That's when they all start noticing that something's not right..
Author's Note: I am hoping that you are enjoying my stories so far. If you find yourself liking
this one, please consider leaving me a review? Honest, I love reading them!~Clara.
This version of An Anomoly: 1 has been updated with many corrections towards spelling and grammar.~Sephrena.
Image Credit: Image created through the use of ai at https://perchance.org/beautiful-people .~Sephrena.
Chapter 1
"Look, Stevie, I don't want to be the bad guy, but you have to get everything you want moved out of here by the weekend or the bank is going to take it all and throw you out anyway." Katie stood looking at her younger brother, her arms folded, looking as mature and rational as ever and that alone irritated Stevie. Some people seemed to just have a natural ability to get their lives together and keep them that way. Katie did. Stevie didn't.
When he didn't respond, Katie continued. "I know that Grandma said she was leaving this place to us when she died, but that guy from the bank made it clear that she'd signed that reverse mortgage agreement and we're not getting a penny. All we can do is pack everything up, keep what we want and sell the rest."
Stevie shook his head, very upset. "This just isn't right. I don't know how that form got signed, but it's dated three years ago and Grandma wasn't in her right mind three years ago. We should fight this."
"How?" She shook her head. She spoke to her younger brother as if she was explaining something to one of her her children. "Stevie... Grandma signed the papers. The bank made payments to her for the past two and a half years. Yeah, they've only paid about fifteen thousand dollars for a three hundred thousand dollar house, but they did it legally, honey, and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't afford a lawyer to fight them. We spoke to the lawyer that helped Derrick and me buy our house, but he recommended we talk to that big firm downtown and we can't even afford a consultation with them. You're right, it's unfair, but the banks help to write the laws and everything is skewed in their favor. There is absolutely nothing... NOTHING, Stevie... that we can do to stop them from taking this house. They've already won, honey. Let's start packing things up, ok?"
Stevie sat forward and let his head fall into his hands in order to hide his tears from his sister. "Oh... what am I going to do, Katie? I don't have a job, I have nowhere to live... God, I only have a GED, for crying out loud! I've spent the last two and a half years in this house taking care of grandma. I can't believe she's gone - I mean, I knew she was sick and wasn't going to live forever, but I thought that after she'd gone I'd have a little time to get my life in order. That the house would be ours. Even if I couldn't stay here for long, that we could sell it and I could go to college, but... I'm so screwed, now."
Katie finally sat next to her brother on the couch and rubbed his back. "Come on, Stevie. I know it's a big blow, but you'll get through it. You're not alone. Derrick and I are here to help you."
"Derrick barely knows my name," Stevie whined.
"That's not true," Katie laughed. "You're just not into sports and that's pretty much all that Derrick knows, so he doesn't know how to relate to you. Besides it was his idea to have you come live with us."
She pushed his thick, dark, wavy hair off of his shoulders and rubbed his neck. "Ugh. When are you going to get a hair cut?"
"I like my hair... so did Grandma."
Kate smiled. "Because you look just like mom looked at your age. Heck, she called you Susan more than Stevie for the last year of her life."
He snickered at that. "I think it made her happy. That's what was important."
Kate laughed, too. "Of course, it didn't help that you wear my old clothes or mom's most of the time."
"Just pants and shirts."
"They're slacks and blouses, Stevie, but it doesn't matter. You're right - it made Grandma happy."
He nodded, then his face melted and he began to cry again. "I miss her so much, Katie. I know it's stupid. She was a sick old lady and I knew she was going to die, but I just miss her so much."
"I know, honey, I know." His sister pulled him close. "She was a good woman and you took good care of her. I don't know anyone else who would have given up school and his friends to take care of his grandmother like you did, Stevie, and I know she appreciated it."
"I know, but... here I am, now. Twenty years old, no Grandma, no place to live, no credit history, no job history, no education... like I said... I’m screwed." He sat and thought for a moment. "If I did come and live with you guys, how would that work?"
"Well," Katie tried to sound as upbeat as she could, "you’d have your own room – the big one between the nursery and Olivia’s room – and you’d help out with the girls while I’m at work... and maybe... you know... maybe help with the housework or something like that."
"So, I could be a live in maid and nanny, then?" He smirked as he asked the question, half teasing, but making a point, too.
Katie sighed. "Look, Stevie, I’m just trying to make everything work, ok? I really need to get back to work... Livy loves you to pieces... you’re great with babies, so Alice won’t be that big a deal for you... come on. It’s a win-win, right?"
He shrugged. "I don’t know, Katie, I mean... I need to make some money and, don’t get me wrong, I love your girls and I appreciate you and Derrick giving me a place to stay, but... I really need to make some money. Not just to save for college, and stuff like that... Katie, I haven’t bought new clothes in years. That’s why I’m wearing this sweater... I think it was yours... and these jeans. They definitely were yours."
"Well, you can keep all the clothes you want," Katie laughed. "I was probably fourteen or fifteen when I wore that size. I left for college at seventeen and never came back here to live. I’ve grown up and, unfortunately, out a good deal since then. What size are those jeans, anyway?"
"Four."
She laughed. "Yeah. That might fit my right leg. I wear an eight now, and after having two kids, that’s hard work to maintain." Her brother was so small and slender that it almost made her jealous.
Her remark made Stevie smile a little. "You look great, Katie, but I honestly cannot remember you ever wearing clothes like the ones you left in the closet. They’re all kind of fun clothes that a kid would wear and I’ve always thought of you as so grown up and looking so professional."
"Hey, I used to be fun... once." Kate laughed and elbowed her brother. "Besides, you were only ten when I went to college. Mom was still alive and we’d only moved in with Grandma a couple of years earlier. After the divorce, I probably started getting more serious. Someone had to."
She thought about that time and how her mother kept saying it was ‘a new beginning’ for all of them. Little did her mother know how little time she had left. Their mother had died at forty two. Heck, their grandmother had only made it to seventy eight. Damned cancer. These weren’t great statistics for the women in her family. Katie took cancer very seriously and she was a confirmed health and fitness nut. Cooking healthy and getting to the gym had become increasingly more difficult with the arrival of a second child. She needed help and she knew it.
"Ok, look, Stevie," she said, "I’m going to be very honest with you. Grandma’s passing took a toll on Derrick and my savings. We thought she had life insurance and that the house could be sold and all that stuff, so we covered all of the costs for the funeral and everything. That was almost twenty thousand dollars that we thought was going back into our account – and it isn’t. Except for our income, we’re broke, Stevie."
Stevie looked surprised. "But... that big, beautiful house and the pool..."
"Yeah, all of which we COULD afford before, honey, but this wiped us out. I need to get back to work on Tuesday when my maternity leave ends – not just for the sake of my career, but to start making some real money again. Derrick has been taking extra duties wherever he can – doing traffic details, or construction details, whatever the station has to offer – but he can’t keep that up forever and I don’t want him working while he’s exhausted. That’s a sure fired way for a police officer to make a mistake and get hurt, or worse, hurt someone else."
"Wow," Stevie whispered. "I had no idea, Katie..."
