Part 1 - The Beginning

She sat alone at a small table in the back of an urban coffeehouse. Jammed up in a corner in front of the bay window sat a pimply youth clutching a mandolin, looking like he would bolt out the door if a mouse squeaked. The place was almost deserted. The three people near the sad excuse for a stage were obviously friends, the one girl probably the girlfriend of the performer.

One guy sat alone at a table with a humongous cup of some coffee-inspired drink with a pseudo-French name and pecked at his laptop. Two other couples sat at their tables and ignored the poor schmuck trying to perform. The kindest thing you could say about him was he needed a bit more practice, but the coffeehouse would let just about anybody perform on a weeknight so they could boast 'live music every night' on the bills pasted to the telephone poles on the surrounding blocks.

A police car zipped by, lights flashing and siren blaring, momentarily drowning out he earnest musician. The girl showed a momentary grimace of fear, then relaxed as the police car went past. She sipped her coffee and took another nibble of the overpriced muffin. She had been nursing the coffee and muffin for several long ballads and the cup was still half full.

She was bored, but at the same time thrilled. She hadn't had the nerve to go out in public very often. The first time was only a walk around the block, which was all she could manage to do before fear drove her back to the crappy apartment she shared with the two guys that needed help with the rent.

She had been excited to move in two years ago when she finished her English degree. Back then she thought it would be only temporary, only until she got a good job and started doing some really fulfilling work. Sure, her roommates weren't exactly the kind of dudes you would bring home for dinner, but these days she wasn't exactly welcome home for dinner with her parents. At least they had money and paid the rent on time.

So who cared if the money had come from growing medical marijuana? It was legal in Oregon and somehow a little bit of the stuff sometimes found its way home. Call it a bonus on the rent money.

Gradually, her Friday evening walks expanded, going a bit farther from home each time, eventually stopping to look into the shop windows. Sometimes she longed for what she saw in those windows, but never had the nerve to go inside. Tonight she found the courage to enter the coffeehouse and order something. Nobody noticed her, the barista just took her money and gave her the food. A completely ordinary transaction.

Ordinary to everyone but her. She knew that she was not who she appeared to be. She knew that, although she was wearing the clothes she should have been born to wear, she was still a fraud. And yet - here she was sitting at a table and being herself.

Her roommates were off on some mysterious and almost certainly illegal mission. This being Oregon, where the legislature told the Feds to screw themselves and their pot laws, pot was now legal for so-called recreational use. Her roommates were no longer growing their own weed since the bottom fell out of the market when recreational use was legalized. They were still paying the rent, but she was getting a bit concerned. They were both acting pretty weird these days. They had moved on to more profitable, and probably more risky, pursuits.

She didn't want to know about that, but she couldn't afford to get out of the place. That wonderful job had never materialized and she was still waiting tables, barely making a living. That is, until this afternoon. Her crappy job for her crappy boss had blown away like the smoke from the bangers her roommates still used with abandon. Who wanted to eat in a small family restaurant that had seen better days. A dysfunctional family at that, where Mama the cook had been known to throw frozen meatballs at her husband and Jamie was sure the cousin who was the waitress was offering quickies in the johns.

Get your college degree her parents had told her, even if they wouldn't believe she was a she. You need college to get a good job. Her English degree would be the ticket that opened a window on the world. Unfortunately that window looked out on the dumpster behind the crappy restaurant where she sometimes didn't even make minimum wage. The customers were as cheap as her boss.

No longer caring if she was clocked, she had stuffed the stupid work uniform that was no longer needed into the trash, found the bra and panties at the bottom of her drawer and put them on almost defiantly.

Jamie chose an ankle-length skirt because she hadn't been able to shave her legs for some time, and the only blouse she had that even vaguely went with the skirt. She filled the bra cups with the bags of rice, painted her face with drug-store cosmetics and slipped her feet into some sandals. Sadly no nail polish tonight, the smell of it would be hard to explain to her roommates.

In her mirror Jamie the girl once again appeared, considerably enhanced by her longing and imagination. Not caring if the two assholes she lived with freaked out when Jamie the girl came out of Jamie the boy's bedroom, she exited in a swirl of skirts and a cloud of drug-laden smoke to walk to the coffeehouse. It was somewhere to go that wasn't home. If you defined 'home' loosely, that is.

