet. If nothing else I’m going to have it scheduled for the day I turn eighteen, I want it fixed as soon as I can.”

“I don’t blame you,” Stephanie said. “After that though… everything will be… normal?”

“Well I won’t be able to have kids… but other than that yeah.”

“So like you’ll be able… to… you know…” Stephanie stuttered.

“Have sex?” Mindy finished helpfully.

“Yeah, if I want to I’ll be able to do that.”

“Wow…. That’s kind of weird…. it’s okay, but kind of weird.” Stephanie said. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Not really…” I told her.

“Who is he?” Mindy asked immediately.

“What?”

“”You said not really,” Stephanie answered.

“That’s definitely code for there is someone…” Mindy finished.

“Well I don’t really know if I want to date at this point… his name’s Kyle though.”

“What’s he like?” Stephanie asked.

“Well he’s one of the guys on the football team, so he’s pretty big. He’s smart too. He plays trumpet in the band…” I talked about him for a few more moments, really uncomfortable in their questioning. As I did so I became aware of the fact that I really did like him more than I’d realized, but became even more confused about everything. Eventually I managed to use the distraction of, ‘Hey I thought we were playing with Barbie’s,’ to try and save myself. Mercifully Cami was easily distracted by that ploy, and she refocused the other two onto playing.

Late in the afternoon the four of us returned to the living room in time for Aunt Wendy to ask, “Do you all want a turkey sandwich, a bacon sandwich, or a combo?”

“Both on mine please,” I told her.

Everyone else answered pretty much the same and she went to the kitchen to start microwaving bacon. My grandparents were sitting in the living room so I plopped down next to my grandmother. I leaned against her and she put her arm around me. “Are you doing alright sweetie?” she asked me softly.

“I guess so,” I told her.

“I’m sorry about everything earlier,” she told me.

I just nodded. I appreciated just spending some time next to her. I really loved my grandparents a lot. I just sat quietly cuddled up against Grandma until Jackie came in and said, “Dinner’s ready.”

They were making the sandwiches for everyone, and I asked for them to just put some warmed turkey breast and the bacon on the bread with nothing else. I also had some leftover mashed potatoes with the sandwich. Once again I was sitting at the kids table in between Mindy and Stephanie. No one was really talking again. It was like everyone had the turkey and their emotions come right back at them again. I felt really bad for Stephanie and Caleb especially… their dad was such a jerk, but they couldn’t exactly do anything about it.

And then I felt bad for their dad a bit too… Uncle Allen was wrong to have blown up that way, but I felt like I’d ruined his Thanksgiving. Who knows where he even ended up? It’s not like he was my dad’s brother-in-law and could have gone to his real family… we were his real family.
“Tiffany,” I heard out of the corner of my mind.

“Uhhh… What?” I said, grateful I was being knocked out of a line of thinking that was sure to cause me to start crying in the end.

“You said earlier that you’re a co-captain on your dance squad?” Stephanie asked.

“Oh… yeah, I am,” I said. I looked over at Mindy and she looked a bit concerned about me.

“What all do you guys do routine wise?” Mindy asked me.

Mindy and I got into a discussion of some of our routines. “I’d do our latest one for you but,” I pulled at the sides of my dress, “it’s kind of hard to do in this.” I told her with a smile. I really did enjoy all of the dancing stuff we were doing, it was nice to talk about it with someone who understood it.

“Oh come on!” She said with mock horror, “You can do it in tights and a dress, it’s no different from your cheer outfit!” I just stuck my tongue out at her.

“I’ve got a video that I brought with me if you want to show it to everyone,” Mom told me as she appeared from nowhere behind me.

“I don’t exactly want to be known as the ‘video’ girl, Mom,” I told her slightly embarrassed.

“I’d love to see it,” Mindy said.

“Me too,” Stephanie said.

“It’s by my purse at the door, why don’t you check and see if your grandparents want to watch,” she told me.

I didn’t have a lot of choice with Mindy grabbing my hand and pulling me that direction. Once I grabbed the video, which ended up being underneath the Barbie video by her purse, I went over to my grandparents next. “Grandma, Grandpa, would you like to see one of my routines from one of the football games?”

“Sure sweetie, let me go clean my glasses first,” my grandmother said.

“Okay,” I told her. My grandfather got up and began moving into the living room with me while my grandmother went over to the bathroom and used a cloth to clean her glasses. Stephanie took the video from me and popped it in and the rest of the family also began to trickle into the living room. I had looked at the label real quick, and had been really grateful that it was the high school’s homecoming pre-game performance. If it had been the last game I think I would have hid in shame.

