I’m out with my girlfriend, who happens to be a lesbian, so of course, I’m dressed as a girl. It didn’t make any sense at all, but it had a certain logic. We were just about to step off the curb when some guy stopped in front of us.

“I—what? No, I don’t!” I protested.

Part 2 - Wilshire

Chapter 7 - Breathless

It took them almost two hours to get me out of the store wearing that little black dress. I was reluctant, and Marjorie wanted to spend more money. We left Le Trend with a wave at Deirdre. She waved back with enthusiasm. Marjorie had dropped over $150, and I felt giddy. It was a lot to take in.

The first thing we did was go next door to look at hats. I didn’t want to keep wearing Mom’s hat, but none of the hats at Le Trend suited both of us. Marjorie claimed to like how I looked in a big hat, but I just rolled my eyes. I still wasn’t sure about this dressing as a girl thing, and I hadn’t agreed to anything, but I played along.

Marjorie seemed convinced that I was really a girl, despite physical evidence, and would only be happy if I admitted it.

“Don’t you think I’d know that if it were true?” I told her. “I’m not someone on one of these afternoon agony shows. I’m just a skinny nerd boy who apparently is easily talked into things.”

“Can’t fool me with your denials, Kissy. I’ve seen how you look at yourself in the mirror. You’re afraid to admit it, but you’ve been hiding your femininity from everyone, probably since you were very small.”

I winced at some memory that evaded my mental grasp. Something about my father before Mom and Dad split up. “Leave me—,” I began, but I didn’t want her to abandon me in downtown LA dressed like I was. “Just—you’re wrong, Marjie, you’re wrong.” It sounded weak even to me.

She snorted, leading the way into Casual Me, which turned out to be different enough from Le Trend to explain why they could co-exist in different halves of the same building. Much more colorful, with fashions that were probably even more in the now, especially in the Retro-now. Not that I did much looking around, keeping my head down in what I imagined to be masculine angst.

I had a purse now since there were no pockets in my dress. The little bag contained a new billfold with my California ID, school and library cards, my pay from the lawn care job, and my cellphone. I noticed that Marjorie had put the little bottle of smellum in there, as well. She really was a stinker, I decided, but I didn’t make the joke out loud.

I had two store bags, too—one with my old clothes and shoes and a much smaller one with two pair of pantyhose and the receipt from Marjorie’s purchase. In case I needed to return something, I guess.

Marjorie waved away help from a salesgirl since the hats were in plain sight along one wall. She made a beeline for the biggest hats, all at one end. A green monster, probably twenty inches across, had an oversize orange bow tied around it. She snatched it off the wall and plopped it on my head and pointed to the mirror.

“Okay,” I said. It looked fine. The green didn’t quite match the more electric shade of the inserts in the LBD, but with the orange, it did manage to be complementary.

“A little enthusiasm, maybe?” Marjorie sounded a bit annoyed.

“I’m supposed to be enthusiastic about this? I’ve just managed to get past being so scared I wanted to throw up,” I told her.

“I think the hat looks terrific on you, but maybe you’d like this one better?” She pulled down another hat, kind of caramel-colored with a big multi-colored ribbon. It might be less attention-getting than green and orange.

I shrugged. Marjorie had already put Mom’s hat in the big bag from Le Trend. She looked from one new hat to the other. “We’ll get them both,” she decided.

“I can’t wear two hats,” I pointed out.

“You can take one home to wear some other time,” she said with a teasing smile.

“There’s not going to be another time,” I said, my voice going up the scale. “This little escapade is a one-off.” I meant to end that with a snort, but it came out as a sniff. The corset didn’t leave me enough air for a snort.

She solved the dilemma by putting the green one on me and wearing the beige one herself. “That does look good on you,” I admitted as we went up to the counter and she paid. “It works for a blonde as well as it does for a redhead.”

Marjorie smirked at me, and I wondered what I had said.

We left, going down the side street back toward Melrose. There was a CVS Pharmacy on the corner, and we went to buy some sunblock, a tube that promised to be non-stain and non-sticky. Marjorie promised we’d find a place to put it on soon but that we had an appointment nearby to get my nails done.

“Oh, joy,” I muttered.

We also got some ibuprofen, and Marjorie talked me into taking some against the pain I had complained that the corset was causing me. It really wasn’t bad anymore, I guess I’d gotten used to it, but I took the pills anyway. “You’re breaking in new shoes, too,” she pointed out.

“Have you got anything stronger? Xanax maybe? Heroin?” I asked, but I was just kidding, and she laughed at me.

I still felt a bit freaked out to be in public dressed as a girl, but the only second looks I was getting were smiles, not glares or threats. I realized that I was smiling back at everyone, just in reaction. I couldn’t figure it out.

“Why is everyone smiling at me?” I asked Marjorie.

