Chapter 1 – Freshman Encounter
She was a plain girl, with a broad, almost cherubic face. She had a soft, fleshy body. It was a body that was yet to mature. Perhaps the girl would eventually grow into a svelte, fashionable young woman, but then again, maybe not and that unfinished girl would grow dumpy and blemished.

The long-haired boy stood holding a cafeteria tray containing a garden salad, a paper cup of hot water with the tag from a tea bag hanging on its side. There seemed to be no empty seats in the college student union’s food area – except for one opposite the girl. The boy debated whether to ask her if he could sit there? He didn’t want to ask. He was afraid of her reaction. He knew he was not exactly the type of boy any girl would fancy. He was scrawny and largely undeveloped himself. He was never sure how to act with girls and had yet to have been on a date with a girl.

The boy tried to ignore the girl as his eyes scanned the wide room, seeking a place to put his meager lunch. He saw two empty seats across the room, but two boys (both of linebacker size) moved in to claim them. There was a seat, it appeared, at a round table with perhaps five other boys, all loud and big and rowdy. He just wouldn’t fit in.

This was only his second day at the university and everything was strange and new. He wished his mother was there; she would know what to do. He wanted to escape this crowded place and run back to his home.

“It’s OK, you can sit here,” the girl said.

The boy looked at the girl. He froze. Was she inviting him to join her?

“Yes, sit,” the girl commanded.

The boy did as ordered, gingerly placing his tray on the table while being careful not to let it intrude upon the girl’s space. Her tray contained a half-eaten cheeseburger with the works, French fries and a regular soda. He sat, taking off his light jacket and draping it across the back of the chair. As he did so, his long brown hair fell across his face; he brushed it aside with a light flick of his wrist.

The girl noticed the action and smiled. She found the boy’s movement to be affecting and wondered why. It was an effeminate mannerism, she thought, and she wondered why that intrigued her. In fact, the boy interested her; that bothered her.

“I should have ordered what you did,” the girl said after a comfortable interval, pointing at his food. “No wonder I can’t lose weight.”

The boy nodded. “Mother taught me to eat healthy,” he said, suddenly realizing he might have insulted the girl.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to criticize,” he quickly added.

“That’s OK. You’re right. By the way, I’m Amy,” she said.

“Ah . . . errr . . . I’m Corey,” the boy said.

The girl returned to her sandwich and the boy slowly spread a paper napkin on his lap. He tried to open a tiny plastic packet that held the salad dressing, but, try as he might, the bag resisted his efforts. He was embarrassed to be struggling since he knew the girl would be watching his vain efforts; certainly this would expose how painfully weak he was.

“Let me have that,” the girl commanded.

“Oh, I think I can do it,” he said.

“No, you’re doing it all wrong. Give it here.”

Amy spoke authoritatively, leaving Corey no choice but to hand the plastic packet over to her. She took one end of the bag, put it in her mouth and with a rough rip, opened the bag partially. She handed it back to him: “Now, you should be able to open it up the rest of the way.”

“Thanks,” he said. The boy was grateful for her help, but he felt sheepish about it.

They ate in silence for a few minutes; each stole glances at each other, and once both found themselves looking up at the same time, their eyes locking. Corey quickly averted her eyes, and he could see her smile as he did so.

She appeared to be dressed in a careless fashion; Corey could only see the top half of her body and her cream-colored blouse with a lace trimmed collar buttoned up tightly against her neck. The blouse was mussed as if it had never been ironed.

“This your first year here?” she said.

“Yes, yours too?”

“Yes, and I don’t know a soul. I came from a small town up north, but I like the city,” Amy said.

“Oh, I’m from here,” he offered.

“You’re not staying on campus?” Amy said.

“No, I live with mom on the south side. I take the bus every day.”

The boy flicked his hair aside again, an action that Amy saw clearly. It was such a girlish move. The girl smiled at the boy and then took a large bite out of what remained of her cheeseburger. She watched the boy who in contrast toyed with his salad, taking only small bites of the veggies that composed the salad. She noticed he had chosen a fat-free packet of salad dressing.

