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Chapter 11
Robbie hugged his mother and she cuddled him for a while. Jun had come in from visiting her friend who also lived in the condominium three floors below them.

“Hi, Momma! Hi, Robbie!”

She gave her mother and her brother a warm hug. Robbie loved Jun and she idolized him. Robbie was afraid to break the news to his sister, but decided to anyway.

“I love you Jun, you know that.”

“Yes, Robbie, I do. I love you, too!”

“Jun, I’ve got something to tell you that I hope you won’t think is silly or weird. This news is so very different from anything you’ve ever heard that I don’t want you to laugh at me. I’m already nervous and very scared.”

“Robbie, I won’t laugh at you. I promise!”

“Jun,” Hana said, “Before Robbie says anything, I want you to know that I support and stand behind him all the way in his decision. I hope you will too, honey.”

“What is it, Momma?”

“I’ll let your brother tell you.”

Robbie began, cautiously. “Jun, you’ve obviously known me for a really, really long time. You’re my sister, after all. And I love you. Well… I haven’t felt good about myself for most of my life. You know how the rest of the kids tease me at school.”

“I do, Robbie. They’re all just a bunch of jerk balls. Every time I see them I want to throw up.”

“Well, you know how they kid me about looking like a girl, don’t you?”

“Yes, Robbie. I thought Dr. Hart was going to help you when you got a bit older?”

“She is, Jun, but even if she helps me, I’m still going to be different inside.”

“Is it because of your accident?”

“Well… partly. It’s just that… uh… you know… uh… this is really hard…”

“You feel like a girl?” Jun finished her brother’s sentence.

“Uh… yes. Jun, I feel like a girl and I think I need to be one forever.”

“Oh?”

“Jun, it’s just been that for the longest time I’ve felt more like I think a girl would feel. I certainly don’t fit in with the boys. And I’m scared.”

“You don’t have to be scared around me, Robbie,” Jun scooted up next to Robbie on his bed.

He was still naked. Hana was already holding his right hand, so Jun took his left hand with her right hand and wrapped her left arm around his neck. She kissed him on the cheek. Robbie’s eyes filled with tears.

“I love you and I always will, Robbie.”

“Even if I start living as a girl?”

“Even then. Besides, you’ve always seemed like a girl to me anyway. Something in the way you move, I think.”

“Momma just told me something that made me really happy…” Suddenly Robbie’s lip started to quiver, he lost his composure and couldn’t fight the tears any longer. Soon, he could not stop crying even though his mother and sister were smothering him with their hugs and kisses.

Hana explained to her daughter the things that she had just told Robbie. Jun put her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, kissing him.

“When are you going to start living as a girl, Robbie? When am I going to get my new big sister?”

“I think it’s going to be after I graduate from the academy.” Robbie was able to talk again, his soprano voice seemingly more feminine than either of them had heard before. “I don’t want the boys to make fun of me.”

“Does Daddy know?”

“I haven’t told him yet.”

Jun shivered. “I’ve seen how Daddy treats you when we’re in New York.”

Hana did not like the things she was hearing about Robert but they were coming from the mouths of her children.

“Robbie, you’re going to New York City as my daughter this time and as Jun’s sister. Do you have any objections? None of the children at school need to know anything about it, but I think it’s for your own good, honey.”

Robbie shrugged his shoulders. “If you think that it’s going to be okay, Momma, then why not? Can I tell Meghan?”

“If you’d like to, it’s perfectly okay with me, sweetie,” Hana said.

“Daddy will be surprised, won’t he?” Jun smiled as she thought about what her father’s face would look like when he sees her new sister. “We’ve got some shopping to do, now don’t we?”

Even though she was only ten-going-on-eleven, Jun had become quite a clothes horse. She accepted her brother’s news with open arms. She wanted to make sure he was dressed just like the other twelve year-old-going-on-thirteen-year-old girls she’d seen at school.

“What am I going to call you, Robbie? You can’t be my brother… and what’s your new name going to be? Momma and I need to know these things.”

