She cradled the guitar with the neck up by her shoulder, closed her eyes and began to warm up by playing some adlibbed Flamenco. When she got into the flow of the music, she began to play ‘La Malagueá±a’. The girls began to Tango when Angel played ‘La Cumparsita’. Angel just let the music carry her away as she kept on playing and smiling.

by Paula Dillon

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Margarita sat in her big chair and looked at Carmine, her sister, and her two nieces Sierra and Nevada. She really dreaded what she was about to do, but she really needed their help.
 
 
Chapter 1
 
 
Margarita Dolores Ramos-Marquez was a thirty-eight year old woman, and no she wasn’t from Mexico or any part of Central or South America, they all weren’t. Their families and their husbands’ families had all come from the old country, Spain. Her great grand parents were from Madrid and her exe husband Diego’s, grand parents had ties to Valladolid, Spain and had lived there around the rough period of the Second World War.

She had divorced her husband eight years earlier. The divorce had been messy, at least on the financial side, and far from amicable, but she had him by the short hairs and he knew it. The financial split of their marital assets turned out to be sixty eight to thirty two. She had full custody but had to sign a NDA (non-disclosure agreement). There was enough money that she didn’t need to do work for them to be comfortable.

In the months after her divorce, life went on; she kept the house clean, did the laundry and shopping and helped her son Angel with his school work. As much as she loved her son, it just wasn’t enough for her. She found herself alone in her large home much of the time. Calls to her sister helped but they were not enough. She felt she just had to get out of the house and get a job.

She sat angel on her lap and hugged him to her, “Angel, would it be alright if momma got a job?”

Angel looked to be deep in serious thought for several seconds, “Yeah Mom, but what will I do after school?”

Margarita smiled at her little boy and said, “Well, you would go to daycare after school and I would pick you up on the way home from work.”

“Ok”

Margarita had excellent computer skills and typing skills. She took a few weeks to hone her skills and re-familiarized herself with many of the business software packages. She then went shopping. She selected a half dozen skirted suits from dark blue, to navy, to charcoal to black, making sure the blazers were well fitted and the skirts touched the top of her knee at least. Along with suits she bought blouses and lots of office appropriate accessories. At her salon she had her hair style, nails and makeup updated.

She then invited a friend of hers over, that worked in Human Resources and together they spent the better part of a week creating, editing and compiling a resume plus the supporting documentation. They copied it to disk and printed it. Margarita took her resume and had it professionally printed and bound. She started with twenty copies.

It took her a month of going to interviews to land herself a placement as an executive assistant. She worked nine to five, Monday through Friday. She was over qualified for the position she had taken; having obtained two MBA’s, one in Marketing and another in Finance. One HR director had asked her why she had not wanted an executive position that she was well qualified for. She told him that she had just not wanted to jump into a position and have to take charge. She just wanted to get out of the house and interacting with other people again.

Her mood had brightened and life at home was good for her and her son.
 
 
Chapter 2
 
 
Margarita worked for an executive named Sam Wallingford. They had a good relationship and he never made sexual advances towards her. The Corporation and Mr. Wallingford greatly benefited from her knowledge and her ability to work with people. All of her co-workers found her cheerful and knowledgeable. She was a great organizer. Sam would give her a project and let her have her head.

Everything sailed smoothly until three months ago, when a business deal threatened to go south. The deal was one of Sam’s key projects and looked to be a very profitable. After Sam and his wife left on a Hawaiian cruise vacation/second honeymoon, the fecal matter hit the rotary oscillator. One of the major concerns they depended on had gone belly up. Margarita informed Corporate of the problem. She then got to work and formed a task group to work on a solution, while Corporate looked over her shoulder.

The Corporation also had a group of executives working on a solution. There were long hours, with days of eighteen to twenty hours of work. In the end both groups presented their solutions. The CEO, CFO, and the BOD went over both proposals thoroughly. In the end, the proposal presented by Margarita and her group was simpler, more elegant and the most cost efficient. Margarita gave her group the credit for the work where it was due, minimizing her part in the process. Her group had just saved their corporation just over seventy-five million dollars.

There had been eyes on her though and they had seen the truth. Yes, she had a group that did most of the work, but she was in there working with them, giving them direction and ram-rodding things along. She had put in the most hours there, and had to have her sister pick up Angel and take him to her place for ten days.

The people up top were very pleased with her work and dedication to the job. They offered her the chance of a lifetime. They wanted her to take an upper mid level executive position.

This was at the heart of the problem she now faced. She explained it to her number one supporter, Angel.

“Go for it Mom,”

“You don’t understand, it will mean that I have to go to corporate headquarters for a month long training seminar, I will also have to spend two to three weeks a quarter in either the European office or the Asian offices.”

“So, what is the problem? I bet you will enjoy the travel. I know you like the people you work for.”

“You are the problem Angel, not you specifically, but what will I do about you. I am not going leave you at home by yourself. You would have to spend your summer with your Aunt Carmine and I would probably have to send you to a boarding school to do this job.”

Angel sat and thought about the implications for a few minutes before answering. “Mom I know it will be rough on both of us, but I know how much this will mean to you. I can hack it if you can, as long as you don’t dump me and forget about me.”

“I could never do that to you Angel. You are the reason I still exist. I have already talked to Corporate and insisted that I have at least two weekends a month and four weeks of vacation so that I can be a Mom. I told them that if they screwed me on this, that I would happily find employment elsewhere. They agreed barring only an emergency.”

“What kind of compensation?”

“I am making mid fifties right now, if I take this job I will be making between one twenty five and one fifty for the first year, with fringe benefits.”

Margarita and Angel spent the next four hours talking about things before calling it a day and heading to bed. The next day they began to research boarding schools till they found a boarding school that fit their criteria and was between their home and Aunt Carmine’s home. That just left one problem, Margarita needed to talk to her sister.

“Hi Sis,” Margarita said, after her sister answered the phone.

“Hey Sis,” Carmen said, almost shouting into the phone. “How are things up there? You don’t have another emergency do you?”

“No everything is fine up here. How are you and the Mountain girls doing?”

Carmine’s mirror image daughters (monozygotic) Sierra and Nevada were affectionately known as the mountain girls. Rodrigo and Carmine named them after the Sierra Nevada Mountains, after Carmine complained that she was giving birth to a pair of mountains while she was in delivery. Rodrigo heard that and laughingly suggested they name one Sierra and the other Nevada. Carmine threw her pillow at her laughing husband, but as she thought about it she fell in love with those names.

