Pigtails Are For Girls — Part 14
Chapters 29-32 
 
By Katherine Day
 
It’s a whole new life for Jane who now seeks to become accepted for who she is in a world that may not be ready for her.
Somehow she finds a way, gaining new strength.

Editorial assistance graciously provided by Julie.
Copyright 2009
Chapter 29: A Wedding Changes All

On Christmas Eve, Jacques visited Jarod and his mother, bringing gifts for both of them. His mother, with help from Jarod, prepared dinner. Jarod spent the whole day decorating the living and dining room, using poinsettias and several bouquets of flowers amidst pine boughs and colorful lights. All day long he wore Capri pants and a short sleeved white blouse with Christmas red trim. And, he wore his hair in pigtails, topped with a Santa hat.

“You’re so cute,” explained Amy, their next door neighbor who had popped over for eggnog and to examine the decorations.

Jarod pirouetted about for Amy, who wore a Santa hat and a lovely plaid skirt and red blouse with green trim and a Christmas bell design on the breast.

“And you look cute, too, Amy,” his mother said.

“Jane,” his mother said, using his girl’s name, “Why don’t you run into you room and bring out the dress you’re going to wear tonight for Jacques?”

His mother had told him he could wear a pretty dress she had bought just for Christmas, since Jacques, of course, was aware of Jarod’s female personality.

“What do you think, Amy?” he said returning from the bedroom, and holding the dress in front of him. It was an elegant red gown, with spaghetti straps and a square bodice, and is ended just at his knees.

“Oh darling, you’ll look so lovely in it, I’m sure. You must let me see you when you have it on.”

Jarod was so excited. He hadn’t worn anything so elegant in his life; this was a dress his mother found at the Goodwill Store, of all places. It apparently had been worn only once or twice. The tag on the dress was that of a first class dress-maker, so the dress may have cost over $200 new.

“I had to take it in a bit,” Jarod said, “but otherwise it fits perfectly.”

“I don’t think you should wear pigtails with that dress tonight, darling,” his mother said. “You should let your hair flow freely. I’ll brush it nicely for you.”

“Oh mom, Jacques likes my pigtails. Look at all the money it made him.”

“No, dear. Not tonight.”

Jarod nodded. He knew his mother was right; this dress called for a nice, more womanly hair style.

*****
“My, aren’t you lovely tonight, Jane,” Jacques said when Jarod opened the door for him.

He arrived with two wrapped packages, both fairly small, as well as two corsages, one for Jarod (as Jane) and the other for his mother.

“Let me put this flower first on this very pretty girl I see before me,” Jacques beckoned to Jarod to stand before him.

He carefully pinned the corsage to Jarod’s front, smiling gently. “You’re prettier than ever, Jane, but where are your pigtails?”

“Mom said they wouldn’t look right with this dress.”

“Mother always knows what’s best, right Jane,” he said, winking at Nancy.

They withheld the gift-opening until after their dinner, served by candlelight and accompanied by wine. Jarod was permitted one glass, accompanying the toast made by Jacques: “To a lovely woman and her pretty daughter.”

The gifts were opened, with Jacques giving Jarod a sparkling necklace and matching earrings with a note: “A pretty neck needs to sparkle. Hugs to ‘Pigtail Girl’ from her friend, Jacques.”

“Oh, Monsieur, that’s so exquisite,” Jarod said, taking two steps to the man, hugging him and putting a quick, girlish kiss on his lips.

“Put it on honey,” his mother said, smiling.

Jarod did, and was astounded at how much the adornment made her eyes sparkle with joy. In the mirror, Jarod felt he never looked more feminine in his life.

Jacques produced a wrapped gift for Jarod’s mother. The box was tiny.

“Open it, Nancy,” he said, tenseness in his voice. He actually seemed to be shivering.

She struggled with the wrapping, but Jacques patiently let her work at opening the gift. Finally open, it revealed a red suede box, which when opened revealing an engagement ring.

“Oh no!” his mother exclaimed, looking at the ring, but not removing it.

“What is it, mom?” Jarod asked.

Before his mother could answer, Jacques said simply: “Will you marry me, Nancy?”

He grabbed both her hands in his, balancing the box between the two of them. “Nancy, will you?”

Nancy began to cry, and she looked quickly at both Jarod and Jacques, tears streaming down her face.

“Well, mom, will you?” Jarod asked impatiently.

“Oh yes, yes, yes,” she said finally, and Jacques gathered her in his arms, kissing her gently and then with passion.

Then his left arm pulled Jarod into the embrace and the three of them hugged tightly. Both Nancy and Jarod began crying, tears dropping onto their corsages. Jacques towering over the two, smiled.

“I wanted to ask you in the presence of Jane, here, Nancy,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh Jacques, no, that was so kind of you. After all it was Jane who brought us together.”

“Yes, except for this pretty girl here and her pigtails we would never have met, Nancy. I love you so much, dear.”

It was the best Christmas Jarod ever had, perhaps the greatest gift was the fact that both his mother and Jacques treated him as Jane, the girl he really was.

Jacques suggested a traditional June wedding as they talked later in the evening, and it seemed the idea satisfied Nancy as well. Jarod smiled at the idea, picturing the gown he’d wear as bridesmaid. Sadly, however, as he thought about it, he would not be living fulltime as a girl by the time of the wedding. He would have to go as a boy, perhaps in a tux. He knew he’d look handsome enough, but he still felt he’d love to be attending as a “maid of honor” or “bridesmaid.”

Nonetheless, he was happy: his mother deserved the happiness that Jacques seemed ready to provide.

*****
Jarod often thought about his onetime crossdressing friend, Terrence, though not as frequently as he once had. He remembered Terri, as he called his chubby friend, as being soft and feminine. The two boys met him in summer camp before the 6th Grade when they both found themselves to be the least physically strong among the boys and failed in many of the activities of the boys. There they both discovered their common interest in dressing as girls, and in thinking of themselves as girls.

Since entering Roosevelt, Jarod rarely saw Terrence in school, since the other boy had, under the firm command of his stepfather, joined the football team and had begun working out to develop a masculine body. Terrence, in an effort to separate himself from the feminine activities he had enjoyed with Jarod, had begun hanging out with the jocks from the football team. Furthermore, in the sophomore year, Terrence had been on the different lunch hour.

Though Terrence had firmed up his body and turned much of his accumulated baby fat into muscle, Terrence still had a soft, cherubic appearance. Jarod wondered if he still retained the fleshy breasts he had had at age 11.

After football season ended and as the Christmas vacation period was about to begin, Jarod was pleased one afternoon to find Terrence waiting for him. “Can I walk with you, Jarod?” the boy asked.

“Of course, Terrence. What’s up?”

“Oh not much, I just wanted to see you again.”

“Cool,” Jarod replied. “I’ve been missing you, Terri. May I call you that?”

“I was hoping you would, and can I call you Jane?” the other boy said as they both zippered up their jackets to leave the school and enter the windy cold of a Wisconsin December day.

“I would like you to,” he said, as the two boys headed out of the school grounds.

Terri told Jarod that his sister who was now in her early 20s had her own apartment and that he would be spending some time with her.

“Maybe you’d like to come over some day? To my sisters? Over the vacation?”

“I guess. I don’t think my mom would mind now,” Jarod said, realizing that his mother’s objections to Jarod’s friendship with Terrence developed when she was trying to stifle his strong desires to dress as a girl.

“You must still dress a lot, Jane? Don’t you?”

