The Joiners pt 2.
by
Angharad.

Cary put his bike away in the garage part of the outbuildings shut the door and walked into the house. "What did you have for lunch?" asked his mum.

"Cottage pie, why?"

"I just wondered, it's chicken casserole for dinner." He nodded and smiled, he loved his mother's cooking and her casseroles were always a tasty treat. "I didn't know you could sing like that?" she added.

"Like what?" he felt his colour rising and it had nothing to do with his recent exercise.

"Like you did at the Copperthwaites."

"Oh that was just fooling around." He tried to dismiss it and moved towards the stairs.

"Macey said you'd sung several songs and you sounded just like Karen Carpenter."

"She's exaggerating and I expect it's because our name is Carpenter, she just confused things, you know what she's like?"

"I do, but I heard and saw it myself and it was you singing and you did sound remarkably like our namesake."

"I don't think so." He shook his head to reinforce his denial and blushed profusely.

"Well, since she sent me the clip, I've listened to it half a dozen times and also to the same track by Karen Carpenter, there's hardly any difference at all, you have even captured the nuance in her singing and her accent."

"How can you say that listening to something on your phone and to a CD? They'd be nowhere hear the same in quality to start with let alone anything else." He moved towards the stairs, I'll be up in my room." He ran up the stairs and was about to turn into his room when he nearly knocked over his big sister.

"Well, if it isn't Karen Carpenter in person," she said making him wince, "Can I have your autograph, Miss Carpenter?"

"Oh, knock it off, Tara. That joke is growing old very fast." He pushed past her into his room but she followed preventing him shutting her out and she closed the door behind her.

"What d'you want?" he asked slouching in the chair at his computer desk.

"I want to put a proposition to you."

"If it's got anything to do with pretending to be Karen bloody Carpenter, I don't want to know."

"D'you realise how much money we could make?"

"I'm not interested in taking part in a drag act for all the tea in China."

"It won't be a drag act."

"Course it will, I'm a boy so dressing up as a girl is drag."

"No, that's where you're wrong, you see drag is a parody thing where men dress up as women to make fun of them and some people find it funny."

"Yeah, like that Irish tit who's on bloody telly all the time, Mrs Brown with five o'clock shadow."

"Yeah, that is so insulting to women and anyone Irish and about as funny as period pain," agreed his sister, but it was the only thing he thought they had in common apart their parents.

"Why don't you want to make some money?" she asked after a short pause.

"I don't object to making money but not by pretending I'm a girl."

"Okay, dress as a boy and do it."

"What? It's bad enough having a stupid girly voice without standing up and telling the world about it."

"That's why you need a disguise."

"No I don't, I don't want to do it."

"But you could get that new iPhone you wanted."

"Not that badly, I don't."

"Look, we know you can sing like KC how about we see if you could look like her?"

"What for? I don't want to do it."

"Why? What d'you think wearing a dress for five minutes is going to do to you?"

"Nothing, because I'm not going to do it."

"Tell you what, if you do it I'll get Macey Copperthwaite to go out with you."

He savoured the idea of going out with an older girl, that would do his credibility the world of good. That would be very uplifting amongst his peer group, the nerd who had an older, very pretty and very sexy girlfriend. He almost wavered until he then thought of what would happen to his credibility if his mates found out he dressed up like a girl and sang like one. "Uh, no."

"Did you know she quite likes you?"

"Don't be daft, she wouldn't be seen dead with me."

"Did she spend time with you today?"

"You know she did but only because it was raining and we couldn't go off on our bikes and she needed some help to set up her karaoke machine."

" She takes computers apart and rebuilds them for fun, so I rather think a simple karaoke machine would be a piece of cake, don't you?"

"I dunno do I? I only know she's Colm's sister and he's like my best mate."

"Well, she does quite like you and I could sort of put a word in for you being her bestie."

"Sure put a word in for me if you like but I'm not wearing a dress."

"No, not to date her, dopey, just try one on after dinner and if you don't look like a girl, we'll scrap the whole idea."