She was briefly distracted as the screaming fire engine passed by the front window, lights ablaze and the deeper note of the horn sounding to clear traffic from the ladder truck. Some poor sucker had more troubles than she did, jobless and stuck listening to the guy who thought he could sing. Hell, she thought she was a girl, who was she to criticize his delusions?

There were plenty of people who would gladly tell her she was wrong. She hadn't the heart to tell the guy with the mandolin he was wrong, too. She should have brought a book or something, but she only had a purse to hold her wallet, phone and a lipstick and the mail she grabbed in order to keep her idiot roommates from screwing with it. She'd need the lipstick by the time she finished the coffee and the muffin.

A second fire truck roared past, completely unnerving the guy with the mandolin, who lost his place in the song. Must be a major fire somewhere. She was vaguely comforted to think that she wasn't the only person whose world had gone to shit today.

She didn't want to go home to her asshole roommates, so she stuck out the second set. She stayed until the place closed at midnight, and headed back to her lonely apartment, regretting the loss of even the pseudo-friendship of sitting in a coffeehouse with other people. She vaguely remembered that being a woman walking alone in the city at midnight was not the best of choices, but what else was she going to so? It was only six blocks and she sure wasn't going to spring for a cab. Getting mugged would be the perfect end to the perfect day.

As she turned the corner of the last block to her place she was shocked out of her trance to see the flashing blue-and-red lights of the cops and the fire department in front of her place. The world just had it in for her today, no question about it. Well, yesterday as it had just passed midnight. The start of a brand new day, full of hope and life.

Fuck that shit.

Without anywhere else to go, she slowly walked up to the crowd of a dozen or so people milling about in front of the apartment building. She recognized a couple of them and was desperately hoping none to them recognized her. She really didn't want to start this new day full of life and hope being dragged off to jail for impersonating a woman.

"What happened?" she asked a woman who she thought lived on the second floor.

"The assholes in 3B were trying to set up a fucking meth lab or something and it blew up on them! Goddam bastards contaminated the entire fucking building and we can't go back in until the hazmat team clears it or disinfects it or whatever the fuck they do."

3B? Christ! That's her apartment!

"What happened to the guys?"

"Ambulance hauled them off to who-knows-where. They could dump the bastards in the river for all I care. Honey, all I want to do is get some sleep. I still have to be at work tomorrow morning even if they condemn the entire fucking block. My boss ain't going to care if it was a meth lab or a Labrador retriever. All I've got is this nightgown and robe, I didn't even have a chance to grab some slippers. I'm sure the boss is going to love it if I come in like this but I haven't got anything else to wear."

Neither did she. She? It's really going to go over well to say she was really a he when she found some new clothes to wear. How was she going to walk in to some friend like this and ask to crash on the couch for the night because her asshole roommates had blown up her apartment? No way she could go ask her parents either, even if they didn't live more than an hour away on the bus - the bus that didn't run at this hour.

"What are we going to do?" she wailed.

"The Red Cross is supposed to show up soon and help us. The fire guy said they can find emergency clothing and lodging for anyone who hasn't got a place to go."

"That would be me!"

"Me too, honey. This purely sucks. I hope they give those bastards in 3B life at the bottom of the shitter. One of the cops was mumbling about terrorism charges. Fucked up the whole building. May as well live in Iraq or someplace like that. Which place were you in, honey?"

"I was crashing with some friends upstairs."

No way she was going to admit where she lived, especially if the cops were talking terrorism charges. Damn good thing her name wasn't on the lease.

What was she going to do? Everything she owned, all her clothes - her normal clothes - her computer, everything was in there and she couldn't get to it.

Eventually the Red Cross people got there, and she and several others were transported to a shelter. Naturally, she was placed in the women's shelter, much to her dismay. There was no way she could take off her clothes and she was sure if someone else took off their clothes she would be arrested and hauled off as a peeping Tom.

But what else could she do? Not a damn thing unless she wanted to sleep on a bench in the park.

