Andy spent a lot of the last evening in the motel taking a long soak in the bath.

 

He thought about shaving his legs but decided the studio might want to film that so he'd let it go. He didn't wash his hair in case they wanted him to dye it, hair with a bit of oil and grease took dye better and he knew that.

When he got out of the tub, he wrapped the towel around himself, girl fashion and looked into the mirror for a long time. After drying off, he put on mint green pajamas and settled in front of the widescreen television while he surfed the channels. He found an old Grace Kelly movie and left it on that while he put the room in order for leaving in the morning.

Then he took the prom gown out of the suit bag and some patterns he had found and spent time deciding how the alterations should proceed. It would be possible to convert the prom dress into a sort of retro cocktail gown, something like the women in movies made in the fifties and early sixties wore. He thought he would like that look.

Then he sat with his feet curled up beside him, watching old movies for a few hours and using a seam-ripping tool to disassemble the gown. Around midnight, he put everything away and went to bed, dumping the heavy, scratchy, motel bed cover on the floor as he had every night there.

He lay under the sheet and thin blanket, wearing only his pajamas. February wasn't really cold in the San Fernando Valley and despite other failings, the motel room was tight. He lay there considering moving into the little bungalow he had seen. It would be the first home that was his alone, other than this motel room. He looked forward to it, planning how he would arrange the furniture and what pieces he would need to acquire.

He felt only a little nerves about what else would be involved in moving into the bungalow, living and working and dressing as a woman. That wouldn't necessarily be that hard, he didn't have a lot of emotional investment in being male, anyway.

He spent a few minutes thinking about Phil and wondering just what the producer's assistant's real motives were. Then he fell asleep and if he dreamed, he remembered none of it when the alarm woke him in the morning.

* * *

Phil showed up at the motel room a few minutes before eight. "Change of plans," he said when Andy answered the door. "We'll eat in the commissary at the studio. You won't believe it but they are actually moving ahead with this. You're due for a makeup and wardrobe consult at nine."

Andy smiled. "That's a bit startling. I thought you implied that things would move at a more leisurely pace until some deadline loomed."

"Executive producer in charge of manufacturing deadlines produced one, he wants film in the can for post production by the end of March. Everything packed?"

Andy nodded, again taking the smaller suitcase and heading for the Lexus. Phil went into the motel room to grab the rest and noticed immediately the suit bag rolled up and tied to the larger bag. He carried it to the Lexus and opened the trunk with his key fob. "What happened to the prom gown?" he asked.

Andy looked at him blankly. "What prom gown?"

"The one that..." Phil didn't finish the sentence but just grinned at Andy. "Actors," he said with a snort.

"I don't know what you mean," said Andy, still looking innocent.

Phil just shook his head. They got into the car and closed the doors.

"All set?" Phil asked.

Andy nodded.

"Wanna check for anything left behind?"

"Nope," said Andy. "I don't have that particular neurosis, I didn't leave the burner on or the water running, either."

Phil grinned and started the car. As they pulled through the arch at the front of the motel leading back to the street, he said. "Okay, you win. What did you do with the prom gown?"

Andy stared at him like he was losing his mind. "What..." he began but Phil interrupted.

"Don't give me that," said Phil. "Look I believe you could keep a straight face through the whole 'Who's On First' routine so tell me what you did with the prom gown."

Andy grinned. "Took it apart last night and folded the pieces up with a pattern I bought earlier."

"Ah, ha!" said Phil. "So, am I going to see you wearing it?"

"When the cameras start rolling, Phil, you'll see me wearing a lot of stuff."

Phil nodded smiling.

* * *

"Is that...?" whispered Andy after they had filled trays and taken seats in the studio commissary.

Phil didn't look. "Just another working stiff, and he eats breakfast here every morning he's on site."

Andy nodded. "I guess so." He looked at his tray, a bowl of oatmeal with a small mound of fruit on it, a single slice of bacon and a mini-bagel with low-fat cream cheese, a tall glass of OJ and a small one of milk. "The food looks good," he said.

"Most of the studios learned a long time ago, don't cheat the working people on food. It pays off when everyone ends up working sixteen hour days."

"Huh," said Andy. "You'd think that would apply everywhere but there's a lot of really terrible food served in cafeterias like this one."

Phil grinned. "That's why they call this a commissary, so people won't think they're getting cafeteria food."

