Jarod had put up his hair into pigtails; he sat at the desk in his bedroom wearing a crisp new nightie of a thin peach material. The nightie had a square bodice and short puffy sleeves, exposing his thin white arms.

He had finished his bath, complete with bubbles; he then applied lotion to his upper body and arms and legs to keep his skin smooth and silky to the touch. In the last few weeks, since his mother had loosened up on her rules and permitted him to sleep as Jane, he had loved this time each night. Every few nights, he would steal the diary from its hiding place in the Clue Game box, and write an entry.

This night he had pulled out his favorite Barbie Doll, the prom queen, and found a new gown for her. It was a teal blue with a dark green trim, and he took time to tie the doll’s hair in pigtails, even though he knew it was not appropriate with a prom dress. He just liked pigtails.

He smiled at himself from the mirror over his dresser, flicking his hair ever so daintily, even giggling to himself for a moment. He cherished the feeling that he was so fragile and weak.

He pulled the diary from its hiding spot, and brought it to his desk. The pink book was locked with a clasp, its gold tarnished with age. He held it in his hands for a moment, caressing its faux leather cover, feeling very much like a little girl of many years past. He had put the key into a small jewelry box he kept on his dresser along with some clasp earrings, a locket, barrettes, hair pins and other trinkets a teen girl would have. With mock ceremony, he removed the key and unlocked the diary, placing it on top of an opened comic book on the desk. Jarod had mastered the trick of hiding the diary in case his mother should suddenly pop into the room.

He began writing, using his tiny, precise script, to write into the diary:

August 28, 2005 — An entry by Jane Pinkerton

Jane

When Jarod began using the diary, he usually wrote down his thoughts as a boy; soon, he began writing an occasional entry in his role as Jane. During the summer, he wrote only as “Jane,” and this fictional girl became more and more real as he wrote.

Jarod put the pen down, and spent several moments re-reading the entry; it spurred his thoughts of Marquise, sweet, loving thoughts of being a tender, charming girl in the arms of a lover. He wondered as he went to sleep that night whether he would ever feel that joy for real.

*****
“No you can’t wear pigtails today,” his mother insisted as Jarod dressed for the trip to see Dr. Eugene Martin, the psychiatrist they had seen when Jarod was in sixth grade.

“Oh I know that, mom, I was just playing with my hair,” he said.

“Well hurry up, Jarod. We can’t be late.”

His mother had popped her head into his bedroom as he was posing before the mirror, still in his nightie. Jarod spent many moments before the mirror each day, posing often as a fashion model would, sometimes fixing his hair, putting on makeup and picturing himself as a pretty girl.

That day, of course, he had to get ready for their 9 a.m. appointment with Dr. Martin; he recognized it would be an important moment in his life, signifying that his mother now was perhaps ready to open her mind to accept the truth that Jarod was indeed a girl.

He had confessed to his friend Wanda the previous night that he had liked Dr. Martin when they had meet three years before. “He listened to me, Wanda, seeming to want to hear anything I said,” Jarod said as the two young people sat at a picnic table at the drive-in custard stand.

“Oh Jarod, it sounds like he understands you, the real you,” Wanda said.

The evening was warm, even though late August nights in Wisconsin can sometimes be chilly, and Wanda was dressed in yellow short shorts and a light blue tank top, exposing her tanned, muscular arms and legs. Her light brown hair was clipped short, and modeled in a boyish cut.

Jarod wore denim shorts and a tee shirt, his hair flowing freely down to his shoulders. Both young people were the same height, about 5’7” and at a casual glance the two looked like teen girls chattering at the picnic table. The fact that Jarod was often addressed as “miss” tickled the both of them.

Friends now for more than three years, the two had grown to even more closely relate to each other than ever. They told each other secrets they shared with no one else, Jarod about his continuing desire to be a girl and Wanda about her growing awareness that she was likely lesbian, wondering if that was why she was unable to find satisfaction in the approaches of her acknowledged “boy friend,” Troy Huggins.

In their private moments, they called each other “sister,” and Wanda always called him “Jane.” Their embraces and kisses were sisterly in nature.

Jarod, however, had grown jealous about Wanda’s growing interest in sports and athletics, since it meant their time together was growing more and more limited. Wanda was always off participating in some activity, plus with her job, they rarely saw each other.

It had been a largely lonely summer for Jarod as he approached entry into 9th grade, but the coming visit to Dr. Martin seemed to brighten his outlook.

“Oh Jane, I hope the doctor can help you,” Wanda said quietly as they sat devouring their sundaes amid milling teens and families with toddlers lining up for the summers’ night treat at the custard stand.

“He’s so nice, Wanda, and I know he’ll do his best to convince mommy that I’m a girl, I do, really, I do.”

“I do too, but it won’t be easy for you,” she said, taking his slender hands into hers, calloused from all the softball she had played that summer.

*****
It was obvious Jarod was the doctor’s first appointment that morning. He and his mother had to dart through a raging late August rainstorm from the car to reach the doctor’s office in a new medical building located in a campus that had been carved out of an old industrial complex. The formerly grey brick buildings had been tuckpointed and sandblasted, and grassy strips with trees and colorful plantings took the place where once rusted industrial equipment and materials were located.

