Spiffed and copacetic.

After using the comb to remove burrs and tangles from Alkali’s mane and tail, I took out the brush and started on her neck. She turned and pushed her face under the brush. I laughed and did as she wanted, holding the brush in both hands so she could push and turn her face into it, getting just the itchy spots that she wanted tended to.

When she finished, turning away with a grunt, I went back to brushing under her chin, and her neck, then her chest, back and sides. I still needed the step stool to reach the middle of her back, not so much because of her height—she only stood fourteen hands and two—but because of the width of her barrel.

“Chubby girl,” I accused her and poked her in a rib with the wooden handle to make her dance and grunt. She knew I was teasing and put up with it, just like I did when she pretended to eat my clothes. I could feature her doing the same thing with my hair after I let it grow out, so I resolved not to wear my wig where she could reach it.

Junior claimed the mare was a Dodgers fan because she had once taken my Angels cap and run to the far end of the paddock to drop her prize over the fence. Moose almost had conniptions, he laughed so hard, and several of the hands saw it too and nearly laughed themselves sick. She was just playing and I forgave her. But a $3 baseball cap and a $40 wig are two different things.

After a while, grooming a horse doesn’t take a lot of thought, and I had been taking care of Alkali almost since I started school. We did this once or twice a week, more if I were doing a lot of riding. So I had time to think as I rubbed the bristles through her coat and around the scars she picked up from being a working cowpony.

I thought about what had happened to me and what I had done about it. I decided I was doing pretty well, adjusting. I’d always been a girl. I’d just not known it. It explained a lot of things. Not being like my bothers but more, on some level I guess I had known.

I mean, I had always hated getting dirty, and I never much liked sports except baseball and riding. And riding was more just something I did because I lived on a ranch, I knew girls at school and on other ranches who were nuts about horses and riding and all of that.

I really preferred cooking and baking. And I thought I might like to learn about clothes and how to sew. That would be neat, I decided. I wondered if my new school offered something like sewing or cooking classes. I kind of thought they did, but I hadn’t been interested last May when schedules were being submitted.

But, if I learned how, I could make my own clothes someday. Maybe even something as beautiful as the milkshake dress.

Plus I needed to learn things about jewelry and make-up, but there was no rush about that stuff. I was only eleven. I wanted to get my hair grown out, and that would probably take a year or more. How fast did hair grow, anyway? I mean, normally, not whatever had been going on with my hair?

I swapped brushes for a couple of wooden tools, sat down on the stool and pulled Alkali’s nigh front foot into my lap. I didn’t have the skill to use a hoof knife or rasp, but I could use the wooden hoof pick and stiffer brush to clean her hooves and look for problems that might need a farrier to fix.

Her shoes were tight, and the frog (the fleshy part inside the horny hoof) looked healthy. She didn’t even have any caked-in dirt; well, it had been a pretty dry summer. I shifted the stool and Alkali took it as the signal to give me her off front foot instead. That one looked good, too.

Another shift and her big, old, nigh rear foot landed in my lap. “Oof,” I said. She whuffled her amusement and turned to look at me. “I’m okay, girl,” I told her and went over that hoof with the pick and hard brush, too.

Another shift and switch and this time, I found a bit of gravel caught between the frog and inside of the hoof. Smaller than a pea but big enough it had probably been bothering her, but maybe not enough to notice. I showed it to her and she seemed surprised.

I stood up, threw the bit of gravel away, and dusted off my hands. “All done, girl. You’re all spiffed and copasetic,” I told her, using some Grampa Decker words. I took the second carrot from my pocket and held it out to her on my open palm. She lipped it up immediately and crunched happily while I put things away.

“We’ll go riding tomorrow, after school,” I told her on my way out. I would have planned a ride in the late afternoon, but I didn’t know what might happen when Pete got home. Judging from the sun, it must be nearly three, which meant the Hunts were expected to return any time in the next few hours—but might be as late as midnight. Probably not, though, since tomorrow was the first day of school.

I trudged back to the house in the hottest part of the day. The barn had been cool and pleasant, but soon I looked forward to the air conditioning in my room. I could even take a shower. I knew I probably smelled like horse which not everyone considered a pleasant odor.

I grinned thinking about how I used to pretend to love to be stinky, just to annoy some of the girls at school when Pete and I would talk about doing ranch work. I hadn’t minded the smells that much, but they sure didn’t go with my new image. Perfume, they were not.

I shook my head at the memory. Still, what should I wear to meet Pete and his family? It didn’t occur to me right at the moment that thinking about what I would wear was a particularly girly thing to do. I had always wanted to look right for the situation. More proof, I guess, that I’d always been a girl.

But should I dress like Audie, so Pete knew who I was? Or should I dress to emphasize the new me? The both-feet rule seemed to apply.

*

Back at the house, I took my time with a shower. My little boobies seemed to have grown every time I saw them, but I think it was just me being constantly surprised that they were there. A few hairs had appeared in my armpits, and elsewhere, too. Gross. I’d better talk to Mom about that.

I was careful not to get the hair on my head wet because I had decided to wear my wig. Funny to think of long hair as part of a both-feet strategy, it was sort of upside-down.

I put on fresh undies, and on a sudden whim, after putting on my bra, I pulled the little pads out of my other bra and added them to the cups of the one I was wearing. It didn’t make that much difference, but somehow, it made me feel braver.

I picked my pale blue sun-dress with the yellow and pink flowers and put that on. It came just to my knees, which Mom said gave me a bit of room to grow and still wear it to school.