The video started up right when we started marching onto the field in step, and so it was a minute before the music began. The video had been recorded by Amy’s mom so it had close-ups of both of us while we were coming on. My grandfather catcalled obnoxiously, “Wow! Look at those girls, especially that one!” I blushed and wanted to hide.

Amy’s mom was really good about zooming out to the whole squad when the routine began, so everyone was able to see the whole group. I was actually really proud of that performance, especially as I watched it go by. It was one of the early performances by us as a dance squad, but it was really good. After the dance was done Mindy said, “Wow Tiffany, you guys are better than my squad…”

I blushed some more, “I’m sure that’s not true Mindy,” she was after all on a high school team.

“No, I’m being serious there Tiffany, I can’t believe that a middle school squad could possibly do that well. I’ll have to tell my friends about this back home. You said you guys are going to go to Florida for a competition here in a few months?”

“In January, it should be a lot of fun I think.”

“You guys are going to do great!” Stephanie told me. “I wish I lived down there. It would be fun to be on the same squad.”

I nodded at that, “That would be cool.”

My grandparents and aunts were also all really impressed about it, but their comments didn’t mean as much to me. Both Mindy and Stephanie knew what they were supposed to be looking for. That they thought we were good told me we should have a chance to do well at the competition. As long as we didn’t perform like that last time…

I noticed Aunt Jackie talking quietly to my mom and dad over off to the side and wondered what was happening. I got busy grabbing the video and putting it by my mom’s purse though so I didn’t pay too much attention to it. Grandpa pulled me off to the side of the room just as I’d sat it down.

He gave me a big hug, “Tiffany, I want you to know that I’m real proud of you.”

“Thanks Grandpa,” I told him.

“This isn’t exactly the life I would have chosen for you, but you’re doing really well and I’m proud of you for sticking with your guns.” I fought my tears as he said that.

“Thanks,” I said turning red as he pecked me on the cheek and put his arm around my shoulders.

“Are you ready to leave Tiffany?” Mom asked as she came up.

“I… guess…” I told her. That was pretty sudden. ‘What changed?’ I asked myself. ‘Oh… maybe that’s why Aunt Jackie and my parents were talking a few minutes ago.’

“Why don’t you go ahead and say goodnight to everyone, sweetie,” she suggested.

“Okay,” I told her and began making my rounds. I didn’t take too long, I had a feeling Uncle Allen was coming back.

As soon as I’d said goodnight to everyone Dad helped me into my jacket and we walked outside to the car. It wasn’t that late, but because of the time of the year it was already dark. There wasn’t anywhere to go except the hotel, so that’s where we headed. At the hotel I got out of the car and the three of us went upstairs. I was actually really excited to get out of my dress and into a pair of pajamas, but it was only seven o’clock according to the clock in the room. I shrugged my shoulders about that though and headed into the bathroom with my pajamas and got changed.

“Feel better?” Mom asked me.

“Uh-huh” I nodded and sat down on the bed. Mom sat down next to me and began stroking through my hair while Dad went into the restroom. I absently flipped through some channels on the TV trying to find something to watch.

As I sat there I suddenly got really chilled and found myself snuggling into her more. She just gave me a firm hug; and something about it set me off. I couldn’t help it, I started bawling.

Everything that had happened today, Uncle Allen’s comments, Bobby and Danny’s comments and stares, all of that just suddenly broke through the shell that I had so carefully constructed around it. I soon felt another arm come and place itself around my shoulders and I knew Dad had joined me too.

I finally controlled myself just enough to sob, “I’m sorry Daddy, I’ve messed up everything for you and Uncle Allen.”

He squeezed me harder, “It’s okay Tiffany — that’s not your fault. That’s the alcohol talking. Allen has been drinking more and more the last year, and he’s to the point he can’t control himself at all…” He kind of gave a shudder of his own and I cleared my eyes out enough that I could see he was crying a bit too. I hugged him back.

The three of us sat quietly for a long while before my body made its desire to visit the restroom known to me and I shrugged out of their grips to go. When I returned my parents and I sat there watching a movie on TV for a while. “What are we going to do tomorrow?” I asked Mom.

“Well we’re planning on going shopping in the morning, I figured you would want to go with us, right?” She asked me with a smile.

“Uh-huh… Duh!” I told her with a small smile.

“We’ll probably spend most of the day shopping. Your grandmother, your three aunts, Caleb, Stephanie, Mindy, and Cami are all going to meet up with us at seven or so at one of the malls.”

“So Uncle Allen’s not coming?” I asked nervously.

“No, and I don’t think Bobby or Danny will want to come either.” She told me reassuringly.

“Good.” I told her.

“So what are we going to do after that?” I asked her.

“Well we’re eventually going to meet up with most of everyone else for dinner tomorrow night at a restaurant for dinner.”