The two girls were the opposite of each other. Most identical twins occur when the single fertilized egg splits apart in the first day after conception. Mirror image twins are thought to occur because the egg divides after the first day, but before the end of the first week. This can bring about some interesting differences in the twins.

Sierra was right handed, Nevada was left handed. Sierra had a cute birthmark that almost looked like a dove in flight on her left shoulder, Nevada’s was on her right. Sierra likes bright colors, Nevada likes earth tones. What one girl was, the other was the opposite, except that they both were outgoing, gregarious and rambunctious.

At school they once did a routine where one girl did things like brush her hair and do her makeup, while the other girl did the mirror opposite of her. They were on either side of a window that they were treating like a mirror. Their timing was as close to perfect as any two people could get. This was filmed and the film was shown to the whole school. Everyone got a laugh out of it.

They looked so alike that their teachers often made them sign their names, to make sure they had the right one in class. So they couldn’t easily trade places with one another. They had tried to practice enough so that they could trade places, but neither was ambidextrous enough to get away with it.

“We are doing great.” Carmine said.

“I may have some good news and I was wondering if you and the girls could come down for the weekend next week?”

“Tell me you found some hunk of a man that is going to marry you and I will be there in an hour.”

“Not likely, I haven’t even been looking for one yet.”

“You can’t catch a fish, if you ain’t fishing, Sis.”

“What about you? I mean it has been four years since Rodrigo passed away.”

“I have been fishing, I just ain’t found a keeper yet. Maybe I am using the wrong bait.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with your bait girl. You are at least as pretty as I am,” Margarita said, teasing her sister.

Margarita at thirty-eight and Carmine at thirty four both looked to be in their late twenties. Both of them had participated in beauty pageants in their late teens and both of them could stop the traffic of passing males. They were now beautiful in a more mature way.

“At least as pretty,” Carmine said laughing. “Nothing wrong with your eyes girl, either. We are both still heart breakers. I guess we can be there next Friday.”

“Just put a leash on Sierra and Nevada, you know how they tease Angel.”

“Don’t kid yourself Sis, he loves every minute of it too. You know they would never hurt him. Embarrass him yes, but never hurt him.”

“Ok then, I will see you next Friday, give everyone my love.”

“Ok Sis, kiss kiss.”
 
 
Chapter 3
 
 
Margarita was nervous and considered forgetting the whole thing. What stopped her was Angel, he was so proud of his momma.

“I have a favor to ask of you and the girls, but first I need to tell you more about my break up with Diego.”

“The girls can go join Angel if you want to talk.”

“They need to hear this to Carmine. First I need to know that nothing I say will leave this room. I signed an NDA with Diego, which is why I got everything that I wanted in the divorce. Do you guys know what a non disclosure agreement is?”

Carmine looked at her daughters and said, “A NDA or non-disclosure agreement is a legal document that says neither party of the document can reveal anything, to anyone about whatever the agreement is about. If Diego finds out that Aunt Margarita has said anything about it. She can lose her home and a lot of her money. You can trust me Sis,” Carmine said. “Girls you have to keep this secret. Can you do this, one hundred percent of the time?” Carmine was a little skeptical about her girls’ ability to keep a secret. Her girls loved to gossip as much as any other girl.

The twins turned and looked at each other, shook their heads and began.

“We won’t say a thing,” Nevada said.

“About anything we hear,” Sierra said.

“If it hurts Aunt Margarita or Angel,” Nevada finished.

Carmine and Margarita just shook their heads. Since the Mountain girls learned to talk they would finish each others sentences and make sense. Like they were different halves of the same brain.

“Ok, I have never told you this before. The reason I divorced Diego was, one day he got really mad at Angel and used him as a punching bag. He hit him with his fist really hard twice, but before he could hit him a third time, I laid him out with a frying pan. Diego was out for ten minutes, I thought I had killed him, but he got back up. I told him to get out and never come back.”

“What could poor Angel do to get Diego so mad?” Carmine asked.

“Was it because.”

“Angel wanted to be.”

“A girl?”

The adults just sat there with their mouths hanging open looking at the twins.

“Did Angel tell you that, girls?” Margarita asked.

“No he didn’t.”

“But we could tell.”

“He played dress up.”

“With us and he looked.”

“So happy when he was,”

“Dressed.”

“So is that it, Margarita?” Carmine asked.

“Yes it is, just before his sixth birthday, he came into the kitchen while Diego and I were talking and announced that he wanted to become a girl for his birthday present. Diego flipped out, I have never seen him so mad Carmine, not even during the divorce. He started yelling at Angel, I won’t tell you what he was shouting though, it was so filthy. He insisted that Angel stop all this non-sense about becoming a girl. Angel refused and all hell broke loose. I’ll be damned if I let him hurt my baby again.”

Carmine felt like she needed to shift this conversation before her sister broke down, “Ok, what was this about some good news, Sis?”

“Well, I have been offered a promotion. It involves a month long seminar. I was wondering about two things, before I accepted their offer.”

“Ok name them.”

“First can Angel spend the summer with you and the girls? Second, Angel has been seeing a therapist and she has given her approval for Angel to transition to a girl full time, if she can do so safely. Angel can be pretty girly when she tries, but I would like Sierra and Nevada to help train her to be perfect. I have tentative approval from a girl’s school to accept her as a boarder.”

The mountain girls excitedly jumped up and ran to Angel’s room.

“She’s in my room girls,” Margarita shouted, as she saw where they were headed.

The girls made a course correction and in two seconds they were out of sight.

“Well, the answer to the first part is, we would love to have Angel stay with us this summer. The answer to the second part is, well do you really have to ask? Tell me more about all of this.”

Margarita told her sister all about what had happened. After Diego left she took Angel to his Doctor. The Doctor checked Angel over and asked her about what happened. She told him about the incident and even told him what she had done. She told the Doctor not to worry about this happening again it won’t. That she would nail that bastard’s scrotum to a wall before he hurts Angel again. She then asked the doctor about finding a child therapist.

She had taken Angel to see the therapist her Doctor had recommended, where Angel bluntly told the therapist she was a girl, no matter what the doctors told her. The therapist made her tell her everything about how she felt. Angel let it all out; Margarita had never heard Angel talk as much before as then. After an hour, the therapist made an appointed to see her once a week for the next two months and made her promise not to dress as a girl unless she was somewhere safe and she was with her Mom.

After two months, the appointments came twice a month and then after a year they had appointments once a month. After six years of therapy, when Angel was twelve, she was prescribed an anti-androgen, so she would never have to suffer from testosterone poisoning.