Despite sharing a large umbrella, Jarod and his mother, Nancy Pinkerton, still got wet from the driving rain. They arrived at the doctor’s office to see a receptionist, a middle-aged woman, stylishly dressed in a brown suit and crá¨me-colored blouse shaking her own umbrella to release rain water.

“Hello, you must be Jarod Pinkerton and his mother?” she greeted them as she moved to her receptionist desk.

“Yes, we are,” his mother answered, as she was trying to decide where to place her umbrella.

“Here, let me take that for you,” the woman said. ‘I’ll leave it open in this empty conference room. Mine and Dr. Martin’s are already there.”

She introduced herself as Grace, and said she was the doctor’s assistant. “The doctor will be just a few minutes. Won’t you have a seat? I’m making coffee in case you want any.”

Both Jarod and his mother declined. They watched as Grace settled herself at her desk, booted up her computer and pulled some papers out of the desk, arranging them neatly and precisely on the desk. Jarod watched the woman as she worked speedily, but with precision, in setting up her workstation for the morning. He admired how the woman worked, picturing himself some time in the future to be a similarly efficient office secretary. Jarod, too, loved the feel of the office, with its efficient, yet fashionable environment.

The reception area was airy and pleasant, with unusually high ceilings, topped off by the skylights. The doctor’s office was on the top floor of this former factory building, and pipes and vent runs were exposed, brightly painted. The office was a distinct difference from the doctor’s former space in a dowdy, dingy downtown office building.

Jarod was aroused from his musings by a door opening and hearing the voice of Dr. Martin who had entered from his office.

“Jarod, I’m happy to see you again.”

Jarod arose from his seat to greet the doctor who seemed not to have changed a bit in the last three years. He blushed a bit, and nodded affirmatively.

“I hope you won’t mind if I talk to your mother for a moment,” the doctor said. “Grace will keep you company for a bit.”

“No, that’s fine, Dr. Martin,” Jarod said, his voice timid and low.

His mother patted him on his arm as she arose to accompany Dr. Martin into the office.

“Eager to get back to school next week?” Grace said to Jarod, in an obvious effort to begin a conversation. Her voice was low, but distinct and easy to hear. There was a bit of huskiness, but she spoke in a slow, almost musical manner.

“I guess. It’s my first year in high school,” he said, recognizing in his own voice the girlish pronunciations that had begun to fill his speech patterns.

“It’s kind of scary to think about it, isn’t it, Jarod?” the woman asked, as she pulled up a file on the computer.

“A little, but I think it’ll be OK,” he said, more confidently than he felt.

“I was scared, I remember,” the secretary said. “But I liked school. It was so long ago for me. Too long.”

The woman gave out with a giggle, putting her hand to her lips in a dismissively shy manner.

“Oh, you’re not old,” Jarod replied quickly, suddenly wishing he hadn’t said that. He was too young to say that to an adult. His mother had scolded him for venturing into adult conversations.

Grace put him at ease quickly, saying: “Well, honey, thank you for the nice compliment.”

“Is being a secretary difficult work?” he asked.

“Sometimes it is, dear, but it’s interesting, too, particularly when you get to meet people like here.”

“OK.”

“Were you thinking of being a secretary?” Grace asked.

“I don’t know, I just liked the feel of office work and you look so pretty doing it,” Jarod said, again blushing.

“Well, thank you again dear. You’re sweet to notice. But really you might want to do something beyond that, too. I’m in training to be a psychiatric assistant which is more interesting.”

Grace described her training at the community college, and admitted to knowing of his mother who taught at the school.

“I never had her for a class,” Grace said, “But I heard she’d a tough teacher, but very cool, too.”

“You’re going back to school?” Jarod said, his question acknowledging that he noticed Grace’s middle age and inferring a disbelief that she was in school at such a late time in life.

“Yes, honey, I guess I’m getting a new start.”

“That’s cool,” Jarod said, hoping that Grace was not offended by his intemperate remark.

“So darling,” Grace continued. “My advice, concentrate on your education now, so you don’t have to go back to school as an old woman as I had to do.”

She smiled as she said that. Jarod had a strange feeling that Grace was looking directly into Jarod’s mind, that she knew something about how Jarod was feeling and thinking. “You’re hardly old, ma’am,” he said, “And you wear such a stylish outfit, too.”

“How sweet of you to notice, Jarod. Not many boys do notice such things.”

Jarod wanted to tell Grace about how much he noticed women’s clothing, that he loved to sew and to even design dresses and skirts and blouses. He felt, however, that he should not offer that information to this woman who was, after all, a stranger. He merely nodded, then put his legs together and rested his hands, folded together, on his lap, sitting erect. It was, he knew, the way proper girls sit, but he seemed powerless to change his position. Grace smiled at him, and then returned to her computer.

Their silence was brief, ending as Jarod’s mother returned to the waiting room and informed Jarod that the doctor was ready for him. He walked in alone, leaving his mother in the company of Grace.

*****
Dr. Martin’s office had the same sparse environment Jarod recalled from his earlier session. Plain, with a few landscape paintings on the wall, the room contained a matching love seat and easy chair, designed in the slim contours that connoted a European touch. The seats looked that they might be uncomfortable, but when Jarod was directed to the love seat he found it’s firm fit to be most relaxing. He sat down, first sitting erect, legs together and hands placed primly on his lap. Then, realizing that he was, by habit, sitting in a girlish manner, he tried crossing his legs, but that, too, he knew was also effeminate.

