Kissy visits the salon and Rory meets a Princess.

The soft, light-weight fabric of the coverup dress supposedly stopped 98% of burning rays, equivalent to an SPF 50. As a redhead, I could appreciate that. The dress was a size 4 and fit snugly over my denim mini-dress. A bit of corded lace at the waist could be pulled tight and tied off to serve as a belt. The skirt fell so long that it covered my toes and without the platform heels would have touched the ground.

The sleeves could be shortened to wrist-length or shorter by pulling tapes on the upper arms because at full length, they would hang past my finger tips by several inches. And the built-in hoodie could be pulled down over the face where a screen panel could be left open to see through. Talk about full cover-up—I wondered if it had been designed in Dubai! But it suited me, too, and just for fun, I did the full cover-up, head and hands, just to see how it looked.

Mom came in while I was examining the look in the mirror and had a good laugh. “You could send someone else on your date, and Rory would never know,” she joked. “Now come out of there and I’ll give you another makeup lesson.”

“Okay,” I said, pulling the tapes on the arms and throwing the headpiece back which left most of my neck, shoulders and forearms bare. “I’m going to wear it like this with one of my big hats.”

“Mmm, hmm,” she said. “Let’s do an afternoon look for you but with a little more drama and I’ll show you how to change it for an evening look, too.” With instruction and practice, that took most of an hour but we made it to the salon by 10:30, enough time to get nails done and get back for Rory to pick me up at noon.

Mom introduced me to the girls in the shop. “Hi, Rhoda, this is my daughter, Princess.”

“Mom!” I protested.

Rhoda laughed. She was a short Asian lady, probably Vietnamese, “You don’t look such a tomboy you wanted to be called Davey, huh?” she asked.

Astonished, I turned to Mom again. “Mo-om!” I squealed. “Did you tell everyone about me?”

The other ladies in the salon laughed, too, including some of the customers. “No, dear, just—” she motioned vaguely, “—just you always tell your manicurist things you don’t tell anyone else.”

Confused—just when had she told them and what, exactly?—I looked back at Rhoda who winked at me. “So now you all girly-girl, huh? Princess! I think someone discover what boys are for, huh?” More general laughter and blushing by me.

“Such pretty dress, all white and yellow and gold. Sparkly. You look like pineapple sundae with cherry on top.”

I knew I was being teased, still it wasn’t as mean as it might sound, everyone was laughing but not at me. They wanted me to laugh too. “Ha, ha,” I said weakly. I needed to talk to Mom.

Rhoda directed me to a chair. “Let me see nail, you broke, good, huh?” She made a face. “It hurt?”

I nodded. “Well, not right now but when it happened.”

“How you want fixed?” she asked. “I take all nails off and redo and they match good, or I try to repair just one broken nail?”

“Uh—” An idea came to me from somewhere. “Could you take them all off, and make them longer, sharper and—and red?”

“Sure,” she said. “How long you want? We do nail, long as you want.” She started getting her tools ready.

“An inch long?” I asked.

“Inch!” she gestured, holding a finger out about an inch from the end of my finger. “That pretty long.”

“No,” I said, blushing again. “I meant, an inch total,” I said measuring from the base of my nail.

“Oh,” she said. “Still pretty long, you not gonna break it again, right away?”

“I—I’ll be more careful,” I said.

She laughed. “Okay, we start and I show you how long that is. You decide.” Pretty soon, she had the older French nails removed and glued new nail extensions on that were about two inches long. She cut the one on my index finger to one inch past the end of my finger to show me.

I was tempted but shook my head. “I know I’d break that again right away.”

She nodded. “You princess, but you need practice.” She laughed.

I shot a glare at Mom who shrugged. “Tell, you what, Princess. Get your nails however you like, at least half-an-inch, and as long as you don’t break one, you’re excused from housework. But if you do break one, you do all the work for a week.”

“I—huh?” Was this part of the plot to spoil me? I grinned. Shared housework wasn’t that onerous, but what the heck? “Okay,” I said. “Half-an-inch, Rhoda.”

She was grinning, too. “Okay, we do them ballerina-style then, less likely to break than all-pointy. You want pretty design painted on them?”

“Okay!” I’d seen nail art before and some of it was amazing.

While she worked, Mom and one of the other ladies in the shop tried various ‘falls’ to see if one matched my hair color. A fall, I found out, is like a partial wig and is used to make your hair thicker or to add a ponytail to a short hairstyle which was the idea with me. “I’m going to be wearing my hat,” I pointed out.

“During the day,” Mom agreed. “But if you go out in the evening, don’t wear one of those big hats to dinner or dancing.”

I giggled, thinking that a big hat was how I got into this whole being a girl thing.

