A new date? But Kissy doesn't have a thing to wear...

Oh, crap. “Uh, hi Rory,” I said into the phone.

“Hey, babe,” he laughed. “You didn’t know it was me, right?”

I was impressed. “I didn’t look at phone I.D.,” I admitted. “I was just about to call somebody back.”

“You’re popular,” he said. “So you’ve already got a date tonight?”

I paused to think about me having a date. Wow. “Well, not a date-date,” I said, blushing. “Just gaming with the guys. I guess Armand is running his Friday night games again for the summer.”

“Huh. At his place?”

“Uh, yeah, I was going to call him back to tell him—uh—I’ll need a ride to the game cause Mom is meeting someone.”

“Your mom is hot, too,” Rory said. “I’m not on speaker, am I?”

I giggled. “No. Am I a moron?” Mom was listening to me, but she couldn’t hear him.

He laughed. “Not compared to the girlfriends of some of the guys on the team. So what time is the game at Armand’s.”

“Uh—seven thirty.”

He was quiet a moment. “How are you going to dress going to the game?” he asked.

I knew what he meant. “The guys have got to get used to seeing Kissy now.”

He laughed. “This the first time?”

“Uh—well, Armand saw me out shopping. But he thought I was cosplaying as some soap opera star.”

Rory laughed again. “Same old Armand. Oh! Samantha Welty, I forget if that’s the character or the actress. You do look a bit like her. Only Armand would make such a leap of logic. When he’s right, he’s dead on, and when he’s wrong,” he made a falling off the cliff noise, “he’s just dead.”

I giggled.

“So you need a ride to the game?”

“Uh-huh. Where are you?” I asked him.

“PCH. Just left the high school where we play. I could probably be to your place in forty minutes, an hour?”

“Are you offering me a ride?”

“Sure, babe. Hell, yeah. Give me a chance to see Armand, too. Pick you up between, uh, seven, seven-fifteen?”

I had the strongest urge to squeal for some reason. I suppressed that but my feet in the flip-flops beat a tattoo on the floor. “Okay, sure!” I chirped.

“It’s a date,” he said. “Our second. Got to let you go so I can figure out how to get to the freeway from here. Mwah.”

Was that last sound supposed to be a kiss? I glanced at Mom. “Uh—see you, Rory.” We hung up.

“And?” said Mom.

“That was Rory, he’s coming to pick me up to go to the game,” I explained. “I have to call Armand to tell him I have a ride.” I picked him off the previous calls list and hit callback.

“Hey, Armband,” I said, using one of his nicknames, when he answered. “I got a ride to the game, that’s what I had to check on.”

“Okay—uh—Dudley,” he said. Armand was never that comfortable using nicknames but he tried. Dudley was surely not one of my favorites and certainly not now. “Guys will be arriving soon. My sister made a pot of chili for us and we’ve got pizza rolls for later. Popcorn. We could use more sodas, if you want to bring some.”

“I can probably do some Dew,” I offered.

“Good. If you can make it early, you’ll get a better choice of characters to play. This is gonna be in my Supers world, the Prometheans. New team, new characters, new powers. New villains. Haw.” He added a fake villain cackle.

Armand never let people make up their own characters. He did the work of figuring out all the math and numbers and just let players customize things with a name and background and a few skills. It worked because he was so thorough.

I giggled. “I’m not driving so I get there when I get there.”

“Okay. See ya.” And he hung up. Same old Armand, no time for niceties he didn’t really get unless he thought to make time. He could fake being a standard-issue human being but he was really wired differently.

My dad described him, back when Armand and I were both in grade school and we all lived on Massachusetts Ave, “That boy must run on direct current, ‘cause his AC converter makes a peculiar sound.” I snickered at the memory.

I looked up and around, we were only a few blocks from home.

“All set?” Mom asked.

“I guess so.” I put my phone away. “Rory will pick me up to take me to the game, probably around seven fifteen.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “That’ll work.”

I kicked at the floorboard. “Um—Mom?”

“Somethings bothering you.” She was observing, not asking.

“I—uh—Can I look through the boxes Marjie sent? Just for clothes—I don’t have any of my own stuff to wear.”

“Gawp,” said Mom, stopping a laugh. In a higher pitched voice she said, “I don’t have anything to wear!” Then she did laugh. “Why did I want a daughter again?”