"Yeah, well, listen... I’ve been thinking and to be very honest, I can’t afford to pay you anything for the first two months. Now, I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but it’s the truth. If I had to put the girls into day care, I just couldn’t afford to go back to work right now. So, if you could come and live with us, take care of the girls, do what you can to keep the place clean and maybe make some healthy meals a few nights a week, that would be a HUGE help. Then, after two months we’ll sit down and figure out a fair salary for your services. By then, Derrick and I should be back on firmer financial footing. Until then, you’re still getting paid Room and Board. Now that sounds fair, doesn’t it?"
It sounded very fair, and Stevie was happy to move in with his sister’s family if he could be of some service to them. His biggest reason for not wanting to move in was just because he didn’t want to be a burden to them. If he could help... well, that was a different story.
"Ok,"he finally agreed. "I’ll pack everything up here this week, then."
Katie gave him a big hug. "That’s a very grownup decision, Stevie. I’m proud of you. And I promise, as soon as we’re over this financial speed bump, Derrick and I will help you with college."
"No, Kate, I can do that on my own."
"Don’t be silly. No one can do that on their own. You have no idea how much college costs. Besides, we owe you a lot for taking care of Grandma for so long."
She stood up and looked around the house. "There’s a lot to go through. I’ll come by tomorrow and help you. I’ll have to bring Livy and Alice with me. Livy will be thrilled to help. I’ll set up a playpen for Alice."
"Ok."
"Hey, I know this isn’t easy, but you’ll get past it and, as Katy Perry says, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Right?"
Stevie stood. "That was Kelly Clarkson and I’m pretty sure that she wasn’t the first to say that," he smiled and accepted a hug from his sister.
"Whatever," she giggled as she hugged him, burying his face in her shoulder. "Ohhhhh, I do love you, you know?"
"I know. I love you, too. And I love the girls."
Katie reached for her pocketbook. "And Derrick?"
"I like Derrick just fine. I’m just concerned that Derrick doesn’t like me."
"You’re crazy," she smiled and gave her brother a kiss on the cheek. "I bet that two weeks from today, you two will be best friends. Gotta run. See you tomorrow."
"Yeah," Stevie said as he opened the front door for his big sister.
After she’d exited and was getting into her car, he looked around at the old wallpaper and beautiful woodwork in the century old house he’d called home for over a decade. He thought about how many times he’d gotten on his knees to scrub those beautiful Southern Pine floors clean, how many times he’d washed every one of those windows, how many times he’d dusted the elaborate chandelier that hung over the main entrance, how many times he’d done the same to the less elaborate one that hung over the formal dining room table, and then he sat on the perfectly waxed wooden stairs and cried and cried and cried.
The next morning, Katie arrived a little after nine. Stevie ran out to the driveway to met her and to help with the kids.
When the back door slider opened and he could see his oldest niece, Olivia, in her car seat, Stevie made a big show of being thrilled to see her. "There she is! The prettiest four year old niece I have!"
The child giggled uncontrollably at the show. "Hi, Auntie Stevie," she was barely able to say through her giggles.
Stevie made a shocked face and immediately began tickling the child. "Auntie!? Auntie!? I’ve told you a million times... I’m UNCLE Stevie." He was smiling broadly as he played Olivia’s favorite game.
"If you want to be ‘Uncle Stevie,’" Katie said from the open door on the opposite side of the minivan, "then get a haircut and look like her uncle."
"No," Stevie smiled as he lifted Olivia onto his hip. "Livy likes my hair like this, don’t you, Livy?"
"Yes, I do," the little girl said in a happy voice. "Auntie Stevie’s hair is too pretty to cut."
"See," Stevie laughed as he met his sister at the back of the minivan and took the collapsed playpen in his other hand, "my hair is too pretty to cut."
Katie shook her head. "I went to the movers and got all these boxes, packing tape and some bubble wrap. If we get everything ready, they’ll come and move it all on Saturday morning. Derrick rented a storage unit for all of Grandma’s furniture except for one bedroom set that we’ll put in your bedroom at our house. We’ll wait a few weeks to get past all of this, then we’ll go through everything and figure out what we want to keep and what we want to sell. Ok?"
"Ok."
They got to work downstairs first, packing up all of their grandmother’s nice plates and cups in bubble wrap and placing it all carefully into boxes. Then they made piles of things that they didn’t need to move. Dozens of old paperback novels and some hard covered books that held no value were placed out on the side of the road with a sign reading ‘free.’ They were gone in an hour or so.
The furniture to be moved was all placed in the middle of the downstairs rooms.
The whole time that they worked, little Alice slept comfortably swaddled in her playpen and Olivia worked at Stevie’s side, offering help with each and every item that was handled.
As they were wrapping the everyday plates and flatware in the kitchen, Alice woke and cried for attention.
"Someone’s hungry," Katie laughed.
She retrieved the infant and sat at the table, opening her shirt and lowering the cup of her nursing bra, unabashedly displaying her engorged nipple for her older daughter and brother to see. It was nothing new to either of them, though.
"Why don’t we take a break, too?" Stevie asked his niece, as he took a seat across from his sister.
"Yeah," Olivia agreed, "let’s take a break." She crawled up into her uncle’s lap.
As the baby latched on to her nipple, Katie sighed. "I’m actually going to miss this. Some women hate breast feeding, but I love it. It’s sooooo much nicer than pumping. I just feel like a cow on a dairy farm when I’m hooked up to that machine."
"Well, I can help with a lot," Stevie joked, "but I’m afraid I can’t make breast milk. You’ll either have to pump or move her onto formula."
‘I’ll pump," Katie smiled. "It’s too early to stop the breast milk. She’s only ten weeks old. I’ll leave a supply in the little refrigerator in the pantry. I had a nice system going with Livy when she was little. It’s easier to use that refrigerator. It keeps the bottles in order so you always use fresh milk. It’s my own stock rotation system."
"Cool," Stevie nodded.
A few minutes passed when out of the blue, Olivia asked, "How come?"
"How come, what, baby?" Her mother asked.
"How come Auntie Stevie can’t make breast milk for Alice?"
Stevie smiled broadly and opened his eyes widely as he looked at his sister. His look said, ‘Do you want to handle this, or should I?’
"Well, honey," Katie explained, "because only mommies make milk for babies. That’s why it’s called ‘mother’s milk.’ Do you understand?"
"Yeah..." they could tell that the wheels were still turning in that little head, though, "but you said that when I grew up, I could make milk for babies, too, right?"
"That’s right, honey," Katie smiled. "When you’re a mommy, your breasts will make milk for your baby, too."
"So I can take care of her, right?"
"That’s right, honey. So you can be a good mommy and take care of your baby."
Olivia looked at her mother and then at Stevie, and then looked back at her mother and the baby at her breast. "But Auntie Stevie is going to take care of me and Alice, right?"
"I am," he said, giving her a hug.
"Then... if Auntie Stevie is going to take care of Alice, why can’t Auntie Stevie make milk to feed Alice."
"Yeah, mommy," Stevie laughed. "Why?"