“Everyone else?” I asked. I shuddered and felt my eyes widen as the implication of ‘everyone else’ hit me.

“I think so,” she told me. “I promise if anything happens we’ll leave Tiff.” She squeezed me lightly and I tried to smile.

“After dinner?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I thought we’d play that by ear. Maybe we can come back here and you and your cousins can go swimming or something. Or maybe we’ll just come back here and get some sleep before we have to drive home Saturday.”

“Okay,” I told her.

A few minutes later she asked, “So Tiffany what do you want for Christmas? I heard bits and pieces as you talked to your cousins earlier, but I walked away after a bit.”

I looked at her and Dad, “Well… I guess my first thing I’d like I think is a new saxophone. I mean mine’s alright, but I saw a couple others at honor band tryouts that seemed like they were a lot nicer… plus mine wasn’t new when you got it for me…” I tried to ask as politely and sweetly as I could.

“Saxophones aren’t cheap sweetie,” Mom told me while looking at Dad, “we’ll have to think about that one. Is there anything else?”

“Well you know, normal stuff like Barbies, makeup, clothes, and stuff would be nice too…” I told her.

“More makeup?” she asked me with a sigh.

“I’d take jewelry and earrings too…”

“You’re not going to be my little girl for nearly long enough,” Mom said. I didn’t say anything but gave her a hug. “Well why don’t you go ahead and go to bed sweetie since we’re waking up early tomorrow.”

“I guess,” I told her and after visiting the restroom one more time to brush my teeth and such before getting underneath the covers and closing my eyes. I did the very best I could to blank out all of the bad moments from earlier, but I couldn’t help but see Caleb stepping up to Uncle Allen over and over again. What was going to happen to him when everyone was gone?

 

Chapter 18:

 
THE NEXT MORNING Mom woke me up and prodded me out of bed. It was only about four in the morning, because we were going to try and hit some early bird sales that started at seven. “Sweetie you don’t have a lot of time to get ready if we’re going to get there early,” she told me.

“Alright, alright, I’m moving.” I told her. In the shower I wanted to skip my hair so I could move faster, but I needed it so much that I decided to do it anyway. I hurried quickly though so I might have a chance of blow drying it before we were going to leave.

As I jumped out of the shower I pulled on my clothes quickly and tried to do more than one thing at once. Mom had been nice enough to leave a curling iron plugged in still, so I was able to begin curling the bottom of my hair right away. Curling and blow drying away I tried to hurry to get my hair dry. Just when it was about dry Mom knocked at the door, “Tiffany, are you about ready?” She asked me.

“Just a couple minutes more Mom,” I said as I turned the blow dryer off and yanked the curling iron cord free of the wall.

“Well hurry up sweetie, we need to get going.”

“I know I’m hurrying,” I said. I quickly looked at myself in the mirror and decided my hair actually looked good — especially for the time of day — and brushed my teeth quickly before gathering a couple other things to do in the car. Since Mom had let up on the makeup yesterday I’d decided I could put some on today too — though I wasn’t going to push it. I was out of time in the bathroom, but I had a mirror in my purse that I was taking with me. I just grabbed some basics in my hands, along with some earrings and a necklace (the one Amy’s Mom had bought us), and ran out to the hotel room to put my tennis shoes on.

Since we were tight for time I shoved my feet into my shoes without bothering to untie the shoes. Mom gave me a bit of a shake of her head at that point, but I just continued. I’d tie them again later. I threw the stuff that was in my hands into my purse, and said, “Okay I’m ready Mommy,” with a smile that wasn’t forced. I had a feeling that shopping this morning was going to be a lot of fun.

“It’s about time!” She said to me teasingly and handed me my coat, “You’re going to want this today.”

“Is it going to be really cold?” I asked.

“A lot colder than yesterday at least.”

I groaned. Cold wasn’t something I was a great fan of. Other than the fact it meant you could get snow, cold was really just a nuisance. The two of us headed for the car and drove off. “Where are we going first?” I asked her.

“Well it sounded like there were some pretty good deals on some things at Penney’s, so that’s where we said we were all going to meet up at seven as the doors open.”

“Okay, how long before that?” I asked as I was putting my earrings in my ears. “It’s about twenty minutes to drive to the mall that we’re going to, but we’re going to be there plenty early still.” She glanced over at me because we were at a stoplight, “Enough time to do a little bit of makeup — not much sweetie.”

I just smiled at her and got to work. Of course I wasn’t going to put tons of makeup on, but I had to be presentable right? And since she’d let me wear makeup yesterday all day I’d decided it meant it was okay now. I didn’t put much on, just some foundation and powder, some mascara, and some lip gloss. Okay, so maybe that is quite a bit for my age, but all of my friends did it all the time at school — I didn’t even put any eye shadow on! I finished up before we got to the mall and put everything back into my purse. I actually had a hundred dollars, leftover from the trip, to spend today on Christmas presents.

