Mom continued with a sparkle in her eye. "The real question is, what makes you happy?"

Part 4 - Momland

Chapter 21 - Waffles

"Mom," I called and heard her come back to my door.

"Should I go as Kissy or as Davey?"

"Up to you, hon," she answered casually as I had asked her whether to wear brown or black shoes.

"Urr," I said.

I dithered a bit, then stripped off the panties, found a pair of jockey-style briefs in my dresser and put those on. I hadn't really even tried to be Davey in almost 24 hours. The dreams I'd had mostly faded to a vague feeling that my memories held secrets I'd actively tried to forget.

It was unsettling.

I got out a pair of brown slacks, jeans-style but not jeans cloth. They felt scratchy on my legs, but I ignored that. I tried on a t-shirt, decided I did not like the look with the two points of my nipples showing and added a high-collared polo shirt over it.

I heard the doorbell ring, and Mom exclaim in surprise. My heart did a flip, but I decided it couldn't be anything to do with me and looked at myself in the mirror. Other than the modification to the shape of my eyebrows, I was the same Davey Kissee, who had gotten dressed in this same room yesterday.

Until I looked at my nails. How could I forget the orange-and-white French nails I was wearing? Did I have time to figure out how to remove them?

But Mom calling from the door, dealing with a delivery. She might need some help, so I slipped on the same pair of boat shoes I'd worn to go to Fatburger, then changed my mind twice before ending up with my brown athletic shoes.

I tied the laces quickly and paused in front of the mirror for a moment. I'd remembered something, but a quick check showed that the hickey behind my left ear wasn't visible from in front and, in fact, only showed up from certain angles. Seeing it, though, brought a quick flush to my face.

What the heck had I been thinking? Yesterday seemed more dreamlike than my dreams. Who had I been? What had I been doing?

From the encounter with Marjorie to the ending—kiss!—with Rory, it didn't seem as if it could have really happened.

"Honey, can you come here?" Mom called.

"On my way," I answered and headed out to the front steps where Mom stood with three large packages around her feet, all with the Amazon smile on them. "What did you order?" I asked.

"Nothing," she answered, looking puzzled, annoyed and amused all at once. "They're all addressed to Kissy Davis."

"Oh—fuh—Marjorie!"

Mom nodded. "That's what I figure. Help me drag them inside, and we'll deal with it later."

Each box was about two feet on a side and fairly heavy. I had an idea what might be in them, but I was busy dealing with my anger toward Marjorie. "Who does she think she is?" I muttered. "Still trying to manipulate me."

"She's a bratty rich kid who wants her toy back," Mom observed, probably as accurate a way of putting it as possible. "Like I say, let's get this inside and then be on our way. Waffles won't wait all morning."

We piled the boxes at the end of the couch. "She must have paid a fortune for overnight delivery," I said.

Mom shrugged. "Not important." She tugged a stray lock back in place, having already dressed in her office-chic costume, Friday edition. Soft maroon pants, a poofy fuchsia blouse, green step-in low heels and her usual assortment of jewelry.

She grabbed her maroon and green purse and announced, "I'm ready, are you?"

"Uh—almost," I said, heading back to my bedroom. I'd forgotten to transfer things from my purse, Kissy's purse, back to my wallet and pants pockets. When I got back to the door, Mom was already outside, starting the car, and soon we were on our way. Dealing with my nails slipped my mind again, hard to believe I had gotten that used to them.

The curious thing about us as Angelenos is that we lived practically on top of the LA Metro Red Line, the subway, that would have taken us three-fourths of the way to where we were going with a short and frequent bus ride to finish. But being true natives, we didn't even consider it. Three-fourths of the way does not make the grade, and the time-savings of using a car clinched it.

Besides, we wanted to detour to Huckleberry's, which was a considerable side-trip down Santa Monica.

We traveled silently for a bit, Mom dealing with the traffic and me with my thoughts. She looked at me when we were stopped at a light and asked. "Are you comfortable?"

I shrugged. "Outwardly, I'm comfortable; inwardly, I'm screaming in terror and angst."

She laughed. "You don't look comfortable."

I nodded. My chest itched, the pants I was wearing seemed as coarse as burlap, my face felt naked in a very weird way. "Yesterday didn't happen, did it?"

Mom flashed a worried look at me then decided I was kidding. "And you didn't even have enough to drink for a good excuse," she said.

"Yeah, ha. Did Marjorie hypnotize me? Drug me? I dunno." I shook my head, "I can't—I didn't—it just doesn't feel real."

"You fell right into the role of being Kissy last night," Mom pointed out. "All your angst seemed pretty normal for a teenage girl."