“Almost fulltime at home now. My mom’s more OK with it, but she’s scared I might get hurt here in school if I go in public as a girl.”

Terrence nodded and grew silent.

“My stepdad gets real nasty if he thinks I’m not being a boy. He’s mad that I didn’t make the first team in football. He says to me, ‘damn, you’re big enough. Just get in there and hit the other guy.’”

“Oh?” Jarod asked as they headed on the street toward Jarod’s home.

“Jane, he’s so disappointed in me, and so is my mom. He’s so brainwashed my mom, I can’t stand it. And, my sister hardly ever comes by anymore, ‘cause he treats her real nasty, calling her a fat pig and everything.”

“Oh Terri, that’s awful.”

“I know, I feel so lonely, Jane,” the boy said, and Jarod sensed a heaviness in his voice.

“Well, you seem to get along OK with the boys on the team. They seem to accept you. At least it appears that way when I saw you at lunch last year.”

“They’re OK,” Terrence said. “But, I can’t call any of them ‘friends.’ You’re the only real friend I ever had, Jane.”

“Terri, Terri, Terri, my girl friend,” Jarod said, wishing he could embrace the larger boy right there on the street.

“Yes, Jane, I’ll never forget that time Melissa dressed us both up. We had so much fun, and no one guessed we weren’t girls.”

They agreed that Terrence would call Jarod to set up a time they could get together. He said his sister would probably come by and pick Jarod up to take him to her apartment to meet Terri.

*****
They never met during the Christmas vacation. Melissa called Jarod on the day after Christmas; she said their stepfather had gotten drunk and gone on a rampage, attacking Terrence, daring him to fight back, and calling him a “fat lazy ass.”

“When I tried to intervene, he hit me, too, and ordered me out of the house,” she said.

“And now Terrence is grounded for the holidays and can’t go out,” she continued. “I’m so sorry Jane. I wanted so much to get you two girls together, ‘cause I know how important it is to Terri.”

“Can I call Terri, Melissa?” Jarod asked.

“You better not, ‘cause that’ll get him into more trouble,” she said.

“Terri must be devastated,” Jarod said. “What does your mother say about what the stepfather is doing?”

“She defends him, thinking he’s right to get both of us on a diet and for Terri to become a man.”

“I don’t think Terri can ever be happy as a man,” Jarod said.

“I think you’re right, Jarod. Let’s hope he can get through school and when he’s 18 I’ll let him move in with me.”

Jarod felt tears coming after he hung up, tears on behalf of his friend, Terri, whose only happiness would be in living as a girl. During the spring semester in school, Jarod saw Terri only four or five times, with most meetings being brief, as Terri was trying his hardest to become “one of the boys.” He had assumed a “tough guy” demeanor, and Jarod was shocked to find out he had been suspended for a few days for fighting and beating up a younger boy.

“Your friend has become a bully, Jarod,” Latoya said to him one day. “I’ve seen him call other guys ‘sissies’ and ‘fags’ too.”

“It’s not like him to do that,” Jarod said, puzzled as to what had happened to Terrence, the sweet, gentle person he knew as Terri.

He called Melissa that night, reporting what he heard.

“Yes, Terri’s become all unstrung, trying to be macho,” she said. “He’s faking it, and being real bad.”

“I know. Wasn’t your mom mad he got suspended?”

“No, my stepdad was proud of him, saying it was a badge of honor, and my mom’s too cowed to argue. It seems stepdad links bad behavior to being macho. He was suspended many times in school, he told Terri.”

“Oh poor Terri,” Jarod said. “I know Terri liked school before.”

“I know,” Melissa said. “And, Terri can’t even talk to me now. Stepdad forbids it.”

*****
Jarod continued in his sophomore year at Roosevelt, maintaining his male persona in school with some surprising success. He found that his less-than-masculine physique was less and less noticeable in the high school. Still, he continued to enjoy the company of the “Bad Girls” group at lunch, and most of them seemed to accept his presence there without much wonder.

“Jarod, you talk our language,” Aniesha said one day when he asked why the girls accepted him. “You’re just one of us.”

It was teenage girl talk that filled the lunch hour everyday and Jarod easily joined in, often sharing the girly secrets from one or more of the girls. Latoya almost weekly engaged Jarod in chatting about her ongoing relationship with Demetrius, who would graduate and head off to one of the historic black colleges in Georgia.

“He’ll forget about me when he gets with those college girls,” she complained.

Mostly, Jarod would hold her hand and convince her that she was pretty and that Demetrius would be hard-pressed to find anyone as pretty and as smart. He also helped her with how she dressed and wore her hair, and she nearly always followed his advice.

He was able to maintain a feminine lilt to his voice, while not forcing himself to speak unnaturally. The tone was deeper, and more masculine, but with the softness of his voice and the inflections his voice had shown a remarkable gender-free identity. Thus, on the phone he was just as often taken for being a girl as a guy; on the few times he ventured in public as Jane, he was always accepted as female.

Outside of Marquise, he had developed no friendships with boys. His thinking and his frames of references seemed to always be female: with his mother, Wanda and Latoya, among the girls at the lunchtable. Even the new male in Jarod’s life, his mother’s fiancé, Jacques, treated him as a girl, and on the occasions he joined his mother and Jacques to go out, either to a restaurant or to shop, he went as Jane. His truly feminine physique seemed to help carry his feminine identity.

Since he was competing in no sports activity in the spring semester, he had to attend physical education classes. He hated gym class, since it meant disrobing and showering and displaying his weak, unboy-like body to others and to failing miserably in such activities as pull-ups and rope climbs.

“You got arms like a girl,” one kid teased him after he was unable to raise himself off the floor in a rope climb.

Yet, he somehow blundered through these humiliations, finding some kinship with other boys who also were without masculine attributes.

“Are you gay?” his friend Tiffany asked one day.

“Why do you ask?”

“I dunno,” she said, blushing. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask that.”

“It’s just that you seem. . . ah . . . so happy to be with girls and you . . ah . . . never do anything with boys,” she said, stammering a bit.

“I just like being with girls,” he answered.

“Don’t you ever want to date a girl?” she asked, growing red.

“I suppose, but no girl would want me,” he said, telling his honest feelings.

“How do you know that, Jarod?” she asked, putting a hand on his as they sat on a bench on a warm lunch period in April. The “Bad Girls” had finished their lunches quickly and many went outside to enjoy one of the first warm days of the year to finish the lunch hour. The two friends found themselves sitting together.

“I don’t feel girls like boys like me,” he said.

“You’re perfectly handsome, Jarod, although sometimes I think you look more like a girl, with that long hair.”

“I like the long hair, but mom wants it shorter,” he replied. “You think a girl would really want to date me?”

“Definitely.” Her answer came without hesitation.

Jarod was puzzled. Was this nerdy, but also lively-eyed, interesting girl interested in him as a boy? Or what?

“Nobody’s asked me to the junior prom, Jarod.” The girl said this haltingly and with obvious shame.

Jarod pondered the situation: What was he to do? Ask her to the prom? He’d never dated a girl before. He didn’t know what he’d do.

“Jarod?”

“I never thought about the prom,” he said with a blundering, direct question: “Do you wanna go with me?”

Tiffany smiled, her eyes dancing lively through the lens of her granny glasses. “Yes, silly, but I don’t wanna force you.”

“I guess,” he answered.

The die was cast. Jarod was to have his first date, but as Jarod, not as Jane as he dreamed it would be.