Mom pulled up to the parking lot of Penney’s and I gasped, “Whoa…” I exclaimed. There was a line of people leading out of the store and around out of sight. It led to one of the main entrances to the mall, I wondered if we could even get directly into Penney’s.

“This is crazy,” Mom said while we pulled in. The two of us got out of the car and began following the line back around the building. About two-thirds of the way down the line we ran into my Aunts and Cousins.

“Hey guys,” My Aunt Linda said to us as we saw them. It was just Aunt linda, Aunt Jackie, and Stephanie — I had a feeling the others were running late. My Aunt Wendy in particular suffered from chronic lateness.

“Hey,” I said back to them.

“I can’t believe this line!” My mom said to them.

“Yeah it’s crazy isn’t it?” Stephanie said. “Apparently they’re offering free stuff to the first five-hundred people in the door.”

I quickly glanced up the line we had passed so far and tried to calculate how many people we’d seen so far. It was a lot, but I was fairly certain it wasn’t five-hundred.

“That’s cool!” I said.

“Well Tiffany let’s go back and see if we can find the back of this line,” Mom said to me.

“The back?!?” I asked. “But…”

“Tiffany it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else behind them. If we go stand back there now it’s likely we’ll still get in there before the door prizes are gone, come on,” she told me while pulling me away.

“Hold up a sec, I’m coming with you,” Stephanie said behind us.

I turned and waited for her to catch up with us. Unexpectedly she linked up her arm with mine like I did with Amy every now and then and the two of us skipped ahead of Mom. The end of the line wasn’t actually that much farther back, and I had a feeling we would probably be okay to get in there in time for the free stuff. “Why’d you decide to come with us?” I asked Stephanie as we waited for Mom to catch up.

“I was getting bored with just my mom and Aunt Linda… I thought it would be a lot more fun to hang out with you and your mom.”

“I hope so!” I told her. I have to admit that made a lot of sense to me. Mom caught up with the two of us finally and we watched in fascination as the line continued to grow behind us. We had come around the first corner before we had run into my aunts and Stephanie, and now it looked like the line was already around the next corner and who knows where else!

“Hey we’re moving!” Stephanie said abruptly in the middle of a conversation about how cold it was, and how ready we were to get out of it!

“Finally!” I said. We’d stood still without moving for about forty minutes.

The line moved a whole ten feet before stopping again.

“I figured they were finally letting us in,” a lady in front of us said.

“Yeah, me too,” her husband replied.

I noticed that guys were in the minority as we entered, it was probably seventy percent girls that had come out to shop this morning. My dad had certainly wimped out on it. There was a pause of several moments before the line moved some more again… and then stopped. We continued like this for what seemed like a long time. I fidgeted with my purse back and forth eager to spend the money inside. When we rounded the corner we could see that things were beginning to speed up a bit. In the end they opened up the doors at seven, and we ended up getting up to the door about seven-fifteen. Walking up they had a set of rope barriers up leading to the door. There was even a ‘red carpet’ setup to try and make the event seem bigger.

I could just see a table inside that had a pile of bags on it, there were still plenty! “We should be able to still get whatever it is!” I told Stephanie excitedly.

She smiled at me, “I hope it was worth this line!”

“Me too,” I told her as I tried not to rub my eyes. I remembered the mascara I had put on at the last minute. Mom would have definitely given me a ‘told you so’ look if I had done that. I was just so tired though! Some of that went away though as we went inside and got our gift bags.

“Finally!” I heard Aunt Jackie say as we saw her sitting on a bench not far from the entrance.

“It did take a while,” my mom told her.

“Well so what did you all end up getting?” Aunt Linda asked. Stephanie and I had begun rummaging through the bags almost as soon as they had handed them to us! There was a little, stuffed teddy bear, in mine that was kind of cute. I also looked and found a large t-shirt that my dad could wear…. But that was all that was obvious. In the bottom I scrounged and found a bunch of papers and stuff that I dug out. A lot of it was just general coupons and such, like one for a free drink at McDonalds.

I continued going through them, discarding some of them into a pile because I knew I would never use them, when I found a gift certificate to Bath and Body Works! It said twenty dollars on it, I squealed! “Look!” I showed Stephanie.

“Wow, awesome! I’m looking through mine to see if I have anything in mine still.” I saw that she had the same teddy bear and t-shirt I’d found in mine. A few moments more of digging she found a gift certificate for twenty dollars to Mervyn’s.

“I think I got the better one,” I told her.

She stuck her tongue out at me, “I think so too, but maybe I can get a cute top or skirt or something!”