"Hang on a moment, if, and I mean a very big if, we were to do this Carpenter's tribute thing and Colm played the piano, what are you and Macey going to do?"

"You'd need a few more musicians and we both play in the school orchestra so know kids who could help make up the band, you could play the drums yourself like Karen did in the early days. You'd also need help to dress and so on plus someone would need to organise things like booking the gigs, so I'd be like your manager and wardrobe mistress."

He smirked at her and shook his head, "So you'll get all these people to help us put together a set, and you think a couple of boys are going to rehearse to back a boy singing like a girl and who would dress up like one at the concerts? I don't think so, and it would be all over the school in a couple of days and my life would be in ruins. No way, Josephine."

"You're mixing things up there, it's no way Jose and not tonight Josephine. You'd have to pretend you were a girl at the rehearsals and with a bit of makeup and something done to your hair, they wouldn't recognise you."

"What are you, stupid or something? Of course they'd recognise me, especially if they saw you or Colm there with me."

"I'll bet they wouldn't."

"You just don't get it do you?" he said shaking his head at her. "All you can see is pound signs."

"No, I think it would be good for a laugh too."

"Yeah, a laugh for everyone at my expense."

"Look, just listen to this," she'd got the recording from Macey and Cary listened to it for the first time. He was quite surprised that it did sound remarkably like Karen Carpenter. "It's pretty good, isn't it and it does sound like her, doesn't it?"

"Superficially, yeah."

"It's better than superficially, Mum couldn't believe how good you were. Now I reckon if you looked a bit like her, and you do already, I think people would pay to hear you sing."

"I don't but it's all irrelevant anyway."

"You want to bet on that?"

"Don't be stupid, of course I don't."

"I've got twenty quid that says I could get people to listen to you singing as Karen Carpenter."

"I can't take your money, Tara."

"You won't, I'll be taking yours."

"Not if I don't bet, you won't."

"How about, if you win I'll give you twenty quid and I'll never mention it again?"

He was sorely tempted but he didn't want to take her money, she had bit more than he did but she also spent it faster, usually on clothes. "I don't want your money, and I don't want your bet."

"Look, if I'm wrong I'll never mention it ever again, promise."

"How would you prove people wanted to listen to me singing?"

"I'd have to think about it, but I'm sure I could, all you'd have to do is turn up and sing to them and I bet they'd love it."

"But then they'd all know I have a girl's singing voice."

"Let me deal with that, you just have a couple or three songs, and if they don't want to listen to you, I'll never mention your singing again."

He was wavering, she could see that, she had to close the deal before he twigged what she was doing. "And I'll try and get Macey to go out with you." A smile flashed across his face, he was weakening, "Go on, you know you fancy her."

"Course I do, I'm not blind or dead."

"Come on, Mum's going to be calling us for dinner in a minute."

"Go on then, but only if Macey will go out with me."

"You can buy your cinema tickets, she will almost certainly agree to go with you."

They both went down to dinner with Cary wondering why Tara was grinning like a Cheshire cat and he was sure he'd missed something in the fine detail before they shook on the bet.

An hour after dinner Cary was up playing a computer game when Tara wandered into his room. "Right, we'll do a rehearsal tonight, a dress rehearsal. So get your arse into the shower."

"I'm busy," he turned back to his computer.

She pressed on his keypad and ended the game, "No you're not, go and shower and wash your hair and use conditioner."

"Why?"

"Cause, my soon to be temporary sister, Macey's coming around with her Karaoke machine and we're going to have a little practice with you singing in a dress."

"Not tonight, I don't feel like it."

"On are you?"

"On what?" he looked puzzled.

"On your period."

"Ha ha, very funny, not."

"Good because it can affect your voice, so go and shower and I'll bring some clothes for you to wear."

"Dad's not going to like it," Cary tried to involve his father, who probably wouldn't have noticed anyway.

"He's gone away," said Tara, "Something about a site meeting tomorrow at Worcester or somewhere.

"Nobody told me," huffed Cary.

"Like he's got to ask for your permission, has he?"