The accommodations weren't fancy, but at least there were separate cubicles for changing and sanitation. She just hoped that the nightgown they gave her was good enough to hide the things she didn't want to be showing. If she kept her bra and panties on she hoped she would be safe, although her underwear did have some echoes of the fire from standing around waiting for so long. She probably sweated plenty between fear and anxiety, but she had to keep the bra on or she would be in deep trouble.

Despite the early hour or the late bedtime, sleep took some time in coming.

Part 2 - The Aftermath

Jamie woke confused, his head muzzy. With a start she realized he was still wearing his bra and for one panicky moment he was terrified that someone would find out he was a crossdresser.

Then it all came flooding back. She could hear other people moving around. She opened her eyes as fear surged once again. Jamie watched a well-endowed woman reach back and snap her bra into place, then shrug into a t-shirt. What if she were revealed as the fraud she was?

"Well, good morning, roomie. You look like you've been through the mill."

In a way, the fear-induced paralysis was a good thing, giving her time to get her brain started once again.

"I don't know about any mill, but explosion and fire is enough for me."

"Well damn! I guess getting shut of a drunken slob don't sound like much compared to that."

"I just got rid of two druggie roommates, but I'm not sure losing my place and all my things was quite worth it, though."

"Small price to pay, honey. I hope you weren't married to either of your druggies."

"God no!"

"Then you're ahead of the game. I'm Angie, by the way."

"Jamie."

"I'd say good to meet you, but since we're both here running away from our troubles that isn't quite what I want to say."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'll be on my way to my sister's place shortly. They let me stay here because I had to wait for this morning to get the bus to her place. She'll have the satisfaction of telling me 'I told you so' but she's a good kid. Things will work out fine."

In time her breathing returned to normal and the surge of adrenalin eased. She realized she needed to relieve herself, she had slept the sleep of exhaustion and her bladder was soon to be overtaxed.

She metaphorically girded her loins and arose, quickly seeking the comfort of the bathroom stall. By the time the internal pressure eased the mental pressure started to rise. What was she to do? No job, no clothes, no place to live, no anything! Her worldly possessions consisted of her skirt, blouse, underwear, a purse, a wallet with about twenty bucks and the usual junk in it, a VISA cash card with damned little on it and a social security card.

A city girl, she had never learned to drive so no license. Estranged from her parents she didn't have access to a birth certificate to have gotten her non-driver ID.

Jamie was a non-person. Jamie the girl had no past and seemingly no future. Jamie the boy couldn't return any time soon - not sitting in the middle of the women's emergency shelter. Jamie the person was lost and confused.

Returning to the room where she had spent the night, she had no idea what to do. Before long a grandmotherly woman came in and spied her.

"Good morning, dear. I hope you slept well. I know you're confused and upset, but let me see if we can make things a little bit better for you. You're one of the people who were in the building with the fire last night, right?"

"Uh, yes."

"So shocking. I was reading about it in the morning paper. One of the fools who caused it died and the other is in terrible shape. The police are looking for the other man who was supposed to be in that apartment. There are more than twenty people who are homeless until they can clean up the mess. The poor souls can't even go back to get their possessions until they make sure there's nothing toxic still left in the place."

Now the police were looking for him for being a drug dealer? Just great! No job, no home and on the run, too. Maybe he needs to stay as Jamie the girl until this all gets sorted out.

Jeez - things like this didn't happen to real people, did they?

"Uh, that's terrible," she answered belatedly.

"I think we need to get you something to wear and get you showered and cleaned up."

"That's a wonderful idea. I must smell like a horse or something. A fire-horse maybe after standing around the place last night."

"Come with me, we have a few things for emergencies. We ought to be able to find something for you to wear."

The grandmotherly lady, better known as Dorothy, efficiently dug into the stock of clothing and came up with a knee-length wraparound skirt, a pretty pink blouse and even some brand-new panties.

"What size bra do you wear, dear?"

That was a question Jamie never though anyone would ever ask her!

"Uh, 34B?"

"Let me see what I can find. Hmmm… No 34B, but I do have a 36A here. It may be a little bit loose but needs must."

"I'll… Thank you."

"Think nothing of it, dear. That's why we're here, to help girls like you who are in need. Get yourself into the shower and you'll feel ever so much better. And here's a care package of shampoo and toothbrush and suchlike. You'll soon be a new woman, dearie."

Boy! Did she have that right.
 