She had me there. “Mom what did you get?” we both happened to ask at the same time. ‘We haven’t been around each other long enough for that!’ I thought to myself. The two of us started giggling hysterically.

“You two are silly,” Aunt Jackie said to us as both of our Mom’s showed us what they had gotten. Her mom hadn’t gotten anything of note in her bag. Mine had found a thirty dollar gift certificate to Penney’s. “Okay, are you two ready to shop now?” Jackie asked us.

“Of course Mommy,” Stephanie said. And with that the five of us began walking towards Penney’s first. Stephanie and I kept pointing to a few stores along the way that we wanted to go back to and shop at later. Mom kept us walking at a brisk pace though so there was no way that we were really able to stop. At Penney’s the five of us went through most of the store looking for deals of one kind or another.

In the juniors section Stephanie and I looked really thoroughly through the sales racks. I found a sweater that I thought was really cute, but when I tried it on discovered that I still wasn’t big enough to fit right in it. It wasn’t fair! Stephanie saw it in my hands as I came out of the dressing room, “Tiffany that’s so cute!”

“Yeah, but it’s too big for me,” I told her with a frown.

“I’m sorry Tiffany, you are just a little small for this section aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh,” I said pouting, “I hate this.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I still get some of my stuff from the girls section too.”

“Not much though right?” I asked.

“Well…” she paused, “not a lot, no.”

I sighed. “Oh well. Here, you should try it on, it is cute!” I told her while forcing a smile.

She gave me a quick hug and then went to go try it on. We both agreed after she did that she had to buy it!

I at least had some fun helping her find a couple more tops before she dragged me to the girls section to see if she could help me find some other things. There wasn’t a lot to be found there as far as I could see. Plenty of things that would fit me that had things like hearts all over them… not that I had a problem with hearts, but it just made me look too young. We did manage to find one sweater we both thought looked good on me about the time my Mom and the rest of the gang showed up.

“Ooh, that’s cute!” Mom told me as she came up and saw the sweater I was holding.

“Can we buy it?” I asked.

“It’s going to have to be wrapped…” Mom told me.

I took a look at it and sighed before saying, “Okay.” I looked at my aunts and saw that they all had some bags that they had checked out with already. I also noticed that my mom had a couple tops of her own that she had found. Mom, Aunt Jackie, Stephanie, and I headed up to the counter to pay for everything. I couldn’t believe my Aunts had already made it through this line once… It was insane!

I looked at my watch impatiently as we waited in line wasting valuable shopping time. It was a full thirty minutes before we got to the edge of the checkout lines. “I can help you over here!” a girl said to us and directed us to her cash register. Mom paid for our purchases. Aunt Jackie and Stephanie followed suit a moment later, and then we all headed out into the mall again.

As we walked down the hallway Stephanie looked at me and said, “Tiffany we have to go in here!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a store I hadn’t been into before. I’d seen some of their stuff listed in magazines, but we didn’t have one in the malls around home yet. It was mainly jeans and casual tops. Something I noticed immediately though was it looked like their tops were actually smaller!

She grabbed a cute top off the rack and held it up to me, “See, this is why I wanted to come in here. Their sizing is smaller, so you might actually be able to fit better into this stuff.”

Mom and Aunt Jackie came in behind us and Mom said, “She’s right, I think that actually would fit you right.” She told me. “Go try it on,” she said and I went to the dressing rooms in the back. It was marked as an extra-small petite, and I had hope. I pulled my current top off in the dressing room and pulled the new one over my head, forcing my hair back into shape real quick before looking at myself in the mirror. It was meant to be a more form fitting long sleeve shirt that had plenty of spandex in it. It had a tan color to it with alternating stripes of a cream color. I loved it!

I walked out to the store to let my aunts, Mom, and Stephanie have their say. “It looks great Tiffany!” Stephanie told me as I turned around for them.

“Wow, something you can actually fit into,” my mom said half teasingly. I saw a little bit of sadness in her eyes though. I wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was that I’d be able to shop somewhere other than the girls section? Probably. After all she’d only have had her ‘little’ girl for less than a year in that case. I fought the frown that brought to my mind and focused on the present.

“I like it. It’s still a little bit big, but hopefully I’ll grow into it the rest of the way soon,” I told them.

“Switch back out of that top and we’ll look and see what else they have Tiff,” my mom said. Well with the aid of four other girls of course I had plenty of options thrown at me! I was just happy to have found a store that catered to teens that had clothing in my size! We ended up getting four other tops, in addition to that one, that were going to go under the tree as gifts from ‘Santa.’