Suddenly, she felt ashamed; she knew she ate crudely, perhaps a habit gained from being squeezed into a small kitchen with three bruiser-sized brothers. The girl couldn’t help it; you ate fast in her family, or else you missed out on getting much of anything.

“You must have lots of friends here then,” the girl said, after she hurried to complete chewing the large chunk of burger.

“Not really, but why should I?” he asked.

“You live in the city here, don’t you? So you must have had classmates starting college, too?”

“Not many kids from my school are going to college,” he said, the words coming out in a grunt.

It was only a half-truth; there were graduates from his urban high school at the university, but he hardly knew any of them. Corey made few friends in high school; his time at the school had been a frightful one, but he had excelled in his classes while avoiding the other students as much as possible. The school’s reputation as being a “tough” and “rowdy” was largely true and he had faced his share of bullying for his effeminate mannerisms and his goody-two-shoes demeanor. He found favor from many of the teachers as one of the few students who arrived eager to learn and study; as a result, he melted into the academics of the school and somehow he had survived the four years.

“I don’t know anyone here,” she volunteered after she had devoured her meal.

“OK,” was all he said, returning to his salad, continuing to take tiny bites.

“That’s OK, I’m sorry I’m talking so much. I’ll shut up.”

He looked up at the girl and smiled, “No that’s fine. It was kinda cool.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Corey,” the girl said, standing up and gathering the paper scraps from her meal and putting them on her tray. “I’ve got a class soon.”

“Oh, you have to go?”

“Yes, but maybe we’ll see each other again,” she volunteered.

“Yeah, maybe.”

The boy went back to his salad as the girl walked to the trash can, dumped her scraps and walked into the crowd of students. He watched the girl as she departed, moving her wide body surprisingly easily between the packed tables. Her legs were encased in jeans, but he imagined they were a bit husky and shapely. He couldn't help but smile as he followed her until she was out of sight, buried behind the mass of students.

*****
Amy Hartmann couldn’t get the image of the young man out of her mind; he was so pretty, not at all like the crude, loutish boys she had grown up with in her small town. They were all like her brothers who loved to roust about making lewd comments about girls and bragging about how many times they fucked Sharon Silicia – the reputed class whore, though Amy doubted she was as promiscuous as the boys seemed to claim. Most of the boys in her high school class, she knew, would either end up working in the woods or laboring in the mill or the nearby veneer factory, working hard and then sitting in Sweeney’s Oasis or Ken’s Sportsbar in a beer-induced stupor.

Corey could hardly have survived in her backwoods school, she knew. He was dainty with small smooth hands, long fingers and thin wrists. She sensed that he was not strong physically and that she’d likely easily beat him in an arm wrestle. Yet, she felt she wanted to impress the gentle boy if she would ever again meet him. She wondered about her chance of ever seeing him again, since the campus was huge and crowded with tens of thousands of students.

She felt she was not a pretty girl; her figure was too square and hardly curvy; she knew she needed to lose a few pounds. Amy lamented that her breasts were too small for her rather fleshy body and that her hips were too wide. She tried to push such thoughts out of her mind, always telling herself that looks weren’t important and that her kindness and intelligence made her in reality a beautiful young woman. It had been something her mother – a large woman, and one with a good mind – had told her for years. Somehow, she wasn’t convinced.

The truth was Amy’s brainpower won her two good scholarships that not only covered her tuition and fees but also much of her room and board costs. Even with modest student loans, she still had to take a part-time job working breakfast and lunches several days a week in the scullery of her dormitory’s cafeteria.

Amy recalled how neatly Corey was dressed when the two shared the lunch table together. He wore neatly pressed khaki pants, a light blue button-down shirt without a tie and well-polished brown oxford shoes. He stood out in contrast with most of the students who tended to wear jeans or shorts and tee shirts on the warm September day when the two met.

“Maybe I should put on a dress,” she mused, realizing that she had but one dress in her dorm room closet, a plain, peach-colored cotton dress with short cap sleeves and a cloth belt with a skirt that ended at her knees. “You better take along at least one dress, honey. You might need one for an occasion where a dress is required,” her mother had advised her when she packed for the 300-mile drive to begin her college career at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. She knew she looked dumpy in the dress, but it was the only one she owned that still fit her.