Physically, Angel was five foot four inches tall and about a hundred and five pounds. She was taller than Sierra and Nevada by an inch and a half but was four or five pounds lighter. She didn’t have any boobs yet, but her nipples were becoming irritated, sensitive and they just starting to peak a bit. She didn’t have an Adam’s apple, but she did have a bit of a bubble butt.

Margarita then began to tell her sister about the school she wanted to send Angel to. It was a well respected girl’s school, about eighty miles from here and fifty three miles from Carmine’s home. The pictures in the brochure showed that the school was in a wooded area with vine covered buildings.

“Margarita, Angel could move in with us and go to school where the girls go.”

“I couldn’t ask that, besides can you imagine what life around your home would be like after your girls have corrupted Angel,” Margarita said laughing. “Seriously, Angel told me that she wanted to see if he could pull this off around ‘real girls’. Your girls love him so much they might overlook something. Speaking of your girls, it is too quiet back there.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Carmine said standing up. “We better go rescue Angel.”

The adults had just left the living room, when the girls came out of Margarita’s room. Margarita had dressed Angel in a lovely knee length print dress, knee high socks and some Mary Jane flats. She had done her face up in a light makeup, just a little foundation, mascara and a bubble gum pink lip gloss. She had combed her hair back and put a hair band and barrettes on her.

Sierra was pulling a worried looking Angel by her left arm and Nevada had her by her right. Angel was now dressed in Nevada’s frilly white blouse (she now wore one of Angel’s T-shirts), Sierra’s black mini-skirt (she was now wearing a pair of Angel’s pants now), panty hose and a pair of Aunt Margarita’s black strappy sandals that had a three inch heel. The girls had curled Angel’s long hair with a curling iron and had even redone Angel’s makeup. Angel now had a pinkish red lipstick, blush, eye shadow and eye liner on. The look wasn’t entirely over the top, but at least she didn’t look like a hooker. Angel was very glamorous now and looked more like a teen going out on a date.

“Go make a large pot of tea, Sis,” Carmine said. “Looks like we have a lot to talk about.”

“Right Sis.”

They all sat around the kitchen table, Margarita had made a pot of chamomile tea to relax everyone.

“Ok Sierra, Nevada, I love you both dearly, but your Aunt has been worrying so much over this that she only has one nerve left and you two are stretching it near to it’s breaking point. Please for the time being can you two answer my questions one of you at a time with a complete sentence.” Margarita asked pleadingly.

The girls looked at each other seriously and shook their heads. They then got up and hugged their aunt.

“We are sorry Aunt Margarita. It is just something we love to do. We don’t mean to cause you any pain,” Sierra said.

“It will be hard for us not to do it, but we promise not to finish each other’s sentences. At least till you are better,” Nevada added, giggling.

“Yeah, after that all bets are off,” Sierra said winking.

Margarita hugged her nieces tightly and cried on their shoulders for a bit. After she felt better the girls sat back down on either side of Angel.

“Now tell me something girls. Angel and I had worked so hard for her to look so cute, why did you two make her over.”

“You said you wanted our help to train her. Don’t get me wrong she did look cute… for a ten year old girl or a going to church girl. No teen we know would dress like that on her own,” Sierra said.

“But that is similar to how she will have to dress in a school uniform,” Margarita showed them pictures of how the girls looked at the school.

“Aunty, did you dress in a uniform for your school?” Nevada asked.

“You know that I did. You have seen pictures of me and your Mom in our uniforms at our Parochial school.”

“Did you like it or did you hate it?” Sierra asked.

“Carmine and I both hated it. We couldn’t wait to get home to change, but our parents were strict and we had to change into similar non-uniform clothes. But I see your point. Thank you.”

“Momma, you should have seen Angel. Her nipples were just like ours were last year, but she has these breast shape pads in her bra.”

“She also has a bit of a tush like ours, too.”

“What did you two do to your poor cousin, girls?”

“Well, we dressed her in my bra and blouse, her own panties, Sierra’s pantyhose and skirt, Aunt Margarita’s heels. I did her makeup while Sierra curled her hair.”

“What was wrong with her bra?” Margarita asked.

“Mine was cuter,” Nevada said, winking, “and we wanted Angel to be cuter in a teen sort of way.”

“Angel, you have been uncharacteristically silent. Are you ok, with all of this?”

“I am ok with it Mom, it was a little embarrassing when they undressed me, but as I saw that they were treating me like any other girl, I loved what they were doing, to me.”

“Where did you get that thing you used to hide your thing?” Sierra asked.

“Mom found a lady who made the breast forms for me and she made the other bits for me too. The breast forms can be glued on just like the other bit.”

“Tell me girls why did you strip your cousin. Was it to torment him?”

“No Mom, if she is going to live in a dorm, she’ll have to get use to seeing and being in various states of undress around other girls,” Sierra said. “It will be like summer camp right?”

“Tell us about the school Aunt Margarita,” Nevada asked.

“Well there is this school about an hour from where you live. They have tentatively approved of her. The girls live in cottages of sixteen girls with four dorm rooms. The headmistress wants her to spend a week there in July for evaluation and testing. She also wants to see how well Angel has adapted to being a girl. If Angel can’t pass as a girl under her scrutiny then she can’t attend. The school has several transgendered girls already there you see. Nobody knows who they are except the headmistress, the nursing staff and the house mothers. All of them are sworn to secrecy. So you see why Angel must be as good a girl as she can be. If she doesn’t pass as a girl, Angel has agreed to delay her transition.”

“Don’t worry, Aunt Margarita. After we get through with her, nobody will know she isn’t a girl,” Sierra confidently stated. “We need to do some shopping though; all of her clothes are just too cutesy. She looks she grew up in a Nunery, wearing them.”

“Well we can go shopping tomorrow I guess. We have to wait till after eleven though, I am expecting a call from the headmistress tomorrow morning.” Margarita said. “Would you like that, Angel.”

“Sure it sounds like fun, as long as we don’t shop near here. I still need to finish out this semester at middle school.”

“How much school do you have left?” Sierra asked.

“I have three more weeks; Mom contacted the principal and told him that she had to go out of town for an extended period of time, starting on the thirty-first. My grades are so good, that he arranged for me to test early. I will need to come to your home Aunt Carmine on the thirtieth of May so Mom can head to New York on the thirty-first.”

“Damn, we will still be in school through the 9 th of June.” Sierra complained.

“Watch your language young lady, your not to big to feel my hair brush on your backside.”

“Yes Mom,”

“Well, I hate to break this up, but if we are going shopping tomorrow we need to get to bed,” Margarita said.