“Please, if you can, think of me… start calling me… your sister.” Robbie had thought long and hard choosing a girl’s name that he liked. “And Ami… Ah-mee… Ami will be my first name. I looked it up and it means that I have drive, ambition and energy and that I am creative, inventive and ingenious. Does that sound like me?”

Hana smiled and so did Jun because they knew that it fit him to a tee.

“Hana will be my second name, after you, Momma. Did you know that Hana means flower? It also means that I am easy-going and refined, just like you, Momma.”

Jun giggled. “What does my first name mean, Ami?”

Robbie smiled at his little sister.

“Your name, Jun, means that you are generous in nature and you do your best to help others in need in spite of hard things that might happen to you in the process. You are affectionate and respond well to appreciation just like you have already responded to mine. You are imaginative and impressionable and if you are a performer your audience becomes your greatest inspiration.”

Jun had already proven herself a good actor and performer. She had played the part of Amaryllis in the school play last year and she had cut a demo tape that she hoped will make her the next Shania Twain (she was a country music girl through-and-through). Most of all, her respect and affection for Robbie, even as he was telling her that he needs to be a girl, was clearly evident.

“I love you, Ami! And I’m going to love saying your new name!” Jun kissed her new sister on the cheek.

“Momma? For my last name I want to take your maiden name. I’d like to be Ami Hana Daishi, if it’s all right with you.”

“Honey, you’ve got my vote and you’ve got my love! Welcome into the family Ami Hana Daishi!” She kissed the feminine child on his cheeks and brushed the bangs that were hanging in his eyes. With tears in her eyes she said, “Look at you now! You don’t have to do much to yourself to make me believe that you’re anything but a girl!”

“Me neither!” Jun said. “Hey! Let’s go shopping!”
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Ami, Jun and Hana arrived in downtown San Diego’s Horton Plaza shopping center. They entered Victoria’s Secret and Hana found a red satin bra and some matching panties in a size two. Believing that they were Ami’s size, she took her into the dressing room and Ami tried them on. The 36C Body by Victoria bra was perfect and Ami just about spilled out of the cups.

“Leave the bra and panties on, sweetie. I’m going to tell the girl that you’ll wear a set home. I’m going to go get you six more so that you’ll have one set for every day of the week. A girl never wants to be caught dead in dirty panties in case she’s been in an accident.”

Ami blushed and by the time she replaced her jeans and tee-shirt, Hana had come back into the dressing room with something she didn’t expect. Hana placed a tiara on her head.

Hana cried. “You are most beautiful Ami Hana Daishi! Now you really look like a princess.”

Ami was giddy from her excitement. Her eyes started to tear up to and Hana reminded her that her mascara would run if she didn’t watch out. She dabbed a hankie at her eyes and then at her own. She checked their makeup and took her new daughter’s hand as they emerged from the changing room. Jun was smiling.

When Ami saw a dress that she liked, Hana pulled it off the rack and took her into the dressing room to try it on. Jun pulled Ami into the front of the store and stopped in front of a mirror to affirm to her the fact that she looked beautiful. Hana asked her if she’d like to wear the sexy new red dress home.

“Can I?” Ami was ecstatic but questioned her mother. “I mean, I don’t look like a perv, do I?”

A sales associate walked up to Ami from behind. “I’d give anything to look as good as you do in that dress, miss. Would you like me to wrap it up for you?”

“No. I think that she’ll wear it home,” Hana said. “And I agree with you. I think she looks darling in it if I don’t say so my self. Isn’t my daughter lovely?”

The girl asked, “Can I get you a pair of pumps to wear with the dress, miss?”

Ami blushed. “Would you? I’d like that very much. Thank you!”

Since the dress was red and relatively short, the girl who helped her suggested a pair of red pumps with a three-inch heel. Ami slipped them on her feet and teetered a bit while she walked across the room but soon grew acquired her balance.

“I don’t do this much!” Ami was blushing so that her face almost matched the color of her dress.

“You’re doing fine, honey. Besides, you need this outfit… and the shoes… for our Christmas trip.” Hana winked at her oldest daughter. “They’ll love you on the flight to New York City! Oh, miss? I’d like to purchase a new overcoat for my daughter Ami, here. I’d also like one for myself and her sister. I like the ones I see over there.”