The news that Jarod had asked Tiffany to the prom raised eyebrows among the “Bad Girls,” especially Aniesha, whom, it was apparent, had her own designs on Jarod. Latoya gave him several sideways glances and knowing looks, as if to say: “What do you know, girl?”

*****
His mother was pleased, as was his future stepfather, Jacques. The whole event forced him to cut his hair a bit, and ruin any chance of fixing it in pigtails. Jacques sprung for a tuxedo for Jarod, and the truth was by the time he picked up Tiffany for the prom, he looked like a handsome young man, one who most women would be pleased to have on their arm.

Jacques sprung for a limousine, and the couple doubled with Demetrius and Latoya. It actually made for an awkward mix, since Demetrius and Latoya were all hugs and caresses, while Jarod and Tiffany, both neophytes in dating, sat stiffly across the limo seats, somewhat embarrassed by the public display of love by their two friends. Jarod didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

Tiffany had gotten rid of her glasses for the night; well, actually she carried them in her tiny purse with her cosmetics, since she really needed them to see much detail. She truly looked lovely in the rather austere, high necked gown which trailed to the floor. She fixed her hair so that it swept up, but with two ringlets running down each side of her head.

Jarod survived the dance, and the after-dance party, getting home by 2 a.m. Tiffany proved to be a clumsy dancer, but the two found themselves talking a lot, mainly about their families and, strange as it seemed, about a young man in Illinois who had announced he was running for president.

“I like him,” Tiffany said. “His name’s Obama or something like that.”

Jarod had heard something about the man. “He’s black, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“He’ll never win,” said Demetrius, who broke off an embrace with Latoya as they rode in the limo.

“”You don’t think so?” Tiffany asked.

“You think a black man could ever be president in this country?” Demetrius asked derisively.

“I don’t know,” Tiffany said, adding. “I’m signing up to work for him. There’s lots on the Internet.”

Demetrius returned his attention to Latoya and the conversation ended. Jarod’s interest, however, in this man called Obama was whetted. Tiffany suggested the two of them might help form an “Obama for President” club at school; Jarod said he’d think about it.

Jarod had no idea how to approach Tiffany as they stopped at her house to end the evening. He had not put his arm around the girl during the entire night. Should he kiss her as they say good night, or would she reject it? Tiffany solved the problem for him, pulling him close to her as they stood at her front door; she raised her head, inviting his lips to hers. What followed was a clumsy meeting of the lips and a bumping of their noses. He tasted her sweet teengirl lips, tainted with the spicy Mexican food from the hors ‘oeuvres at the post prom party, and he enjoyed the sensation.

“Thank you for a lovely evening, Jarod,” she said, entering her house where he was sure her mother was still up awaiting a full summary of her daughter’s first date.

It was a nice evening, Jarod recalled, and he even considered asking Tiffany out again on a date. Mostly, however, he pictured himself as the young girl, experiencing her first big dance date. Would it ever happen?

Chapter 30: Sweet Sixteen Summer

The last few days of school before vacation began were unusually warm and stifling; it was an oppresive heat that seemed to dampen some of the yearend hi-jinks that often feature the last days of school for teens. There was a listlessness that permeated the stuffy halls and rooms of Roosevelt, and students came dressed in scanty outfits, boys usually in muscle shirts or tees and shorts and many girls in tank tops and mini skirts or shorts. Such clothing was technically against the dress code, but the untypical readings of 90 plus temperatures caused the school administration to look the other way.

Jarod stuck to wearing a boy’s tee shirt, but several days wore a pair of denim shorts, which if anyone looked closely, would realize were girls’ shorts. He wore sandals without socks on the hottest days, prompting Tiffany to state one lunch hour as the “Bad Girls” group sat on the campus lawn: “I wish I had Jarod’s legs.”

At the moment, Jarod was sitting on the lawn, his legs stretched out, leaning against the trunk of a large oak tree. He looked at his legs, smooth and slender but gently proportioned, thinking with a momentary self-pride that Tiffany was right.

“I bet he’d win any beauty contest with those legs,” Aniesha echoed.

“Awww, no. No.” Jarod responded.

“Yes, yes,” Tiffany countered. “Anyone here wanna challenge Jarod for the prettiest legs?”

“I don’t,” Latoya chimed in. “Mine are too knobby.”

“Mine, too,” said Tiffany.

“And my thighs are too fat,” said another girl.

“See Jarod,” Tiffany said, poking him playfully on the thigh. “You’re the choice to be the ‘Bad Girl’ with the prettiest legs.”

Jarod suddenly felt embarrassed, drawing his legs up and folding his arms about them, realizing that he secretly was relishing the praise he was hearing, but knowing he was coming dangerously close to revealing his true girlish being.

Aniesha, whose desire for Jarod’s attention had become obvious, saw the boy’s discomfort.

“I just think that makes Jarod so much more handsome,” she said, covering her mouth, realizing that her comment would reveal her enrapture over Jarod to the others.

Not to be outdone, Tiffany said: “I do too,” adding another comment destined to sting the other girl: “And. he was so handsome at the prom.”

Jarod’s unease at this attention became obvious, and soon the girls began talking about what they were going to be doing over the summer. Aniesha and Tiffany, who had become close, both were able to win internships at the public library; their closeness was cooling, probably due to their mutual interest in attention from Jarod. Latoya was able to get a job at “Burger Palace,” a drive-in that was open only during the warm months of the year.

To Jarod’s relief, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch hour and the need to return to the muggy classes, where bare thighs would sweat and stick to the varnished seats of the classroom chairs.

*****
Jarod, who would not turn 16 until August, had no job planned for the summer, although his future stepfather, Jacques, thought there might be an opening at Claudine’s, the apparel store he operated in Milwaukee.

“How can he do that?” his mother, Nancy, asked when Jacques brought the idea up.

“Why not?” Jacques said. “I do need a stock boy, particularly with the popularity of the pigtail fashions.”

“Jacques, don’t you realize?” his mother said, taking on the definitive tone of voice Jarod had known only too well. “They all know him as a girl, as Jane, the model. Are you nuts to think they wouldn’t recognize him?”

Jacques nodded, saying only: “You’re right, of course, Nancy.”

Jarod was in the kitchen with the two adults as this conversation went and wondered whether the romance between his mother and Jacques could overcome his mother’s tendency to be “bossy” and to always think she was “right.” He noticed Jacques scowl a bit, and then reach over to touch Nancy on the forearm, looking at her with obvious affection.

“Jarod, your mother’s a lovely woman, and I am so happy to soon be part of this family,” Jacques said with sincerity and affection.

The two then kissed. Jarod so enjoyed seeing them be affectionate toward one another. At first, Jarod had resented that Jacques was intruded upon the closeness that Jarod and his mother enjoyed, but the gentleness and generosity of his future stepfather soon prompted Jarod to lose that feeling of intrusion. If anything, Jacques brought an openness and understanding to his mother that was refreshing.

As it was, Jarod did do some work for Claudine’s, using his seamstress skills at home; Jacques purchased a commercial sewing machine and cloth-cutting unit and had it delivered to their Pinkerton home. Almost daily, Jacques brought home clothes that had to be repaired or altered specially for customers. He also encouraged Jarod to try his hand at designing some dresses, with the potential of having the designs purchased.

“Jarod, your skills at this are truly top-rate,” he said.