On the day she met Corey, Amy wore jeans and the mussed cream-colored blouse with a high neckline. Her brown hair was a mess, she knew, and had been tied in a ponytail. Amy doubted she could ever be as tastefully dressed as Corey seemed to be. She had always been “just one of the boys” back in her small backwoods community, always dressed in jeans or sweats and in warm weather ragged denim shorts. The boy was like no other boy she’d ever met; he was not strong and masculine or beefy and rugged like the boys back home. She couldn’t she get the boy out of her mind.

*****
Corey Sullivan looked out of the dirty window of the Green Line bus as if he were seeing the small shops and restaurants on Milwaukee’s East Side. Yet, he really didn’t see them. Traffic was slow as it was in the midst of the rush hour, and his mind didn’t register seeing the youngish residents of this area who wandered the sidewalks. Instead, his sight was clouded with the thoughts of the girl named Amy, the rather messy girl with the inquiring bright eyes he met in the Student Union’s food court.

He liked her, but he couldn’t understand what it was that attracted him. She certainly was not a “perfect” girl and he could see she had flaws. Amy certainly wasn’t like the girls he knew from his big-city high school; they fell into two camps, with the majority seeming to be aiming at being slutty, while the others being shy and nondescript. She also was unlike the well-washed, well-made-up girls of the fancier suburbs. She was different and a bit damaged. Wasn’t he different and damaged, too, just like the girl? Would that make her safe for him?

He left the bus from its South Howell Avenue stop and wandered east on Dover Street to his mother’s small clapboard bungalow in the working class neighborhood. Corey walked along the uneven sidewalk in which slabs of concrete had been pushed upward by the roots of growing maple and ash trees that lined the curb. He had walked these streets all of his life and knew the cracks and trouble spots that could cause an inattentive walker to stumble and fall. He navigated them by rote, still wondering if this rugged girl could care for an unmanly boy such as he was.

It was four-thirty when he unlocked the front door of the bungalow and entered the small living room. The house was stuffy and he opened up a side window and then wandered to the kitchen to open the inner back door, letting in fresh air that had felt a bit damp as the wind blew gently in off nearby Lake Michigan. Corey looked out at his flowers; he had created and tended a flower garden since he was in the Fifth Grade and it featured several types of roses, plus various colorful annuals that he changed every year. He marveled at how full and large his impatiens had become, creating a blanket of color in front of the bank of rose bushes in the tiny, narrow backyard. A new crop of his Paul McCartney rose blossoms had appeared that day, and he wished he could bring some for Amy. He knew it wouldn’t be possible, given that McCartney roses tended to lose their great beauty within a few days.

Corey knew his mother wouldn’t get home until after seven o’clock, since she kept her nearby beauty parlor open until six o’clock and it always took her another hour to finish up the last customer and close up the shop. Since he had been about thirteen, Corey had regularly prepared supper for the two of them. It was something he did on his own, even though his mother urged him not to take on the chore. “You should be out playing ball with Clement and Darin,” she said, referring to two boys about his same age in the neighborhood.

“I like doing this, mother,” he said.

Debbie Sullivan worried about her son and his apparent dislike of rough-housing that she felt was normal for a young boy. Instead, Corey seemed to imitate her own fastidiousness and compulsive cleaning fetish and as a result the tiny bungalow – even though it was a nearly 140-old somewhat sagging structure – was always sparkling clean. She worried that her own quirkiness would filter down to her son, making him ill-equipped to function in the real world as a man.

One early evening, about a week before his fourteenth birthday, Debbie Sullivan returned home from the salon to find her son in her bedroom folding her clothes that he had just finished laundering. He apparently hadn’t heard his mother come home and Debbie stood at the door into her bedroom and watched the boy. He had a smile on his face and was humming in his high voice; he stood before a mirror holding one of her dresses before him acting demonstrably girlish.

“My what a pretty girl you make,” Debbie said.

Corey stopped dead in his tracks, his face showing alarm.