I probably pouted, but I was certain I hadn’t sounded that whiney. “I don’t, just this,” what I was wearing, “and what I wore yesterday and a bunch of sloppy Davey clothes.”

Mom sighed. “And none of my stuff is going to fit you, you skinny-minnie. Okay, when we get home, go through and pick something out you like. In fact, we’ll keep all of it, or give what you don’t want to charity.” She had made a decision.

She went on. “Just because Marjorie is crazy doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a gift.”

She’d called her Marjorie again, but I didn’t mention it. “She might, she might have included some pretty expensive things.” I thought about the money Marjie had mentioned, too. Did that count as a gift we could enjoy? Maybe not, that felt more like a bribe.

I got suddenly dizzy, actually contemplating marrying Marjorie. What kind of life would I live? Clothes, parties, travel?—though Marjie herself didn’t seem to go that far into the rich life. She wore stylish but ordinary clothes, drove a nice expensive car but drove it herself. She shopped on Melrose, not Rodeo Drive.

Where would we live? With her income, anywhere we wanted to, I guess. Would we have friends? What kind of friends? What about my friends?

She was a lesbian. I frowned. I think she told me that herself. Would she want sex from me? The way I am now or would she want me to have an operation? My knees clamped together, a last reflex form being a boy for seventeen years?

I almost laughed. Something I’d heard in a cartoon, probably Daffy Duck. “I’m different from other people. Pain hurts me.” I really did not want to think about an operation; getting shots was bad enough.

“You have the most peculiar expression,” Mom commented as we pulled into the carport. Before we parked, we both noticed that there were more packages on the front steps. Mom rolled her eyes.

We went in through the kitchen door, through the apartment and opened the front door to bring the packages in. “Take them all back to your room,” Mom directed. “I’ll let you open them, she sent them to you.” There were seven of them now.

I leaned the two biggest against the wall, put the smallest on my dresser, and piled the others next to the bed. The little one was about one foot square by six inches high. It wasn’t very heavy and for some reason, I was afraid of it.

I started with the middle-size box, opening it. Lingerie on top, bras and panties in clear plastic bags. Two more corsets, much fancier than the one she bought me at Le Trend, both lined with something soft and silky. A peculiarly heavy box turned out to contain two perfect-looking fake silicone breasts complete with nipples. They looked more than twice the size of my chicken fillets, still small but bigger.

I noticed that I was giggling and clamped down on that immediately. I checked the bras, they were all 32B. Marjorie wanted me built a little larger up top?

Under the lingerie were purses and shoe boxes. A glance at the clock stopped me from opening every one of them. I didn’t have time. I’d never be able to get ready to leave with Rory at this rate.

I pushed that Amazon box aside and opened the next one down. Jackpot. The top half of the box was full of dresses, most in clear plastic bags. I looked through quickly. Yup, all dresses, very hip, stylish, some casual, some dressy. No skirts, pants or tops though. All of them pretty girly, too, feminine, and in my colors: greens, browns, cream, and the colors of red and blue I could wear.

I shook my head. Marjorie knew what she wanted, a trophy girlfriend, for sure. The bottom of that box had smaller boxes with beauty products, a hair dryer, and other stuff for the bathroom and dresser, including a beautiful jewelry box.

I glanced at the small box I had put aside. Probably jewelry.

One of the last two middle-size boxes held plush animals, dolls, games and books like any girl in America might have in her room. I felt a bit touched by that, Marjie knew I wouldn’t have any of this stuff because I’d been a girl for only two days.

The last middle-size box was too heavy to contain more clothes, so I skipped it. The two big boxes were probably furniture.

I went back to the dresses, looking them over. Which would be the most impressive to Rory and—and the other guys? Half of them I rejected for being too long or for me not knowing how I would wear something like an off-the shoulder cocktail dress.

I picked one made of cream and two colors of green in panels. It had capsleeves, a full skirt and a green leather belt. It looked sleek, silky and sexy.

I glanced at the clock. I might have time. I looked at the tag on the dress, size 4. “Marjorie, you rat,” I muttered. I’d never be able to wear it without a corset.

I went to the door of my room. “Mom!” I called. “Mom, I need some help in here!”