Katie was thrilled that Olivia was asking such insightful questions, but a little ticked at her brother’s glib attitude. "Because, Livy, despite the fact that Auntie Stevie looks like a pretty teenaged girl, Auntie Stevie is really a twenty year old man – and you know that. You know that Auntie Stevie is really your Uncle Stevie and that you just started calling him ‘auntie’ because you heard your great grandma call him ‘Susan.’ Remember."
The little girl nodded, then turned to look at Stevie. "You don’t look like a man."
"I don’t?" Stevie sounded shocked, but he wasn’t, neither was he in any way offended. Even before he’d let his hair grow long, people had always assumed he was a girl. He was smaller than all of the boys he grew up with, most of the girls, too. He was used to it.
"No. Daddy and his friends look like men. They’re all big and have real short hair and their faces have prickly hair. You’re smaller than mommy and your face is soft." She rubbed his cheek. "Besides, you’re pretty. Men aren’t pretty."
"I guess some men are," Stevie smiled, just a little sadly. He knew he’d never be handsome, but he’d been called ‘pretty’ most of his life. "I’m a man and people say I’m pretty, so I guess some men ARE pretty."
The little girl shook her head. "No. You’re a girl." She turned away from Stevie. As far as she was concerned, the matter had been settled.
Once Alice’s meal was complete, her diaper was changed and she was back to napping, they finished packing away the kitchen.
Katie pulled out a box of large trash bags she’d brought with her and she checked the time. "Alright, we have about an hour and a half before we have to go home. Tomorrow, we’ll tackle the attic and all the bedrooms."
"Sounds good," Stevie agreed.
"So, to end the day, let’s of into Grandma’s walk-in closet and start going through all the stuff in there. I figure most of it can go into these bags to go to charity, but let’s check the sizes. There might actually be some things in there you can wear."
He blinked at her. "In Grandma’s walk-in? It’s mostly thirty year old dresses, I should think."
"Who knows. Maybe there’ll be some slacks. Just check the sizes to be sure. Any size four tops just put aside and we’ll go through them at home."
They were about to head upstairs, but Katie stopped and grabbed something from the diaper bag she carried. There were two pieces of colored fabric, one yellow and one blue – men’s western style handkerchiefs, actually. She took the blue one, shook it out, then folded it once and tied it onto the back of her head, making a head covering for herself.
Then she looked at Olivia. "Come here, Livy. That closet is probably dusty. Let’s put one on you, too, so that we keep the dust out of your pretty hair."
"Ok." The child bounced to her mother and let her fasten the fabric in place.
"There. Don’t you look beautiful?" Katie praised the girl when her head was covered with the yellow fabric.
"Do I?"
"You sure do," Stevie said. "Like a princess." Why was it little girls loved to be called princesses, Stevie wondered. He’d never once heard someone tell a little boy he looked like a prince.
"Let’s go," Katie said, and attempted to guide her daughter towards the stairs, but Olivia stopped.
"Wait! What about Auntie Stevie’s hair. It’ll get dusty without a hat on."
"I’ll grab a baseball cap," Stevie tried to say, but his sister kind of enjoyed putting him on the spot.
"No, no, Livy is right. You can’t put all that pretty, wavy hair into a baseball cap. Come here. I have another hanky." Her smile was much more playful than Stevie had seen in a long time, and he didn’t love it.
Regardless, he walked over to meet his fate.
"Sit on the arm of the chair," Kate instructed. He did so and he felt his sister tie the material under his hair, behind his head. "There. Now your pretty hair is protected, just like ours," Kate smirked, then kissed his forehead. "That makes you look really young," she snickered. "Wearing my old concert tee shirt and jeans, that flat chest, your pretty face and all of that hair in that hanky, you look like a middle schooler or high school freshman, Stevie. I’m not kidding."
"Your hanky is pretty, Auntie Stevie," Olivia gushed. "It has flowers on it."
Not knowing which oddly feminine compliment to react to first, Stevie stood and looked at himself in the mirror that used to hang on the wall over the fireplace, but now sat on the sofa waiting for the movers.
Katie was right. He looked like a kid. A cute kid. A female kid. Maybe a bit of a tomboy, but a female kid. At five five, no one ever assumed he was twenty, but... this was very different. He looked like a girl defying the onset of puberty.
"Shit," he whispered.
"Hey," Kate scolded, "language. Remember what Grandma always said, ‘Little pitchers have big ears.’"
"Sorry, but..." he looked at his reflection some more. The handkerchief that his sister had put in his hair was undoubtedly more feminine than either of the other two. He doubted that she’d planned that. After all, she couldn’t have foreseen her daughter’s request to have him wear one, could she? No. The handkerchief was a very pale pink, nearly white, but was covered with little bouquets of flowers, each tied off with a frilly pink bow.
"Come on, Snow White," his sister teased. "The magic mirror will be there when we’re done and you can go back to asking it ‘Whose the fairest of them all,’ then, but right now, let’s go upstairs."
"Yeah," Olivia bounced to him and took his hand. "Let’s go."
The walk-in closet was dusty. It was an area of the house that his grandmother had preferred Stevie to leave alone. So, while the rest of the house had been kept almost obsessively clean by the young man, this closet was neglected and dusty.
After a half an hour of removing clothes, Katie had made three piles in their grandmother’s bedroom. One pile for charity. One pile for the trash. One pile for Stevie – and that pile seemed a little bigger than Stevie would have assumed.
As Kate loaded the trash pile into a trash bag, Stevie looked at the clothes she’d set aside for him.
"Ummm... I don’t know about some of these clothes, Katie," he said, holding up a antique white, silk blouse with lace on the button holes. "I don’t think I’d ever wear something like this."
"Well, not like that," Katie scowled and took the blouse from him, holding it up to his torso, "but if you wore a sweater over it and a neck tie, it’d look like a really nice dress shirt. You could wear it to an interview if you needed to."
Stevie looked dubious.
"I think it’s a pretty shirt," Olivia said.
"Well, there you go," Kate shrugged. "Put all of those things into a trash bag and write ‘keep’ on it with that silver marker I put on the bureau."
"Fine," Stevie agreed, figuring he’d throw everything away when he was unpacking at his sister’s house.
After a long and tiring few hours, they were finally finished for the day.
"Why don’t you come home with us and have some dinner?" Kate offered.
"Nah," Stevie said as he buckled Olivia back into her car seat. "I think I’ll stay here and enjoy the house while I can. I still have my TV in my bedroom, so I’ll order a pizza and eat it in bed.
He kissed his niece’s cheek. "Thank you for all of your help today, Livy. You were a big help."
"You’re welcome," she bubbled, thrilled to have been a helper.
"Bye bye." He closed the slider and walked back around to the other side of the car to say goodbye to Katie.
"We’ll be back in the morning," she said. "Now, don’t go getting all emotional when you’re alone, ok?"
He smiled and accepted a hug. "Don’t worry. I cried myself out last night."
"Ok. Remember I love you. See you in the morning." She hopped into the minivan and backed out of the driveway.
It was four thirty on a warm, early June evening, so Stevie did something he loved doing at this house. He sat in a rocking chair on the front porch and enjoyed his neighborhood for what might be one of the last times. He really would miss this house.