After a round of hugs and kisses Sierra and Nevada headed to their room, Angel into hers and Carmine followed her sister into her room.

Angel undressed down to her panties and her bra. She left her small breastforms in her bra and dressed in her nightshirt; it was one of those long oversized T-shirts that extended to her knees. She then crawled into her bed. She was just about asleep when she heard her door open and close. The twins crawled into her bed and sandwiched the girl. Warm and comfy the three of them drifted off to sleep.
 
 
Chapter 4
 
 
Angel woke up Saturday at about 5:45 in the morning. Sandwiched between the twins she found the only way to get out of bed was to work her way out the foot of the bed. She looked back at the girls as they scooted back together in the middle. Angel got a bra and panties out of her dresser and headed to the bathroom. She knew that her homes hot water heater was going to get a good workout today with five girls wanting to take baths.

Angel decided to just take a quick shower after taking care of her other business. She was just drying off when Sierra rushed into the bathroom. She was moving quickly and clearly in some discomfort. Angel held the towel up to cover her flat chest.

“Sorry Angel, I just couldn’t wait.”

“That’s alright I know the feeling.”

Angel dressed in her bra and panties. Just as she was getting ready to leave Nevada came in doing the potty dance. She was frustrated that Sierra still sat on the toilet.

“Hurry, sis I need to go.”

Sierra popped up, undressed and jumped into the shower, while Nevada dropped her panties, pulled up her nightie and plopped down on the throne. Angel wrapped her robe around her and headed to her room. Just as she entered her room, she heard Sierra shriek. Maybe she should have warned Sierra about the cold water pressure drop when the toilet was flushed.
 
 
Carmine and Margarita were already in the kitchen and making breakfast, when Angel came in.

“Morning Mom, morning Aunt Carmine.”

Angel had dressed in a baby blue cotton blouse, nude pantyhose, half slip, a lightweight cotton skirt in dark blue and a pair of white and pink Nike walking shoes.

“You look nice today,” Aunt Carmine said.

“Thank you, although I am not sure the twins will approve.”

“You’re probably right, but that doesn’t change a thing.”

Minutes later the twins followed the smell of cooking to the kitchen.

“Morning Mom, Aunty and Angel.” The twins said simultaneously.

They too took time to dress. Sierra was dressed in a brilliant yellow and orange print blouse and red mini skirt, Nevada in a light brown tank and tan slacks. Both wore the same running shoes.

Margarita began putting plates of food on the table, assisted by Carmine. The girls sat at the table and after blessing the food, they began to eat.

“So Angel, what is it like being a girl in a boys body?” Sierra asked.

“It is kind of hard to put into words, but picture this. You and Nevada fuss and fight. I have seen it, but you really love each other right.”

“Well… yes, what’s your point?”

“Ok, let say you wake up tomorrow and couldn’t find Nevada anywhere. You ask your Mom and Aunt Margarita where Nevada is and they say “You know where Nevada is, it’s between Arizona, California and Utah. You can’t convince anyone that you have a twin sister, Nevada.”

“Oh wow, I would go crazy. I don’t know what I would do without her.”

“Right. It’s like I look in a mirror before going to school as a boy and I can’t see myself. I see what I would look like as a guy and I don’t like it. When I get home and I can dress like a girl, then and only then can I see what my heart tells me is true. I feel like life has cheated me and is playing tricks with me. I don’t feel real or complete. I know I have to be Angel the boy for right now, because of people like my father, but some day I hope to look and feel like you two.”

“I can sort of see what you are going through Angel. I guess Sierra and I have known in our hearts that you were really a girl,” Nevada said. “I just wish we could help you more, you know like wave a magic wand and make you a girl.”

“Thank you, you don’t know how many times I have wished for that to just happen, but this is the real world.”

They all finished breakfast and their mothers went to get dressed. Nevada cleared the table and set about cleaning the kitchen while Angel washed the dishes and Sierra dried and put them up in the cabinets.

When they finished they asked Angel to play for them. She went to her room and brought out her classical guitar. The girls had brought out a kitchen stool for her to sit on while she played. She spent a couple of minutes tuning the guitar. She cradled the guitar with the neck up by her shoulder, closed her eyes and began to warm up by playing some adlibbed Flamenco. When she got into the flow of the music, she began to play ‘La Malagueá±a’. The girls began to Tango when Angel played ‘La Cumparsita’. Angel just let the music carry her away as she kept on playing and smiling. Nevada danced the male lead and Sierra danced the ladies part. The girls were pretty fair dancers for their age. Both of their Mom’s insisted that they learn about their heritage. Carmine and Margarita applauded as Angel and the girls finished.

Angel didn’t miss a beat and went into playing ‘Mediterranean Beauty’, the girls took to dancing some salsa. Sierra began to lead and Nevada to the girl’s part. Angel thought her sisters were pretty good and they danced well to the music even though it wasn’t strictly salsa music. She would have loved to see the twins in long flouncy skirts and their Flamenco shoes. There wouldn’t be much noise on the carpet they had in this part of the house, but their shoes were just so beautiful. Nevada and Sierra really got into the music and they had some really sexy hip moves. Angel went right into ‘Iluciones’. The girls again switched roles.

Angel the boy, had a Flamenco costume too, a really nice ornate jacket, pants and boots, but she really wished she could dress like her cousins. She had worn her Mom’s outfit before but it really didn’t fit well and didn’t look to good on her.

Angel switched styles after finishing her last piece of music. She played ‘Classical Gas’ and the girls sat down to listen. She wasn’t quite a Mistress of the guitar yet, but she was a very advanced student. She then played ‘Black Magic Woman’, ’Op.60, No.7’, ‘Moonlight Sonata’ and finished with ‘Minuet in G’.

The guitar had belonged to her Grandfather at least till arthritis took his hands. He and five or six of his friends would come over and teach Angel how to play. She usually got at least four lessons a month from these men ever since she was eleven and had several video lessons sets. She would also spend an hour a day playing without being told too by her Mom. The guitar she played was quite old, but had a wonderful sound like no other guitar she had ever heard.

When she finished she bowed and received as thunderous an applause as four people can give, which considering the twins was quite loud. She loosened all the strings, wiped all the finger and hand prints off and carefully put the guitar back in its case. She then took her guitar back to her room.

Back in the living room the girls were talking about what they were going to do. Angel had to live and go to school three more weeks as a boy, so they could do nothing that could lead to an embarrassment. Angel joined in with some of her own ideas.

While they were talking the phone rang.

“Hello,” Margarita answered.

“Hello, this is Ethel Beckman at Sarah Adams’ Academy for Girls.”

