New school year, new school!

To be honest it was quite daunting to come to the huge High School from our smallish Middle School. Fortunately there were two of us. Me and my fraternal twin sister. Why do people talk about “fraternal twin” when it’s about a girl? Anyway, there we were. Cary and Katherine against the world. Well, not really. Even if the big school scared us, which we’d NEVER admit to anyone else, we didn’t really have anything to fear. We usually found it easy to find new friends or at least gET along with people. We had very good grades without being pegged as nerds since we were good at sports as well. Both Sis and I had selected courses geared towards science and technology with future engineering degrees in mind.

As expected, there was a huge crowd milling around. Sis and I got lost at first and then we ran into an Audrey Hepburn look-alike. She really owned the style. Short hairstyle, black turtleneck, slim black trousers, and ballet flats. Body language was similar as well as far as I could see. Sis could hardly keep herself from laughing. As it happens, I’m a great fan of Audrey Hepburn. As it turned out “Audrey” both was heading to the same homeroom as Sis and I AND she’d been smart enough to print out a map before coming. We happily followed her lead. In my case very happily as I walked behind her and Sis.

Homeroom with old Mrs Baldwin, a physics teacher, brought a number of surprises. The people in there had all chosen Science courses like Sis and I. Sadly gender stereotyping reared its ugly head and it turned out that Sis was the ONLY girl in our homeroom. What about “Audrey”? you might wonder. That was the second surprise Audrey was a BOY. That was something he was quite firm about. Then there was another matter that he had somewhat different ideas than most people when it comes to what a boy IS. The third surprise was his name: Audrey Hepburn. No kidding!

Later when we had learnt to know each other better Audrey told us that his parents had intended to name him Aubrey after a maternal granduncle. Granduncle Aubrey was rather wealthy and had no children. Add to that that he thoroughly despised everyone in the family. Sad that parents can be so mercenary. Somehow there had been an error in the birth certificate and it stated Audrey instead of Aubrey. No one noticed that until Audrey started in pre-school. Audrey’s parents started to have that changed but changed their mind when Granduncle Aubrey heard about it and thought it was hilarious. Oh, by the way Audrey’s parents had no interest in cinema at all so THEY didn’t make the connection. As it turned out Audrey and Aubrey found that they liked each other so in a very strange way Audrey’s parents’ scheme worked out. The only thing was that Audrey had convinced Aubrey to take better care of himself and thus the Granduncle was to live a long and healthy life.

In primary school Audrey had become aware of that “other” Audrey Hepburn. It was so obvious since he was sort of waif-like himself apart from the same black hair, thick eyebrows, slim body, and gamine looks. Audrey was smart and young as he was he realized that he’d have two choices. Either he’d fight it for the rest of his life or he’d own it. He owned. Oh boy did he own it!

Not that he let Audrey (1) decide everything he did but as we’d seen Audrey (2) emulated the way she dressed among other things. I don’t know if the body language was deliberate of just a secondary effect.

Since Audrey was the closest thing to a girl in most of our classes Sis gravitated to him, and so did I. We soon became close friends. Even our extra-curricular interest coincided. Audrey tried out for the Baseball C Team. So did Sis. Both got accepted. The powers that be tried to shunt Sis off to the softball team. The didn’t know my sister. She tends to be “somewhat” assertive when it come to get what she wants. “Me” is one of her favorite words. She also heard Audrey say that he was curious about cheerleading but had decided not to try out since there were only girls’ only teams. Sis and Audrey tried out and got accepted in that C team as well. Sis can be maddeningly self-righteous and bossy at times. This didn’t mean that Audrey wore a skirt for meets. The school had changed the cheerleading uniforms some years before. I have to admit that he was really cute in those tight short shorts and the short tight top that left his belly bare.

The cheerleading coach was quite satisfied with their performance but resented the extra work having another choreography and set-up for the baseball games.

I thought about convincing Audrey to try out for football, like I did. I thought about for about 1 minute before realizing how ridiculous it was. Oh, I did get into the football C team as a wide receiver.

One thing Audrey and I did have in common was ballet. We both were quite advanced dancers and in the same class. Since Audrey was a boy he wore a boy’s outfit in ballet classes. For him a boy’s outfit meant white tights OVER his deep mauve string leotard. Actually white tights offers the teacher a better view of how the muscles work so I changed away from my black and white outfit, i.e. black tights and white t-shirt, to a white and black instead.

When Audrey later started pointe classes he didn’t wear pink pointe shoes. What boy would? At first he wore black Bloch pointe shoes (he needed a very wide shoe) but later he shifted to bright red. Very few people, including Bloch resellers, know that Bloch pointe shoes can be ordered in black, red and white as well.

That first semester and later whenever he had a new teacher, he liked to confuse the teachers and often came to school in a skirt or a dress. Always looking absolutely fabulous. Many were the teachers that thought Audrey was girl only to realize, much later, their mistake. It went so far that faculty used to have a pool as to how long it would take a new teacher or substitute to find out the sex (and gender, Audrey would insist) of Audrey. Strictly no cheating by whispering the answer of course.

I was a bit envious of Sis since the baseball teams, C eventually became B and then A, often had activities together. To make things worse the cheerleaders frequently had sleepovers. According to what Sis told me the other cheerleaders very much appreciated Audrey’s makeup tutorials. Well, men wear makeup too, don’t they? Not that our ballet class didn’t do things together. Not very often though and at first it was only those taking pointe. Later I was awarded “honorary” pointe status. That was after had I tried it for a while. My ancles weren’t really built for it, though.

Audrey, Sis and I spent a lot of time together outside those activities as well. We studied together. We went to the movies together. We went to our respective games together. In parallel with Audrey’s and Sis baseball careers I advanced in the football teams as a wide receiver.