That—wearing a dress to school—was going to be weird.

I put on what Mom called socketies, short, thin, white socks with embroidered lace tops, then my black Mary Jane oxfords. My charm bracelet and bangles both went on my left wrist. Then I moved the bangles to my right wrist. Then I moved them back and sighed.

I put on the fake pearl necklace. It had two white strands and hung in a pretty double curve just above the neckline of my dress. Next, the matching bracelet, on my right wrist this time, wishing for a moment of insanity that I had let Mom get me the pink pearls like she had wanted.

I checked my earrings. They itched a bit, so I used the alcohol on them again to dry them out after the shower. I moved the bangles again to my right wrist with the pearls, then took them off and put them back in the jewelry box. Too much is too much.

I looked at myself in the mirror, with my short hair standing up and pointing any-which-way as Grampa would say. I got the wig off the stand and put it on, settling it on my forehead first and pulling it back to fit, just like the lady at the wig desk in Nordstrom’s had shown me. I combed it, then brushed it gently.

I looked at myself in the mirror and saw Audrey looking back, no trace of Audie at all except maybe the freckles across my nose. I squinched myself a wink and grinned, showing just a little bit more of my old self. I dialed the grin back to a sweeter smile. Was I simpering? Maybe.

I went to show Mom.

*

We looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of her door. Somehow, I looked older and more grown-up than Audie ever had. Maybe it was the pearls and the extra padding in my bra.

“You look very cute, Audrey,” Mom said.

I did look good but I shook my head. Standing next to Mom with her more womanly hips, I saw my skirt seemed to hang limply from waist to knees. I wanted it to look fuller, implying a shape I didn’t really have, yet. “Mom,” I said, “how can I get my skirt to look like there’s more me under it?”

She put a finger on her cheek and squinted, thinking. “You want a slip, a petticoat?” she suggested.

“Uh? I dunno?” I wasn’t sure of the difference, if there was one. “Maybe change back to the yellow dress, it has a fuller skirt?” But no, I’d worn that this morning and intended to wear it tomorrow. I needed more dresses, I realized, and sniffed at the thought. How girly was it to want more dresses? Maybe get another pink one?

“It’s kind of warm for wearing layers,” Mom said, “but I have a short half-slip with an elastic waistband that might do the trick.” She fetched it from a drawer in her dresser. It had a cool white color and an extra panel in the front. I’m not sure why.

We put it on under my dress, the waistband loose but fitting well enough, the length several inches shorter than my skirt. It made everything hang better, holding the dress away from my legs a bit, making a fuller, softer-looking shape.

“Nice,” Mom commented. “And you can take it off in the bathroom if you get too hot, just fold it, and put it in your bag.”

I nodded, really pleased at how I looked. It was not only prettier, but it was also somehow more—sophisticated?

After fussing with my hair a bit more, Mom rummaged in her make-up drawer and came up with a tube of pink lipgloss. “It’s cherry-flavored with only a tiny hint of color. You can pretend it’s lipstick,” she said.

I put it on just like lip balm, which is something you will find in almost every cowboy’s shirt pocket. They’re addicted to the stuff and don’t feel dressed without it.

I tasted the cherry flavor as I put it on then smiled into the mirror in Mom’s room, again careful not to grin too wide. My lips glistened with the slightly pinker color. I loved it. Maybe I would use it all the time, just like the cowboys.

I turned to her full-length mirror and examined the whole effect. Mom made a noise. And I knew she knew why I was doing this when she said, “Pete’s not going to know what hit him.”

We giggled.

Then the phone rang and Mom went to answer it. I glanced at the clock, five after five. It might be Dad, saying he was still stuck at Mr. Fordyce’s or that he was on his way home, or he wanted to take us out to dinner. It might be my brothers who had started high school today, and already stayed late for football practice. They might want to ask if they could stay in town even later.

I wandered out into the hall, hearing Mom’s voice coming from the kitchen where she was talking n the phone. “Dinah! So you’re back!” she was saying.

Dinah was Dinah Hunt, Pete’s mom.

My stomach went fluttery. I smoothed my skirt over my thighs and strolled through the house, listening to Mom chat with Mrs. Hunt.

Through the living room windows, I saw Dad’s car pulling into the driveway. Mom was asking Pete’s mom if it had been hot in San Diego because it had sure been hot here.

It’s not ever hot in San Diego, it’s always hot here in the summer, and who cares? I thought. “Dad’s here,” I said. We both could hear him coming up the steps to the utility room door.

“Leland’s here, Dinah,” Mom told the phone. “I have to go, but we can chat more later, maybe the kids want to talk?” She paused, then laughed. “Uh, huh, I bet he is.” She turned and handed the phone to me. “Dinah says Pete is jumping up and down with stuff to tell you.”

Dad came in through the back door just then. “There’s my pretty girls,” he said. I took the phone from Mom’s hand, and she went around the counter to hug and kiss Dad in the utility room.

I heard Pete saying, “Audie?” in a tiny voice from the earpiece. I put the phone up to my face and said. “Pete?”

“Audie? I got an eagle feather! It’s really cool! And we got photos from whale-watching and everything!” He was excited. “Can you come over? We’re still unpacking the car.”

“I think so,” I said. “But Pete, you’re not going to believe what happened to me while you were gone.” I still tasted cherries on my lips.

He scoffed, same old Pete. “I bet it ain’t as cool as getting a real eagle feather!”