Chapter Five: A Trip Outside

Not that she normally does this, but it would’ve been the absolute worst for my Mom to come into my room to wake me up this morning. I think she would've about died from shock had she seen her only son sleeping in his bed wearing women’s panties. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to explain the ridiculous clothing choice.

But this is one of the sacrifices I agreed to make. Annie was totally right – there’s a lot of prep work that goes into being a girl. I couldn’t just expect to show up in some ill-fitting dress at one of the parties and expect Scotty to believe I was a real girl.

So I left my house just before 10 AM to meet Annie for the second day of practice. Funny, she never mentioned how many days of ‘girl practice’ I’d need. I guess I’m just along for the ride.

When I arrived at her place she grabbed me and quickly pulled me upstairs. “My parents are home,” she said, quickly shutting the door behind her.

“Cool… why does that matter?” I asked.

She looked at me like I was a total ditz. “Because I don’t want them to see what we’re doing.”

“I mean, yeah.” I shrugged. “Let’s just do girl practice in your room then. If they knock, I hide and you say I left.”

“Hmm… so, I was gonna wait to tell you this til you were dressed up, but it seems relevant now… I made 11 AM brunch reservations for us.”

“You what??” I nearly screamed, praying her parents didn’t hear me… or her.

Annie sat me down on her chair. “It’s okay, it’s fine. It’s only at Café Soleil. You’ll be fine.”

I couldn’t believe how matter-of-fact she was acting. “Are you insane? Café Soleil is packed like all the time! Don’t you think somebody’s gonna recognize us?”

She snapped her fingers. “Way ahead of you. I already called ahead and asked for a back booth. They said it’s where they put their ‘celebrities’.” Pfft. As if any real celebrities lived in the suburbs of Chicago… the occasional pro athlete, maybe. But still.

But with time, I started calming down. Annie pleaded and pleaded and reminded me how convincing I looked yesterday and how much of a natural I was wearing girls clothes. Maybe – just maybe – we can pull this off.

She picked out a conservative, girly-but-not-flashy, light-pink sundress for me to wear, paired with white summer sandals. I was also given a white bra and panties set to wear underneath. Annie decided to somewhat match me with her own sundress, but hers was light green and she wore navy blue summer sandals.

“My nails are already painted… but I don’t think we have time to do yours. Sorry, Juliette,” she playfully cried, knowing full well I was happy about that.

She also applied a little bit of makeup to my face for the first time. Super subtle, but she insisted makeup would only help hide my identity and make me feel more confident as a girl. Not so sure about the latter, but I rolled with it. Annie even handed me a pair of large, feminine sunglasses as an extra layer of recognition protection.

Soon enough, I was fully dolled up. Annie even took a mirror selfie of us, much to my displeasure. “God, you make for such a cutie!” she squealed.

We left the house without running into her parents, and she told them we were off to meet more friends at brunch.

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Café Soleil isn’t too far from Annie’s house – only a 10 minute walk – but damn did it feel like a marathon. The sandals were comfortable, and I’d gotten a lot of practice yesterday with women’s shoes, but the fear that I’d run into someone was immense. We were in my hometown after all. Not on vacation, not in some fake virtual game. Nope. The real world

Annie gave me physicality tips on posture and poise along the way, up to and including arriving at the restaurant. Annie agreed to peek inside first, and if she saw any of our classmates, we’d be allowed to abort the mission. Once the coast was clear, we entered and were seated at our back booth. I wanted to keep my sunglasses on the whole meal, but Annie said doing so would probably attract more attention than if I didn’t. I think she was right.

“Okay, I see the server heading over,” Annie whispered. “Have you practiced your girl voice?”

“My girl–what? No, I haven’t practiced my girl voice!!”

“Oh… she muttered. Maybe we should have…”

But it was too late, the server had already arrived. She was a middle-aged woman with kind eyes. “What can I get for you, hons?”

Annie spoke up first. “I’ll do an omelet with cheese and spinach please.”

The server nodded. “And for you?”

She was staring at me, awaiting my response. It was my moment of truth. “Uhhh, the same please.”

The server smiled, nodded, and walked away. I let out another HUGE sigh of relief.

“Great job!!” Annie whispered. “I mean, you only said like three words, but you sounded just like a girl. Weird, I didn’t think you liked spinach though.”

“I don’t. I just thought that was the way I could order using the fewest words…”

Annie laughed. “Cheater!”

But we’d done it. We’d gotten through the toughest test.

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The rest of brunch went super smoothly. Nobody bothered us, nobody really looked at us. We walked out of the restaurant feeling on top of the world. Hey, maybe this girl stuff isn’t going to be that hard after all. Walking home, I even had a little pep in my step for the first time.