“You’re a beautiful girl who seems to be enjoying yourself.”

“But I’m not! Neither of those things.”

‘You’re smiling,” she pointed out.

“Only because they are, I mean, I don’t want to be rude.”

Marjorie looked at me. “Then it must be the hat.”

I snorted at that, but she might have a point about why people were smiling. I may have looked a little wild-eyed and goofy, but I was clearly harmless, just a short-haired redhead in a little black dress and a big green hat shopping on Melrose.

I had an urge to giggle insanely, but I managed to emit only a strangled, “Urk!”

Marjorie looked at me with an eyebrow up.

“Where to now?” I asked, ignoring her curiosity.

She pushed virtual buttons on her phone for a moment longer, then turned and pointed. “Back the other way and across the street,” she said. “The Salon a la Mode, see the sign?”

“I see it,” I agreed. We turned and headed for a crosswalk. I had another giggle, this one escaped.

“What?” asked Marjorie, taking my arm and linking us into a unit, so the busy sidewalk didn’t force us apart.

“I know what ‘a la mode’ means, but what’s funny is that they’re using an ice cream cone as a symbol on the sign,” I said. We both laughed. Just holding her arm made me feel better.

This was an adventure, right. I’m out with my girlfriend, who happens to be a lesbian, so of course, I’m dressed as a girl. It didn’t make any sense at all, but it had a certain logic.

Crosswalks mid-block on Melrose are standard and a little bit more techy than you see elsewhere, with flashing lights embedded in the pavement for the pedestrians and traffic lights for the cars. We were just about to step off the curb when some guy stopped in front of us.

He was a bit of a blob but a big one. Six foot two or so, at least 300 pounds, with a Tony Stark beard and ‘stache and Hispanic coloring, he pointed at me. “Samantha!” he said. “You play Sam on ‘Days of Our World’!”

“I—what? No, I don’t!” I protested.

“Get out of the way, asshole!” Marjorie’s answer was more direct.

Looking confused, the roadblock moved himself out of our path, and we hurried across. I didn’t look back because my heart was pounding, and I felt like I might throw up.

The corset chose just then to remind me of its existence. I didn’t feel like I could breathe, and I grabbed hold of Marjorie as we went up the curb on the other end of the crosswalk.

“Don’t let assholes like that scare you,” Marjorie told me.

“Uh, huh,” I agreed. But it was too late. I was frightened almost out of my senses.

“We’re going to have to get you some pepper spray,” Marjorie muttered. “The salon is just a few doors away. You can sit down if we can make it there.”

I nodded, still trying to gasp in buckets of oxygen and not succeeding. Not quite staggering, holding onto Marjorie for all I was worth, I made it to the door of the salon and collapsed into the first chair I saw.

“Just calm down,” Marjorie said. “He’s gone, you’re safe, but if you keep trying to breathe like a steam train, you’re going to hyperventilate and pass out. You’ve got plenty of air.

And the bitch pinched my nose closed with one hand and covered my mouth with her other! “One-two-three-four,” she counted slowly while I struggled to push her away. “Breathe now,” she said as she released me.

I did taking in as much as I could with my diaphragm constricted by the corset. But when I breathed out, she used her hands again to stop me from continuing to gasp. “One, two, three, four,” she counted, a little slower than last time. “Breathe,” she ordered.

I got the idea and co-operated as the panic drained away. After two more cycles, I could breathe normally. She sat beside me, “You okay now?”

“This corset is cutting me in two,” I complained, again. It kind of felt like that if I were thinking about it.

She nodded. “That’s ‘cause it’s a cheap, mass-produced piece of shit. We’ll get you a better one.”

“I—what?”

But she’d stood back up, went to the counter and checked us in for my mani-pedi. Two Asian ladies beckoned me to come sit in a recliner-type chair that had a sink full of water where the footrest should be.

I let myself be directed into the contraption, kicking off my shoes and stepping into the basin of very hot water. “Ooo,” I said.

“Too hot?” one of the Asian ladies asked.

I shook my head and turned to sit down, running a hand under my ass the way Marjorie had shown me so my skirt wouldn’t wrinkle or ride up. The first lady sat on a low stool and began washing my feet and legs while the second lady moved a chair and small table up beside me on the left side.

She motioned that I should put both hands into a bowl of bluish liquid. That was awkward but doable. “You want French nail?” she asked.

I had no idea, but Marjorie answered for me. “Yes, French nails with gel color on her toes. I’ll go pick out a color, Kissy.” She addressed the last to me.

“Wait,” I said. “Something I have to tell you.”

She stepped back to listen. “That guy in the crosswalk. I know him. He kinda recognized me, I think, but he got the wrong—uh?”

She nodded. “He recognized your face, but the hat and dress confused him.”

I blushed. “Yeah, he’s never seen me in a dress. Well, obviously not.”