Ami, Jun and Hana left the store and Ami was wearing the new things that Hana had purchased for her.

“Guess what, girls? We’re going out to dinner and then we’re going to catch a show!”

“Momma!” Ami looked mortified. “I’ve never been out like this before and I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Just remember to be yourself, sweetie. A bridge is burning up behind you and I guarantee that you won’t miss it!”

Hana was beaming from ear-to-ear. Ami looked gorgeous and, besides, it would be great fun to have another daughter.

“Yeah, Ami! You look sexy!” Jun took her new sister’s hand and as they passed a store window the reflection was that of three young women out for a good time. “Don’t be nervous, Ami. We’re here for you.”
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As Ami tried on a dress in Neiman-Marcus that caught her eye, Hana checked on arrangements she had made earlier in the week for dinner at The Chart House on Prospect Street in downtown La Jolla. Her reservations were confirmed for six o’clock. She informed Ami that she had asked my mother, Reiko, and me to join them for the evening and my mother was only too happy to oblige Hana Shannon. It was then that Ami looked like she had just seen a ghost.

“I’ve made reservations for dinner and for A Christmas Carol at The La Jolla Playhouse. Patrick Stewart from Star Trek the Next Generation is performing it as a one-man show. I thought that it would be nice if the Johnsons joined us.”

Jun was jumping up and down not only because she adored Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, but also because she had a deep affection for my mother. Ami just started crying.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Hana asked.

“I’m a little bit overwhelmed, Momma. What if Meghan or Stephanie think that I’m a freak?” Ami whispered so softly that her mother and sister could barely hear her words. “What if they see me like this and think that I’m a perverted little freak or something? What kind of boy would want to do this to himself?”

“Do you really think that they’ll do that, sweetie? Do you believe they see you as really being male?”

“I don’t know, Momma, but this is just so… unusual. I do feel that this is right but what if I am just a little perv?”

“Honey, I know you and I can honestly say that I don’t think you’re a perv. You’re going to have to break your news to Meghan and Reiko someday. Why not do it tonight over a nice dinner and a play? I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about Patrick Stewart’s performance!”

“Well,” Ami took a pregnant pause as her tears subsided. “I guess it’ll be alright.”
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Chapter 12
I’d never seen Robbie dressed as a girl but had wondered many times what he might look like in a dress. Don’t ask me why, I just did.

Jun and Hana had not alerted me to the fact that my best friend would be looking so much like a girl when I saw him that evening. I think Hana had been talking to my mother about it but I was kept in the dark pretty much.
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When my mother and I arrived at the Shannons' condominium, Jun let us in and told me to go to Robbie’s room, that he had a surprise for me. I could sense that Jun was having a hard time keeping her mouth shut, but she did. Robbie had asked her not to say anything about his present state and had asked her to let him do it himself.
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As I knocked on Robbie’s door I could not see him because he was in the bathroom with the door closed. He mumbled some things but I couldn't understand him so I played on his computer. When he came into his bedroom all I can say is that I was startled. I really didn’t know what to think.

Although Robbie looked pretty much like a girl everyday... and really couldn’t cover it up... at that moment he looked like a princess. His dress was fairly short and his hair was done up in an elegant French-braid. His lips were colored the same shade as his dress and his eyes were rimmed in a smoke-colored eye shadow. His eyelashes had been enhanced with mascara. So, in short, he looked like the dream I had had about him many nights before.

“Robbie?” I quavered. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Meghan, it’s me. How do I look?”

When he talked this time he sounded more like a girl than I ever remembered him sounding.

“You look pretty!”

“Oh Meghan, you’re just saying that because you’re my best friend! You really think that I’m a perv, don’t you?”

“Perv? Honey... no, I never could. I wouldn’t think that of you ever. I’m just a bit surprised. I love that dress! But how did your breasts get so big?”

I began to feel my breasts and tried to size them up with his.

“You must be at least a C-cup. Why haven’t I seen those things before?”

“Last month was the first time I really started to really notice them. They started growing really fast, Meghan. You must have seen a change in the way that I dressed?”