“Hello, Miss Beckman, I have been expecting your call.”

“Well have you made a decision Mrs. Marquez?”

“Yes we have. If you accept her, we intend to have Angel attend the Academy.”

“That is great news, then. As we have discussed before we would like Angel to spend a week with us for testing, beginning the Monday the eight of July.”

“We can do that, Angel will be spending the summer with her Aunt and cousins. I can pick her up and bring her by there.”

“Her cousins?’

“Yes, my sister’s daughters, Sierra and Nevada.”

“How old are they?

“They are twelve and will be thirteen in August.”

“Oh wonderful, can they come too?”

“You’ll have to ask my sister, they just happen to be here now.”

“Please do hand her the phone.”

“Hello, I am Carmine Santiago.”

“Hello, I am Ethel Beckman, I am the Administrator/Headmistress at Sarah Adams’ Academy for Girls. We are seriously considering admitting Angel to our school. I know all about Angel so don’t feel like you have to hide anything from me. I was wondering if your daughters would be able to join Angel. We have asked that Angel come down for the week beginning July 8 th. In this evaluation it is important that we see how well Angel gets along with other girls. As a bonus we will test the girls and give our opinion on their educational development too.”

“I couldn’t afford the tuition to send my girls there, but I would like to see how well they are academically.”

“The testing will be on us as is Angel’s academic evaluation.”

“Just a second,” Carmine said. She put her hand over the receiver and turned to her daughters. “Girls would you two like to spend a week with Angel in July at the school she may be going too?”

The girls almost shouted, “Yes,” together.

“I should warn you it means you will be taking Academic tests along side of Angel.”

“Yuck,” came the twins reply.

“If you do this, I will expect you to do your best on all the tests they give you.

The girls looked at each other and then at Angel, and said. “Alright Mom.”

Carmine took her hand off of the receiver and replied, “They would love to.”

“They will need five white blouses short or long sleeved no sleeveless, five knee length skirts, flats or low heels and their exercise kits. They can wear comfortable clothes nothing too revealing, away from the academic quad. Angel will be excused from PE but with your permission we will test your daughters physically as well.”

“I would like that,”

“Ok, let me talk to Mrs. Marquez,”

“Alright I am back.”

“I see by her application that Angel plays the guitar?”

“Yes she plays the classical guitar and does a pretty credible job of it.”

“Good, get her to make a playlist with ten of her best pieces of music and send us a list and have her bring her guitar with her. She should make it as eclectic as possible to show off her talent.”

“I will have her do that,” Margarita then gave Mrs. Beckman, her cell phone number and Carmine’s home and cell phone numbers.

Margarita hung up and said with a wicked grin on her face, “Alright girls, let’s go shopping.”
 
 
Chapter 5
 
 
Sierra and Nevada dragged Angel to the bathroom. All three girls put on lip gloss and mascara. Angel found out that Carmine didn’t let her girls go out made up like they had done her up last night. The twins watched as Angel did hers. It was apparent to them that she had done this before.

“Mom doesn’t let us go out all made up right now, except for special occasions. She can be a bit of a drag at times,” Sierra said.

“Yeah, she doesn’t think we are old enough to wear it all the time the way we like it. She does buy us makeup though so we can practice.”

“And she bought a set of DVD’s that teach us to use makeup. We can use them when you come visit us Angel.”

“Yeah we have to be thirteen at least before we go out with mascara and lipstick, fifteen before we get into foundation, powder, blush and a little eyeshadow and seventeen before we do the smoky eyes thing. Like that is going to happen a lot earlier than she thinks,” Nevada said giggling.

“Just don’t let me be the reason you two get into trouble,” Angel said. She had he hands on her hips and almost looked liked their mother in lecture mode.

The twins couldn’t help but to begin giggling, “Lighten up Angel, this is all for your benefit girl,” Nevada said.

“And yours too I see,” Angel said joining her cousins in giggling.

The troop headed into the garage to Aunt Margarita’s car. They drove cross town to West View Mall. It was bigger and farther away from Angel’s school.

At the mall Angel got a lesson in teen fashion. They first hit the lingerie section. Angel already knew her measurements and sizes; her Mom had taught her just how important that was for a girl. The only plain underwear the twins let her look at, were the T-shirt bras. Angel had to try on all the bras they selected. Everything else was an explosion of colors, silks, satins and lace.

Angel had to admit that she liked the feel of this lingerie better than the cotton she was use to wearing around home, although the underwires in the bras the twins liked, would take some getting use to. The bras seemed to fit a little tighter and made her A cup forms look bigger. Margarita did insist on a few padded briefs that accented Angel’s bubble butt a bit. She wore one of the padded briefs out of the store and liked the way they made her hips look.

The next two hours the girls looked at tops, and bottoms, finding colors and styles that suited Angel. They looked at hundreds of dresses, blouses, skirts, tops, shorts, jeans and slacks. The twins made Angel pick out fashionable clothes that could be easily matched with other things. Angel had a good eye for color, but her cousins helped her make choices that a teenage girl would make. Still she insisted that the mini’s she got were a little longer than the ones the twins liked. The twins choose one of the just below mid thigh skirts and a frillier blouse for Angel to wear.

Margarita and Carmine then led the girls to a part of the store that displayed school uniforms. The twins groaned, when all three of them were told select a half dozen various colored knee length skirts, matched with plain white long and short sleeved blouses. They didn’t look bad when they came out of the dressing room, and they did make the uniforms look good, but they were still less than thrilled.

“If you are going to stay at the school with Angel you have to wear what the others are wearing,” Carmine told them, “and it won’t hurt you two to wear some longer skirts, now and then. You also need to get some PE clothes.”

The twins looked a little crossly at Angel, but when she started to wilt under their gaze, they apologized to her.

Angel was then taken to several shoe stores. The twins made Angel pick shoes that went with the clothes they had bought. Most of the shoes she already owned would go with most of the things she bought. They were all flats though, so the girls had her concentrate on low heel and high heel pumps. Having tried her mother’s heels on, she knew she could handle them. Margarita though put her foot down on any heel that was higher than three inches or so. Still she now had six pair of heels, one pair of calf high, heeled boots and three purses to go with her shoes and clothes. She wore a pair of black patent leather short heeled pumps and she carried her black leather Hobo purse out of the store.

Next on the twins list was jewelry, they hit several jewelry stores whose merchandise leaned toward the teenaged girl. Angel didn’t have time to see everything her cousins picked out, but the girls selected bangles, bracelets, necklaces, metal belts, scarves, hair pins, combs, barrettes, and earrings. Angel didn’t have pierced ears yet but from what she saw, that was just a temporary situation.