Dr. Martin took the easy chair, just a bit to Jarod’s left. He wore dark trousers and a white shirt and tie with short sleeves that exposed his muscular arms. He was tanned, and Jarod suspected he spent time outdoors.

Jarod always felt humiliation among muscular men and boys, his own frail body being a shameful reminder of his lack of manliness. For some reason, however, this man, whose own demeanor seemed to be open and friendly, put Jarod at ease.

“Tell me what you’re thinking right now, Jarod,” the doctor began. “Whatever it is, even if it seems goofy to you.”

Jarod paused, not sure what to say, but Dr. Martin persisted: “Tell me, Jarod, now!”

“Well, this may sound strange, but I was wondering how you got such a nice tan,” he said, immediately sorry he mentioned it.

“Well, Jarod, I play lots of tennis and when I can I go to the beach and swim in Lake Michigan. And, I’m lucky that I don’t get sunburned.”

Jarod smiled, knowing his own fair complexion caused him to stay protected against the sun, always using sun block when he sunbathed.

“I’m sorry doctor. Was I rude to ask that? But that’s what I was thinking at the moment.”

“No, Jarod, I want you to be honest with me. Always be honest. Nothing you tell me goes any further. My code of ethics makes this all confidential.”

He focused his dark eyes on Jarod: “I noticed you were uneasy when you sat down. Why was that, Jarod?”

This time Jarod was reluctant to answer, but the doctor’s eyes seemed to demand an answer: “Well, I was afraid I was sitting too much like a girl. I was trying to be more like a boy.”

“What feels more natural to you, Jarod?”

Nervously, Jarod flicked some hair from his face, realizing suddenly that movement also was effeminate. “I don’t know, doctor.”

Jarod immediately unlocked his crossed legs, and attempted to sit back, almost in a slouch that was typical of teen boys, but immediately returned to the prim posture, with his two feet placed firmly on the ground, his knees together and his hands in his lap.

The doctor remained silent during this maneuver, and the silence bothered Jarod, who realized that he needed to say something.

“I guess . . . ah doctor . . . that I sit like a girl more often. I guess.”

The doctor nodded, offering Jarod a comforting smile. “Sit anyway you like, Jarod. I’m not taking pictures. I want you to be comfortable.”

Jarod spent nearly 30 minutes alone with the doctor. He told just about all of his feelings, though he did not mention his hugging and cuddling experiences with Terri, the fat boy with whom he had cross dressed when they were both 11. Nor, did he mention the desires he continued to feel for the boy; he had never forgotten that experience, and many nights he yearned to again hug the soft flesh of the other boy.

When Jarod’s interview was over, Dr. Martin spoke privately with his mother for about 10 minutes and Jarod returned to the reception room.

Grace was busy at her computer, nodding at Jarod as he returned. He instinctively picked up a copy of Vogue magazine that was sitting on the coffee table, amid issues of Sports Illustrated, Time and Travel. Soon, he was engrossed in the glossy front pages of the magazine, examining the fashion advertisements, amazed at some of the exotic dresses on the models.

He had propped the magazine upon his crossed knees, daintily turning the pages and occasionally flicking his loose hair. He was musing that some of the fashions seemed terribly impractical when his thoughts were interrupted by Grace’s voice: “Some pretty strange dresses their, right?”

Jarod looked up, saw the smiling face of the receptionist, and nodded in agreement. He felt he had been caught red-handed, preferring a fashion magazine to a sports magazine.

“I like more plain outfits myself, Jarod.”

“Me too,” he said quickly adding: “But they should be stylish, like yours ma’am.”

“Thank you, Jarod, I see you have a good eye for such things.”

“Yes, I guess I do,” he said.

The conversation ended as his mother returned to the waiting room. They made another appointment for late September, about a month in the future.

*****“Mom, what did the doctor say?” he asked after they got home.

“He wants to see you again before he makes any further recommendations, Jarod. He thinks you’re a very nice young man. He was impressed with how observant you are and feels you have a nice future,” she said.

“But mom, what about Jane?” he persisted.

“Jarod honey, mother has to get to the college now. We’ll talk about it later.”

“OK mother,” he said, recognizing that she had to leave.

“And, Jarod, you may dress like Jane the rest of the day, if you want, but you can’t go out of the house, OK?”

“Oh mommy, can I?”

“Yes, I said you could, and you can work on Amy’s dress if you like, but you can’t leave the house as Jane. You understand?”

“Oh yes, mommy, I won’t. I love you.” He was now giddy and hugged his mother excitedly.

“Amy’s home,” his mother said, “If you need anything. And, she can help you put your hair in pigtails, too.”

Chapter 22: A Girl’s Dream

Once the school year began, the late afternoon hours became girl-time for Jarod and Amy, the young mother in the adjoining unit. He hurried home from school, sometimes even running in order to preserve their precious two hours together before Amy’s two children got home from school.

Jarod quickly changed into his Jane persona, completely changing from undies to outer dress, sometimes into a simple one piece dress or a skirt and blouse, sometimes into mini-denim shorts and tank top and sometimes into a lovely formal dress. It was all clothes that Amy herself had worn ten years earlier as a teen when he own body was slender. Jarod’s problem was that he was now two inches taller than Amy, who no longer could wear the clothes, having put on a few pounds with childbirth and her stay-at-home status.