Annie looked at me, impressed. “I gotta say, Juliette. You’re taking this so well. I mean, can you imagine if we asked Chris to take this on?”

I laughed. “He’d never. He’s too stubborn and thinks he’s soooo macho.”

“I just love that you’re sweet and sensitive. That’s a quality that’ll take you far in life.”

I kind of raised an eyebrow to that. Is it? Everything I’ve been told about men – at least from my parents – is that they’re supposed to be strong, confident, family-focused guys. I always felt a little bad about myself, knowing I wasn’t on that path. I’m not into sports. I like art. I’m scrawny with long hair. And now… this? I guess it’s something to consider. Things could get dangerous if I don’t keep my mind focused on the task: I pretend to be a girl, I cheer up Scotty and let him down easy, and boom! We have popular friends for high school.

Annie did her job scouting out her house’s foyer, and smuggled me back upstairs to her room.

“I’m probably good to get this dress off, right? Why risk things any further?”

Annie immediately pouted. “Aww, really? I was having fun with Juliette...”

“Yeah, yeah. Well you can have more fun with her at the first party, assuming we’re done with girl practice for now?”

I think reluctantly agreed with me. “I must admit, you’ve been killing it. Granted, you said three words to the waitress…but even hearing you practice your girl voice on the walk back… it’s pretty stellar.”

“That sounds like a successful day then.” We high-fived, and I went into Annie’s bathroom to change out of the dress and remove the makeup.

“I have wipes in the top right drawer. It’s super easy, you’ll figure it out.”

Annie was right. It was pretty easy to remove the makeup. But it’s interesting, even taking it off, I still saw myself as unbelievably girly in the mirror. The way my hair was hung, the fact I was wearing a dress. Kinda crazy that I probably didn’t even need makeup.

But then there was a very concerning KNOCK on the door. Not the bathroom, but the bedroom door. “Annie, did everything go okay at brunch?”

CRAP! Her mom was right there. If I weren’t in the bathroom, I’d be totally screwed. Pleeeease just send her away, Annie. But Annie waited a few seconds, then answered.

“Come on in, Mom!”

WHAT THE HELL! Annie, you’re such a dope! Did she forget I was in the bathroom or something?

I couldn’t see from my perspective, but I could sense her Mom was exploring the room.
“Do you have a friend over?” she asked.

“Mmhmm.” Annie answered confidently. “Juliette. She’s in the bathroom.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure I know Juliette.”

“Well, you can meet her in just a sec,” Annie said cheerfully. What the hell was she doing? Was she trying to screw me over?

“Oh, okay,” her Mom said. I don’t think I’ve heard you mention her before.

“Yeah, I met her through Chris,” she said normally, but then her tone sounded a lot more pointed. “I thought I’d invite her back to TRY OUT THE NEW SHEET MASKS we bought.”

What? I wasn’t trying any sheet– wait a sec… this was her way of giving me an out!

“Why are you raising your voice?” her mom asked.

“Oh, no reason,” Annie said. “I just really like the SHEET MASKS IN THE UPPER RIGHT HAND DRAWER.”

“Okay, jeez…” her mom was clearly confused.

But that was all I needed to hear. I frantically opened the drawer and found the pack of sheet masks, which I realized were those things used for facial cleansing and to remove blackheads. While Annie made small talk with her mom, I quickly scanned the instructions on how to apply it. I rinsed my face, pressed the mask on… and perfect! My face was perfectly concealed under a white sheet.

“What’s taking Juliette so long? Does she need help?”

“No, she’ll be out in a sec,” Annie said. As much as I was pissed at her, I mustered up the courage to leave the bathroom after quickly tying my hair up in a bun.

“No worries,” I said, terrified but flawlessly faking confidence. “Hi, I’m Juliette.”

Fortunately, Annie’s mom didn’t stick around too long, and only asked a few questions about how I ‘knew Chris’. Thanks to my girl voice, the dress I still had on, and the concealing white mask, she didn’t suspect a thing. And a couple minutes later, she left the room.

Never having been so stressed in my life, I collapsed straight on the bed. Annie burst out laughing. Once I recovered, I shot back up wanting nothing more than to tackle her like a linebacker. But she held her hand up.

“Nuh-uh-uh,” she motioned me back. “I told you, those three words you said to the waitress weren’t enough.”

“...what?”

“I needed to give you a real test. A real world scenario. My mom didn’t recognize you for you. And congrats, you passed.”

I stared blankly at her, but I finally realized her game. All of my anger washed away and turned into genuine respect. Holy crap, that was maybe the smartest thing she could’ve done.

“NOW you’re done with girl practice. I think you’re ready to meet Scotty.”