Then on their way out of the store, they spotted a sign outside of a major department store announcing that the Estee Lauder counter had a special on makeup kits for teens and a complimentary makeover with the purchase of the kits. Margarita saw that the kits were only seventy-five dollars and there had to be at least three hundred dollars of cosmetics inside the kit and a very nice case to boot. She looked over the contents, everything in the kit was top of the line in quality and the colors suited to teens thirteen to eighteen. They had various kits that suited from fair skin to darker skins.

“Girls, I will treat each of you to a kit and a makeover,” Margarita offered.

The girls had to stand in line, but not for too long. Estee Lauder had extra technicians on to handle the expected flood of teens. While some technicians worked on the girls, others would talk to the mothers. One lady approached Margarita and Carmine.

“Hi I am Janice,”

“I am Margarita and this is my sister Carmine.”

“Which girls are yours?”

“The one in that seat is Angel, my daughter, while the one seated there and the one next in line are Carmine’s.”

“Oh twins, how cute?”

“That’s them cute and twice as hard to handle,” Carmine interjected.

“Yes but you love them, don’t ya.”

“Yes, I just wish that they would settle down a bit though.”

“How can you sell your cosmetics at or below cost?” Margarita asked.

“We can only do that in these promotions. Most teenaged girls buy their makeup at drug stores or grocery stores and such. They wind up with inferior cosmetics, in shades and tones that doesn’t really fit their skin tones well and they don’t really look their best wearing them. We at Estee Lauder know the girls can do better than those brands. We want teens to try and continue to buy our brand. We know that they will see and feel the difference in quality.”

Margarita could only smile as she saw Angel transformed into a lovely young lady by the makeover. She had always been cute and very pretty, now she was becoming gorgeous. The makeover was a little bit much for a teenager, but still tastefully done. The twins even at twelve were both tens, they jut ate up what the technicians were doing to them. They paid better attention to the technicians than Angel who just relaxed, sat back and enjoyed the experience.

After the girls were finished Aunt Margarita bought three cosmetic kits. The two adults had to pry the girls away from the mirrors as they were admiring themselves and each other. They looked closely at what the technicians had done and pointed out the small things that made big differences to their overall looks.

“Girls, we need to eat and get home,” Margarita said.

The twins took out the lipsticks and compacts that contained the pressed powder that was used on them and put them in their purses. Sierra suggested that Angel do the same, so that they could repair their faces after eating.

At the car the girls were afraid that the trunk wouldn’t be big enough for everything and in fact it wasn’t, but they were able to get the girls in the back seat and stack the rest of the purchases they made on their laps.

“Looks like we will have to make the trip home before we go eat,” Carmine said.

“Yes, there is no doubt about that.” Margarita said.
 
 
Chapter 6
 
 
When Margarita turned onto their street, she looked towards her home and got excited. “Oh look, there is Uncle Javier.”

Uncle Javier Ramos was sitting on the tailgate of his pickup, playing his guitar. He and four other men all came over to give Angel guitar lessons at various times. He taught Spanish and Flamenco guitar along with his brother Rolando Ramos and Fernando Ramos, Angel’s grandfather. Fernando couldn’t play anymore as he suffered from arthritis in his hands, but he could be quite a loving taskmaster. Their close friends Pedro Aguilar, and Ricky Montez taught Angel jazz, classical guitar and rock. Sometimes other friends of theirs would drop by for the odd lesson. Angel rarely had fewer than four lessons a month and many months upwards of eight lessons. Angel loved all the men that taught her and she worked hard for them.

Margarita parked next to her Uncle and they all started to pile out when she realized that Angel was still in girl mode. The twins and her sister ran up to Uncle Javier to get their hugs and kisses. Angel had followed everyone and it wasn’t till she reached out to her Uncle that she felt she had screwed up.

Uncle Javier recognized Angel and his brows arched in surprise and his mouth hung open a bit, but he still hugged Angel. He had known for quite a while that Angel was different, but when he saw her this way he began to understand. Angel looked so much like Fernando’s Maria, even more so than Margarita, it almost brought tears to his eyes.

“Angel que usted es tarde para su lecciá³n (Angel you are late for your lesson.)” Javier said in Spanish.

“El Tá­o arrepentido Javier, pero usted no llamá³ (Sorry Uncle Javier, but you didn’t call.)”

“Sá­ perdá³n, yo no fui cierto que podrá­a estar aquá­ hasta hace dos horas. Llamé y nadie estuvo en casa. Esperé que usted consiguiera aquá­ antes de demasiado tarde. Vaya consá­gale guitarra. (Yes I am sorry, I wasn’t certain that I could be here till two hours ago. I called and nobody was home. I hoped that you would get here before too late. Go get you guitar.)”

Angel ran into the house and her room, she never questioned any of the old men who taught her to play the guitar. She had been afraid that if she didn’t do what they said, when they said it, that they would stop teaching her to make such beautiful music.

“Tá­o Javier (Uncle Javier),” Margarita tried to explain as they all walked into their home.

“Usted no tiene que explicar mi Niá±a. Adivino que yo siempre he sabido que Angel fue diferente. No tenga miedo que ella sigue siendo la familia. (You don’t have to explain mi Niá±a. I guess I have always known that Angel was different. Don’t be afraid she is still family.)”

Margarita had been afraid of the families’ reaction to Angel and she was happy that her uncle had been so accepting.

“ ¿Qué tal el resto de la familia, el Tá­o Javier? (What about the rest of the family, Uncle Javier?)”

“Usted permite que má­ preocupar acerca de la familia.  ¿Estará¡ ella como este todo el tiempo ahora? (You let me worry about the family. Will she be like this all the time now?)”

“Ningáºn Angel terminará¡ este aá±o escolar como un chico y entonces ella comenzará¡ en la escuela de una chica privada esta caá­da. Ella tiene mucho en aprender acerca de es una chica. (No Angel will finish this school year as a boy and then she will start at a private girl’s school this fall. She has a lot to learn about being a girl.)”

“Tal vez no tanto. Ella parecerá¡ como esto para todas sus lecciones de ahora en adelante, Margarita, (Maybe not so much. She will appear like this for all of her lessons from now on, Margarita,)” Javier stated with authority.

Margarita knew that when the old men of her family stated something like that, that it was law to the family members. She still felt some trepidation, but maybe she could see some hope at the same time.

Uncle Javier sat across from Angel and they got right into her lessons. He always pushed her to play better, all of her teachers did. They had all agreed that Angel could be a great guitarist. They worked hard for almost two hours.