“You did start wearing looser tops… but I just thought that was a clothing phase you were going through.”

“It is a phase, Meghan. But I can never go back and take these away, can I?”

“I guess not. But why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was afraid you’d quit being my friend.”

“Sweetie, I would never do that.”

“I was afraid of what everyone would say, Meghan, so I just started wrapping an elastic bandage really tight around them to hold them into my body. And I wore a sports bra to keep me flatter. Momma knew about my breasts and showed me how to wrap them up. I guess I just got really good at disguising them. Now they’re growing quite rapidly. Momma bought me some lingerie today and we found out that I can wear a 36C bra. Do you think I’m a perv?”

“No. How can you be a perv if this is happening to you naturally? You aren’t taking hormones, are you?”

“No, Meghan. I’ve been taking some medicine but I don’t think that it’s estrogen.”

“Think it's testosterone?”

“Yes. How do you know about testosterone?"

"Remember, we studied those things in sex education?"

"I guess."

"Why'd you stop taking it?"

"I don't think I want to look like a boy."

"Robbie? How long has that been rattling around in your head?"

"Since my accident in Little League, I think. You remember it?”

“Yes, sweetie. I do."

I changed the subject.

"Are you going to look like this all the time? I mean, it’ll be nice to have a girlfriend or a sister like you, but you’ll have to let me know when she’ll be around so I can welcome her with open arms!”

“Yes, Meghan, I’m going to be like this all the time… very soon… just not now.”

“So when are you going to start?”

“I don’t know. Probably as soon as we get out of Rouge Castile… and… well… I have to tell my Daddy first.”

“When are you going to tell him?”

“We’re flying to New York City for Christmas. I’m going to wear this outfit on the flight out there. Daddy will see me like this when we come through the arrival gates at JFK.”

“I’d love to see his face! Does he have any idea?”

“I don’t know. I do know that he hates me, Meghan, and I think he thinks I’m gay.”

“Well, I still like you… no.. honey… I love you!”

“Do I look really like a girl, Meghan?”

“Honey, does Mickey Mouse have giant black ears and wear red pants?”

She smiled.

“I’ve always thought of you as a girl, Robbie.”

“What? Uh… why?”

Robbie looked perplexed.

“I don’t know. I’ve just always thought that you were a girl, sweetie. I think everyone else in school does too. You’ve never done the things that boys do. One of the kids said that she thought you were a tom boy. But she’s crazy. You look like a model! I love the way you did your hair!”

“What do you mean that you’ve always thought I was a girl?”

Robbie contemplated what he had just said and frowned.

“The other kids really think that I’m a girl?”

“You’ve always looked like one to me. I think that they think the same thing. Honey, you don’t have to worry about them. They don’t know you as well as I do. I’d never think that you’re weird or perverted.”

“Oh.”

Robbie smiled and he was absolutely radiant.

“My mother always says it, Robbie. If you were born a girl we could easily have been sisters. I swear that we look so much alike that it’s uncanny.”

I led Robbie to the full-length mirror that hung on his bathroom door. We stood there for a minute and stared at each other.

“Is this good, Meghan?” Robbie was staring at himself in the mirror as I stood next to him.

“Hell yes! It is! When are you going to start living as a girl?”

“I don’t know. I talked to Momma today and she said that I really am a girl and have been all along.”

“Huh?” I didn’t comprehend what Robbie was telling me. How could he have been a girl all along?

“Meghan. I know this is going to be hard for you to believe, but I have a uterus and ovaries and a cervix. Meghan, I even have eggs that are fertile! The only thing I lack, short of being one-hundred percent female, is my labia and a clitoris…”

“Are you sure?” I interrupted. “How can you know that?”

“Doctor Hart showed Momma some CAT scans she ran soon after my accident and Momma showed them to me today. My reproductive organs are female. Doctor Hart assured my mother that one day I can conceive a baby and bring it to full term. Doctor Hart has been giving me drugs that are delaying puberty but she can’t do so much longer. If she does, I’ll have to have a hysterectomy.”

“You don’t want that, sweetie. Do You?”