“Oh, I . . . I . . . was just folding your clothes, mom,” he stammered.

“And enjoying every moment of it, I see,” she said.

“No,” he protested.

“That’s OK, Corey,” Debbie said, walking over to the boy and taking the dress out of his hands. She found a hanger and carefully hung it into her closet.

She took the boy into her arms, feeling his slender, fragile body. She wondered about this unusual, talented and bright boy and his strange behavior.

“Mommy, I’m sorry,” he said finally.

The two sat down on the bed and Corey nestled next to his mother. He loved her so much.

“Mommy, what’s it like to be a girl?” he asked.

She took his pretty, soft hands in hers and looked at him.

“Why do you ask, darling?” her question was asked tenderly.

“I don’t know, it just that girls can be so pretty. A boy can’t be pretty.”

Debbie looked at her lovely, sweet son.

“Do you wish you were born a girl, Corey?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“Would you like to put on dresses and skirts?”

“Maybe,” he said, trying to be nonchalant about it.

“Tell you what,” Debbie said. “How would you like some dresses and skirts and blouses of your own that you could wear around the house? Just for you and me to see?”

“Really mom?”

“Yes, really,” she replied.

That evening, his mother took his measurements carefully. A few days later, she went to the thrift store to find a full set of teen girl’s clothing, one or two each of skirts, dresses, blouses and shorts. She also went to the community’s big box store and bought a packet of panties with colorful designs, an A-cup bra, ankle socks and a pair of sandals. She gave them to him for his fourteenth birthday.

“Oh mommy,” he said at the simple birthday party they had for him, just he and his mother. “This is the bestest party ever.”

Thus it was that Corey rushed home from school every day, eager to become a teen girl, do his homework and complete the household chores. He loved being his mother’s daughter. Even though Debbie had purchased a small selection of girl clothing for him, she questioned her decision when it became apparent that he wanted to wear them all of the time when he was home. At first, she suggested he only do it a couple of times a week, but after a while she realized he was dressing daily, often rushing to change before she got home at night. Eventually Debbie reluctantly gave into his desires and let him dress as a girl when he was home; the two rarely had visitors and Debbie felt there’d be little chance of him getting discovered as long as he stayed indoors.

Debbie enjoyed being with him in the evening, particularly after he completed his homework and the two would nestle together on the couch watching television. Fortunately, Corey was content to watch movies or programs that she most enjoyed, including some of the fashion shows and so-called “chick flicks.” Always, as the two snuggled, Corey was dressed as a teen girl, sometimes in casual shorts and tank tops and other times in his frilly nightgown.

In spite of Corey’s apparent happiness at being able to be a teen girl in private, Debbie Sullivan worried about what she had done to her son. His growing femininity bothered her and she again protested that he should get out and make some friends.

“I’m happy helping you out, mother,” Corey told her. And, he was being honest. He liked preparing supper every night and doing the laundry and by his mid-teens he spent several nights and Saturdays at the beauty parlor answering the phone, setting up appointments, keeping the place clean and even learning about being a hairdresser.

Corey had never in his life been to a barbershop since his mother always trimmed his hair. He insisted that she let it grow long, even when his mother said it was too long for a boy to wear.

“Mom, don’t cut it, please. Just trim it and get rid of the split ends and then fix it up in a pretty style,” he pleaded with her more than once.

“Oh Corey, you look too much like a girl now. I really should cut it back,” she said.

“No, mom, don’t. Many boys have hair this long.”

“Oh, sweetie, but not as long as yours has grown. This just isn’t right for a boy.”

“Please mom.”

Debbie Sullivan tried hard to fix his hair so that was not too feminine, but it wasn’t easy. As a result, customers often called the slender boy “miss” and “young lady” and he did nothing to correct the person. On days he worked at the beauty parlor, he wore androgynous slacks and blouses and the customers began treating him as if he were just a teenaged girl. He wore a name tag identifying him as “Corey,” which was a name that could fit either a boy or a girl.

Debbie’s older customers, of course, knew that Corey was a boy and many of them wondered why Debbie continued to let the boy dress in clothes that were so androgynous. Several suggested he should get counseling or something and Debbie considered it. “Mom, I don’t need a shrink,” Corey said when she mentioned making an appointment for him.