The hot water cleared Jamie's mind of the last vestiges of sleep. It didn't help clear her mind of the predicament she was in, however. Realizing that the vastly shorter skirt she had to wear would expose her legs, she awkwardly used the razor to remove her leg hair. This required no little acrobatic skill to reach her ankles standing up in the small shower while avoiding knocking the shower curtain aside and exposing far more than she wished to expose.

She was thankful that the emergency kit seemed to have been made for the needs of both men and women, thus included both a decent disposable razor and a brush to use on her long hair.

Sending a silent 'thank you' to her ancestors who blessed her with a light blonde beard that didn't show easily, she carefully removed what little hair adorned her chin, working by touch as she wasn't about to stand in front of the ladies room mirror to shave her face.

It was a good thing they let her sleep in after her late night, there was plenty of hot water to complete her hair removal. She carefully made sure the drain was not blocked and she hadn't left wads of hair on the shower floor.

She emerged from the shower with a towel wrapped around her chest, quickly returning to her room, thankful that Angie was in the common room. As promised the bra was a bit loose but the panties were a bit tight. This she counted as a plus as her gaff was certainly not wearable after all she had gone through recently.

Damn! How was she going to replace the gaff with no money? The well-being induced by copious hot water began to evaporate.
 

Grandmother Dorothy was waiting once she was dressed.

"There! Now isn't that better, darling? Such lovely hair, sit down and let me dry it for you before you catch your death of cold! Before she quite realized how she got there, Jamie was seated in a comfortable chair while Dorothy combed her hair and plied a blow dryer.

"You have such lovely hair, Jamie, and it suits you so well. I used to keep mine long, but these days the arthritis makes it too hard to wash and brush properly, so I keep it much shorter. It looks like you could use a trim, though."

"I haven't had it cut in quite a while, no money."

"I could trim the split ends if you want, but please don't ever cut your hair, sweeting, a girl like you needs to show off such beautiful hair."

A girl like you? Just what did she mean by that?

"She's right," offered a forty-ish woman who had been brushing out her own hair. Your hair just shines so."

"Thank you."

"You're one of the girls that got caught in that horrible apartment fire?"

"Actually I was out while it happened. I came back and couldn't get past all the police and fire people."

"You were lucky then, honey."

"Not all that lucky. I got canned yesterday afternoon because the restaurant didn't have enough business, then I lost everything I ever owned."

"That sucks! At least I got to pack a suitcase when I walked out on the jerk I was living with. He's probably sitting there in his sweats wondering when I'll bring him his breakfast. Leland isn't the swiftest of thinkers. I don't know why I ever hooked up with the jerk, anyway."

"Uh…"

"Don't say anything. I know I'm an idiot when it comes to picking men. Someday I'll get it right. At least I still have a job and I should be able to find a place to live soon enough. You looking for someone to share rent with?"

"Uh… I haven't got that far yet."

"Don't worry - it will all work out. Hey Dorothy! I know just what this little girl needs. Damn! I don't even know your name."

"It's Jamie."

"I'm Celeste. A star in heavens of my own little universe, that's me. I know just what you need right now. You need some pretty nails to go with your pretty hair. I packed my polish, you pick a color and I'll make you beautiful."

"My nails are pretty bad."

"Then Mama Celeste will take care of that, too. A pretty thing like you deserves the best. You wouldn't want to go out in the cold, cruel world with naked nails, would you?"

"You're weird!"

"Why do you think I had to walk out on Leland. He was weirder than me."

"Now Celeste," admonished Dorothy, "Let's not go there."

"Stick out your hands, Jamie. I'm feeling creative!"
 

"Good morning, Jamie," said the woman behind the desk. "Or rather, good afternoon. I'm sorry it took so long for me to see you, but we had an unusually busy night last night."

"You could say that."

"I'm so sorry for all that happened to you last night. No matter how much we try to help it isn't easy to lose your home."

"And your job and just about everything else."

"Oh no! Your job?"

"Not enough business, I got canned just before the fire."

"That's awful. We want to do what we can to help you get back on your feet. We can offer you a voucher so you can get a few clothes to wear and of course you're welcome to stay here while you find a place to stay. We have connections with job services, but I'm sure you realize in a recession it isn't easy to find work."

