“Dammit,” I said again to the girl in the mirror.

I woke up alone in the big bed, still naked under the covers. The air had some of that mid-October nip; there must have been a window open somewhere. I called out, “Megan?” but no one answered.

My voice sounded thin and high. I got out of bed and pulled on just the PJ bottoms I found on the floor. A door led to a bathroom, and I did my business.

I established that I still had a tampon inside me, and from what the other girls told me, it was time to change it. The cabinet above the sink had a box of the things, so I took care of that, discarding the bloody one in the little trashcan and pulling the PJ bottoms back up.

I paused to look at the girl in the mirror, her face still puffy from sleep and the bruised eye beginning to turn colors. The little makeover last night seemed to have involved thinning my eyebrows and cutting my hair in bangs.

“Dammit,” I muttered. Would I end up having to get a GI haircut to look like Pete again? Worry about it later. I washed my face in warm water, then cold, the way Megan taught me, and I patted my cheeks dry.

But had something else happened to me? Something physical? I felt my breasts. Did they seem a bit larger, softer? Maybe.

I didn’t feel like Pete. I felt like a girl named Gayle. A girl who had a date this evening with a boy named Lee.

“Dammit,” I said again to the girl in the mirror.

*

I put on the pajama top and went looking for my other clothes. How could I be Pete in a girly set of PJs? And where was Megan?

I heard someone downstairs and made my way there. Outside, one of the fast-moving storms we get in the fall sent rain against the windows, and the house rattled to a thunder that seemed almost too close.

I found Joanna in the kitchen sipping hot tea from a huge mug. I glared at her on general principles, but she smiled back.

“You just missed Megan; her brother came to pick her up,” she informed me.

“Why didn’t… She didn’t…,” I stammered, stunned. I looked toward the door, but it was already too late. “I…. I wanted to say goodbye,” I managed weakly.

Joanna nodded. “She said you guys said goodbye last night.”

I pulled a chair out and slumped into it, putting my elbows on the table to hold my head up.

Joanna looked at me with a critical eye. “That’s a helluva shiner.”

I didn’t even nod.

“You want some tea?” she asked.

I meant to say no, but nothing came out, and she started preparing the tea. “It’s English Breakfast,” she said. “Twice the caffeine and an assload of spices.”

She messed my hair as she bustled around, heating water and getting out another big mug.

“Don’t,” I warned her. “You guys cut my hair in bangs!” I complained.

“Not really,” she explained. “Part it in the middle and comb forward, voila, bangs. But part it on the side and comb back, and you’ll still look like Pete.”

“Ppff!” I said doubtfully.

“I’ll show you later,” she promised. “We did do a little pruning on those hedges you call eyebrows.”

Now I wanted a mirror again to see the damage, but I didn’t move.

She put the mug down in front of me, along with a pastry that smelled like it had just come out of the oven.

“Where are my clothes?” I mumbled around a mouthful of hot apple filling.

“Eat,” she chastised me. “No one’s expecting you to be anywhere for hours. Have some tea.”

The tea and pastry did go down well, I hadn’t had anything to eat since the last bite of ice cream the night before. We sat and sipped tea together like we were friends or something.

At one point, Joanna pushed a bottle of Midol toward me. I knew what that was for but ignored it. The mild cramping I had responded well to the hot tea.

“Why aren’t you always this nice?” I asked, but she just laughed.

“What are you planning to wear when you go out with Lee,” she asked.

I shrugged. “Clothes?”

She rolled her eyes. “Have you no idea at all?”

I made a face at her, but that caused my eye to hurt from the bruise. “It’s just Lee,” I said. “It’s not really a date.”

“Wake up, Petey-Gayle!” she admonished. “This is the rest of your life beginning.”

I frowned at her a bit gingerly. I used a finger to pick up sugar flakes on the plate and licked them off. The sweetness tasted like a memory.

“Ooo, sexy,” she cooed. “Smile like that at Lee, and he’ll definitely ask you out again.”

“Oh, knock it off.” I tried to scowl at her, but I was still smiling.

“No,” she said. “You’re here, you’ve nowhere else to be, and I have closets full of clothes — some of which would look cute as hell on you.”

“I’m not ready for that,” I protested.

She nodded. “But here’s your chance to get in a little practice. We’ve got hours for you to try on things, and more lessons on how to cover up that shiner.”

She continued. “We’ve got your costume for Halloween sorted, but you realize Homecoming is only a month away. What are you going to wear then?”

“A football uniform?” I meant to be defiant, but it sounded…pouty…

“You can’t hide forever Petey-Gayle,” she warned me. “Jake is a shoo-in for Homecoming King, and I’ll probably be Queen. But there’s room on the podium for Princess Gayle.”

I rubbed my forehead. Why did I have an image of Lee in a tux in my mind? Maybe I should have taken that Midol.

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