By the time Corey entered his senior year in high school, however, he saw the wisdom of cutting back on his more feminine clothes and sought to act more in line with the masculine norm. He had taken seriously the advice of his U.S. history teacher, Mr. Maslowski, who said the Corey had a “good head on his shoulders” as well as a “bright future” as long as he tried to cut out distractions, such as his obvious attraction to acting in such a feminine manner. “It’ll really ruin your chances at a good career in politics,” Mr. Maslowski said. The teacher also was Corey’s AP advisor and Corey admired him immensely.

In the week before he was to start his senior year, he let his mother trim his hair a bit so that it only flowed to the top of his shirt collar and so that she could fashion it in a manly fashion. Debbie closed her shop at six o’clock, as usual, and Corey sat down in her salon chair as she began to trim; after the first few clips of her scissors, Corey broke down and cried.

His mother broke into tears as well and said, “I lost my pretty daughter and regained my handsome son.”

Corey looked into the mirror as his mother finished. He wasn’t happy at the result. “I’m ugly, mom,” he said, his eyes still moist from crying.

“You’re not ugly. No one leaves this beauty shop looking ugly, darling.”

“I guess, it’s just that I miss my long hair. And I didn’t mean to say you did a bad job, it’s just that . . .”

His never finished the sentence and let it hang. His mother said nothing, spraying his trimmed hair to fix it. Corey got off the chair and instinctively began to flick his hair, even though there were no loose strands to move from his face.

“Mother, do you wish you’d had a daughter instead of me?”

“What? No, darling. I love you,” Debbie Sullivan said, reaching out to hug her son.

She held him tightly for a long moment and wondered what prompted that comment; she truly loved her son and he had become the most important person in her life.

She released the slender boy from her arms and suggested they sit down in her back office, where she fixed two cups of tea. “Tell me something, Corey, and I want to answer me truthfully,” she said once the tea was poured.

“OK, mom,” he said.

“Do you wish you were a girl?”

“What?”

“You seem happy doing things that girls tend to like,” she said, talking slowly and carefully measuring her words.

“I’m a boy, mom,” he said.

“Yes, you are, but sometimes I think you are more like a daughter to me,” she said.

“Why can’t a boy wear long hair, and like fashions and like to cook and clean? What’s wrong with that, mom?”

“Of course,” she said.

Quickly, she turned the conversation to Corey’s future plans for college and that was the last time she asked him about his feelings of wishing to be a girl. Her questions did confirm his own questions about himself, questions that had been troubling his mind since he was in Fifth Grade. Now, after meeting Amy in the cafeteria, his mind became a muddle of confusion. He felt a need to get to know this girl; yet, he knew that he needed to become more of a real young man.

*****
Even though she thought about him constantly, Amy was unable to get to have lunch again in the Student Union due to her work schedule. She considered calling in sick on Monday, but then she realized that if she did she’d lose several hours pay. Even so, there was no guarantee that Corey would show up; she really didn’t know if the boy ate his lunch daily in the Union.

Her off day was Wednesday and as she left for class that morning, Amy took extra special care with her hair, brushing it briskly to make it lay more neatly. She colored her cheeks with light rouge and coated her lips with a light pink lipstick; she felt strange putting on the makeup, since she rarely wore any. Instead of jeans, she wore a pair of beige Capri pants and a light blue top with a peasant bodice. She put on a push-up bra that gave her modest breasts a curvy look and created a hint of cleavage. She found a faux pearl necklace that seemed to accent her outfit nicely.

Amy wasn’t totally satisfied with her look, but felt it was the best she could do. She doubted she would ever be a pretty woman, but she felt she could at least be presentable. Corey dressed so precisely and with such care that she knew he’d maybe give her a second look if she’d look nicer.

She shook with excitement as she carried her food tray from the checkout line at the cafeteria, hoping to find an empty table for two or, better yet, run into Corey already seated at a table with an empty chair. Nothing so fortuitous appeared, though there was a pair of empty seats at a long table that had other occupants. She headed there, hoping to keep one of the seats for the hoped-for arrival of Corey.