He also introduced Jarod to Miss Amelia, who in reality was Anastasia Szymczak, an aging Polish woman who had developed a small, loyal following among wealthy women in Chicago and Milwaukee for her special designs. He paid for weekly lessons with the woman at her South Side Milwaukee home, an overly decorated home that belied her otherwise good taste that featured her fashions.

There, he learned how better to design outfits that more comfortably featured the feminine body and would help flatter women by accentuating their appealing body features or overcoming their shortcomings.

The woman was tough talking and very demanding; she looked critically at Jarod when he first entered her home, taking him to her basement workshop that was brightly lit and covered with hangers of dresses, rolls of material, several sewing machines and cutting boards.

“My darling, you are the best student I ever had,” she said by the third week of sessions with Jarod. Her voice was husky and still heavily accented. Every so often her husband would be around, and Jarod noticed they only spoke Polish to each other.

“Thank you,” he said, noticing with relief that Mrs. Szymczak was beginning to treat him more gently.

“You’re the first boy I ever had to teach,” she said. “And I must admit, I didn’t like the idea and I told that to Jacques, but he said you were special.”

Jarod nodded, unsure how to respond.

“You understand the female body,” she said. “And you have the most talented hands.”

Together, they designed his mother’s wedding dress as well as the dress for Helen Highsmith who would be the matron of honor. It was to be a simple ceremony, so the dresses would elegant, but informal in design. Both would be knee-length in design, with high necks and short, puffed sleeves. There would be plenty of material to develop flowing folds, drawn in by a belt just under the breast line.

“We have a problem here, Jarod,” Mrs. Szymczak told him. “Your mother is full figured and Mrs. Highsmith is slender and almost without curves. So I think this kind of design will fit both.”

The material was an opaque combination cloth, crá¨me-colored for the bride and light blue for the matron of honor. Jarod did most of the sewing at home, giving him a chance to fit the dresses more closely than if he did it at the home of Mrs. Szymczak. Despite the short time left to complete the dresses, Jarod (with the help of Miss Amelia) completed the dresses three days before the wedding which was set for the last Saturday in June.

It was to be a simple ceremony done at Breezy Point Park, a public park in Douglas overlooking Lake Michigan. The park was named because it was on scenic site on a point known for high winds and as the graveyard of hundreds of sailing ships in the 19th Century.

“We’ll be married outdoors, if the weather cooperates,” his mother said.

“Which in Wisconsin in June we’ll never be sure of,” added Jacques.

The reception was held in the park pavilion, which had both an indoor meeting room and an outdoor picnic area under a roof.

Jacques son, Peter, was his father’s best man, while Jarod was an usher, since there were no groomsmen in the simple affair. Both boys were dressed in rented tuxedos, Peter in black and Jarod in a maroon color that seemed to highlight his long, brown hair, tied into a neat ponytail.

“You’re so handsome in that,” his mother told him, kissing him.

He was happy for his mother, but as he looked at the dress he had designed for his mother and Helen, he wished he too could be in a dress. He found he wore the same size as Helen, and often during the sewing of the dress, had tried it on, modeling it for himself, onetime calling his mother in to look.

“Mom, I could be your bridesmaid, like Peter is his dad’s best man,” he said.

“Guess you could be. You do look pretty in that dress, dear, but for my wedding, you are my son, Jarod.”

“I know mom, I was just dreaming.”

The wedding went off without a hitch, the weather cooperating magnificently. The photos taken show the marriage party standing on the lake bluff, the blue waters of Lake Michigan sparkling in the background. Jarod cried as the two newlyweds kissed to end the ceremony.

Jarod was praised many times for being “so handsome.” One friend of Jacques volunteered, “I have a daughter for you.” Jacques son, Peter, and he spent much time together, speculating about where the couple would live, and where Jarod would finish school.

Peter still was unaware of Jarod’s feminine desires, but did ask his father: “Is Jarod gay? He acts so femme.”

“My dad says you’re the artistic type, Jarod,” Peter said when the two took a break from the reception and stood talking atop the bluff.

“I guess I am,” he said. “You know I made the dresses?”

“Yes, and I guess I thought you must be queer.”

The boy suddenly reddened, adding quickly: “I didn’t mean to say that, Jarod.”

“That’s OK,” Jarod smiled. “Since we’re almost brothers, you should ask. No, I don’t think I’m gay, but I do seem to like to sew and make dresses.”

“My dad told me the top designers in the world were men, so I guess I shouldn’t wonder,” Peter said.

Jarod had enjoyed the few times the two boys had gotten together. Peter apparently had gone through a rebellious period after his parents divorced, but seemed now to be getting his life in shape, having lost some weight and was taking more interest in attending college next year.

Jarod realized that soon he would have to tell Peter that he really preferred being Jane.

*****
He spent much of the summer vacation at the sewing machines working on the altering jobs and dress designing orders provided by Jacques for Claudine’s. He found himself lost in his work as the hours passed by, usually dressed in panties, a loose skirt or denim shorts and a tank top. And, on most days, he tied his hair in pigtails.

He often tried on the dresses or outfits that he was working on, modeling them in front of the mirror, pleased with how convincingly feminine he looked.

Somedays, Jarod would be asked to babysit Emily and Amanda, the two young children who lived next door. He enjoyed those chores, even if he had to dress as a boy, since it was agreed that he not raise questions among the young girls. Yet, when babysitting, he curled up like a teen girl, playing with dolls with the two girls.

By the time August arrived, Jarod was still pale, having rarely ventured out into the sunshine. His arms and legs had grown soft from inaction, and he realized that, in spite of the success he had had in his sophomore year in cross country, he probably would not run in the next school year.

Rarely, indeed, did he dress as a male, and Jacques and his mother seemed to accept him in the house as a girl, as Jane, usually using that name when he was around.

Wanda spent the summer again as a day camp counselor and on most evenings participated in one of several softball teams, where she was quickly being recognized as a skilled shortstop and power hitter. Several times that summer, Wanda asked Jarod to join her as she used her mother’s car, and the two would venture to a drive-in custard stand or cruise along the lakefront. On these ventures, Jarod was dressed as Jane, pigtails and all. The two teen friends usually took long walks along the shore park, sometimes even holding hands and gaining looks of both curiosity and disgust from people who viewed the two as lesbians.

Jarod also felt safe and comfortable with Wanda; she always accepted him as he wanted to be and that was as a tender, caring girl named Jane. He loved to feel her hard, calloused hands envelop his slender soft hands, and would look for her to caress his weak arms and sometimes hold him tightly to her strong, muscled body.

“When are you coming out?” Wanda asked him one muggy night in late August as they sat on a bench looking out at Lake Michigan, the reflection of a yellow rising moon bouncing along the waves.

“I don’t know, Wanda,” he said. “Mom is still scared for me, but I feel I’m ready.”

“You are, Jane,” the girl said. “My god, you’re all girl to me.”

Jarod smiled: “I wonder what Marquise will say if he finds out about Jane. He might be so mad at me.”

“I don’t think so, Jane. He’s smart boy and I’m sure he knows about trannnies.”

“I like him so much and we’re such good friends, Wanda.”

“Well, you’d be a better girl friend for him than that Janita girl,” Wanda said, squeezing him more tightly as she said it.

Jarod didn’t say anything, and he suspected Wanda knew that Jarod pictured himself as a girl in the arms of the good-looking African-American boy. He knew that he wanted so badly to be a fragile girl, awaiting the kisses and affections of this most desirable boy. He dreamed that night about sitting on that same lakefront bench with Marquise, being his white girl friend, her pretty pale face with its sprinkling of freckles, contrasted to the dark skin of a trim, muscled young man.