“You always look so much better in my clothes than I did, Jane,” Amy said one day in early September. They were at the sewing machine where Jarod was lengthening one of the dresses to accommodate his greater height.

“Not true Amy,” Jarod replied. “I’ve seen pictures of you in high school. You were so pretty.”

“Maybe, and you make them look even better,” Amy smiled. “And I love to watch you work. You’re so patient and precise, Jane. So dainty, too.”

Jarod looked at his hands, slender and smooth, as they worked on the cloth. They were indeed, lovely, he thought to himself. He was wearing a layered white blouse, with short sleeves, over dark blue Capri pants. He loved the blouse, with its scoop bodice.

“I enjoy these times with you, Amy,” Jarod said, his voice low, soft with a lilt.

“I know we’re like girl friends. And, I’m so happy your mother has let you be Jane now.”

Jarod nodded, pleased that he could be dressed while at home, and for occasional trips to an adjoining city dressed as Jane, and joined by the two girls who knew of his desire to be female, Wanda and Latoya. The two girls even joined Jarod at his home for a pajama party one night, with popcorn and soda and pizza while they viewed a movie from the “Traveling Pants” series.

“Dr. Martin has told me that I should let you dress at home anyway you please, to see how serious you are about changing genders,” his mother told him on the evening after their visit to the psychiatrist.

“For the time being, you’ll still be a boy at school and outside of this house, honey,” she said as they sat at the kitchen table. “You’re too young to make any decisions about this, and we’ll see how you adjust to being a girl.”

“Oh mother,” Jarod said. “You know how I feel. I am a girl.”

“Be patient, honey, it’ll work out in the long run.”

*****
Despite his certainty that he should live as a girl, Jarod also recognized that to begin going to school as a girl would be difficult, that he would be harassed even more than he was now and that there would be confusion among other students. He would see Dr. Martin once a month as a comfort to his feelings and to help him adjust.

His freshman year at Franklin D. Roosevelt High School began on a horrifying note; this once proud school which had even a U.S. Supreme Court justice among its illustrious alumni had gone the way of so many inner city schools. Boys hung around in gangs as Jarod approached the school on his first day, most wearing baggy pants falling down about their hips and the cynical, angry looks so many boys seem to take on. The girls had their own collections of toughs, many looking gothic in style.

Jarod realized immediately as he walked toward the school (he lived about a mile away a distance that was close enough to walk) that he would be immediately seen as weird; he realized his fears that he would be seen as a “fag” or “queer” would become reality. Jarod was dressed neatly in black slacks and a light green dress shirt; he had tied his longish hair into a pony tail at the back, like many boys did. He had dressed carefully that morning, hoping to show as boy-like a demeanor as he could to avoid attention.

As he mounted the eight steps at the front entrance of the high school, between two pillars that held up a towering canopy, Jarod heard giggles from a covey of boys along the steps. To be sure, he heard the words “fag” and “queer” emanate from the group. He knew from experience to keep looking ahead and enter the building as if he heard nothing.

“Oh there you are,” he heard the welcoming voice of Latoya as he entered the building.

She was waiting for him just inside the door, wearing jeans and a tee shirt, her already burgeoning breasts testing the strength of the cloth.

“Latoya, were you waiting for me?”

“Yes, ‘cause I see we go to same homeroom. Isn’t that cool?”

“Yes, I feel so alone in this school. It’s so big.”

The two stood in line together, awaiting their walk through metal detectors which had become typical of big-city high schools. Jarod realized that he had dressed far too neatly for the styles typical of teen boys his age. Would he fit in wearing baggy jeans and too large tee-shirts?

“You still walk like a girl, Jarod,” Latoya whispered to him as they headed to their homeroom.

“I’m trying not to.”

“Well, be careful, there’s a gang of thugs in this school you gotta watch out for.”

“I know, ‘toya,” he responded. “I’ll be so careful.”

“And you remember the promise of Marquise?” she reminded him. “He’ll be around if you need him. We’re to meet him and my boy friend for lunch. You can join us.”

“Cool.”

“Marquise even asked about you,” she said, a slight glint in her eye. “Wondering if you’re going to be in Roosevelt.”

“Why would he care?” Jarod asked.

“I don’t know,” his friend said, her eyes taking on a mischievous look. “Maybe he thinks you’re cute.”

Jarod slowed his walk with that remark, forcing Latoya, to slow down, too, and urge him on, “Come on, we don’t wanna be late on the first day of school.”

Marquise’s apparent interest in Jarod was both pleasing and troubling at the same time. Was Marquise gay? Or, had Latoya told either her boy friend or Marquise about Jarod’s feminine side? Were they going to harass him, perhaps even hurt him?

The warning bell rang, and the two new freshmen hurried to their homeroom, giving Jarod no time to ask Latoya about her two friends’ ideas about himself.

Latoya’s boy friend, Demetrius, and his friend from the park encounter, Marquise, were both to be juniors that year, two grades ahead of Latoya and Jarod. Why indeed would two African-American boys care about a white, shy, inconsequential boy? It puzzled Jarod immensely.

*****
The first day of school went without incident. Jarod was in an intense state of confusion, trying to navigate the long corridors, their strange cut-offs and alcoves, tucked in among the rows and rows of lockers. Between classes, the hallways and stairways were masses of students, jostling each other, in the din of constant chatter and occasional high laughter and squeals. Jarod soon realized in this mass of self-centered teen humanity, he was hardly noticed and began to realize that he could literally become anonymous, become a cipher in the school of 1,345 students. (In his curiosity, he had gone to the Internet to find the school population. It was the eighth largest school in the state.)