I looked at some jeans, but even in their petite size zero I still didn’t have any hips to hold them up. ‘At least I can find similar jeans in the girls section,’ I told myself as we continued our shopping spree. Around nine we finally ran into Aunt Wendy, Mindy and Cami. ‘About time,’ was a comment made jokingly to all of them by pretty much everyone.

Stephanie, Mindy, Cami, and I roamed the stores as we went flocking together here and there. Stephanie shared with them her private goal of helping me find clothes that fit me that weren’t meant for a seven year old. Amusingly they all took on the task. Unfortunately the endeavor was mostly doomed to failure after our one grand success. At least we’d had that!

At about ten my mom and I ended up in the tool section of Sears looking for a present for my dad. We searched for a bit before we decided on a socket wrench set my mom had seen him drool over a little bit a few weeks before. I also picked out a new polo shirt for him that I thought he would wear.

Another long checkout line later and it was close to noon. “Your dad is supposed to meet up with us at a restaurant here soon.” Mom told me as she pushed all of us out the door.

“Hopefully the rest of our husbands will too.” Aunt Wendy said. Though I noticed that she did kind of give Aunt Jackie a strange and knowing look about something; I knew it had to do with me.

I said nothing though as we all headed out the mall to our respective cars to go meet them at the restaurant. Mom seemed to sense my unease and put her arm around my shoulders, giving me a small hug as she opened my door. I clambered into the seat and put my seat belt on as she came around the car and started it up. I was actually feeling really chilled by the time that happened and kept hoping the car would warm up quick!

It was a short enough drive to the restaurant we were meeting at, that the car never had a chance to get warm. By the time I got inside I was shivering. ‘I need to find a heavier coat…’ I thought to myself. I looked up and saw Dad sitting at a table with Uncle Raymond, Bill, and Caleb. I sighed in relief, Uncle Allen was nowhere to be seen.

“So what all did you ladies buy this morning?” Dad asked me as we sat down at the table. I sat in between him and Mom with Stephanie, Mindy, and Cami sitting across the table from us. My aunts were sitting on either side of them and Bill and Caleb sat down closer to my Dad. Uncle Raymond sat on one end, and my grandparents, making a little later arrival, sat on the other end.

“Well I found a really cute sweater…” I proceeded to tell him about all of the Christmas presents he had picked out for me today, “It was really thoughtful of you!” I told him. He just shook his head and gave me a one armed hug.

Lunch was kind of a pain that day. There were so many patrons in the restaurant that the servers were struggling to get to all of the tables. Our orders came out at completely different times. I got to watch everyone else eat for several minutes before my plate arrived. I took it in good nature, but I was really hungry! It also meant I was the last one eating, and therefore the girl holding everyone up from shopping.

“Where to next?” I asked my mom.

“You said there’s another mall not far from here?” my mom asked Aunt Wendy.

“Yeah, it’s about fifteen minutes north of here, just off the freeway.”

I had just stuffed the last bite in my mouth, chewing and eating as fast as would be even remotely lady like. “I’m ready!” I told them.

“We still have to wait for the checks sweetie,” Dad said. Somehow I felt like he must have been grateful for the delay of the attack on his bank account. It ended up being an extended delay as they tried to get the checks right. Thirty minutes later everyone was pretty thoroughly annoyed with the waitress, and I felt like tempers were short among some of the adults. I decided to just sit quietly during the drive; I didn’t want to make my dad mad at me.

Once we got the mall there were some more tense moments as Dad tried to find a parking space. My mom and I finally convinced him to just take one that was fairly far away, but at least it was a parking space. The rest of our family had just as much trouble finding parking spots. Eventually everyone joined up again in the mall and we started going from store to store. As we passed a Victoria’s Secret I was really curious to go in there and look at all of the bras and panties. One look at my dad’s face though was enough to keep me from asking. But just in case I had any doubts, “Not until you’re much much older do I want to hear of you shopping in there,” he said.

Mindy was standing on the other side of me whispered, “Don’t worry Tiff, when you need something let me know,” she said with a wink.

I smiled and giggled, she followed suit. Dad gave me a glare and I shut up. He just wouldn’t have a sense of humor would he?

That mall had more expensive shops in it, so we didn’t really find much there. There was one shop though that I tried on tons of clothes in, Limited Too. They had a Limited store in Albuquerque, but I’d never seen this store before! It had clothing that looked like normal stuff I could wear at school, but I could actually wear it! At the one store from earlier, I was just barely fitting into their smallest sizes of clothes, here everything fit! And there were tons of great outfits to choose from!

“Tiffany, we can’t buy the whole store,” Mom told me as I was trying to convince her to buy a dress, two long sleeve tops, a couple pairs of jeans, and a sweater. “Do you only want clothes for Christmas or do you want to be able to have something else?” She asked me gently.