Chapter 31: Another School Year

He did not talk to Terrence, his onetime crossdressing friend, during the summer, but he saw him on the first week of school, as he was wandering around the cafeteria looking for the “Bad Girls” group from the previous school year. Before he could find them, he saw Terrence, seeming just as fat as ever, but now talking loud amidst a group of his loutish friends, making disparaging comments about just about everything. He was wearing pants that drooped down low on his hips with a shirt that hung loose over his massive, flabby body. He had developed a scraggly growth of facial hair, which, to Jarod, seemed to make him most unappealing. He couldn’t picture this boy as his onetime friend, who was so dainty and fastidious about his dress.

Jarod decided not to pass by the group, but Terrence saw him, hailing him: “Hey bitch girl, ain’t ya’ gonna say ‘Hi’?”

Jarod decided to respond with a tentative “Hi,” and then leave quickly.

Terrence, however, responded, demanding that Jarod join him at the table with his friends. Jarod tried to head away, but Terrence grabbed his arm, almost causing Jarod to drop his tray of food, forcing him to sit at the table with the others, all boys seeming to be similarly gross in their attire, habits and conversation.

“How you doing, girl,” Terrence demanded in a loud, stage voice once Jarod was seated, his tray set out in front of him.

“Hi, I’m Jarod,” he said to the table as a whole, ignoring Terrence’s chiding.

“You’re with the girls usually, aren’t you?” one of the boys said.

Jarod nodded, and tried to begin eating his food.

“That was a table of a bunch of ‘goody goodies,’” the boy said.

The group laughed, and then Terrence added: “Now you’re with real men. How does that make you feel?”

Jarod nodded, uttering a faint “fine, I guess.”

“I think he belongs with the girls,” the other boy, now known as Spike, probably due to his spiked haircut.

“Terrence,” pronounced one of the other boys, “Have you fucked her yet?”

“Nah, she’s saving it for that black stud,” Terrence said.

“I bet she’s just a prick teaser,” the comment came again.

“Why are you doing this to me, Terri?” Jarod asked, tears forming in his face, as he tried to getup from the table, but unable to rise because one of the boys grabbed his arm and held him down.

“’cause you’re such a sissy bitch,” he said cruelly, although the words came out tentatively.

“Let me go,” Jarod cried out loud, his face red with humiliation and rage.

“You’re such a . . .”

Terrence’s phrase was cut short by a demanding loud voice booming over the table: “What’s going on here?”

It was Jerome, the huge African-American school aide who was assigned cafeteria duty, and was able to bring order to the most chaotic of situations, merely by booming out his deep, demanding voice and towering over just about any situation.

“Oh we’re just having fun,” said one of the boys.

“No, you’re not. I’ll give you a warning now. Don’t any of you ever pick on this student or any others. I saw what you’re doing.”

The boys stayed silent.

“Come with me, Jarod,” Jerome said. He led him to a table where several of the girls from last year’s “Bad Girls” group sat, and directed Jarod to sit down.

“Those kids are no good, Jarod,” Jerome said. “Stay away from them. You’re too good for them.”

Jarod wanted to run off and cry, but he held back tears, and soon felt at home with the girls, getting involved in their girl talk.

*****
Jacques moved in to live with Jarod and his mother, commuting daily to Milwaukee for his work. Thanks perhaps to Jacques equanimity and generous behavior, the family flourished. His mother seemed less highly strung, and Jarod helped the situation out by preparing supper most nights for the two working adults.

Jacques had accepted the fact that Jarod most of the time was “Jane” at home, and the two adults used that name regularly.

The only complication was Peter, Jacques son, who visited every other weekend, sometimes coming down to Douglas to also visit with Jarod. On those visits, Jarod made sure his room reverted to its more “boyish” setting, and wore all male clothes.

Peter had become used to Jarod’s effeminate mannerisms, and the two became even closer, finding kinship through certain movies and video games, which Peter brought and which Jarod was learning, somewhat surprisingly to begin to enjoy. Nonetheless, Peter was uneasy when the two boys would go out to the burger stand or the mall together, obviously not wishing to be identified as being friendly with such a faggish-looking boy.

Overall, the new family relationships were warming up, and Jarod was happy for his mother.

“Maybe we should tell Peter about Jane,” Jarod ventured to his mother after a recent visit in early October. “He probably suspects something.”

“I don’t know what he’ll think, Jarod, and I don’t want to damage his relationship with his father,” his mother replied. “They’re getting along so well together.”

*****
“How’s Marquise like college?” he asked Aniesha at lunch one day.

“He loves it; he’s already on the university newspaper staff,” she said. Aniesha, who had been a shy bookish girl, had matured in the last year, filling out her figure and becoming a most attractive girl.

“Cool, I knew he’d like it.”

Marquise had been given a scholarship to a highly rated small liberal arts university in Wisconsin after finishing his high school years as an honor student.

“He’s broken up with Janita,” the girl said. “I’m so glad. She was so stupid.”

Jarod giggled, but suddenly felt a tinge of expectation arise, still imagining himself as Jane in the arms of this talented boy.

The “Bad Girls” group failed to reorganize for the new school year, perhaps due to changes in lunch schedules and the fact that some of the girls had found boy friends. Jarod’s “date” from his sophomore year, Tiffany, was on a different lunch hours schedule so the lunch groups usually included Aniesha, Jarod and Latoya, who was usually silent, still wondering about her boy friend, Demetrius, attending the state university on an athletic scholarship where he might eventually become that school’s first starting black quarterback.

Jarod had turned down Coach Cummings’ urging that he rejoin the cross country team, and now concentrated mainly on the Odyssey, the school literary magazine.

Jarod felt more and more like he should be attending school as a girl, and his mannerisms grew more effeminate. He cried often at night, wishing he could now live as a girl; he hated the lie he was living, lying to Marquise and to Peter and to good friends like Tiffany and Aniesha. In the morning, however, Jarod awoke slowly, often having to be asked several times to get out of bed, a change from the past when he would be eager to rise and dress for school.

*****
Though he tried to avoid Terrence and his friends, it wasn’t always possible. In late October, Jarod was hurried down the hall to work on the Odyssey after school, and his mind was concentrating on the theme the magazine would adopt. He did not see Terrence or a group of his friends, turning the corner into the hallway and running right into one of them.

“Watch where you’re going,” the boy said roughly, pushing Jarod away so hard that he lost his balance, falling on the ground, his bookbag opening with its contents spilling on the ground at the feet of the boys.

“It’s the sissy bitch,” said one of the other boys.

“Hey, it’s your girl friend, Terrence,” the first boy said.

Terrence laughed and kicked one of the books away from Jarod as he was about to pick it up.

“Let’s get outa here,” one of the boys said, and they scurried away.

Jarod gathered up his books, this time refusing to let tears to come. With the help of several girls, he gathered up his materials, and started to head to the literary magazine staff meeting.

Before he could go, the huge school aide, Jerome, arrived, stopping Jarod: “Those same boys attack you?”

Jarod nodded, but added, “It was partly my fault, I bumped into one of them coming around the corner and fell.”

For some strange reason, Jarod felt a need to protect Terrence, and he purposely tried to make light of the situation.

“No, Jarod, one of the girls told me they purposely attacked you,” Jerome argued. “Is that what happened?”

“No I fell,” he said.

“OK, have it your own way, Jarod, but we’ll get to the bottom of this,” the aide said, sending Jarod on his way.