He breathed in the smells of the neighborhood. He listened to the sounds of the neighborhood. He closed his eyes and just felt the familiarity of the neighborhood move around him. He wanted to remember it all.
At five thirty, he called the pizza place around the corner, North Side Pizza, and ordered a small, plain pizza, something he hadn’t had in almost a year. He added a soft drink and a piece of homemade baklava to go with it, not just because he was hungry, but to get the total up to the twenty dollar minimum for a delivery. He knew it was a huge extravagance under his current financial circumstances, but he wanted to taste that pizza one more time before he left. He paid for the pizza over the phone and was told it would arrive within thirty minutes.
Then he closed his eyes, again, and enjoyed the feeling of his home before he fell asleep in the rocking chair.
"Hey," the voice said. "Hey, Miss. Hey." It was far away, but Stevie could hear it.
Someone touched his hand and he woke with a start to find a young man standing over him and looking startled himself.
"Geez, I’m sorry, but I rang the bell and no one came. I didn’t want to wake you but... I have your pizza." The boy seemed flustered by the situation. So was Stevie.
"Oh, the pizza, yeah," he said, shaking out the cobwebs. "I’m sorry. I must have..."
"Fallen asleep, yeah, I noticed," the kid laughed. "Anyway, here’s your pizza... and all the rest of it."
Stevie stood and took the pizza box and plastic bag. "Thanks. I... umm... I paid for it on the phone."
The kid looked surprised. "YOU paid?"
"Yeah, why?" Stevie asked, confused by the question.
"Oh, nothing," he smiled. "I guess I just thought... well... You just look too young to have a credit card. That’s all."
"Oh," now he understood. "Yeah, I get that a lot. I’m older than I look."
"Cool," the boy said and started to leave, but then he stopped. "Hey, you like Dusty Rose?"
Again caught off guard, Stevie muttered. "Dusty Rose? The band? Sure. Why?"
"Your tee shirt," the boy smiled. "My mom has that same shirt with the big rose on it. It’s pretty."
Stevie looked down at the tee chart he’d been wearing all day and realized what the boy was talking about. "Oh... thanks." This was a very odd conversation for Stevie. Usually, delivery guys just dropped off the food and went away. Why didn’t this kid just leave?
"So, do you go to Coolidge?"
Another weird question. This time about where he went to high school. "No... no. I went to St Leo’s, but not anymore."
"Oh, yeah, I saw that you guys had a lot of boxes in there. Moving, Huh?"
Stevie just nodded.
"Yeah..." the kid seemed to be searching for more to say. "Ok, I should go. My name is Tony, by the way." He extended a hand.
Stevie took his hand and shook it. "Stevie."
"Nice to meet you, Stevie. Sorry it’s right as you’re moving. You seem... nice."
Stevie blinked, caught off guard by the compliment. "Oh, well... thanks. You seem nice, too."
"Hey, who knows... maybe we’ll run into each other again." The boy stood on the stairs for a long time with neither of them saying anything. Finally, Tony looked around and gave Stevie a self conscious wave. "Well... Bye."
"Yeah..." Stevie shrugged, still flummoxed by the whole scene. "Bye."
Tony smiled and jogged down the stairs and then the walkway to his delivery car. As he pulled away, he waved once more.
‘That was weird,’ was the thought that passed through Stevie’s head as he headed back into the house. He locked the door and headed up to his room to watch a little TV and eat his meal in bed.
As he passed the mirror on his bureau, he caught a glimpse of himself and stopped. He was still wearing the flowered handkerchief on his head and Katie had been right. The way that it gathered his hair and pulled it away from his face left little doubt that the wearer was female and the effect of it on his face was to make him look several years younger. He put down the pizza and looked at himself more closely.
"He thought I was a girl," he said aloud. "That’s why he was chatting with me like that." He looked more closely. "Katie was right. I look like a kid like this. Huh. That is weird."
Then his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that it was Katie calling. He answered. "Hey."
"Hi, Stevie," she sounded harried. "Look, sweetie, I just realized that I have to take Alice to the doctor’s at nine tomorrow. I should be there by ten thirty or eleven, though, ok?"
"Oh, yeah, sure," he said, knowing how busy the mother of an infant always is. "Everything’s ok with her, though, right?"
"Oh, yeah. Just a check-up. As long as the doctor’s office isn’t busy, I should be there pretty quickly. Gotta run. Love ya."
"Yeah, love you, too," he smiled and ended the call. Then sat down and ate his pizza while watching an old movie on a basic cable network.
The next morning, after showering, Stevie went into Katie’s old room to look for something to wear that day. Something old that could get dirty without worrying about it. He’d rummaged through her clothes dozens of times before, looking for gender neutral things that he could wear and never gave any thought to the other, gender specific, clothes he found there. This morning was a little different, though. That incident with that kid, Tony, had stuck with him. He not only had confused Stevie for a girl, he’d thought that Stevie was kind of attractive. Maybe even... cute.
That was weird... wasn’t it?
These drawers and closets had always just been a clothes reserve for Stevie. Someplace to grab a piece of clothing to wear around the house. Usually something no one would mistake as a piece of women’s clothing, but sometimes, usually on laundry day, that couldn’t be avoided and as long as he changed into something else before going out, the outside world was none the wiser.
But today...
Today, these clothes offered something different.
Today they offered Stevie a glimpse into something new. Something daring. Something he’d never considered before. Something... girly.
It made his heart beat a little faster as he looked at the drawer full of tops and noticed that some of them had lace and other feminine decorations on them.
What would it hurt to try something on? Just this once.
He started with a pair of panties. Nothing fancy, just a pair of white, cotton panties with little circles, each a different color, all over it. Nothing very different from a pair of his own briefs, really.
He slid those up his legs and settled them on his hips. They actually fit pretty well and his rather small member was held snuggly in place, not at all uncomfortably, in the very soft cotton. Much softer than the cotton in his briefs.
Then he pulled out a top that was essentially a V-necked tee shirt with lace all over it and he slipped that on. Again, it was softer than the clothes that he typically wore and it’s touch was a bit exciting because of that softness, but it wasn’t that different than the shirts he’d borrowed from Katie’s old bureau before. Just decorated with lace.
But when he looked in the mirror, he definitely found it exciting. His hair was wet and stringy, but he already looked different just because he was wearing the top.
And that was... exciting, too, but... in a whole new way.
Intrigued, he hurried down the hall to his mother’s old bedroom and into her lavatory where there was a blow dryer. He plugged it in and bent over so his thick, wavy hair hung freely and he let the dryer do its work. Soon, his hair was dry and, once brushed, it was full, neat and full of waves.
He went to the tall mirror that sat on a stand in his mother’s room and looked at himself. His nearly hairless legs led to the cute panties with the differently colored little circles and only a tiny bulge to give away his secret. Then the pretty top with its lacy trimmings and finally his luxurious hair that he loved so much.
It was him, but it wasn’t a very manly him, that was for sure.