‘What kind of question is that?’ I thought for a moment, but then remembered my parents weren’t made of money. I was just fortunate I was able to have what we’d already gotten. I knew that. “I guess not just clothes,” I told her forlornly.

“Okay then, pick two things,” she told me.

‘Just two?!?’ I thought to myself. “I guess this pair of jeans… and this top,” I replied. She smiled at me and then paid for the purchases.

As we walked out she told me, “Look sweetie we know that this store has some good things for you now, so maybe we’ll be able to find them occasionally if we’re traveling. And who knows? Maybe one of the malls at home will get one.”

“I hope so!” I told her. “But I also hope that I don’t need to shop there for much longer either.”

She sighed, “Stop being in such a hurry to grow up.” She looked around and made sure Dad was still sitting down on a bench a ways away still. “And sweetie when the time comes to get you a real bra, the two of us will go look in Victoria’s Secret,” she told me with a smile. “But you can’t tell your daddy. I think he would have a heart attack.”

I laughed at that. Eventually everyone was shopped out at the mall and Cami mentioned wanting to go Toys’R’Us. Shopping inside of there was fun, but way too crowded. I had a lot of fun showing my cousins the doll house that Mattel had sent me earlier in the year. I also pointed to several of the Barbie Dolls I had gotten for the project. “I’m so jealous of you,” Cami told me with a smile.

I really enjoyed the afternoon with her, Mindy, and Stephanie. The four of us had a lot of fun together, and I felt like they were friends as much as family. About five we finished up there and headed to another restaurant for the last meal we were going to have together before heading home the next day. As we pulled in Uncle Allen was standing there holding the door for my grandparents.

Just before the three of us got there he let the door close and went on inside. It wasn’t quite a slammed door in my face, but it was close enough that I wasn’t looking forward to the meal. My stomach became knotted, and I knew that tonight’s meal was going to be an endurance test. I looked up at Dad and said, “I’m sorry Daddy that he’s going to be such a jerk…”

“I don’t want to hear that kind of talk from you young lady,” he told me. But he squeezed my shoulder as he opened the door, “He won’t say anything to you though. If he does I’ll make him sorry for it.”

That didn’t make me feel any better at all. Maybe if I was a boy it would have, but as a girl it was something that just made me more uncomfortable. Thankfully my grandparents, and the rest of the family, were peacemakers — and intelligent enough, that Uncle Allen sat on the opposite end of the table from us. My parents sat next to me, and then it went down the line with my grandfather at the head of the long table the restaurant had put together. Everyone was there, just like at dinner the day before. I could feel glares from not just Uncle Allen, but also Bobby and Danny. I tried to ignore it, and took advantage of the fact that they’d given me a kids menu that had crayons with it.

Mindy was the nearest cousin to me at the table, just on the other side of Mom, and asked the waiter, “can I have one too?” pointing to my menu and crayons. It was nice to know she was so much like me. It was a pain to talk to her across Dad the whole time we waited for our food to arrive, but it was better than not having Dad in between me and Uncle Allen.

Actually dinner went by relatively peacefully. Afterwards we planned on Mindy, Cami, and Aunt Wendy coming over to the hotel for the two girls to go swimming with me there. Stephanie gave me a really downcast expression when Mindy asked her if she wanted to come too. She just gave me a silent look that I felt helpless about. How bad was everything at home beyond this? I began to worry about her a bit.

I’d watched Uncle Allen have four large margaritas while we ate. I believed what my parents said about him being an alcoholic.

At the end of the meal there was a lot of bickering over the check, and in the end Bill, Aunt Linda’s boyfriend picked up the check for everyone. Apparently he was wealthier than I realized, as my parents later told me ‘he can afford it.’ When the dust settled everyone began walking to the cold night air outside and said their goodbyes.

“I’ll see you later Grandpa,” I told him as I embraced him with a hug.

“I love you sweetie, you make me awful proud,” he told me.

I smiled at that and then moved onto Grandma, then Aunt Linda, Aunt Wendy, Stephanie, and Caleb before joining my parents just in time for Uncle Allen to come over.

“Joe, I’d better never ever see you step foot in my house again,” he told him to begin with. “I can’t believe you would raise a…” he started to say about the time my dad reached out and grabbed the top of his shoulder.

“You will never speak to me like that again, and quite frankly you will never ever speak of my daughter like that! Brother or not I will lay you out flat on this pavement.”

He started to say something else, “Like hell…” but stopped talking as a stricken look appeared on his face.

My dad had just squeezed harder on the pressure point that he had chosen. “You need to get a hold of yourself. You’re only going to wind up hurting everyone if you keep this up.” With that he left my uncle, clearly in a fair amount of pain still, standing there and guided me into the car and drove away. I was speechless.