Outside of having Latoya in his homeroom, Jarod saw none of his classmates from middle school during the morning hours. Nor did he see Wanda, but that would be understandable since Wanda was a sophomore and would likely not be in any of his freshmen sessions. But, he wondered, where was his other friend, Terrence, the boy with whom he had joined in crossdressing under the direction of his sister?

Though they hadn’t seen each other since June and the end of school, Jarod thought often about Terrence. He had tried calling the boy several times, but it seemed he was never home. He never returned Jarod’s calls.

With Terrence (whom he called “Terri,”), Jarod felt so totally a girl. The two of them, Terri being fat and soft and Jarod being slender and girly, made lovely subteen girls several times when they were 11 and 12 years old. They giggled together and prissied themselves up under the guidance of Terri’s older sister, until Terri’s stepfather put an end to it.

In 8th Grade, Terri had been ordered to play football and to lose weigh by his stepfather; and he indeed did lose weight and tone his body up a bit, but he confessed to Jarod that he never forgot their girly moments, and secretly wished he could again dress.

There was sadness in Terri’s face as he confessed this to Jarod on the last day of school in June; they found a deserted place and hugged and kissed each other. It was both a sad and delicious moment.

“I’ll think of you always, Terri,” Jarod had whispered.

“Me, too, Jane,” the other boy said. “But my stepdad would kill me if he saw us now.”

Tears began to stream down Terri’s chubby face, and Jarod felt a sudden sense of fear enter his heart as he pondered Terri’s future.

Now, where was Terri? The question bothered Jarod on that first day of school. He should be here, Jarod felt. Yet, he was not to be seen on that first day.

*****
Marquise slid slightly to his right making room for Jarod to sit at the lunchroom bench. “Here’s a spot,” the boy said to Jarod, who hesitated for a moment, looking puzzled. The table included Latoya and her boy friend, Demetrius, and another girl, a slender, lovely girl with sparkling black eyes and with braided hair tight against her skull.

“Join us, Jarod,” Latoya said, smiling.

He slid his leg over the bench, slightly jostling Marquise as he did so, and grabbing the boy’s shoulder to balance himself. Marquise grabbed Jarod’s arm to assist him, the boy’s large calloused hand wrapping itself fully around Jarod’s slender wrist. Marquise looked up into Jarod’s eyes, smiling.

The other girl was also a freshman and was introduced as Aneisha, Marquise’s cousin. She was 15, but was tiny, almost looking like a gradeschooler.

Aneisha was shy, and looked down at her food most of that first lunch hour, mumbling only a “yes” every so often, and whispering into Marquise’s ear. Latoya was giggling mainly with Demetrius, not paying much attention to anything else going on at the table. For his part, Marquise talked almost constantly to Jarod, wondering about what classes he was taking, and telling him about the literary magazine he was editing in the high school.

That information momentarily floored Jarod, remembering the angry young boy who had pinned him down at the park during that summer incident. Now, this athletic and muscular boy was talking about poetry and literature; it puzzled Jarod, but he welcomed the idea.

“I like to write,” Jarod said.

“You do? What?”

“Well, I keep a diary and write lots of poetry in it,” Jarod said, blushing.

Jarod suddenly felt embarrassed, realizing he had never told anyone, except Wanda, that he kept a diary. And, to admit that to another boy! What boy keeps a diary and writes poetry? And to write in a little girl’s pink diary, with its lock and all?

“That’s OK,” Marquise said.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jarod said quickly. “Just something I started for fun.”

He felt Marquise’s hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, reassuringly. He whispered then: “Jarod, nothing wrong for a boy to write poetry. I do, too.”

He suggested to Jarod that he bring in some poetry to share with him some day. “But not your diary, that’s yours to keep secret. And only poems you want to share.”

He felt welcomed at the table, and he soon forgot that he was the only white student among the group. In the days that followed during his first semester, he usually joined Marquise and his friends at the lunch table, most often chattering away eagerly with Marquise, sometimes about television shows or stuff on the internet. He soon found himself, apparently by happenstance, to be seated next to Aneisha, whose shyness seemed to melt away when Jarod began talking with her.

“That’s a pretty dress,” he volunteered one day to Aneisha. He had been impressed how well the tiny girl was dressed each day, usually in styles that drew attention to her African heritage, but were restrained in colors and gimmicks.

The girl looked up, her dark eyes beaming through her granny glasses, and nodded eagerly. “Thank you, Jarod,” the words came out in her tiny voice.

The deep blue cotton dress had heavily pleated off-the-shoulder "sleeves" with light white designs marching vertically up the dress to the white collar. It was knee-length.

“You dress so nice,” he continued. “I like to see a girl all dressed up.”

“You do, Jarod?” she looked up, for perhaps the first time, directly into his eyes. “I sometimes wish I could dress like the other kids.”

“Oh no, Aneisha, I really do like how you dress and all of your clothes have been so pretty on you, Aneisha. Is your mother a fashion designer or something?”

Marquise, who had been listening to the conversation, interjected: “Aneisha’s mom is very strict, Jarod. She requires her to dress as a lady all the time, no jeans or shorts or anything.”