And it was exciting to be someone different. It made a nice change from being plain old little, mousy, forgettable Stevie.
He went back to his room and found the handkerchief he’d worn yesterday. The one with the little flowers all over it. He tied that into his hair that same way that Katie had done the previous day and... the results were the same. His hair look classically feminine in that manner and his face looked surprisingly younger with the hair pulled away from it.
This was interesting and... very exciting. He couldn’t stop. He had to find out what he’d look like if he added something else feminine to it.
He returned to Katie’s old room and rummaged around in the closet for a few minutes until he found a blue, pleated skirt with an elastic waist. He pulled that on and then slipped on a pair of inexpensive, blue plastic shoes that were in the bottom of the closet. The flat soled shoes also appeared to be made of lace, but that lace was made of plastic. Olivia had shoes like this and Katie referred to them as ‘Jellies.’ ‘Get your Jellies on, Livy, it’s time to go,’ his sister would say. That must be what these were called, too.
Regardless of what they were called, they looked very pretty and they fit perfectly, so he hustled back to the mirror in his mother’s old room and took in the whole vision of himself dressed, for the first time, in clothing that was undeniably made for a girl.
And he liked what he saw.
"I look cute," he said, shocked. "I actually look cute."
He swayed to feel the skirt twirl around his legs. He jumped a bit to feel the skirt flounce around him in a way that nothing else ever had. He curtsied to himself just to do something, anything, that a guy would never do.
Then he role played with his own reflection. "Do you really think I look pretty?" He asked an imaginary someone, not really thinking about who might have posed that question. "Oh, this old thing? No I didn’t buy it special for tonight. I just found it in a drawer at home. Why, thank you! I think it’s pretty, too. Yes, I have a lot of clothes similar to this, but this is my favorite. It’s very comfortable."
He swanned and paraded in front of the mirror and inspected his face, wondering what makeup could do for his face. He looked at his fingers and wondered if, maybe, if he put a little clear nail polish on his nails, if anyone would notice. Not today, he decided, but another day for sure.
Then he did a little dance he’d learned on Tik Tok, just to watch his skirt sway and wrap around his hips in that very girly way.
Then, once more role playing, he smiled and spoke to his reflection, again, "My name? My name is Stevie – you know like short for Stephanie. Yes, that’s right. I agree, Stevie is cuter, besides I think that Stephanie sounds so stuffy and grownup. No, I’m a nanny. I care for two beautiful little girls. They are a handful, but they are SO ADORABLE! I just love dressing them in frilly little dresses and teaching them how to be perfect little ladies and..."
What was that?
What time was it?
"Stevie?" Katie called from downstairs. "Stevie, I need some help here, please. Are you upstairs?"
Up to that point, Stevie had just stood frozen. She’d caught him! It was the first time he’d ever done anything like this and she’d caught him! What was he going to do?
Then he realized that she was still downstairs. He still had a chance!
"Ummm... yeah! Sorry! I’ll be right there!" He shouted over the railing and bolted back to his room as quickly as he could.
"Well, hurry, please. I need help getting the girls out of the mini van."
He closed his door and pulled the skirt down as quickly as possible, then kicked off the Jelly shoes. He grabbed them both and tucked them into a drawer in his own bureau and then grabbed Katie’s old jeans that he’d worn the previous day and pulled them up as quickly as he could. He grabbed the old Converse sneakers and pulled them on without socks and in seconds was running down the stairs as quickly as he could.
"Hi," he said, as casually as possible as he meandered out the door to the driveway.
"Hi," Katie replied, speaking quietly and without glancing up. "Can you grab Livy? Alice is out like a light and I’m just going to bring her inside in the car seat."
"Sure," Stevie smiled at the sleeping baby and hurried to the other side of the vehicle. "Hi, princess!" He said to his older niece in a hushed voice. "Ready to help?"
"Ready, Auntie Stevie!" Olivia said with excitement, but also keeping her voice down, obviously aware of her infant sister’s need to sleep.
"That’s my big girl," Stevie said as he lifted her onto his hip and followed his sister up the stairs into the house.
As they entered, Olivia said, "Auntie Stevie looks pretty today."
"Does he?" Katie said, without turning for a moment, but when she did, her eyes opened very wide. "Well, well, well, I guess he does, doesn’t he?"
It was at that moment that Stevie realized that he was still wearing the lace covered, V-neck tee shirt. There was a moment of panic, followed by a moment of frozen anxiety, followed by a series of nervous laughs and stuttered words. "Oh... this... shirt, you mean? Oh, that? Oh, I was just... you know... putting things away and I thought this would be fine to wear today for packing, and such. I mean... it’s pretty light weight and it’s kind of warm, so... you know... it’s probably going to get thrown out after today, anyway, so what difference does it make..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, ok," Kate held up a hand to stop his blathering. "I get it. Too bad, though. It’s a pretty top and it fits you really nicely. Although I did have A LITTLE more of a chest when I wore that." She smirked. "I was a late bloomer, too. Just like you, Stevie. One of these days you’re going to shoot up like a weed and get all manly on me."
"Oh, yeah, sure," he laughed. "That happens to guys in their twenties all the time."
"It does," his sister smiled. "You’ll see."
That day, they set up the playpen upstairs, but for the time being, they left Alice in her car seat and placed her in Stevie’s room while they finished off their grandmother’s room. Most of her clothes that weren’t in that special walk-in closet were pretty well worn and out of style, so they were put directly into trash bags to be disposed of. Once her clothes were dealt with, they stripped her bed and dismantled the canopy bed fame, placing it and the box spring and mattress aside. Then emptied the night stands, putting them by the bureau.
"You know," Katie said, "this is the biggest and prettiest bedroom set. You should use this one at our place. It’s a queen sized bed and the bureau is massive. That’ll give you lots of storage. Your little twin bed set will be lost in that big bed room."
It was true that Stevie’s new quarters at Katie and Derrick’s house were larger than his current room. See, the previous owner of their house, which was the kind of structure that most people referred to as a McMansion, had added a very large wing onto the house that included a huge master suite. So the room the Stevie was moving into had originally been designed as the master bedroom. It was quite large and had its own en suite lavatory.
Not a bad place for a kid with nothing to land, really.
"It’s a little ‘old lady-ish’ isn’t it? I mean, the canopy and all."
"Maybe," Katie smiled, "but I guarantee you that you’re going to have a little visitor watching TV with you some evenings and a big bed will be more comfortable than a small one."
Stevie looked at Olivia, who was placing stray pieces of clothing into the trash bags, and smiled. "Good point. Ok, I’ll use this set."
The next two rooms to tackle were their mother’s old room and then Katie’s old room. Either room could have been cleared out years earlier, but that had just never been a priority, so it had never gotten done.
"God, there’s too much to go through," Katie lamented as she pulled open drawer after drawer of clothes. "Just throw everything into trash bags and mark them ‘save.’ We’ll go through them methodically when we unpack everything and figure it all out at home."
As they were cleaning out Katie’s room, she let out a laugh at one point and said, "Look at this," and she threw three packages of something to her brother.