"Don't be stupid, but usually we all know when he's away. I mean, when he's away I'm sort of the man of the house, aren't I?"

"In your dreams," muttered Tara adding more audibly, "Not tonight, Josephine, or is it Karen?" she chuckled and almost pushed Cary into the bathroom. "Get showered, and don't forget..."

"I know, use conditioner." He shut the door firmly behind him and stripped off before getting in the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, after all sorts of objections, he was wearing a bra and panties courtesy of his sister. "I feel a right tit," he said shoving the sock into the empty cup of the bra.

"Nah, that's the left one, here shove this one in the right one." He ignored her except to roll his eyes and push the sock into the cup.

Another ten minutes and he was wearing a short dress over leggings with his feet shoved into some ballet pump type shoes and a towel wrapped turban like around his wet hair. He kept thinking that he must be crazy to do this and that there was no way he'd go outside the house looking like this.

Ten more minutes and Tara had put makeup on his face trying to explain what she was doing and why. She'd kept it light because none of the pictures of Karen Carpenter she'd seen showed her to be heavily made up, however, she had also decided that Carpenter's dress sense, or those advising her, was pants and that her recreation of the deceased singer using her brother, would be dressed very differently.

Looking at him, she thought he looked quite convincing, verging on cute, so with a bit more time and assessment, he would look pretty good as a young woman. Just when Cary thought he couldn't be any more embarrassed, Macey and her mother walked into his room. He didn't know where to look let alone what to say. "Mum's come to help you with your hair," said his best friend's sister and the object of his romantic intentions.

Diana Copperthwaite was a hairdresser and within two minutes she'd taken control of Cary's hair, she didn't admit that she had long wanted to have a play with it because it was so thick and luscious. She talked to Tara and Macey and also to Penny Carpenter, Cary's mother who'd joined the party in his room. It was his hair and head yet he was the only one not being consulted as Diana did things this way and asked opinions and then did it another way. Cary kept quiet hoping if he pretended this was a bad dream, he'd wake up to find it was.

"No, Mum, the object isn't to make Cary look like Karen Carpenter but to make him look like a real girl, possibly like Karen would appear if she were his age today," so said Macey and Tara agreed enthusiastically. Finally, his hair was sorted and when he saw himself in the long mirror on the landing at the top of the stairs, he nearly fell over. He looked like a girl and someone he'd be quite happy to date if he met her. He spent several minutes looking at his hair and his face and his attire. He felt like he was wearing an entire disguise, which in truth, he was. Then one thing drifted into his confused mind, how was he supposed to sing wearing all this stuff? He was about to find out.

They led him down the stairs and into the lounge where Colm was setting up the karaoke machine, he glanced round casually and asked, "When's Cary coming down, I could do with a good laugh." At that moment he was very lucky Cary didn't walk over and slap him hard. Actually he felt like punching him, but he didn't think it went with the new image.

"He's not coming, so we asked Carrie to sing instead."

"Oh, oh okay," said Colm, apparently not recognising his friend, and he handed the new girl the microphone. "Here, the words come up on the screen, choose which song you wanna sing and it starts a few seconds later." He then withdrew and Cary took the microphone with a slightly shaky hand. Colm didn't notice he was too busy checking out her tits and bum.

He picked Close to you as he couldn't remember singing it earlier that day."Why do birds suddenly appear..." After a rather shaky start he got into his groove and once again the voice of Karen Carpenter seemed to be resurrected and all the women stood there with mouths agape and Colm sat there still looking at the mystery girl's tits.

By the second song, Goodbye to love Tara and Macey were filming the performance on their phones and Colm was finally recognising who the mystery girl was and blushing as bright as the red light on the karaoke machine. We've only just begun, was the last of Cary's impromptu concert and one of the more technically difficult songs to sing successfully. They all clapped enthusiastically. He'd got over his self-consciousness and the clothes and makeup no longer felt as strange, whether he'd be able to do this outside somewhere was another matter, but he felt more confident now than he had before. However, in the full light of day he might reconsider, he only hoped he'd be able to do something with his hair when he went back to school.