"Thank you, I know. I've been looking for something better for two years now. I just didn't know what to do. I don't even have any ID or anything any more."

"We can certainly help you replace your ID and such. It's hard to do anything these days if you can't prove who you are."

Jamie certainly knew that!

"I do have my Social Security card and a VISA cash card, but there's not much left on it."

"I would think the first thing to do is have Dorothy take you to our friends at the consignment shop so you at least have something to wear. You'll probably want a nice skirted suit if you have to look for work, you need to look professional."

Oh boy! What was she getting into?

"Go find Dorothy, she'll know what to do. You're going to come out of this just fine. You're a lovely girl and I don't think adversity will keep you down for long."

Part 3 - Encouragement

Jamie stood in the deserted common room simply staring at nothing. It was all too much, so much had happened to her in such a short time. She felt like an automaton - push the big red button sticking out of her back and she'd march forward like a tin soldier until she hit a wall and bounced off in another direction.

Much like a soldier, she had followed the gently delivered commands of Grandmother Dorothy. She almost froze as they left the shelter, her bare legs on view to the entire world beneath her short skirt. It was a cute skirt, but there she was in full daylight wearing it for all the world to see.
Scary stuff!

Then the consignment shop, a veritable haven of second-hand femininity. They were greeted by a girl who was so damn perky that it almost hurt. She had to be about Jamie's age, but she was everything Jamie wanted to be - poised, confident, helpful, enthusiastic. Perky, for god's sake! Jamie couldn't help but feel inadequate.

Every time she left her apartment she had tried so hard to be inconspicuous. She didn't want to attract attention, yet here she was the center of attention for two well-meaning people who thought she was a girl. What if they realized that she just wasn't a real girl?

Disaster. She had enough disaster last night for a lifetime, yet there she was staring it in the face once more.

Dorothy explained what happened and requested something nice for job hunting and some more casual clothes for the other times. Naomi, the perky lady, jumped right on it.

"What size are you, honey?"

"I… I'm not sure. It's all so…"

"Don't worry!"

Grabbing a tape, Naomi proceeded to measure Jamie. Her eyebrows briefly rose as her hand brushed the bottom of Jamie's rice-filled bosom while measuring her chest, but she said nothing. Naomi was off in a flash and came back with a lovely pale blue linen skirted suit.

"Try this on, Jamie, it's made for you. Changing rooms are in the back"

Somehow Jamie found herself in the changing room holding the suit, not quite knowing what to do.

"Here honey," came the perky voice through the curtain. This shell should go just right with that suit. You decent?"

"Uh, sure."

The curtain parted and Naomi handed Jamie a sleeveless white nylon shell.

"Look Jamie," Naomi said much more quietly. "I don't want to embarrass you, but are you using a bit of filler up top?"

She knows! Oh god, she knows!

"Look sweetie, no foul. I'm using a bit of help in my bra myself. A girl needs to look like a girl, right? Right!"

"I'm afraid I am."

"Thought so, something didn't feel right when I measured you. Rice? Beans?"

"Uh, rice."

"Good stuff, but better with some soy sauce and some Chinese. You stay right here, I'll be back with something that you could still find on your menu but works a lot better."

Now just what did she mean by that?

Moments later she was back with a box that had some heft to it.

"We call these chicken fillets in the trade. Feel 'em, like handling breast meat. Work pretty good for a girl's breasts, too. I use 'em all the time. A bit chilly at first, but the warm up pretty quick. I've even gotten felt up and he didn't know it wasn't all me."

Noooo! She didn't need to know that!

"Uh, thanks?"

What else could she say? It seemed like the entire world was determined to think she was a real girl.

Well, wasn't what she wanted?

The suit looked pretty good. Very strange, as Jamie-the-boy hated suits. Maybe because women weren't forced to look like they enjoyed being strangled by a tie to look professional. There were definite advantages to being a woman.
 

And so it went. The suit fit perfectly and was soon joined by several blouses, skirts and some nicely tailored trousers. Naomi found a wonderful pair of soft, black leather boots with a modest heel that were perfect!

Then Dorothy shuttled her to another shop where she was gifted with some new bras that fit properly and enough panties to last a week. And makeup since she didn't have any of her own. She even got some pantyhose to wear with the suit for job hunting.