The girl nodded in agreement to Marquise’s statement, quickly adding:

“My mom makes most of my clothes. She loves to sew and she does the choir robes for church, too.” Her words rushed out of her mouth.

“Oh that’s cool,” Jarod replied, wanting to add that he sewed, too, but fearing to admit to his joy in designing and making women’s clothes would mark him forever a sissy in his new high school.

From across the table, Latoya said, “And Jarod, her mom won’t let her date boys until she’s 18, right Aneisha?”

Aneisha dropped her head, refusing to acknowledge the statement, and Jarod looked at her, feeling sorry for the shy girl, who hated getting such attention.

“Now Latoya, don’t get on Aneisha,” Demetrius said quickly. “You know how strict her mom is.”

Marquise echoed his friend’s warning, adding that Aneisha was a very pretty girl and soon would get plenty of boys wanting to be with her. “Her mom isn’t that strict, she’s just worried and hopes that Aneisha doesn’t get in with a bad crowd,” he told Jarod in a low tone. “I’m sure she’ll let Aneisha date the proper boy.”

Soon the group bored of discussing Aneisha’s clothes and the table talk was restored to its usual chaotic cacophony. Jarod, feeling sorry for his seatmate, tried hard to resume conversation with the girl, but her answers were mere grunts of assent. The girl felt humiliated by the conversation, it was obvious, and nothing Jarod could do would restore the brightness that he had seen earlier in Aneisha’s eyes.

Jarod felt a kinship with this mere slip of a girl, a shyness and a gentleness that he felt was a common bond between the two of them. The types of clothes she wore because they were based on the girl’s ethnic background also intrigued him. He also found his own stereotypes of the African-American community blown away by his friendship with this group. Marquise and Demetrius often wore the same baggy jeans and sideways placed baseball caps which seemed to mark them as typical ghetto youth; yet, they seemed to be caring and intelligent teen boys.

*****
Sept. 10, 2005 — Jane Pinkerton’s diary

I’m beginning to think I’ll like high school.

Jarod looked at the entry, done again in his precise, tiny girlish handwriting, pleased with it. He then paged back through the diary, trying to locate a poem to show Marquise. Nothing quite fit his needs, he felt, since all of his poems were written from a girl’s point of view. He had signed all of them as “Jane Pinkerton.”

He realized he’d have to create a whole new poem. What could he write? The thought bothered him, making it difficult for him to sleep. That night, realizing he had to write a poem from a boy’s perspective, he dug deep into his drawer to find the Green Bay Packer pajamas his mother had forced him to wear until recently, eschewing his lovely pink nightie for another night.

That weekend he finally wrote the poem:

Dream Girl

Dark-rimmed glasses framed her face
Shiny dark eyes pronounced her grace;
Tiny and shy and rarely did she speak,
The boy was enthralled, his attention to peak.
She was no beauty, nor luscious to see;
Yet, he found her a portrait that had to be
Etched in his mind all day and all night
A view he could not erase despite all his might.
He looked at her slender neck smooth and trim
Her hair framing it enthralled and excited him;
What was it that was this girl’s lure?
Her pigtails made her his love, for sure.

He knew the rhythm was bad, and some of the rhyming was weird and contrived; yet, he liked the poem because it expressed his honest love of pigtails, and, he knew, he own belief that he indeed was the “girl” in the poem.

*****
Jarod’s poem may not have been the best of poetry, but Marquise said it proved that Jarod had an interest in writing and in literature. He asked Jarod to work on the literary magazine with him. The truth was that Marquise could find no other boy who showed the slightest interest in the literary magazine. And, he had been able to recruit only two girls to join the staff, both sophomores of limited imagination, he thought.

Marquise had to withstand considerable teases and nasty comments when his friends learned he was editor of the literary magazine.

“That’s for sissies,” one of them taunted.

“And fags,” said another.

Demetrius even joined in the taunts at one point, until Latoya jabbed him in the arm with her fist at lunch one day, proclaiming: “What’s wrong with a boy who likes to read and write?”

Marquise had a ready answer to anyone questioning his manhood because of editing the literary magazine; he was one of the best wrestlers on the school’s team, and his quick moves and strength were hard for any bully to match. Soon, the taunts faded away.

“Thank you, Marquise, for inviting me to be on Odyssey,” Jarod said as they headed for their first after-school magazine planning meeting with the faculty adviser, Ms. Audrey Krebs.

“Jarod, I’m glad you accepted. You’ll be a big help and Latoya told me you were really good in English, and I have problems with grammar,” he said as they approached the room.

Ms. Krebs was a tall, square woman with a large body, almost shapeless in a one-piece dress. To Jarod, she was “old,” and in truth she had been at the school 29 years and if she had any “love” in her life it must have been through literature. She appeared singularly unattractive, and was the constant butt of behind-the-scene snickers, mainly speculation by boys that she “needed a good man” to make her human.

She brooked no nonsense in her classes, and was known as a tough grader. Yet, she was known to win over the attention and admiration of several students each year, and this year she won the attention of Marquise. She seemed to find several “nuggets” who showed potential interest in literature and would nurture them to build good resumes for college.

She greeted Jarod and Marquise with a perfunctory “sit here at the conference table” demand. They sat, without ceremony, joining two bespectacled girls who were already there. Their names were Melanie, a tall, soft fleshy girl with unruly blonde hair, and Jennifer, a slender, dark-complexioned girl with pimples dotting her face. They were both sophomores, and appeared to be good friends.