He felt sad, not for himself, but for Terrence, his onetime sweet friend, who had turned into an obnoxious bully. He knew Terrence had been kicked off the football team for his bad behavior and he felt something must have been bothering the boy. Maybe, he thought, he should call Melissa, Terrence’s sister.

*****
Though it seemed the teasing and verbal harassment continued almost daily, Jarod seemed to have grown used to the taunts. Instead, he tended to continue to show his femininity almost in defiance of his tormentors. He never flaunted it, not seeking to be a “flaming queen,” but rather just to be the type of girl he felt he honestly was, a thoughtful, caring and loving girl.

As he went to school on the day following the hallway incident, Jarod was nonetheless wary of what he might face. His onetime good friend, Terrence, had taken up with a group of about ten white boys, who were known to roam the hallways and the streets around the school to bully the several known gay students. His feminine mannerisms easily marked Jarod as a target for the bunch. As far as Jarod could tell, he was the only crossdresser in the school, but he was sure there must be others.

Latoya had told Jarod after the earlier school lunch incident that she heard the group of white toughs called themselves “The Protectors,” and were taken to “protecting the school from the “gays and fags and lazy undesirables.” She said the last group likely meant the blacks and Hispanics in the schools. “They’re like the KKK,” she said.

All during the day, Jarod saw no sign of Terrence or any of the other boys from the group; he wondered about it, thinking that perhaps they had all been suspended for the hallway incident, even though he had denied being attacked. That possibility bothered Jarod for two reasons: he might become a more dedicated target for attack and he truly didn’t want to get Terrence into more trouble.

He was joined by Latoya and Tiffany as school ended; they walked with him out of the building, and as they reached the street, a voice yelled out: “Jarod, oh, Jarod, over here. Can I talk to you a moment?”

The voice belonged to a well-dressed young woman, slightly overweight with a round soft-featured face. At first Jarod wasn’t sure who was calling him; quickly he recognized it was Melissa, the older sister of Terrence.

“Hi Melissa, I didn’t recognize you at first,” he said.

He introduced Latoya and Tiffany, noticing that the young woman’s face was flushed and her eyes red and moist.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“I’d like to give you a ride home, Jarod, if you’d like,” she said, looking to the other two girls for agreement.

“Sure,” he said, wondering what was up. Meliisa clearly had been crying.

“Go ahead, Jarod,” Latoya said.

“Yes, go, and nice meeting you Melissa,” Tiffany added.

They entered Melissa’s car, a late model Ford Focus, which carried a slight odor of perfume mixed with a new car smell. A tiny pink bunny dangled from the rear view mirror mount, giving the car a comfortable girlish atmosphere. Jarod felt surprisingly at home in the car, and with Melissa.

She drove in silence, refusing to respond to Jarod’s pleading questions, “What’s wrong?” “What’s going on?” “What’s happened?”

Melissa drove into the parkway that adjoined the river, stopping finally, and turning to Jarod, tears beginning to flow from her face.

“Terri is dead, Jarod. Our dear sweet Terri . . .” she could not finish the sentence and broke into tears, crying profusely, grabbing Jarod and hugging him. He removed his seat belt so that he could more easily receive the embrace.

At first he didn’t understand what he heard. Dead? Who? Terri? Our dear sweet Terri? Dead? Dead?

“Oh no. No. Not Terri,” he finally yelled out loud and he began to cry.

Jarod still was confused. How could Terri, who only the day before as the loutish Terrence had assaulted and humiliated him, be dead? He was too big and strong to be dead.

“How?” he finally asked, still unable to comprehend the situation.

“He took his own life, Jane,” she said, now composing herself, and using his girl’s name.

“His own life?”

“Yes my darling girl,” she said addressing him, her eyes still moist with tears as she dabbed at her face, then using a fresh tissue to wipe the tears from Jarod’s own face.

“How? Why?”

“My mother found him this morning,” she began. Her words came in spurts as she sought to hold back tears.

“Hanging from a pipe in the . . . ah basement. He was so . . . oh Jane . . . so pretty. I saw him before . . . Well, he was all dressed as Terri. He was so pretty. No, Jane, she, Terri, she was so pretty.”

Jarod sat silently, picturing his onetime girl friend, Terri, and how feminine she could look, even as a chubby girl, she was almost dainty and weak and defenseless. He could see almost a smile behind the glistening eyes of Melissa as she described how her brother was dressed.

“Jane, Terri was so lovely,” she began, talking as if she were describing a sister. “She wore my prom dress from high school. I was pretty fat then, and he fit perfectly into it. It was off a dark blue, flowing material with a high waist, and square bodice and sleeves down to the elbows. You know, we had to hide my fat arms.”

Melissa gave a little chuckle as she continued.

“She fixed her hair in an up style, and it’s too bad she didn’t have long hair like yours, Jane, so that she could have covered her fat neck. But she was so lovely, with bright glossy pink lipstick, matched by the color of her nails. She wore natural hose, with 3- inch sandals, blue with sequins. And, she wore a necklace I bought her for her 13th birthday before our stepfather moved in with us and ruined everything.”

“Oh she must have been lovely,” Jarod said, almost regretting his words.

“She was, Jarod, and she left a note for me and my mom.”

“Oh,” he said, the two had separated from their embrace and sat calmly and almost in a matter-of-fact manner talked.

“It said only: ‘Dear Mom and Melissa. I’m sorry for all the pain I have caused you. I am happy now. Love, your daughter and sister, Terri.’”

As she ended, Melissa burst into tears again; Jarod did as well, and the two hugged each other, their cries rising to almost screams for assistance.

“And, she left this for you,” Melissa said when their crying subsided, handing Jarod a sealed pink envelop which had dancing bunnies printed on the corner. It was addressed, “Dear Jane.”

Inside was matching pink stationery paper, with Terri’s precise, almost dainty handwriting:

“My dear Jane. I am so sorry. I hurt you so. Please, please forgive me. You were the only real friend I ever had. You knew me like no one else, except maybe for Melissa. I loved you so, and I hurt you. I can’t live with myself, knowing how I hurt you and that I must continue to live as Terrence. It was Terrence who hurt you. Terri loves you too much.

“My darling, I hope you find happiness and soon can live as Jane.

“Now I am happy. I am Terri. I leave you as Terri. Please be not sad for me.

“Hugs, kisses and my eternal love, Terri.”

As bright red imprint of red lips emblazoned on the bottom.

Jarod took the letter, gently kissing the spot containing the lip imprint. He handed it to Melissa to read.

They were silent as Melissa drove him home; they kissed briefly, said nothing to each other and he left her car, carrying Terri’s note. No one was home, and this was one night when Jarod would not prepare supper. Instead, he went to his room, found a nightie and panties, put them on and lay upon his bed, crying.

*****
His mother found Jarod still laying on top of his bed, the lovely floral-patterned duvet rumpled as he had pulled it over him as he lay in the fetal position, his eyes red with tears.

She head for the bed, sitting besides him, seeing the dampness on the bedclothes, and raising his fragile body into a sitting position, hugging him tightly.

“What’s happened, my dear? Why are you here crying?”

His sobs intensified and he retreated into the strong arms of his mother, accepting her warmth and love, finally answering:

“Terri . . . oh . . . you know . . . Terrence, my friend when we were in middle school. Remember, mom?”

“Yes, honey, what about him?”

“He’s dead mother.”