Angel was famished and her stomach growled that she was hungry. She had been working so hard that she didn’t realize that had pizza arrived.

Uncle Javier made Angel hug him after she carefully wiped her hand prints off the guitar, detune it to relieve the pressure on the neck, put it in its case and took the case to her room. That was the only pay, the old men who taught her, required for their work.

Her Uncle sat at the table with the rest of the family and ate with all his nieces. Angel thought it was odd that he didn’t say anything about the way she was dressed, but at the same time he was treating her no differently than he was treating Sierra or Nevada.

Angel made herself a salad with a ranch dressing her Mom made. The dressing had a zing that most ranch dressings didn’t have. Margarita used low fat buttermilk, mayonnaise, sour cream, crushed garlic, minced onions, crushed dried tomatos, fresh bacon she fried and choped into little bits, salt, fresh ground pepper, minced fresh cilantro and chipotle peppers chopped fine. She had a bread stick with the salad and then a couple of slices from the two large pizzas before she was filled up.

Uncle Javier, Margarita, and Carmine shared a bottle of Abadia Retuerta Rivola, while the girls drank diet cokes. They talked about the family sharing the latest news that they knew. There were about eighty extended family members still alive between the U.S., Spain and various places about the globe. Javier seemed to know of all of them. His memory fascinated the young girls as he rattled off what he knew and asked his niece’s about what he didn’t know. Angel, Sierra and Nevada were able to keep up with most of the conversation which was in Spanish, but the rapid pace of the discussion lost them at places.

It was getting late when Javier made his excuses to leave. Margarita and Carmine tried to convince him to stay the night, but Javier said he had things to do. He hugged and kissed them all on the cheeks. To Angel he said in Spanish, “Usted es una chica muy bonita, Angel. Sonrisa y mantenga la cabeza en alto. Nunca se avergá¼enza de quién es usted. Usted practica esas clases de guitarras. (You are a very pretty girl, Angel. Smile and hold your head up high. Never be ashamed of who you are. You practice those guitar lessons.”) Javier playfully spanked her on her bottom.

Angel screeched and pretended to be frightened, but she broke into a fit of giggles and gave her Uncle another hug. Angel whispered into his ear, “Gracias Tá­o Javier, Te amo (Thank you Uncle Javier, I love you).”
Javier turned away before a tear formed in his eye and waved goodbye before getting into his truck.
 
 
Chapter 7
 
 
The last three weeks of May seemed to take forever. Angel had lessons from Uncle Rolando, Pedro Aguilar and her grandfather. She did as Uncle Javier had instructed her and dressed in a skirt and blouse for her lessons. Nobody said anything about the change in Angel.

She went to school in the morning as Angle Luis Marquez and changed into Angel Louisa at home. She was much happier since her Uncle had found out about her and had accepted her. She had been afraid that they would be like her Father, and beat on her.

Javier, Rolando and Fernando taught her Spanish, Flamenco and while Pedro and Ricky taught her classical guitar, their kind of rock albeit adapted for the classical guitar. Because of her teachers, the music she liked was far different than the average teen. She knew the contemporary groups and she knew enough about the guitar to play much of their music, but she felt that she did not have the time nor did she have the inclination to do so.

The thing that Margarita and Angel found confusing was the mail they received beginning the second week after she had been found out. Many members of the various branches of her family had taken time to stop and write them, addressing the letters Margarita and her daughter Angel.

The letters made no big deal of Angel being a girl now. They shared the latest family gossip and news. Some letters included pictures and requested pictures from them. They obviously wanted to see what Angel looked like as a girl. A couple of the family branches that they had been fairly close too, were conspicuously absent in all the letters. Margarita and Angel didn’t have to try too hard to figure out why. Margarita did make a mental note though to make contact with them before drawing any conclusions.

They did receive two letters that requested that Margarita and Angel not contact them in any manner. At least the letters they sent were civil about it. Uncle Javier must have put the fear of Javier in them. Out of the eighteen branches of the Ramos family tree two responded negatively and they weren’t sure about three.

The last week of May Angel was pulled out of her regular classes and began her testing. Her tests were significantly harder than her fellow students tests would be. Her teachers were confident that Angel would do well despite the difficulty of the tests.

The last week Angel also packed to go to visit Aunt Carmen for the summer and to bag Luis’s clothes till Thursday there was only one set of boy’s clothes in the drawers and closet.

Friday at school there were no tests for Angel. She and her Mom met one last time with all of her teachers, to get her grades and for her teachers to say goodbye to Angel Luis. Angel was flabbergasted at getting all A’s. She thought for sure her grades after the finals would be B’s and C’s. She had not finished any of the tests in the allotted time and she knew she didn’t answer some of the questions correctly. That is until the teachers explained what they did, she had been given a test similar to the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). They didn’t want her to be able to tell other students what was on the tests and they wanted to see if she was as good as they thought she was. She had already earned her A’s by her homework, class work, pop quizzes and mid-term tests.

Angel scored higher in Math, Geography, Spanish and History scoring in the top five percentiles for her for a high school student. In English, Science and Government she scored in the top ten percentiles. If middle school had graded on a curve, Angel would have been very much hated by her fellow students. If she had been taking the SAT test, they told her, her score would have been at least 1500 out of 1600.

Angel left her school right before lunch that day. Margarita asked her if she wanted to go out to eat or change clothes first. Angel chose to change clothes. They took all the boys clothes with them and dropped them off at Goodwill. After they ate they packed Angel up for the summer and headed to Aunt Carmine’s place.

---

 
To Be Continued...

She looked up as she began to play the guitar in earnest. There was about ten people in the area and no one was paying her any attention. She concentrated on what she was doing. First she played four of her more challenging Spanish pieces. Angel looked up and there were more people and they were closer to her, but seemed disinterested in what she was doing.

by Paula Dillon

---

 
 
Chapter 8
 
 
Angel and her Mom Margarita arrived at Aunt Carmine’s place at about 5 pm that evening. Sierra and Nevada were instantly all over them, getting their hugs and kisses. Carmine arrived just after. The five of them had all of Angel’s and Margarita’s luggage inside in no time at all. Angel was placed in the spare bedroom. Angel brought her guitar in by herself and carefully placed it in her closet. With the girls help, they had Angel’s dresser and closet filled. The mountain girls smiled as they didn’t see a single stitch of boy’s clothes.

“No more boy clothes Angel?”

“Are you officially a girl now?”

Angel had to giggle at the twins, “Yep, I are all girl now.”