“I’m so happy to have two boys with us this year,” Ms. Krebs said once introductions were made. “Welcome Jarod, and I hope you like writing and literature and reading.”

“Oh yes, I do, ma’am,” he said in a low tone. He flicked his hair, in a nervous gesture at that moment, realizing he must have unknowingly used his girlish mannerism, and hoping no one noticed.

“Well good,” she said. “Marquise is the first boy to join the committee since I started the literary magazine four years ago.”

She nodded in his direction, and he smiled.

“I hope it wasn’t too bad on you, Marquise, being teased about this being only for girls,” she continued.

“No, it wasn’t,” he said.

Melanie, the blonde girl, interjected: “I know if they gave Marquise any crap, he’d take care of them.”

They all laughed, since Marquise was certainly no one to be trifled with, being on the wrestling squad and the star shortstop on the baseball team.

Miss Krebs, however, cut her laughter short, looking sternly at Melanie and warning: “We don’t use words like ‘crap’ in literature, Melanie. Words like that are crude, and don’t convey any real meaning.”

“Yes, Miss Krebs,” the girl answered, dropping her head at the rather curt comment from the teacher.

“But, ma’am,” Jarod said quickly, before thinking too clearly. “Kids talk like that all the time. Why not write the way they talk?”

“Master Jarod, I thought you were a smart boy, a literate boy, but I see you want to stay in the streets,” she said, with sarcasm.

Jarod blushed.

“No, my young writers,” the teacher continued, showing a kindness that belied her fierce demeanor, “You may use words like ‘crap’ and ‘stuff’ and ‘pretty’ when they’re the words of your characters in a story, but never, never use them in your day-to-day talk and other writing.”

The four students nodded in agreement.

“Good,” Miss Krebs said. “I can see you all will display your dignity and value through the use of precise and descriptive language. Now let’s think about what we’ll put in the December issue.”

Jarod knew the school bullies might not treat him so kindly though, with his effeminate mannerisms and slight body, and he wasn’t too sure he could live up to Miss Krebs’ rule to use only precise language and no slang. Through the use of slang (and some four-letter words) he felt he could become more masculine and sound less like a sissy. He was a bit worried about this literary magazine project, but he was eager to join with Marquise and, besides, he truly loved to write and read.

The magazine was published twice a year, in December and again in April, and the group would meet once a week on Wednesdays during lunch hour; if need be they’d schedule extra meetings to handle copy.

*****
Jarod’s other school activity was the cross country team, which he joined at the behest of Latoya, who also decided to run.

At first he told Latoya “no.” He was so afraid he’d make a fool of himself since he never was much of a runner; in soccer, other players, including the girls, often outran him.

“Oh it’s not speed in cross country, Jarod,” Latoya said. “It’s endurance and with all the bike-riding you do, I think you’ll do fine. Come on, don’t be such a sissy.”

In fact, cross country was the perfect sport for Jarod; there were no typical jocks on the squad, since most of the boys were slender and fairly short. The boys and girls teams practiced together most nights under the encouraging eye of the male math teacher, Mr. Cummings, and the female physical ed teacher, Miss Stroud.

“We’re here to do three things,” Mr. Cummings said, in assembling the group before they started their first practice. “Practice hard. Respect others and don’t criticize, and last but not least, have fun.”

As they broke up to join the boys and girls groups, Jarod headed with the boys, only to be stopped by Miss Stroud, who grabbed his arm, turning him back, saying, “The girls are over here, honey.”

He realized that with his hair in a ponytail now, and wearing a light blue tank top on the warm fall day, he must have indeed looked like a girl. It was becoming an almost daily occurrence, being mistaken for a girl.

“I belong with the boys,” he said, quickly, blushing.

Miss Stroud, a severe looking woman with close-cropped dark hair with prominent streaks of grey, looked at Jarod closely, and merely nodded, turning away, shaking her head.

In practice, the boys and girls teams often ran the beginning of races together, before the girls turned off to complete the shorter routes. Often at the beginning of the practice races, Jarod ran with Latoya as a partner, until it was her time to head off in a different direction. The boys on the team largely ignored Jarod, which was not an unusual situation for freshmen runners. Jarod found himself in early practice sessions running alone, usually following the pack of boys who continued yards and yards ahead.

“Just keep moving along, young man,” said his coach, running alongside Jarod for a while. “You’re doing fine. Don’t worry about them up ahead. Just keep running. You’ll do it.”

And the coach was right. He was unusually understanding for an athletic coach, seeming to support a boy as long as he was trying and doing the best he could.

“You finished,” the coach said later, patting him on the back as he stood panting, having ended the first practice run in last place, maybe 30 yards behind the previous runner.

“Oh coach,” Jarod tried to talk, but his breathing was so heavy he couldn’t finish his sentence, in which he was going to tell the coach he wouldn’t return to practice, since he was so lousy a runner.

“No, young man,” the coach said, most likely sensing what the boy had on his mind. “I don’t want to hear it. You’re on our team. You’ll be back for practice tomorrow and our next practice run on Friday.”

Despite the coach’s encouragement, Jarod felt sadly out of place among the other boys. None of them paid any attention to him, and he felt alienated from their chatter, which so often involved making fun of one of the girls.