“No, Meghan. I want to be a mother some day. Remember what I said in the hospital that day? Jesus told me I was going to be a mother! And now I know it wasn’t just a dream!”

I grabbed Ami around the waist and hugged. We were both giddy and giggling.

“Then I can be an aunt?”

“Yes, Meghan, you can!”

I started crying happy tears.

“That’s why I’m going to start living as a girl as soon as I can, Meghan. But I have to tell Daddy first and I don’t want to do it over the phone. For some reason he won’t come to San Diego anymore.”

“Oh? So you’re thinking of becoming a girl as soon as we graduate from the academy?”

“Yes… and after I tell Daddy.”

“Oh! That’s really soon!”

“I’m starting to go crazy, Meghan. Now I know that I am a girl but I have to live like a boy because everyone thinks that I am one.”

“Do you like boys?”

“Yes, Meghan. I think so. But it’s not like a gay boy who likes another gay boy.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’m a girl, Meghan. I like boys the way I think that you like boys. You do like boy, don’t you?”

“Oh! Yes, honey.”

I had to keep mum my feelings for Robbie. I had always thought that maybe, someday, we’d be together. I knew about what happened to him when he was six and I could love him in spite of it all. Now I had to keep my silence since he was going to be a girl.

“That’s how it stands with me and boys,” Ami said. “I’d say I’m a heterosexual female through-and-through.”

“Okay, sweetie. I like what your mom did with your hair. Do you think she could do mine in the same style?”

“I think so. Let’s ask her!”
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Robbie was out of his bedroom before me and I couldn’t help but watch him as he walked to the kitchen to find his mother and mine.

I realized that I’d never seen any boy walk in quite the same manner as Robbie was. His bottom sashayed femininely, seaming to mock the myriad of girls at Rouge Castile. I’d also never noticed how gorgeous his legs really were. But then again, he was always wearing 501s and not JC Penney Sheer Caress Suntan pantyhose.
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Hana finished with my hair as Momma talked with Robbie about how he was feeling about himself. We had one hour to get to The Chart House and although Hana realized that we will have plenty of time, she also realized that Robbie was acquiring a good case of the jitters. When she saw this happening she reaffirmed to him his right to be in his body. She was always telling him to own the minute. This was definitely his minute.

Robbie asked us to remember to call him Ami and to refer to him only in feminine pronouns. We slipped up a couple of times in the car but it wasn’t hard for us to accept him as one of us girls.

The maitre de at The Chart House complimented Ami on her ensemble and that made her feel good about herself. A handsome waiter pulled her chair out from the table for her and helped her push it in as she sat down. That was something Robbie had never experienced before and Ami appeared to enjoy it.

“Ladies, I planned this dinner a couple of weeks ago, but I’m going to dedicate it tonight to Ami’s coming out. She’s been given the role of lead annunciation angel in the Rouge Castile Christmas play and I’ve agreed to design the costumes. I’ll make you all proud of me but I congratulate Ami. This is her night!”

Hana raised her glass of water and we clanked ours in towards hers so that they rang like a bell.

“Congratulations, Ami! Miss Owens made me an angel too!” I told them about the phone call my mother had received that morning. “That means we’ll be angels together, Meghan!”

Ami smiled giddily.

“Yea, Meghan! One more of us… and a boss named Chuck… and we’ll be Charlie’s Angels!”

Ami giggled.

“One more thing, girls,” Hana said. “Veronica Owens wanted me to tell Jun that she has the part of the third angel. Congratulations, Jun!”

“That does it!” Ami said. “We really are Charlie’s angels! Where’s Charlie?”

That’s when we all started giggling.

Our dinner went well. The Chart House was wonderful and the food was as excellent as we had expected it to be. Afterward, Patrick Stewart was marvelous in A Christmas Carol. He got several standing ovations. We were in the front row and he reached down and touched our hands.

Jun got to go backstage and meet Patrick Stewart. Hana had set up her meeting with Mr. Stewart months beforehand. And since Hana had arranged for Jun to see Mr. Stewart, we got to go backstage too!

Ami seemed to be enjoying the whole thing the most. Patrick Stewart kissed her hand and she turned a bright crimson red!