Just then she looked toward the table where she and Corey first met; it was occupied, but it appeared the two girls at the table were getting up to leave. She headed there just as they vacated the table. She claimed it, elbowing out two boys.

“Well ain’t she a bitch,” she heard one of the boys say as they turned to look for another spot to eat.

Amy smiled to herself; she always loved to beat out boys in anything, an ambition she developed by being the baby sister to three rough-house brothers. She sat down and began to eat her salad; since meeting the boy she realized she could lose a little weight and her constant diet of hamburgers and tacos and French fries was not the wisest choice.

She was concentrating on cutting into the salad when she heard a voice say, “May I join you?”

Her heart skipped a beat, and she was speechless. It was Corey and he stood there, tray in hand, looking at her.

“Amy? Is that you?” he said when she didn’t answer.

The girl recovered quickly. “Oh yes, Corey, please sit, please do.”

“I wasn’t sure it was you, Amy,” the boy said as he sat down, brushing his hair from his face with the same girlish motion he had done six days earlier.

“It’s me,” she said, smiling.

“Well you look so . . . ah . . . nice,” he said, fumbling over the words.

“Thanks,” she said, feeling a bit hurt because he apparently didn’t think she was “nice looking” before.

Corey sensed her feelings and quickly responded, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that you . . . “

“Don’t worry, Corey, I know I’m not a beauty queen,” she said, smiling.

“Well, you look nice to me or else I wouldn’t have looked for you every day since we first met.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but I work most lunch periods. I have a job in the kitchen here.”

The two talked for a while, hardly touching their salads. Most of the conversation covered the studies both were taking and something about their families. Amy learned that Corey was taking a liberal arts course, but had no clear major in mind.

“I had a high school teacher say I had a future in politics, but my real interest is in fashions and they have a dynamite program in that here,” Corey said.

“Fashion? I didn’t know that boys were in such programs,” she said.

“Yes, of course they are. Some of the best designers of women’s clothes are men. Do you find that strange for me to want to do that?”

“No, no, no,” she protested. In truth, however, she found it a bit weird since none of the men in her hometown would ever strive toward such an unmanly occupation.

“Well, that’s what I’d like my major to be, but it’s hard getting into the program,” he said. “You have to show a whole portfolio of previous work and then be interviewed. That’s kind of scary.”

“I bet it is.”

“But enough about me. What do you plan on majoring in?” Corey asked.

“I’m in pre-law and I also have to go through tough exams to be admitted to law school,” she said.

“Wow. A lawyer. Cool.”

“Yeah, I want to represent poor people, but I know that lawyers doing that work stay pretty poor themselves.”

“I guess, but Amy, that’s so marvelous. That makes my hopes for the future sound pretty frivolous,” he said.

Amy reached across and touched his hand. “Not really, Corey. Most women need clothes to help them feel confident and pretty. You’re doing a real service for them.”

He smiled and felt more and more comfortable with this girl. He returned to his salad. Amy did the same and the two were silent for a while until Amy finally said, “In fact, Corey you probably know more about women’s clothes than I do so maybe you can help me get a nice outfit. I don’t have any pretty clothes.”

“Really. I’d love to help you, Amy, if you’d like.”

“I’d love you to. And by the way, do you know anything about makeup?”

Corey blushed; the truth was that he knew lots about makeup, having watched his mother put it on for years; even in some mother-son moments, his mother had shown him how to apply makeup, even to the point of giving him a total make-over so that he looked very much like a pretty girl.

“I can help you there, too,” he admitted.

Amy smiled, “You’ll make a real girl out of me yet.”

*****
Corey reflected on his lunch with Amy as he rode the crowded Green Line bus back home that afternoon. He felt Amy had been pleased with their meeting; he couldn’t believe that any girl would ever be interested in him, since as far as he could determine from his days in high school he found little reason to believe any girls looked upon him as anything more than an occasional companion. To be sure, he had befriended several girls usually in connection with a school activity, such as the school’s Poetry Club (where he was the only boy who regularly showed up for their weekly meetings) or the Fashion Club (where also he was the only boy). He felt comfortable in both groups and the girls seemed to accept him openly.

