Michelle grows up and loses a friend along the way.   Mike versus Michelle: Part 13 Losing A Friend By Sharon Parsons

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The school buses began rolling down our street the last week of August, signaling the end of summer. Tony went to school. Dad went to work. Mom and I stayed home while I cracked opened my books.

Of course there was more to my life than just studying for the G.E.D. I was studying to be a woman after all, and it was an around the clock job that began when I woke up in the mornings. It incorporated all of my actions, thoughts, and behavior.

Feminine mannerisms didn't come easy to me because they weren't a natural instinct. My mother was constantly catching my errors and pointing them out to me. She'd say things like; a lady doesn't sit like that or walk like that or hold her cigarette like that. Try harder, said my mother, or you'll wind up embarrassing yourself.

I doubted that plopping down on the couch in a less than graceful way would cause me that much mental anguish, but I did want to please her and it was actually a lot of fun for me.

When I say acting feminine was fun for me, keep in mind that wearing women's clothes and smoking cigarettes kept me in a constant state of arousal, even though the female hormones had made it visually difficult to detect- but I knew.

Fall sports also coincided with the start of school. Tony and Gary were playing recreation league soccer and Cam had won a starting position on the JV offensive line. I went to Tony's soccer games on Saturday mornings with my family, but it wasn't until later in the season that I went to one of Cam's football games.

My little brother's soccer games were a no-brainer. He was my little brother. I was supposed to watch him play. I liked it too. But I'd also see Mr. and Mrs. Halsteader at his games because Tony and Gary played for the same team.

I'd become very good friends with Mrs. Halsteader by this time and our relationship had evolved into my calling her and Mr. Halsteader by their first names. They were Dana and Dave to me, and of course I was Michelle to them. We were bleacher buddies.

My time in the bleachers ended about three weeks into the season when the coach had to quit because of his job. His company decided to relocate him and my brother's little team suddenly found themselves without a coach.

It was Dave Holsteader who suggested I fill in. He said it would be a natural, since I used to be a player.

I had my reservations. For starters, coaching a lot of little kids was a lot of responsibility. I don't think I questioned whether or not I thought it was ladylike to coach, because I knew lots of female coaches. However, I wasn't too keen on being in the spotlight. I wasn't looking for any extra attention or scrutiny.

Mom said that as far as the other parents were concerned, I was my father's sister, so my gender wouldn't be an issue. She told me to do it because I'd have fun. She said it would be a good experience for me.

Aside from being a good experience, coaching soccer would be a drain on my time. I'd be expected to run practices on Monday and Wednesday for two hours and the games would take up two hours of my time on Saturday.

I took the position as the team's coach and had my first practice on Wednesday night. I was nervous but I did know what I was doing. To my surprise, the boys took me seriously as both a coach and a woman!

I had suspected that I would be able to win them over with my soccer skills. After all soccer is pretty much a unisex sport. The thing that caught me by surprise was the way they responded to me as a woman.

Seven year old boys have a tendency to think of girls as yucky. I know I did when I was seven. But its not that way with women. Women are moms to little boys. Women are the ones that carry band-aids and wipe away tears. They're the ones that can help tie your shoes when they come untied, even though you know you tied the laces right. My soccer team saw me as both a coach and a woman.

When Dave Halsteader asked me to be the coach, he couldn't have known how much the experience would raise my self-esteem. He just wanted his son to have a coach.

I liked talking to the parents before and after practice. They treated me with respect. As a boy, I'd never felt on a peer to peer level with adults. Obviously I looked older than I really was. Whenever my age did come up, they assumed I was taking time off from college and I didn't correct them. Even though I was working hard on getting my G.E.D., I didn't think they'd particularly like the idea that their children were being coached by high school drop-out.

I'd also see my kids and their parents while working at my job in the grocery store. I thought it was so cool because these people had only known me as Michelle. They were unaware of my secret and that made me feel safe.

There was also a down side to coaching my brother's soccer team. I felt as if I had to be an example to them. And as such, I never let them see me smoke before or after practice. If I'd see a kid from the team while out in public, I'd quickly dispose of my cigarette before they could see me. Believe it or not, there was a lot irony involved. I had always fantasized about smoking in public as a woman. Now that my fantasy had come true, I was going out of my way to squelch it, at least in front of impressionable kids.

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I had my first date with a boy in October. His name was Chip Gossett and he was the assistant manager at my grocery store. He was 19 years old and a part-time college student. He was a nice guy and he knew I was six months shy of my 16th birthday. Sixteen is the magic number in my state. Its the difference between a consensual relationship and jail bait.

I call it a date, but in hindsight it probably wasn't. We both liked the Rocky Horror Picture Show movie and would sing the songs at work. When the movie came to our theater, he asked if I wanted to see it with him. I could have said no, but I didn't. I said yes, and I prepared for it as if it were a real date.

It was a midnight movie, so he picked me up at 11:00 on a Friday night. My dad didn't want me to go, but my mom softened him up. She told me to behave myself, but she also wanted me to have a good time. I told her I wouldn't throw popcorn at the screen. She told me that wasn't what she meant.

Chip didn't hold my hand, or put his arm around me in the theater, or kiss me good night. But it was still a date to me. I know it wasn't a date for him because he never asked me out again.

I went to Cam's JV football game the next day. It was his last game of the season and his mother had been asking me to see at least one his games. She knew there was bad blood between us and she wanted to fix that.

I didn't consider our relationship to be based on bad blood. It was just awkward and uncomfortable but I didn't wish him any harm and I know he felt the same towards me.

The only reason I mention the game at all is because of something Dana told me while we were there. Actually she told my mother and I at the same time since we were both sitting next to her. She told us her doctor had found a lump on her breast and that it was cancer.

Dana was so matter of fact about it. She made it sound like she had a wart that needed to be removed. But that wart was her left breast.

I remember my mother being visually upset. It was the worry on her face and in her voice that gave me reason to be concerned. I was naive about breast cancer. I'd heard about it but I'd never known anyone who had it.

To this day, I don't know if smoking played a role in her breast cancer, but I do know the three of us decided then and there that it couldn't be beneficial. Dana and Dave both tried to quit, as did my mother and I.

To date, none of us have ever succeeded in quitting for any length of time, except for Dave. He didn't quit for himself. He quit for Dana, to make it easier on her to do the same. I remember her cutting back, but she was never able to kick it.

She had her left breast removed a week after she told us about it. She was convinced that her doctors had gotten all of the cancer, but it came back less than a year later. Dana would eventually succumb to it and die about two months after I turned 17. She was only 38 and she was the first real friend I ever had that died.

Mom and I tried to be there for her as much as we could. Cam and I found common ground that helped us overcome the awkwardness we had invented at the cabin. Watching his mother die had a way of making us both grow up faster.

She was buried on a hot Saturday in June. It hadn't rained for a while and I remember the ground being hard. I bought a black dress for the funeral and haven't worn it since.

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To Be Continued...