Andy smiled and noted that almost no one took their items off the trays unless they were too crowded. That way, whoever bussed the table had to just pick up the trays and carry them to the pass-thru to the dish washers. Still a lot of people bussed their own tables. A few came in, took trays of food and left with them, presumably to go eat in their offices or maybe their trailers, or even to carry the food back to a boss who was too busy to come get it.

It must be past the most crowded part of the morning, they'd had no trouble finding an empty table. Several tables had yet to be bussed and a few busboys worked diligently at clearing away messes. Unlike in an ordinary Southern California restaurant, not all the busboys looked like illegal immigrants. About half of them looked like unemployed actors. Andy grinned, a category he had only recently escaped.

He glanced at the movie star and his entourage in the corner and caught the man himself looking back. A million dollar smile flashed briefly and then the celebrity went back to his Denver omelette. He ate his breakfast and twice more caught the gaze of the famous man when he glanced that direction. "Um," he said to Phil.

"He's checking you out," said Phil.

"Why?" asked Andy.

"A studio lot is like a small town, everyone knows what everyone else is doing. He probably knows what I'm working on and is wondering about you."

"I was wondering if I were wearing mouse ears without knowing about it," said Andy.

Phil grinned. "He's a friendly cuss, don't be surprised if he tries to talk to you sometime. Probably not now, they're shooting a tight schedule. Sixteen one hour episodes in a year and a movie doesn't leave a lot of social time."

"What's the movie? Are they shooting it here?"

Phil shook his head. "Somewhere in Canada this summer. Some retro-superhero movie, I think."

"Um," said Andy looking back toward the corner and the man with the million dollar smile.

* * *

"This is Wren," Phil introduced Andy to Deanna Lopez-Santoro, the make-up artist who would design Wren's look for the production.

"Mmp," said Deanna with a distinct lack of emotion.

"What the producers want, to begin with," said Phil, "is a minimum alteration in Wren's appearance so that the audience watching will be unsure of whether this is a boy or a girl."

"Phmp," said Deanna, with a tinge of contempt.

Andy smiled.

"Costume? What are you going to be wearing, dear?" she asked Andi directly.

"Something a bit old-fashoned, I think, but not a costume. No cowgirl boots or tie-dyed bell bottoms."

Deanna snorted, clearly with amusement this time.

"Is this something you're going to want to apply yourself or will you be here every time you have to go in front of the cameras?"

"I'll be doing it, it's supposed to look that way and if it actually is, that will be easier."

"Bmph," said Deanna. "What do you need me for then?"

"Expert advice?" suggested Andy.

Phil kept quiet. He'd never seen Deanna so tractable. Andy was doing great and needed no help.

"You'll need commercially available brands then," said Deanna. "I may have a few things." She moved away, muttering to search through the bins and drawers of her workspace. She stopped and turned back for a moment. "Hair? Jewelry? Colors?"

"Do you have suggestions?" asked Andy.

Phil moved out of the line of sight, this would go much better if he weren't there to remind Deanna that this wasn't just an exercise in creativity but a producer's fiat.

They experimented with blush, mascara, eyeliner and lipcolor.

Phil watched from a distance.

Finally Deanna sighed. "Can't do more without seeing what you will be wearing and what they've done with your hair. But here's a start."

Andy looked in the mirror. With his shoulder-length hair pulled back by a clip, he looked like -- a tomboy wearing lipstick? Close enough.

Deanna had highlighted his cheekbones and rounded his chin in some subtle way. She'd colored in his thin, almost transparent eyebrows without making them look deliberately shaped. A half-touch of olive eyeliner gave his eyecolor an almost golden radiance and darker shadow on the deep part of the upper lids made them look larger. The lipstick was most noticeable, an off-red with orangey glints and purple depths. It looked retro enough to go with fashions from the forties, fifties or sixties and as modern as a homemade You-Tube music video mashup; the sort of happy accidental resonance a talented amateur make-up artist might discover.

"You're a genius," Andy told Deanna.

"Now let's clean it all off and you do it, using just this drugstore crap," she ordered. "Twice," she added, "to be sure you know what you're doing."

The second time through, Andy called Phil over before he put on the lipcolor. "What do you think?" he asked.

"Kind of androgynous?" Phil risked saying, not looking toward Deanna in case she took offense.

Andy removed the clip from his hair, shook it loose around his face then applied the lipstick, blotted it carefully and applied it again. "Now?"

Phil nodded. "I'm impressed," he said. "You look kissable now."

Andy blinked and stared at him a moment, then grinned. "Not before?"

"Not quite," said Phil. He grinned too.

"Hmp," said Deanna.