Job hunting? As Jamie the girl?

She couldn't!

But everyone thought she was a real girl.

It was too much! She just stood there in the common room, staring at some far away, invisible point, going nowhere. She now had more women's clothes in a single afternoon than she had gathered in the entire rest of her life. They actually looked good on her, not like the bargain-basement crap she hurriedly grabbed and bought as fast as she could so that the salespeople didn't ask why a boy was buying a skirt. And the people around her, so kind and helpful, expected her to wear them. All of the time!

And that's what these people considered just the basics for her. Some basics!

She was saved from a panic attack by Dorothy, who bustled in and invited her to help prepare dinner.

"That's how we do things here," Dorothy announced. "All the girls pitch in and keep the place running. Are you a good cook, Jamie dear?"

"I can open a can with the best of them, Dorothy."

"Oh dear! Didn't you mother teach you how to cook?"

"I'm afraid my mother didn't think it was proper for me to learn how to cook. She has some very fixed ideas about who can do what. It's one of the reasons I left home and haven't been back."

"Well, come with me. We have several mothers who can take you under their wing and help you learn to cook. It's something every girl needs to know. For that matter, every boy should learn to cook, too."

If she only knew.
 

Jamie was sitting in the common room with several other woman when Celeste returned from her job. The 11:00 news was just getting to the local stories and she was hoping to hear something new about the fire at her apartment.

Naturally, some eager producer type decided to do an in-depth piece on meth labs - a whole two minutes - to scare the shit out of the viewers. It succeeded in scaring the shit out of Jamie. By the end of the two minutes Jamie knew that every piece of clothing and bedding she owned was now on its way to a toxic dump somewhere. Apparently her neighbors on the other floors were able to get some of their stuff after the hallways were cleaned, but her apartment was a total loss. They were still looking for the other guy who lived there.

"Hey - didn't you live there?" Rose asked.

"I was crashing on a friend's couch. No way I'm going to go back, even if my friend would let me."

It was only a little lie - at least compared to the lie she was living at this very moment.

"Can't blame you, honey. Move on and keep going, it's what I say."

"I want to, but how?"

"That's the question, ain't it, honey."

Grandma Sally - who had taken over from Grandma Dorothy on the day shift - said "The first thing we need to do is get you some ID tomorrow. You aren't the first woman to land here without anything and you won't be the last. It just takes some patience and maybe a little creativity to come up with the what you need. At least getting a replacement driver's license is pretty straightforward."

"But I don't have a driver's license!"

"Then you get a non-driver ID card. You just need three forms of something like utility bills or such with your name and address on it. The good thing these days is most places will let you print out your own bills via computer and you don't have to go all over heck's half acre to collect duplicates. You probably need to get a new copy of your birth certificate, too. Were you born in Oregon?"

"Right here in the city."

"That helps. Lots of patience, hope the clerk is a man so you can bat your pretty eyes at him and a few bucks, you're in."

"I don't have more than thirty to my name! And no job!"

"You did get the short end of the stick, didn't you?"

"It's hopeless! Right now I'm a nobody!"

"It's not that bad, darling. You're here and among friends, you have a place to sleep and clothes to wear and people to help you. Before this is all over you're going to know what a strong and resourceful woman you can be.

Just what Jamie needed to hear. The other women wondered why she fled to her bed crying.

Part 4 - Identification

And so it went. Jamie was far from the first lost and confused woman to land in the shelter, and the people there were used to dealing with women far more confused than she was. They helped her through the necessary steps toward rebuilding a shattered life. She spent tedious hours on the computer being guided to find the documents needed to prove she lived in Oregon.

She applied for unemployment, housing assistance, job training assistance, all of the programs her mentors knew that would help get her life back on track.

Eventually it all came together and she was able to get her non-driver photo ID. When filling out the form she had the choice of 'M,' 'F,' or 'X' under sex. The helpful lady in the DMV explained that under Oregon law the choice was hers, they couldn't tell her which to choose and couldn't ask for any proof if they disagreed with what she chose.

After almost a week as Jamie-the-girl she was feeling comfortable with her new life and she chose 'F.'