When the two teams reconnected after the race, Jarod found himself in the midst of several girls, brought together by the summoning of Latoya, now glistening with sweat from her practice run. He felt totally at home among the girls as they sat cross-legged on the ground while Coaches Cummings and Stroud discussed the coming training schedule.

*****
With her athletic teams and part-time job, Wanda was rarely around home during this school year, and since she was a year ahead of Jarod, the two saw each other only a few times a week, and then Wanda was usually in the midst of her own gaggle of girls, most of whom were athletic.

Whenever she was free, Wanda sought out Jarod, either coming over to the house, or telephoning him to see what he was doing. When she called, it was usually the same greeting: “Hey, Jane, what you doing, girl?”

He instantly was elated by such calls, and easily reverted to speaking in his soft, feminine voice. It had become a rule now that the two acted as if they were girl friends, and would get together for a few hours, doing what teen girls do when they were together: fixing each other’s hair, putting on nail polish, giggling over teen magazines or some silly television program.

Wanda had become, even as a sophomore, the star on both the girls’ basketball and baseball teams. Her arms and legs had become toned in sinewy muscles; yet, she retained her blonde feminine beauty, perhaps due to the soft blue of her eyes and the ready smile on her face.

“What am I to do about Troy?” she asked one Friday night as they sat watching television at Wanda’s house, with Wanda doing twists to fit Jarod’s hair into pigtails. “He always wants to be around.”

“Troy thinks he’s your boy friend and wants to be with you,” Jarod said.

He was in his “Jane” mode for the weekend, and was spending the night in a two-girl “PJ” party with Wanda. Both of their mothers were out for the night, joining Amy in a “girls-night” outing to a local bar that catered to singles. Jarod and Wanda were both wearing flannel pajamas, pink, girly ones and had gorged themselves on hot fudge pecan sundaes. The two had convinced Wanda’s mother that they were friends (well, “girl friends’) and that they could enjoy an evening together without fear of any sexual liaison.

“He’s like a little puppy dog following after me,” Wanda continued her complaining.

“He’s a sweet boy friend, Wanda, and he’s so . . . ah . . . what shall I say. He’s such a hunk.”

“I know, and he’s nice to be with, but, oh, I don’t know. He just doesn’t excite me.”

Wanda finished tying the Jarod’s hair into pigtails, saying: “Now, look at that. Don’t you look cute?”

Jarod sprang up, running to the bathroom mirror to view his teen girl visage, with the pigtails tied in a new way. The light brown hair was tied into two bunches, high on the head, with the two pigtails dipping downward, wrapped in light blue ribbons.

“Oooooooh, I love that Wanda,” he said, returned to the couch, and hopping upon it, landing on his knees and kissing and hugging his girl friend, who responded enthusiastically.

Soon they were wrestling together on the floor, giggling, teasing each other and intermittently kissing. Wanda easily pinned Jarod to the floor finally, laying flat atop him and kissing him firmly.

The close physical contact, the smell of Wanda’s hot breath and the warmth of her muscular body excited Jarod. He felt his penis grow hard and his desire to keep kissing Wanda intensified and soon he felt himself held tightly in the strong arms of the older girl. He wanted Wanda to continue to dominate him, to direct him in what to do and to be her very own plaything.

Jarod had felt such passion before only once: his time with Terrence, his chubby crossdressing friend two years earlier. This time, it was different and more real to him.

Wanda breathing grew more intense and she was panting heavily.

“I love you so, Jane,” she said breathlessly.

“I want to be your girl friend, too,” he replied as the two clutched each other, his penis becoming painful now. They rocked together, almost in rhythm.

“Oh noooooooooo,” Wanda squealed, and she released Jarod from her arms, sitting up.

“What?” Jarod said, disappointed to be freed from her grasp.

“I wet myself.”

“You did? I almost did too,” he giggled.

“What was that we were doing?” she said, after she returned from the bathroom, having changed her panties and PJs, choosing now a light blue, satin nightie. She wore a terry cloth robe and fluffy slippers, and she shuffled back to the couch, sitting next to Jarod, taking her hands in his.

“I don’t know, Wanda, but I liked it. I liked how you held me and kissed me and told me you loved me.”

“Oh Jane, I did too,” she smiled, running a free hand around his neck, lightly touching it.

Jarod was confused. She called him “Jane,” and treated him as her “girl friend,” which he liked. Did she like him now as her boy friend? He wondered.

“Did you ever kiss Troy like that?” he asked.

Wanda merely nodded negatively. She took on a reflective mood, and silence grew between the two. They both sat, Jarod moving more tightly against Wanda, nestling his slender body tightly against the terry cloth robe, smelling the fresh soap the girl had used to clean herself.

“I love you, Jane,” Wanda said softly.

“You love Jane?” he asked, puzzled.

“Yes, silly. You’re Jane, my girl friend, and you’ll always be my best girl friend.”
Jarod smiled. He felt so happy that he would be her girl friend. He wasn’t sure how to be a “boy friend,” he felt. He felt inadequate to assume the role of a boy and ask a girl out for a date. What girl would even want him, he wondered?

“Jane, I’ve never seen you as a boy, you know that, right?”

“Yes, Wanda, and you’re my best friend.”

Wanda paused for a minute, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, saying, “I guess I’m different. I seem to only like girls.”

“I guess,” he agreed.

Jarod knew that he, too, was different.