They found a fall, a tiny bit more red than my own hair, and styled it into a thick low ponytail that hung to the middle of my back and could survive being under a hat for the afternoon. It looked terrific and I was pleased to have long hair, even if it wasn’t all mine. The crowning touch, literally, was that Mom went next door to a costume jewelry shop and came back with a sparkly tiara which was used to attach the fall.

“Now you look like a real princess,” Rhoda teased.

The design she painted on my nails was even more than amazing. Basically, yellow and white flowers with green stems, but on my right thumb a tiny multicolored butterfly and on my left thumb two even tinier yellow and brown honeybees. I got the giggles all the way home, just looking at them.

“Do you think you can keep from breaking them?” Mom asked.

“I think so. I’ll be extra careful because of the designs.”

“What do you think Marjorie is going to think? You got rid of the French nails she had done for you.”

“Well, I liked those but I think this is better.”

“Hmm, mmm,” said Mom, smiling.

“Now,” I said. “What’s this about you telling them my name is Princess.”

She laughed. “Well, in a way, it is. My side of the family is French-Canadian and while our name is Parker in English, that’s just a dit name.”

“Dee name?” I was more confused than before.

“Think French, d-i-t, meaning ‘said’. Our family name—my family name, your family name—in French is Dauphíne.” Pronounced doe-feen. “Which means dolphin and is the name of a place in France. The family just used Parker in English.”

“Uh—? How did that happen?”

“Never mind, how. It’s a Canadian thing. But Dauphíne is also the title of a princess, the one married to the crown prince. Of France. Who is called the Dauphin.” Pronounced doe-fong, more or less.

“That doesn’t explain anything, Mom,” I complained.

She sighed. ”Well, it’s one of your middle names. Or was, and will be. You were David Alex Dauphíne Parker Kissee. We haven’t decided yet what your new name is going to be.” She sighed. “A long time ago, I described you to Rhoda, including your whole name. And she speaks better French than I do. She recognized Dauphíne as the title of a princess….” She grinned. “And I guess I started talking to her about the daughter I didn’t know I had.”

I thought about that story for a bit. “I’ve been a princess all this time and I didn’t know it?” I said. “Mom, don’t quit your day job, you’ll never make it as a screenwriter.” We both laughed.

I shook my head. But I kind of liked the name Kissy Dauphíne Parker. Maybe add two more middle names….

We got home and had time for another makeup lesson, along with one on how to put on and take off the fall.

“So much to remember about being a girl,” I said, pretending to complain but Mom laughed at me.

“You know you love it,” she said. “Now, do you want me to snug up your corset again? Or loosen it? I can show you how to do that without getting undressed.”

“Really?” I asked. That might be something useful to know.

“You still have that crochet hook?”

I got the implement out of my purse, a green piece of aluminum rod about eight inches long. Mom adjusted my cover-up dress then worked the smooth hook down the middle of my back, into and under the denim dress layer.

She fished out the ends of the laces and remarked, “The cords have stretched a bit, I can tighten it up again—or?”

I took an experimental deep breath. “Okay,” I. said. “I like the feel when it is pretty tight.”

She nodded. “So do I. And I thought you would too.” She worked slowly and carefully, undoing the knots and pulling gently, taking several minutes to retrieve another inch or so of lace. I took a deep breath—as deep as I could, anyway—then let it all out, forcing as much air out as I could. Mom pulled the laces tight then backed off a bit before retying the knots.

I took a few experimental breaths. I wasn’t at all uncomfortable or short of breath and the constriction felt…hard to explain. Like being in a safe warm place? I liked it and I liked knowing how small it made my waist look.

“Marjorie wants to take you for some custom-fitted corsets tomorrow,” Mom said. “I’m sure they’ll be even more comfortable and—efficient.”

“How long can you wear a corset for?” I asked.

“The only reason you have to take one off is for a bath or if you get sick. As long as you’re not doing something to get hot and sweaty, and stay healthy….” She shrugged. “Three or four days at a time? I’ve worn one for as long as a week, bathing what I could reach without taking it off.”

“Okay.” I knew I would probably keep mine on until the next time I felt I needed a real bath. Which with a day in the outdoors planned, might be as early as tonight.

Rory arrived ten minutes before noon and I hid in my bedroom while Mom gave him the third degree. I picked out jewelry to wear, including the gaudier bangles and rings Marjorie had bought. They seemed to go with the tiara. Mom had got two more charms for my necklace when she got the tiara: a green-eyed golden dolphin and a red glass crown, and those went with the chipmunk.

Mom relented on torturing Rory and knocked on my door. “Are you ready, Kissy?” she asked.

We’d rehearsed this. “Almost,” I called back.

Mom slipped thought the door and grinned at me. “He’s done to a turn,” she said and we both giggled. Then she tied a green ribbon around my neck and let me go meet my date.

He looked amused until he got a good look at me. “Amazing dress, Kissy,” he said.

I pointed at my tiara, “Call me Princess,” I said.