“Oh?” his mother said, mystified as to why Jarod was taking this boy’s death so hard. “I didn’t think you hardly knew him anymore.”

Jarod’s sobbing began again, and through his tears, he said, almost defiantly, “Mother, you wouldn’t understand. He was like me.”

“Like you?”

“Yes, mother, you remember, all he wanted was to be a girl, but his stepdad forced him to forget and to be all boy, and to play football. Now he’s dead!”

Nancy Pinkerton released her son from the hugs, and took his two hands in hers, looking almost sternly into his eyes. “Honey, you have a loving mother and your new father, Jacques, loves you too.”

“Mom, don’t you see,” Jarod removed his hands from her grip, “It’s not that. It’s that I should be a girl, like Terri should have been a girl. That’s why he’s dead, and I maybe was the cause of his death.”

He explained that Terri (he only used the female name) had become part of a gang of thugs in his quest to become masculine, and that he had helped harass and even try to beat Jarod up.

“He didn’t want to do that, mom. He really wanted to hug me and to love me. We were to be girl friends, but he felt so bad, he took his life.”

Jarod told his mother how Terri had been dressed and how he took his life. He told of his meeting with Melissa, who had given him all of the details. He did not, however, tell his mother about the note. He would save the note for all of his life, and store it away in the pages of his diary.

“I didn’t realize you felt so close to him, Jarod,” his mother said. “Are there to be any services?”

“No, Melissa said they’ll cremate Terri, and that there will be services for the family only. Even I can’t come.”

“Oh my poor darling,” his mother said.

“Terri’s stepdad said Terri disgraced the family and wants him done away with soon and without notice,” he said.

“That’s so cruel,” she said.

Nancy told Jarod that he should probably take a shower and clean himself up, and suggested he dress in any way he wished that night. Jarod had a black dress in the closet that Amy, the next door neighbor, had saved from her high school years. That would be a fitting dress for the night, he felt.

*****
That night, after the hurried supper Nancy prepared from a box of spaghetti and hamburger, Jacques suggested the three talk together, without turning the television on or indulging in any other distractions. Jarod felt Jacques understood how he felt; his new stepfather offered questions gently and without apparent judgment.

“Mother, Jacques,” Jarod said after nearly an hour of discussion. “I’m going to live from now on as Jane. Always as Jane. Jarod is no more.”

His voice was firm and strong.

“Oh no, Jarod, you can’t go to school that way,” his mother objected. “You’re not ready for it yet.”

“No Nancy,” Jacques said in a low, but direct voice. “I think Jane is ready.”

Jarod smiled to his stepfather, hoping his mother would finally agree. She began to argue, but Jacques cut her short.

“Nancy, it’s time. I know you’re his mother, his own blood, and I’m new to the family, but I think Jane is ready. Now.”

“Oh Jacques, honey, I’m so scared for him,” she protested.

“Nancy, you’re the mother, so I won’t interfere, but I really think Jane is ready.”

“But he . . .”

Jarod interrupted her: “Mom, I’m Jane. I’m a ‘she.’”

A rap on the door interrupted the discussion; it was Wanda, who hurried into the room after Jarod opened the door.

“Oh Jane,” she said, grabbing Jarod and holding his slender figure tightly against hers. “I just heard about Terri. How awful?”

“Yes,” was all Jarod could respond, before he began crying again.

“Come in, Wanda,” Nancy offered, as Jacques rose to greet her.

*****
“I’ve made my mind up, mother,” Jarod said. “I’m going to school tomorrow as Jane, and I will be Jane Pinkerton from now on.”

He assumed a girlish position on the couch, and grabbed the hand of Wanda, holding it tensely as he made his statement. It followed another half hour of discussion about Terri’s suicide and Jarod’s future.

Wanda had remained largely silent, not wishing to intrude in the discussion. Jarod’s mother continued to raise objections about his plans, most of them of the usual practical nature: “You’ll get hurt.” “Your studies with suffer.” “How will you ever get a job?” “The cost of transition is high.” “The surgery is painful.” On and on she went.

Jacques patiently joined Jarod’s answers to each question his mother raised.

“Don’t you think I want you to be happy, Jarod?” she asked.

“Yes, mother, you do, but let me decide. It’s my life.” Jarod’s voice assumed a firm, almost definitive tone.

“Oh honey, I don’t argue that you don’t feel like you are a girl, but I just wish you’d hold off on this. It’s just not right yet. You’re still in school,” she continued.

“Do you forbid me to go to school as Jane tomorrow?” he finally said firmly.

Nancy looked to her husband in desperation, wondering how to answer. He neither nodded “yes” nor “no,” but sat rigid, realizing Jarod was her son, not his, and she’d have to make the decision.

“No, honey, I won’t,” she said finally.

“Oh mother, I’ll make you happy you said ‘yes,’ really, I will,” he said, rising from the couch and rushing to hug her.

Chapter 32: It’s Time for Jane

Jane arose early the next day, still tired from lack of sleep, and a nagging fear at concern over what kind of greeting she’d get among the students. She showered, brushed her hair and put on her favorite panties; they were simple cotton panties, nothing fancy, but they were light blue with pictures of cute pigtailed little girls. She also put on a plain white bra, within which she had fashioned breast forms, giving her tiny, but noticeable breasts.

The big question was, as it was with most teen girls every morning: What should she wear?

“A skirt and blouse?” she wondered. “Not many girls wore them, or even a dress, to school anymore.”

She tried on jeans with bell-bottoms that looked like they would be in a fairly typical teen fashion, Jane thought. “But they’re not feminine enough.”

Then, just out of a whim, Jane put on a pair of purple tights, and whirled about in front of the full-length mirror, admiringly looking at her legs. “I do have pretty legs, don’t I,” she mused, breaking into a full smile.

She found a multi-colored shift, splashed in random designs of reds, and greens and purples, which seemed to complement the tights beautifully. The shift had a ruffled scoop neck and bare arms. She put on a pair of black flats with a strap across the top of the foot.

She then retreated to the bathroom, where she stood in front of the mirror, tying her hair into two pigtails at the top of her head, the strands flowing out in a cute style.

“Jane, let me see you, honey,” her mother yelled. “I have to leave soon and I want to make sure my girl looks OK.”

“I do, mother,” she said. In truth, she felt her mother might be a bit shocked at her choice of clothes.

“Jane, you look like a hippie from the 60s,” she said.

“Mother, I think I’ll look cool.”

“I don’t know, and what’s this with the pigtails?” her mother asked. “They make you look 13 years old.”

“But, mother, I love my pigtails,” she pleaded.

“Yes, I know,” she said, beginning to laugh. “And, pigtails are for girls, aren’t they?”

Her mother was now resigned to letting Jane dress as she wanted, with the belief that Jane might become more conventional once she realized how weird the other kids might think she is.

Actually, Jane had observed the other girls in school, and realized that while most seemed to follow a sameness that involved jeans and oversized tops in cold weather and shorts and tank tops in warmer weather, the girls she hung around with often wore styles that could be called “outlandish.”

Once her preoccupation with her clothes was ended, Jane began to feel a slight panic begin: what would happen when she entered school for the first time as a girl? Would everyone laugh at her? Would the toughs try to beat her up? What bathrooms could she use? Would they even let her attend?

Her tension became obvious, as she went twice to the bathroom, sitting down, of course, to pee. (In truth, she hadn’t stood up to pee for about year, always assuming the female posture to urinate.)

“Are you sure you want to do this, Jane?” her mother asked, sensing her tenseness.