We even spent parts of our summer vacations together as well. The first summer our parents had rented a house by a lake. We were lucky with the weather and had a great time. Audrey shocked our neighbors the first time he went to the lake in his trunks. “Girls” aren’t supposed to do that. I’m convinced Audrey had set them up deliberately. The only problem with that summer was that I had to acknowledge to myself, and ONLY to myself, that my feelings towards Audrey weren’t strictly those of a friend.

Sophomore year was somewhat of a strain for me.

The next summer our parents sent us away on language courses. Sis took Spanish so she went to Costa Rica. Audrey and I went to the same course in France. As we got of the aircraft Audrey told me that he had no intention to fight the natural assumption of him being a girl. And since I was in love with him we could be boyfriend and girlfriend for the summer. Much less complicated than trying to swat away unwanted interest from various boys. Ok, I had apparently been less successful than I thought when it came to hiding my feelings for Audrey.

At the course Audrey was a sensation. “Her” looks, the way “she” dressed and she even danced ballet. We took classes there as well and she got no end of compliments. Ok, so our teacher thought that I was very good as well. I, and to appearances Audrey as well, had a great time in France. The language, the food, the ambience, the dating, the warm evenings with the romantic light … Pas mal, pas mal du tout!

We kept dating when we got back to school. To my surprise that caused only a minor stir, apart from few catty remarks from one of the girls in ballet class who fancied me. One of my friends told me it was just sooo obvious that we would get together. Yep, I hadn’t really fooled anyone. I think Junior year was the best year of my entire high school experience. Everything went my way in every way academically, athletically (I was bumped to the A team) and romantically. Cary and Audrey was THE couple in school.

The summer after Junior year was even better than the one before. Audrey and I went to another course in France. Once more Audrey didn’t bother about the “boy” part. Once more we had a great time.

Senior year Audrey definitely came over as being more on the feminine side. However, as Audrey said, wearing skirts and dresses and dating a boy doesn’t really make someone a girl, does it? Despite everything something was beginning to slip. Audrey never had committed herself, er, himself to me exclusively and he started to date someone else as well; the star of the baseball team. After Christmas he dated the baseball captain more than me. I started to get desperate. Finally I took the ultimate step and asked Audrey to marry me.

Audrey still had that newlywed glow at our prom. His prom dress was to die for. It was a no-brainer that Audrey would be elected prom princess. The committee had decided to retire the “Queen” title. To crown Audrey prom “Queen” would have been tacky. The corresponding prom “Prince” was a very reluctant prince indeed. Being the Prom Princess’ partner was not really a good enough reason etc etc.

Personally I thought Katherine looked extremely handsome in her tux. She had sulked for the entire week just because she wouldn’t get to wear a beautiful gown like her husband but Audrey had been adamant. Yeah, Sis had beaten me to proposing to Audrey, by one hour. Not that that would have changed anything. I think.

I was happy for them. Truly I was. Sad of course but happy for them. I was at the prom stag. As for my intended partner … well, you already known. I tried to make the best of it. I danced. I mingled. I was over the top outrageous with the girls, though always making sure that they understood it was just good fun. I was outrageous with Mrs Baldwin, my 70-year old physics teacher that nobody would believe was a day under 50 as long as she had her mouth shut. As soon as she started talking people would start guessing at 30.

If anyone could appreciate my banter and give it back with interest (usurious at that) she was the one. After a few minutes she asked me to dance. I accepted. To my delight I found out that she was without doubt the best dancer (except me) of all the people at the prom. When I prodded her about it she admitted something she had kept very secret form everyone in school until then. Oh, this was her last year as a teacher so she wasn’t really risking anything. When she was in her early 20s she had been a professional ballet dancer. Not a prominent one but, anyway, a professional dancer with one of the more well-known companies. Too bad she hadn’t really been good enough for a career in ballet.

Just for fun I did a pirouette. She kicked off her shoes and did a double pirouette and a tour en l’air. Of course I had to kick off my shoes and do a triple pirouette and a double tour en l’air. From there we go into an improvised pas de deux. At first we only did things that didn’t require any floor-space. No grand jetés or piqué turns across the room. Soon though, people started to give us more room and then stopped dancing to watch us. Now we could do glissade, glissade, assamblé and sissonnes and things like that. Good thing we both had warmed up a bit by dancing actively before. Still, it was rather stupid of us. Anyway, I could see that Mrs Baldwin was getting tired so I told her we should round if off. The “old lady” then surprised me by whispering “32 fouettés and then a fish dive”. Damned stupid of her! A fish dive takes both really good coordination of both dancers and complete trust but I couldn’t stop her, she had already started her fouettés.

She did it! I did my part as well. Mrs Baldwin must have known that I was a really good ballet dancer. A REALLY good one, much better than Audrey.

Mrs Baldwin and I retired to the punch table to refresh ourselves and rest. The normal dancing recommenced. My sister Katherine and her husband Audrey Hepburn made their way to us.

“Cary, Mrs Baldwin that was really amazing”

Mrs Baldwin curtsied gracefully and I took a bow.

Then the indefatigable Mrs Baldwin asked me.

“Mr Grant, would you like to ask me to dance this waltz?”

Teachers! You gotta love them! At least some of them.

To this day I don’t know if Mrs Baldwin had planned it or not. It doesn’t matter. She had firmly yanked me out of my funk. What she did for me I will always treasure. The last thing she taught me in high school, the last thing she taught anyone as a high school teacher, was that life is fun! Live it to the fullest! So what if you hit a bump every now and again? Just put the foot on the accelerator and off you go again.

That was my best senior prom, ever!