He caught them and said, "What’s this?" He looked at them and read what the packages said. "Fruit of the Loom four pack cotton bikini brief panties?"
"Brand new in the package!" Katie smiled. "Lucky you."
Embarrassed, Stevie sputtered, "Why lucky me?"
Katie turned and looked at him, genuinely baffled by his question. "Because you’re wearing my old bikini briefs right now, aren’t you?"
Of course, he was, but he just looked at her and tried to find a way to deny it.
"Oh, come on, Stevie. Every time you bend over I can see them peeking out of your jeans – well, my old jeans. I don’t care. I’m just saying that – until we can afford to get you some proper boys undies – at least you have some nice, clean, new panties. That’s all. Don’t be embarrassed."
That didn’t seem possible.
They packed everything into bags as quickly as possible and soon were in the attic, passing down furniture items that had been unused for decades and holiday decorations that hadn’t been used in their memory.
"That just leaves your bed room and bathroom," Katie said.
"I’ll do that in the morning," Stevie said with a little sadness. "It’s getting late and Livy is getting tired."
It was already past four and the brother and sister were both exhausted and taking a much deserved break on the porch, Olivia resting on her Auntie Stevie and Alice nursing at her mother’s breast.
"Are you sure you can do it alone?" Katie asked. "The movers will be here at ten thirty. I’ll come and help if you want."
"No, you can organize everything at your house," Stevie smiled. "I’ll take care of everything here."
When the baby had finished her meal and settled back into her car seat/carrier, Kate said her goodbyes and headed home.
When she arrived at her large, brick faced house, Derrick, her police officer/husband was watering some newly planted flowers in the beds along the front walk. He put down the hose and came to help his wife.
"Hey," he smiled and kissed his wife as she closed the driver’s door of the minivan. "How did it go?"
"Pretty good, I guess," she shrugged. "Everything is packed up except Stevie’s room and he say’s he’ll have that all taken care of before the movers get there in the morning."
"Should I go over and help him?"
"No," Kate opened the back slider on the left side of the van. "You just meet the movers at the storage facility and I’ll meet them here. Stevie will oversee things at the house."
Derrick nodded. "Ok. And... he’s ok with all of this? I mean... moving in here to help you out and all?"
"To help US out," Katie corrected, "and yes. He’s sad, of course, and as disappointed as we are about the house going to the bank, but he’s a grownup. He’ll get past it, just like we will."
"Daddy, I wanna get out!" Olivia called from the other side of the mini van.
"Sorry, baby," Derrick said. He hurried to the other side of the vehicle and opened the slider. "There’s my big girl!" He said to the delight of his adoring daughter. "Did you miss your daddy?"
"I did, daddy," she giggled as he undid her restraints.
"Were you a big help for mommy and Auntie Stevie?" He asked as he lifted her from the car and placed her on the ground.
"I was! I helped a lot!" She turned and ran towards the front door.
"That’s a good girl!" Derrick called after her.
"You really need to lay off the ‘Auntie Stevie’ stuff," Katie said, quietly, when Derrick and she were walking side by side. "Livy calls Stevie ‘Auntie’ now because of you. I told him it was because my grandmother called him ‘Susan’ when she was not in her right mind and that Livy just picked up on that, but it really comes from you."
"Oh, come on, Kate. I’m just teasing, and I would never say it to his face."
"Yeah, well, Livy picked up on it and I think she’s actually confused about whether Stevie’s a man or a woman."
Derrick snickered as he picked up the discarded hose. "To tell you the truth, I’m a little confused about that as well, and I don’t think you can blame me for that. I mean, when was the last time he visited a barber shop, Kate? And he wears your old clothes around the house all the time... If he wants to be recognized as a man, he has to start acting like a man."
Kate just shook her head. "There are a lot of different ways to be a man, Derrick, but... just don’t pick on him, ok? Be like... like a big brother to him, ok? Help him get past taking care of my Grandma. Ok? He could use a good male presence in his life."
Derrick smiled and gave his wife a peck on her lips. "That’s me, babe. A good male presence."
Back at the house, Stevie was getting ready for bed, but had to stop and sit on the edge of the bed. He had that pain in his abdomen, again. He had it a few times before over the last year or so and it really hurt when it happened and it always seemed to happen when he’d over exerted himself, like he’d done today. His grandmother had called it ‘a stitch in his side,’ but this wasn’t in his side. It was dead center of his core and it always hurt like hell when it happened. He sat and breathed through it, which seemed to be the only way to get past it when it happened. Nothing else seemed to work. He loosened the button on the jeans he wore and sighed a bit. That helped a little, too.
Finally, the pain passed and he could stand again. He stood, took some steadying breaths and went into the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth and peed, noticing, as he always did when one of those pains over took him, that his urine was darker than usual and had an odd, thick smell to it.
Finished in there, he returned to his bed, turned on his TV, pulled back the bed clothes, sat against the headboard and began to brush his hair – one hundred strokes on each side as his grandmother had insisted when she’d mistaken him for his mother. At first, he’d tried to beg off doing the extra maintenance on his hair at night, but she had been insistent. So, in the end, it was easier to just brush his hair than argue and, truth be told, he liked how it looked when it was well brushed every morning and night.
When he was done, he put in his hair band and went to sleep in his bedroom at his grandmother’s house for the last time. He would miss it.
In the morning, Stevie hustled to get his clothes all packed into garbage bags. He cleaned out his bathroom, grabbing all of his toiletries and hair brushes and he packed all of that into a small, child-sized backpack that he found in Katie’s room the day before. Then he pushed his empty bureau away from the wall to check behind it. He pulled the twin sized mattress and box spring off of his bed frame, then collapsed that down and rested the pieces against the wall.
He took his TV off of the wall and removed the wall mount as well, placing all of the pieces in a plastic bag and tying that bag to the mount. He put the TV and mount into his grandmother’s room so that it would be delivered, along with the bedroom set, to Katie and Derrick’s house.
While he was in there, he looked around for the silver marker to use on the trash bags with his clothes. It wasn’t in that room, so he went into Katie’s room and found it just as he heard the sound of a horn beeping outside, followed immediately by the sound of someone knocking on the front door.
"Shoot!" Stevie muttered, looking at his watch. He didn’t realize how late it was. He bolted down the stairs and opened the door.
"Hi," the burly man at the door said. "I’m looking for..." he consulted his notes, "... Kate or Stevie?"
‘Hi. I’m Stevie. Come on in," Stevie smiled and stepped aside.
"This is the place!" The man yelled to the truck. "Pull it into the driveway!"
Stevie gave the man a quick tour of the house, explaining which things would be going to Kate’s house and which would be going to the storage facility. The man nodded and suggested that Stevie spend some time emptying the refrigerator and taking out the trash, while the movers took care of all the heavy lifting.
"We’ll be loaded up before you know it." He assured Stevie.
Within seconds, the house was overrun with a swarm of equally burly men who set about removing everything that Stevie had always assumed was permanently a part of that house and his everyday life. Stevie took the foreman’s advice and retreated to the kitchen to deal with the things that needed to be thrown away.