There were people who helped her work towards finding a job. They got her talking about her education, her past jobs and what she wanted to do with her life. They gently guided her in how best to present herself, how to use the on-line job services, helped her to prepare a resume. It was a very short resume, a 4 year degree in English and one job waiting tables. She couldn't really put down her time as a Boy Scout under community service, could she?

She began to learn how to run a household efficiently, helping with the cleaning and the laundry and the shopping. Her mother didn't believe a boy needed to know these things, they were a woman's work, and she and her roommates had done only what was minimally necessary to keep the roaches at bay in the apartment.

After a few months in the same wash load at the Laundromat her clothes had tended to become pretty much the same dull, gray blah as colors bled. She had no clue about separating laundry. Naturally, her precious feminine things had only occasionally been washed in the sink and hung in her room. It never occurred to her that was why her blouses still looked good while her t-shirts were grubby.

She spent time in the kitchen, learning how to feed herself with more than pre-packaged meals. That was where she learned just how accurate the description of the things in her bra was when Naomi had called them chicken fillets. The actual chicken was cold, though. One afternoon, when she was instructed to pound the chicken flat with a mallet, she was overcome with a serious case of the giggles.

She spent time just talking, becoming accustomed to living as a woman with other women. It was a far cry from living with her two roommates as Jamie-the-boy. Some of the women there were just as screwed up as her roommates, to be sure, but there was a difference. It was amazing to her that so many different woman had come to the end of their rope for so many different reasons.

Some were inspiring, determined to put the past behind them and find a new life. Some had just plain given up and needed constant encouragement and approval. Some were functionally illiterate, and Jamie found herself teaching them the basics of reading, finally putting that English degree to good use.

Jamie's haphazard introduction to womanhood was much like those cross-stitch samplers pioneer girls were wont to make to demonstrate their skills with a needle; some numbers, some letters, some designs - a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Actually, you could think of Jamie as a pioneer in the realm of womanhood, just now consisting of those few essential stitches on the tapestry of her life.
 

By her third week in the shelter she was becoming confident as a woman, sure that this was the life she was supposed to have led from the beginning. Living as a woman just felt right. Tuesday morning she checked her e-mail on the common computer and there it was - an invitation to a job interview.

"Yes!" she screamed and actually did a little happy dance to the amusement of the other women present.

"Somebody's happy this morning."

"I got an interview!

"Congratulations, honey. Who with?"

"It's a big textbook company. They're looking for proofreaders."

"Figures. I think you've read every book in the place since you been here. I never could get into that reading shit."

"Annie, anything beats waiting tables in a crappy Italian restaurant. If all my clothes hadn't gone to the dump when that apartment blew up you'd still be smelling the spaghetti sauce on them. I swear they used garlic with a half-life of 500 years in that place."

"Jamie honey, this girl is as Italian as they come. I gotta show you how to make a real pizza some day."

"Not until after my interview. Tomato sauce on my pretty new suit just isn't going to work."

"Chickie, ya don't make pizza wearing a suit."

"But you do make dough. I need the dough and my prospects are rising."

"Stop that immediately. You know I can't abide puns."

"Only if you ask pizza please."

"Out! Out of this room! Out of my life!"

Part 5 - The Result

"Dorothy! Dorothy!"

"Calm down, Jamie. Take a breath, then tell me what's so exciting."

"I got the job, Dorothy!"

"Now that's good news, child."

"I start Monday and it pays more than twice as much as I got for waiting tables. And I get to sit down while I'm working!"

"Now see, I told you that hard work and persistence would pay off."

"I know, but I tried and tried to find a job that used my degree when I graduated but there wasn't anything. And I looked and looked!"

"You just looked in the wrong places, sweetling. We have some connections here for our women that aren't available to just anyone."

"I couldn't have done it without all of the people here helping me. Even when I manage to get a place of my own I'm not going to forget this place. I'm going to be sure Rosa and Adelina learn to read and write. They really need to know that if they're going to get to find decent jobs, too."

"That's the only sad part of this job, having to say goodbye to my girls when they make it on their own. I wouldn't have it any other way, but I do miss them."

"Don't worry, I intend to volunteer once I'm settled. I love this place."

"So do we all. I always feel a sense of pride whenever I see a new girl become a success at her new life."