Perhaps the best friend he made in high school was Helen Comstock whom he met at Poetry Club meetings. They found that each shared an interest in American poets like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, but what brought them together was when Corey’s time came to read his own poem to the group. It was entitled “Two Boys” and concerned the thoughts of two teenaged boys, one a middle class boy in the United States and the other a boy bearing a gun in an Afghan military group.

“That was beautiful, Corey. It brought tears to my eyes,” Helen said as she stopped him as they left the Club meeting.

“Thank you. Do you really think so? I had trouble with the rhythm,” he said.

“Maybe, but it was eloquent and had such feeling,” she said sincerely. "You're a really sensitive boy."

Corey had always considered Helen to be just another one of the “in crowd” at the school; she was easily one of the prettiest of girls, tall with flowing blonde hair and a bright lovely face. She was known to date one of the school’s star athletes, Logan Albright. Her reaction to the poem surprised him.

A week later as the club ended its meeting, Helen again approached Corey, suggesting they might stop at a nearby coffee house to talk. “I’d like to get to know you better,” the girl said.

Corey agreed and the two walked to the coffee house, and Corey noticed several students eyeing the couple strangely as they walked by. Several of the others shook their heads, and Corey imagined they wondered what one of the school’s most beautiful girls would be doing with him, a slender, long-haired kid with girlish mannerisms.

“I really want to be a writer,” Helen said once the two were settled in with their cappuccinos.

“That’s cool. What do you want to write?” he asked.

“This may sound stupid and trite, but I want to write novels that have meaning and a sense of humanity,” she said.

“You mean like the ‘Great American Novel’?” he said teasingly, regretting his words even as they left his mouth. He truly didn’t want to alienate lovely Helen.

Helen giggled and nodded her head.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to tease you,” Corey said hurriedly.

“That’s OK,” she said.

“It’s really cool that you want to write stuff that is full of meaning, Helen. I admire that and there’s nothing wrong with having high goals.”

Soon the two were engaged in long discussions about what they felt about everything from religion and world peace to poetry and current movies. “I really love talking with you, Corey,” she said. “I never seem to talk about anything serious with my friends – even Logan my boyfriend. So it’s really nice to be with you.”

Corey blushed and mumbled something to the effect that he enjoyed talking with her as well.

“But, what do you want to do in your life, Corey?” the girl asked.

“Oh, I’m not too sure,” he lied.

“No idea at all?”

“Well . . .ah . . . ah . . . and this may sound weird and I hate to admit it.”

“So what? I told you my big ambition. Now it’s your turn.”

“I don’t know if I should tell you. You'll probably think I'm weird or something,” he protested.

“It’ll be just between you and me. I promise.”

“Well, I’d like to become a big time designer of women’s fashions,” he admitted.

For a moment, Corey thought she might laugh at him, but instead Helen said, “Wow, that’s hot.”

“Really?”

“Of course, some of the world’s best known designers are men, you know.”

He nodded and Helen probed further into his background. Corey replied that his family included only himself and his mother and that she had always been fashion conscious. He told her of working in his mother’s beauty parlor and was learning the hairdressing trade as well.

“Have you ever designed a dress?” she asked him.

“Several and I even sewed one myself, with help from mom, of course. Wanna see it?”

“Sure.”

Corey pulled his iPhone from his backpack and pulled up a picture of his mother wearing the cocktail dress he had designed and sewn.

“My, that’s lovely,” Helen said. “That’s your design?”

“Yes, with some suggestions from mom, of course. I made it for a date she had with her new boyfriend.”

“She’s very pretty.”

The friendship with the two grew, even though they never had any real dates together; she continued to date Logan through high school, but the two broke up after graduation and Helen went on to a fancy college in the east. Meanwhile, Corey and she maintained an online relationship.

Corey never considered for a minute that he would ever become a boyfriend to Helen. He could never be on the same level with such a girl. Now, with Amy, shy, plain and ordinary, perhaps he might find a girl who would accept him.