 

THE MOMENT THAT we got back to the hotel I just walked into the bathroom and closed the door. I needed a moment to recover. I tried to tell myself that it was just one person’s opinion and let it go… but it wasn’t that easy. I tried to reconcile myself that I wouldn’t have to see him again… but what about Caleb and Stephanie? I liked the two of them a lot. It wasn’t right that this kind of thing could come between us.

“Tiffany? Are you going to be in there much longer?” Mom asked me through the door.

“I’m almost done, can you pass me my swimsuit though?” I asked her. When she knocked again I opened the door and grabbed it before pulling off my clothes and pulling on the one piece swimsuit. I had to do my usual tucking of everything, thinking in the meantime of how much nicer it would be when it was gone, before putting my hair in a ponytail and going out into the room. Mindy and Cami were already there.

“Cute!” Mindy told me.

“I got it in Florida,” I told them.

“I’ll be out in a jiff!” she said with a smile as she ducked in the bathroom to change into her own swimsuit. Cami followed her, and then the three of us went down with our moms to the swimming pool. Amazingly, there wasn’t anyone else in the pool so we were able to have the whole pool to ourselves. After we had splashed around a good deal the three of us just kind of gathered at one point in the shallow end of the pool and talked.

“Tiffany, I’m really sorry Uncle Allen has been such a jerk,” Mindy told me.

“I should be used to it by now,” I told her in the calmest voice I could manage. There were sometimes when I could push things like this from my brain while I was doing something fun, but that hadn’t worked tonight at all. The whole time I’d been thinking about everything.

“You shouldn’t get used to treatment like that Tiffany,” Cami told me.

“No you shouldn’t. Look, you may have been born with the parts of a boy, but I have no doubt you’re really a girl. I’ll always think of you as Tiffany from now on,” Mindy told me.

“Yeah,” Cami added, “No way are you a boy!”

“Thanks.” I replied with some teary eyes. I decided I didn’t want to continue the conversation any longer than I had to and decided to dunk my head into the water and swim underwater for a ways. After a while the three of us were told to get out of the pool and head upstairs. Mindy and Cami dried themselves off and got dressed before we walked them downstairs and said goodbye to them. I was going to miss them.

Back upstairs I looked at the clock, and seeing it was only nine o’clock, decided to ask, “Mommy do you think I might be able to get ahold of Amy now?”

I think she must have known I needed to talk to her because she said, “You can try…”

A few minutes later we had figured out the number and I heard the phone ringing on the other side, “Hello?” someone said.

“Hi, is Amy there?” I asked.

“Yes she is, may I ask who this is?”

“Tiffany,” I told her.

“Oh! It’s nice to talk to you, I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Amy’s grandmother,” she told me. I could sense a sweet lady on the other side of the phone.

“I’ve heard a lot about you as well.” I told her. Amy loved her grandmother a lot. It seemed like she was always doing nice things for her.

“Well one of these days I’ll have to meet you. Here’s Amy now,” she told me.

“Tiffany?” Amy asked.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“How’s it going?” She asked. I don’t think she had any idea what was going to come from that question.

I began speaking a mile-a-minute to answer her and before I knew it I could feel tears down my face. I didn’t turn around to look at my parents who I knew were standing there.

“Wow Tiffany, I’m really sorry about all of that.” Amy told me. “Look, you’ll be home tomorrow, maybe you can come stay the night with me Sunday?”

“I’ll ask,” I told her.

“Let me know what you’re parents say. You said you went shopping right?” She asked me.

“Uh-huh,” I told her. I hated how little I was saying, but that’s about all I could say at that moment.

“What did you get?” She asked me.

I choked back a sob and regained control — at least that part of the day had gone well. “Well I finally found some clothes that don’t make me look like I’m seven,” I told her.

“Where?” She asked me with excitement in her voice. Amy had been shopping with me many times and understood that problem.

“There were a couple stores…” I told her. By the end of the shopping conversation, she too had spent the day shopping, I was feeling better. Amy was always able to do that it seemed.

“Tiffany my mom is bugging me to go to bed. I’ll see you Sunday?” She asked.

“I hope so. I’ll let you know tomorrow, k?”

“We should be back tomorrow too, talk to you then.”

As I hung up the phone I felt someone sit on the bed next to me. I looked up at mom and just snuggled into her as she hugged me. I just closed my eyes and sat there in her embrace, as she wiped the tears off my cheeks and laid a hand over mine. After a few minutes I remembered I was still in my swimsuit with a towel around me. I felt a little embarrassed about that for some reason and got up and went to the bathroom to put my pajamas on. I decided to take a quick shower first though to rinse out my hair. I hated to go to bed with wet hair, but I didn’t care at the point my head hit the pillow.