I winced. "But I'm not a girl. And I don't think I've ever wanted to be one. It just—it was like—like acting in a play."

"I dunno," said Mom, turning into the parking lot of the restaurant. "You certainly seemed to be having a lot of fun with Rory."

I winced again, feeling my face turn red. Damn Rory. There were a lot of things about last night I didn't want to think about and him kissing me was one of them. Is it just that I'm gay and in denial, I wondered? Maybe that was it. While kissing Marjorie had been fun and more than just fun, it was still nowhere near as exciting as kissing Rory.

Damnit. I knew I should have tucked things back up inside and worn tighter underwear.

"Maybe I'm gay," I muttered aloud as Mom parked near the back entrance to the fake log cabin structure.

Mom looked as if she were about to comment then changed her mind. We got out of the car and started up the walk beside the cute No Fishin' and No Skinny Dippin' signs beside the pond and fountain. She still looked distracted as we reached the door.

After a moment of confusion, I opened it for her, and she said, "Thanks."

Inside, a walkway beside what looked like a white-washed clapboard fence decorated with more countrified sayings led to the front lobby. The decor in Huckleberry's is over-the-top, but the food is good.

With the restaurant almost empty, the hostess waved for us to choose our seats. At this time of morning on the weekend, the place would be packed, which is why Mom seized the idea of coming here on a Friday mid-morning.

The hostess left menus and set off to bring coffee for Mom, and juice and water for me. Mom put her hands together and looked across the table at me. "How on earth would we tell?" she asked.

"Uh—what?" I pushed a menu at her, but she ignored it. We'd known what we were having before we left home.

"If you're gay? I mean," she waved a hand vaguely. "What sort of measure would you use?"

I rolled my eyes. This was Mom's idea of teasing me.

"But the real question isn't, are you gay?" she continued with a sparkle in her eye. "The real question is, what makes you happy?"

"Okay, Mom," I sighed. "I get it."

The waitress came with our drinks, and we both ordered our usual, blueberry and bacon waffles with country scramble, plus real maple syrup for a small extra charge. Mom took her scramble with eggs, sausage, cheese and onion, and I had mine with eggs, potatoes and cheese.

"Okay, ladies," the waitress said as she left, "should be quick this morning."

I stared at her back then turned to look at Mom, who carefully showed no expression at all. "Is it the eyebrows?" I asked. I looked at my hands. "It's my nails, isn't it?"

"They don't help, surely," Mom admitted, "but it's more the way you're sitting."

"Ah—?"

"Teenage boys sprawl. Teenage girls sit with their knees together, feet flat on the floor, shoulders back, head up, elbows in—they smile at everyone. You're giving all kinds of signals. And I don't remember you doing this so much before."

"I—." Nothing believable occurred to me to say.

Mom looked thoughtful again. "Before your father left, a lot of people seemed confused as to whether you were a boy or a girl. But then you maybe grew out of that. More definitely boyish, though little—uh—girly mannerisms would escape now and then. Do you remember that plush moose you used to have?"

"Moosey, yeah, sure."

Mom didn't say anything more, but our food came while I was still thinking. I used to tell stories about Moosey's adventures with a little girl lost in the woods. And I did the voices, Moosey as deep as I could manage and the little girl in closer to my own voice. Her name was Dee, and she kept getting lost in the forest and rescued by her friend, Moosey. I felt my face turning red and tried to think about eating.

It had been some time since I'd been able to finish all the waffle and scramble they served at Huckleberry's, but not wearing a corset, I expected to do better than I did. I managed more than half of the waffle and nearly all the egg, but I got full suddenly and couldn't eat another bite.

On the other hand, Mom finished all of hers and poured the last of the maple syrup in a spoon and ate that too.

"Mom," I protested.

"Quiet," she said. "This stuff is twelve dollars a pint in the stores."

After paying the bill and leaving a nice tip, Mom drove us down Western to the medical buildings on Wilshire, and we used a self-park lot on the back street. We were almost half an hour early. On the walk to Dr. Forbes's office, I pointed out which building Marjorie's family-owned.

"She's a Pritzger?" Mom mused. "That explains her attitude toward money. And people."

When we checked in with Dr. Forbes's receptionist, we were told that doctor was running a bit late, and we would have a longer wait than expected. But there were more forms for Mom to fill out and a couple of new questionnaires for me.

The easy one had ten very personal and embarrassing questions, on the strongly-agree to strongly-disagree scale. The last of them was, "I would like to be evaluated for having gender confirmation surgery."

Yike!