“Oh yes, I have to,” she said. She thought of Terri, the girl whose life had ended because she could never live the life she needed to live.

*****
Wanda, true to her word, came over to walk with Jane to school, to help her through the process of walking into the school, showing her ID, which still said “Jarod Pinkerton” “Male.”

Jane put on a light blue hoodie, padded to protect against the Wisconsin cold. She brought out, too, a pink and green girlish bookbag, using it in place of the Green Bay Packer bookbag she had been using.

She felt so natural now, so much the girl she felt she always was. No more did she have to assume macho mannerisms, which came so hard for her.
As the pair approached the front of the school, Jane was astonished to find about a dozen of her girl friends, standing on both sides of the walk approaching the main entrance.

“What’s this? I can’t go through with this now? Why are they here?” Jane said to Wanda, grabbing the girl’s coat, and stopping dead still.

“Oh no you don’t, Wanda said. You’re going to school today as Jane.”

“But, all my friends are here.”

“Yes, I know, I called Latoya and Tiffany last night and told them what you were doing, and they both said, ‘It’s about time.’ They must have told the others.”

“Wasn’t Tiffany surprised? She didn’t know about me like you and Latoya did.”

“She suspected, Jane, as I think a lot of others did, too. You acted just like one of us,” Wanda said, pulling on Jane to resume the walk to school.

“Come on they’re waiting for you to escort you in,” she said.

A huge cheer went up as Jane and Wanda approached, the girls running up to Jane to hug her, offering words of encouragement. “Wait ‘til I tell my boy friend,” one of the girls named Grace said. “He thought you were just a sissy or fag, but now I can tell him you’re a girl.”

“Jane, I love you,” Latoya whispered in her ear, hugging Jane hard.

“Oh and you’re wearing pigtails,” Tiffany said, as Jane’s hoodie fell off, exposing her head, and the cute pigtails in their light blue ribbons.

“Yes, pigtails are for girls,” Jane responded, followed by a giggle.

*****
The walk up to the main entrance is sometimes like running the gauntlet, but being accompanied by the other girls made it easy, reducing the chance for some of the toughs to make comments or pushed Jane around.

Jarod noticed that Jerome, the huge school security aide, was staffing the metal detectors they were using at school. He and another male aide also checked the IDs.

“Oh are you a new girl here in school, miss?” Jerome asked, looking right at Jane, puzzled when she produced her school ID card, identifying “Jarod Pinkerton.”

“What’s this?” he boomed. “Jarod, is that you? Why are you dressed like this?”

“It’s Jane Pinkerton now, sir,” she said, addressing Jerome in a polite, respectful manner, using her soft, girlish voice.

Jerome told Jane to stand in the corner and wait; Wanda and Latoya wanted to stay with Jane, but Jerome ordered them to head to their rooms. Jerome got on his walkie-talkie and talked into it.

In less than a minute, Mrs. Marguerite Jones, the school principal, appeared. Jane was so happy it was the principal since she had so understood the attack Jane suffered in her sophomore year.

“Is this a lark, Jarod?” she asked, after taking him to her office and closing the door.

“No ma’am, I feel I am a girl and should go to school as a girl.”

“Oh darling, you’re going to make life so difficult for yourself here, and you’re such a good student.”

Mrs. Jones sighed, obviously reluctant to deal with the issue that Jane (whom she still insisted upon calling “Jarod”) was raising. She asked Jane to sit outside in the receptionist’s area for a minute, while she made some calls.

Jane sat quietly, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her purple-tight clad legs held together. She watched the busy secretary handle calls from parents and others in a most expeditious manner, but still politely. Jane was impressed and wondered if she could ever be such an efficient secretary.

“Ok Jane, you may come in now,” Mrs. Jones said.

After Jane was seated, Mrs. Jones said she called Jane’s mother, receiving confirmation that she had approved, though with reluctance, the decision for her son to go to school now as a girl. Mrs. Jones also said it was school board policy to honor the gender orientation of students and to make appropriate arrangements. The principal also suggested that Jane’s mother get a statement from the psychiatrist attesting to the fact that Jane’s desires were not merely whimsical and based on the child’s actual feelings.

“We’ll have to accept your decision, Jane, though I must say it’ll be causing us some fuss here to accommodate you as a girl.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones,” she said. “I hate to cause such trouble, but I just can’t continue living as a boy.”

Jane wanted to tell the principal about how Terri died because she could not be the girl she felt she was. Jane knew, however, that Terri’s family wanted her death hushed up and forgotten. The thought of Terri clouded her mind, and Jane felt she was going to begin crying, but held back any noticeable tears.

“Darling, please don’t feel badly,” Mrs. Jones said. “You’ve always been a good student and a credit to the school. We’ll make the arrangements.”

*****
Jane was sent home that day, and told to return the following day when she would be admitted as a girl. She would be given new credentials, identifying her as Jane Pinkerton, female. Her classes would be the same; all of her teachers would be told of the change. The only change would be to remove her from the physical education class for boys, and placing her in a special dance program they had for exceptional students.

“That’s for retarded kids,” Jane objected.

“Honey, we don’t use that term. Some of these children are developmentally disabled, but there are a number of able-bodied students in there, and I’m sure you’ll fit in.”

The principal explained that anatomically Jane was still a boy, and that she could not be assigned to the regular girl’s physical education programs. The other disappointment was that Jane would be allowed to use only several unisex bathrooms that existed in the school building.

*****
At home later, Jane took removed her off-beat outfit, replacing it with shorts and a girl’s tee-shirt. She kept her hair in pigtails, and put on white ankle socks and pink tennis shoes. She gleefully took all of her boy clothes from the dresser drawers and the closet and dumped them into two huge black garbage bags, with the desire to take them to the Goodwill Store. She included the Brewers and Packers pennants she had kept in the room to fool people that she was a boy.

She cleaned the house and prepared lasagna and a tossed Italian salad for her mother and stepfather when they returned home. She set up their dinner in the dining room, complete with candles and cloth napkins and table covering.

When the work was done, Jane went to her closet and found a cute black dress she had inherited from Amy. It was plain, with some dark purple trim, and a square bodice; the dress reached to Jane’s mid-thigh. She put on a pair of thigh high stockings, sheer black, and sandals with three-inch heels.

There’d be no pigtails tonight, Jane decided. She untied her hair, and brushed it vigorously, letting it fall naturally about her shoulders. She applied light pink lipgloss and a touch of eye shadow; she trimmed her eyebrows.

Jane wanted to put on nail polish, but suppertime was near and soon her mother and Jacques would arrive home. She wanted to be ready for them, welcoming them dressed as Jane, their daughter and stepdaughter.

She looked at herself in the mirror, her lovely shoulders and slender arms, so milky white and soft contrasted by the black dress. “I am so pretty, so feminine,” she said out loud in a moment of self-praise.

Though Jane missed her pigtails, she realized that they would not go with her dress that night. She felt so excited, feeling that she was indeed the loveliest of young ladies. Her joy was tempered, however, when the images of Terri entered her brain; it was the sacrifices of Terri, Jane’s girl friend that provided courage for Jane to make this step to womanhood. Jane would never forget Terri.

“Tonight is for Jane,” her mother said, when she arrived home, stunned at the beauty of her daughter.

“Yes,” Jacques said, hugging his stepdaughter. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

Jane loved her parents, but realized that after this joyous celebration, she’d have to return to school as a girl; it was something she longed for all her life. But would it be easy?

(To be continued)