"We’re all done," the man said, much sooner than Stevie could have ever expected. "The pieces going to your sister’s house are in that pickup truck to be brought over there. Everything else is in the big truck and is already on the way to your storage unit. We have another pickup truck loaded with your trash. Your house is empty."
Stevie nodded. "Thank you. Could you give me a ride to my sister’s house?"
"Oh, gee, I’m sorry but I can’t do that. Company policy... insurance... things like that. You understand."
"Oh, yeah, sure." Stevie nodded. "Thanks."
The foreman walked out the door and Stevie took one more lonely walk through the house before grabbing the small backpack with his bathroom supplies in it, locking the door for the last time and sitting on the porch steps. He took out his phone and looked at it. He’d never called for a Lyft or an Uber or a taxi before, but it looked like he had to do it now.
He did a Google search to see how to go about doing any of those things and found that he’d have to download an app to hire an Uber, which seemed like the easiest thing to do. So, he went to the App Store on his phone and was in the process of doing just that when he heard someone calling his name. "Hey! Stevie! Hey!"
He looked up and saw a fluorescent green motor scooter pulled up to the curb by his walkway. Unable to see who was calling his name through the driver’s helmet, Stevie waved, uncertainly.
The driver realized his mistake and raised the visor. "Sorry. It’s me. Tony. You know...? Tony? The pizza guy? We met right here... the night before last. Remember?"
"Oh, yeah," Stevie smiled. "Hi."
"Hey, I thought you were moving."
"I am." Stevie indicated the house. "The movers just left. I thought they were going to give me a ride to my sister’s place, but they couldn’t. So I was just looking up how to hire an Uber."
Tony laughed a little, then seemed to have a brilliant idea. "Tell you what. I’ll take you to your sister’s."
"Oh, ummm... that’s nice of you, but..." this was weird, wasn’t it? A boy he didn’t know making this offer? "You don’t even know where she lives."
"That’s ok. I’m not doing anything." He smiled. "Where does she live?"
"Over by Billings Park... near the lake."
"Ohh, fancy," Tony said, sounding impressed. "I can take you."
Stevie thought for a moment. It would be cheaper and faster...
"Come on. I won’t bite," the boy smiled, and his smile seemed really sweet.
What the heck.
"Ok. Thanks." Stevie stood and grabbed his little backpack and hurried down the stairs and up the walkway. "Thanks. This is nice of you."
"No problem," Tony smiled. "Here you go. I have an extra helmet."
Stevie put the helmet on and strapped it under his chin.
Then, Tony got onto the scooter. "Jump on behind me and put your arms around me," he instructed.
Stevie did as he was told, although it seemed kind of odd.
Tony started the motor, then looked over his shoulder and said, "Hold on and make sure that you don’t lose your bag."
"Ok,"
~^~
"Just sign here," the foreman said to Katie in her driveway. They’d made very short work of bringing the bedroom furniture in and setting it all up in Stevie’s new room. Now, they were leaving. Katie was very pleased with their work, but she was concerned that Stevie hadn’t been with them and he hadn’t called. "Sorry we couldn’t drive your sister over," the foreman said, as if reading her mind, "but the company has a ‘no passengers’ policy."
"Brother, you mean," Katie said.
"Oh, yeah?" The burly man said, shaking his head. "Go figure. Well, have a good day, missus." He climbed into the pickup truck and the vehicle immediately began backing out of the driveway.
Just as it headed south down the street, a neon green scooter carrying two people came north up the street and surprised Katie by pulling into her driveway. When the engine stopped and the passenger got off, and pulled off their helmet, Katie was even more surprised to see Stevie’s head and face appear.
"Auntie Stevie!" Olivia shouted, releasing her mother’s hand and running to where Stevie was just starting to thank Tony.
Stevie’s attention, instead, was diverted to his niece. "Hi, Livy!" He said, bending to catch her at full gallop and raising her to rest on his hip. "Livy, this is Tony. Tony gave me a ride. Wasn’t that nice of him?"
"Yes," the little girl said, but then she immediately wriggled free of Stevie’s grasp and got to the ground, grabbing him by the hand. "Come see your room. It looks SO GOOD already!"
"Ok, just a minute..."
"No, now!" She insisted, pulling as hard as she could.
"Alright, alright," Stevie said. Then, as he was being pulled away, he looked at Tony and said, "I’m sorry. Can you wait one minute? I’ll be right back." And he followed Olivia into the house.
Very perplexed by what was happening, Katie walked over to the scooter. "Hi. I’m Stevie’s sister, Kate. And you are...?"
"Oh, I’m Tony," the boy said, with a smile and an extended hand. "You have a beautiful house. Nice neighborhood, too."
"Oh, thank you. Are you a friend of Stevie’s?"
"Ummm..." the boy gave an impish smile. "‘Friend’ may be too strong a word. ‘Acquaintance’ is more like it. I delivered a pizza to your sister’s house the other night and we met."
"Oh... to my SISTER’S house?"
"Yeah," Tony nodded, wondering why Stevie’s sister was being so odd. "I... ummm... I saw her calling for an Uber just now and told her I’d give her a ride."
"Really? All the way from the other side of the city? Huh. That’s awfully nice of you."
"Yeah... I guess." Tony looked down at the ground and saw that Stevie had put his backpack down when taking off his helmet. He picked it up and handed it to Katie. "Oh, umm... here. Stevie dropped her pocketbook."
Katie took it and smiled. "Oh, yes she did. Thank you."
At that point, Stevie came back out of the house carrying Olivia on his hip. "Wow, they did a nice job setting everything up," he said to Kate. "So... you two have met, then?"
"Yes we have," Katie smiled. "Oh, and Tony picked up your bag for you."
"Oh, great. Thanks," Stevie smiled. He looked at Tony and, still holding Olivia and now swaying a little to keep her moving, he said, "Thanks for the ride, Tony. I really appreciate it."
"My pleasure. Really."
There was an awkward silence until Tony finally said, "Umm, hey, could I get your number? Maybe we could, you know, hang out... or see a movie some time."
"Sure," Stevie nodded and recited his cell phone number.
"Ok," Tony smiled and nodded as he entered the number into his phone. "Let me give you mine." He recited the numbers, then took Stevie’s phone from him and where the contact information asked for a name, he typed in ‘Tony The Pizza Guy.’
Stevie laughed when Tony handed the phone back to him. "That’s your last name? The pizza guy?"
"Kinda," he smiled. "Well, I gotta go. Nice to meet you, Katie." He got on his scooter and pulled away.
Kate crossed her arms and looked at Stevie. "What’s in your bag?"
He shrugged. "Tooth brush, shampoo, hair brush... stuff like that. Why?"
"Any makeup or tampons, maybe?"
"What?"
"Stevie, how oblivious can you get? Honey, you wear your hair like a girl, you wear girl’s clothing, you’re little and have a pretty face... Tony thinks you’re a girl."
Stevie tsk-ed. "No he doesn’t."
"Stevie, Stevie, Stevie... he does. That’s why he drove you all the way across town. That’s why he asked for your phone number and that’s why he told me he had delivered pizza to MY SISTER. Come on... You had to know."
Stevie shrugged. "Maybe... I don’t know, Katie. He seems nice. I could use a friend. Maybe he’ll think it’s funny when I explain it to him."
She shook her head. "You be careful, Stevie. You could really upset people playing a game like that." She took Olivia’s hand. "Come one, Livy. Let’s go check on the baby."
Stevie looked back down the street where Tony’s scooter had disappeared and he thought about what his sister said – AND – he thought about his fantasy from the previous day, when he’d worn Katie’s skirt and flirted in the mirror. What did he really want from this boy?
"Are you coming?" He heard Katie calling from the front door.
They spent the next couple of hours dumping out the bags of clothes that had come over with the furniture and organizing things. Katie’s unwillingness to part with anything was baffling to Stevie, but he shrugged it off to her being frugal. He’d sort through it all eventually.
"My usual, day to day clothes aren’t here," Stevie said, finally, when everything had been sorted.
"Did you pack them up?"
"Yeah. I dumped everything into trash bags first thing this morning. Then I dismantled the bed and took down the TV."
"Did you put the bags in Grandma’s room with the other stuff that was coming here?"
Stevie thought for a moment, then put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the marker he’d finally found. "Shoot. No. I was looking for this when the movers showed up. I don’t think I labeled the bags."
Katie rolled her eyes. "Well, they may be in storage or they may have been thrown out. I’ll text Derrick and see if he’s still there. If not, you still have plenty to wear."
She sent a text as Stevie and Olivia picked up the debris in his room. After a few minutes, Katie’s phone chimed. She checked it and shook her head, "Sorry, Stevie. No unmarked bags in the storage area."
"Great," Stevie shook his head. "That had most of my own clothes and most of your normal tee shirts."
"Oh, well," Katie shrugged. "You still have lots of slacks and shorts and tops. They’re just a little prettier than what you had before. No big deal." She smiled and patted his arm.
Finally, Stevie’s room was organized, except for a few pictures to be hung and his TV to be mounted on the wall.
"It looks nice, doesn’t it?" Katie said, pleased with the look of the room.
"It does," Stevie smiled. "Thank you for taking me in."
She tsk-ed at him. "I’m not ‘taking you in,’ Stevie. You’re family. This is your home for as long as you need to be here. No, I take that back... For as long as you WANT to be here. Ok?"
"Yeah, ok. Thanks," he smiled. "I do wish they hadn’t hung the whole lace canopy over the bed, though. It’s kind of old-lady-ish, don’t you think?"
"I like it," Olivia offered. "It’s pretty."
"There you go," Katie laughed.
"Well, if you like it, then that’s all that matters," Stevie laughed. Then he sniffed himself. "Wow. I think that I need to shower. I’m smelling a little ripe."
Katie nodded. "Good idea. I’ll take one after I get the girls ready for bed." She checked her watch. "Tell you what – I’ll text Derrick to bring home some chicken and lentil soup from D’Ericco’s for supper. You shower now. Then we can all have dinner together and you can help me and the girls with their baths after that. Sound good."
"Sounds great!"
Stevie went off to the shower while Katie and Olivia headed downstairs and Katie sent Derrick a text.
Just as she was passing the front door, it opened and Derrick entered carrying a brown bag. "Hi," he said with a smile.
"Oh, hi," Katie smiled. "I just sent you a text. I was going to have you pick up some soup at D’Errico’s for supper."
He held up the bag and and smiled more broadly. "Way ahead of you. I got minestrone and chicken lentil. How’s everything going here?"
"Great," Katie laughed at Derrick’s unflappable demeanor. "Stevie’s room is all set up except for mounting his TV."
"And is he ok with everything?"
"Yeah, I think he’s really good. He’s taking a shower now."
Derrick nodded. "Tell you what. You take the soup and I’ll go mount the TV for him. That way he can make himself at home when he goes to bed tonight. Alright?"
"Aren’t you nice?" Katie took the soup and kissed his cheek. "Thank you for being so nice to him."
"Hey, family... right?"
"Right."
Derrick took the stairs two at a time, as he always did, and grabbed his upstairs toolbox from the hallway linen closet on his way to Stevie’s room. He knocked on the half opened door, but got no response. He peeked in and could hear water running in the shower in the en suite lavatory, so he went to work installing the TV Mount. It took less than ten minutes to properly install the bracket and by that time, he could hear a blow dryer being run in lavatory. Plenty of time to hang the TV.
In the lavatory, Stevie used the blow dryer to dry his hair and the large brush he’d long ago usurped from his mother’s vanity table to brush out his wavy hair. He took his time and made sure that his hair was properly brushed away from his face as it had been for the last few days. He liked the way it had looked with the handkerchief in it, but he didn’t think it was a very ‘manly’ thing to wear and, since Derrick was kind of a man’s man, he probably should be aware of that kind of thing while he was living in Derrick’s house.
Finally satisfied with his look, he took the can of hairspray that he’d brought from the old house and gave his hair a light spraying, just enough to hold everything in place, although his hair did have enough body to do that by itself. Satisfied, he turned to leave the bathroom.
Derrick was just stepping back to check his work, turning on the flatscreen to make sure that he could see it well from the canopy bed when the bathroom door opened and his brother-in-law stepped into the bedroom... stark naked.
Both men stopped doing what they were doing and stared in disbelief for a moment before speaking.
"Umm..." was all that Stevie could manage.
"Oh, Geez, Stevie, I’m sorry," Derrick finally managed. "I just installed your TV for you. I didn’t expect you to... you know what... my fault... not yours... it’s your room and I shouldn’t have just come in. I’m sorry. I’m leaving. It won’t happen again." He dropped the remote on the bed and headed out the door, stopping only briefly to say, "Oh, by the way, welcome to our home and, please... think of it as your home." Then the door shut.
"Well, that was awkward," Stevie muttered.
Derrick stopped at the linen closet and put his toolbox away, then looked back towards Stevie’s room and thought for a moment before hurrying down the stairs.
When he reached the kitchen, he found his wife seated at the kitchen table, breast feeding his youngest daughter. He paused for a moment and then sat opposite her, looking for the right words.
"Umm, Katie... ummm... I just saw Stevie... and..."
Kate looked up from the baby and smiled. "And what?"
"Look, honey... there’s something... wrong with Stevie."
Kate scowled. "What do mean? What’s ‘wrong’ with him?"
He sighed. "Honey... I see guys naked all the time..."
"You saw Stevie naked?" Katie half laughed.
"Yeah, he walked out of the shower naked. It wasn’t on purpose. That’s not the point, though. The point is... when was the last time you saw his chest?"
Kate shrugged. "I have no idea. Why?"
He looked towards the stairs to be sure that Stevie wasn’t coming into the kitchen. "Honey, I think Stevie needs to see a doctor."
Being the health conscious person that she was, this really caught Kate’s attention, "A doctor? Why?"
He paused. "Look, honey... he doesn’t have breasts, per se, but... he has big nipples and the area around them... Katie, they’re really big. Like a girl’s. And honey... there’s something not right... down there, too. He really needs to see someone."
To Be Continued...