Sierra and Nevada hugged and kissed their cousin’s cheek.

“Good so now,”

“The girl lessons,”

“Can begin.”

When Angel and the twins came out of Angel’s room, Margarita and Carmine were already sitting in the living room.

“So what does everyone want to do about dinner tonight, eat out, take out, or delivery?”

“How about we all go eat out tonight, on my dollar?” Margarita suggested.

“Let’s go change,” Nevada said, dragging Angel with her followed closely by her sister Sierra.

Sierra ducked into Angel’s room and hit her closet, as Nevada drug Angel into their room. Nevada had Angel select an outfit for her. She knew what her cousin’s tastes in clothes were, but she threw a monkey wrench into the works. She picked out an outfit that Sierra would wear, a short sleeved, red rayon blouse and a royal blue mini.

Nevada, standing there in her bra and panties, took the clothes from her cousin and grabbed a pair of pantyhose out of her drawer. Angel selected a green and brown outfit for Sierra.

Sierra had just come in with an outfit for Angel, so they traded clothes. Angel saw that Sierra had selected a sleeveless, white tank and a gray mini.

All three of them set about getting dressed and then helping each other with their hair and makeup. They pushed the limit that their mom had put on their makeup, by a bit. That is how they hoped to wear them down, bit by bit. Just like the camel’s nose in the tent. It took a little longer than if they had all worked separately, but all three came out of their room looking quite spectacular.

Carmine and Margarita beat the girls by several minutes and they smiled when they saw the girls.

“All three of you look lovely tonight,” Aunt Carmine noted. “But I think two of you went a little heavy on the make up. Don’t think that you are going to wear me down, Sierra and Nevada. I am only letting you get away with it this time, because you also did your cousin’s and this is a special occasion. Don’t push me on this girls.” Aunt Carmine sternly told the girls, although she still had a smile on her face.

At the restaurant, the girls caused a bit of commotion, as guys from twelve to ninety nine stopped what they were doing, to observe the girls as they were escorted to their table and being seated. It was a little unnerving to Angel, but she smiled and didn’t let it show. Carmine ordered two glasses of champagne and three glasses of sparkling white grape juice.

Carmine first raised her glass to her sister, “This is too congratulate Margarita on a successful new career.”

“Here, here,” the girls replied, as they raised their glasses to their Mom and Aunt.”

“Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you guys, especially you Angel.”

Carmen then looked to Angel, “This toast is for you Angel, who would have ever thought that you would be so special. I would, I guess. I just didn’t know how special.” Carmine admitted.

“Here, here,” the others replied, causing Angel to blush deeply.

They spent the rest of the time talking about Margarita’s training seminar, New York; what the girls were going to do for the next month and Angel’s new school.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to take Angel to the beauty salon and do the things to her that we couldn’t do before,” Carmine said.

“Yeah like finger nails, brows, ears and hair,” Nevada said.

“It’s great that Angel is going to be with us for the summer. We get to practice our dancing more now,” Sierra said. “It’s one thing to dance to music on the stereo, but it is a lot more fun to have someone playing live for you.”

“Yeah, Angel can make adjustments to the tempo, instead of us having to blindly follow the recording. It lets us be more creative. Thank you Angel.”

“No problem girls, I love watching the two of you dance.”

“Too bad you girls don’t play. You could stand to practice your dancing more, Angel,” Margarita said.

“I can dance.”

“Yes, but not as well as your cousins.”

“Maybe you could teach us to play the guitar Angel,” Nevada suggested.

“I have never taught anyone before,” Angel said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“I am not saying that you have too, Angel, but just think back to how grandpa Fernando began teaching you and you can do the same for Sierra and Nevada,” Margarita said.

Before they realized it, they all finished their meal. They all headed to the ladies room to make use of the facilities and to repair their faces. Margarita had drilled Angel to always check her makeup. Angel had to repair her face by applying lipstick and powder. It was fairly new for her, especially doing it in a crowded ladies room, but she did well.

When they arrived home, they realized it was late, so they all headed to their bedrooms and got ready for bed. Angel was joined by her cousins that night.
 
 
Chapter 9
 
 
Saturday was a busy day. Everyone spent the next hour after breakfast, saying goodbye to Margarita, especially Angel, who hadn’t spent more than a week away from her mother since her divorce. It was a particularly hard goodbye for both of them.

The four waved until they could no longer see Margarita’s car. They then went inside and hurriedly got ready for the beauty salon. Angel had to use eye drops, to get rid of the red and puffiness in her eyes from crying. This was a trick her mom taught her.

Angel dressed in a pair of jeans, a black tank and her pink and white Nike’s. She combed her hair back and put it in a ponytail with a scrunchie and looked at herself in the mirror. Since she was going to the salon, the girls told her not to bother with any makeup.

They all piled into Carmines station wagon and headed to the salon, inside the mall. Carmine and her daughters planed to do some shopping, while Angel was being worked on.

They signed in at the salon and waited for just a few minutes before Angel’s name was called.

“Hi I am Melanie; I will be your beauty technician today.”

“Hi I am Angel, and this is my Aunt Carmine and my cousins Sierra and Nevada.”

“Yes I know Carmine and the mountain girls,” Smiling, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Angel. Please follow me, please,” Melanie said.

At Melanie’s station, Angel and the girls spent about twenty minutes discussing what she wanted done. Sierra and Nevada told her several things, but discussed other things with Angel. Since this was her first time to have her hair styled, they decided to leave Angel’s shoulder length, raven, hair at its present length, but add some shape to it.

The technician also suggested they shape the brows a bit, but told Angel not to be plucking them too much. Fuller eyebrows, with just a slight bit of arch, are coming back into vogue.

Melanie scolded Angel, on the shape that her nails were in, on her right hand.

“Sorry, I play the classical guitar. I like my nails to be a bit longer on my right hand, so I can pluck the strings, but I can’t keep them in good shape.”

“We have just the thing for that. We can do glass wraps and if that doesn’t work, we can do linen wraps, although the linen can be a bit much.” Melanie said, showing them some pictures of the various treatments. “Ok, so we are going to treat, shape and style your hair, pierce your ears, shape your brows, facial, and fiber glass wraps, for your fingernails. Is that right?”

Angel looked at her Aunt and cousin’s. They shook their heads and she said, “That is it for now, I guess.”

“Ok Carmine, you and the girls can come back in about two hours,” Melanie said.

Melanie began with a shampoo and hot oil treatment. Angel put on a plastic cape, at the shampoo station. She began to purr as the lady began to work on her. Melanie was very good at making her clients relax.

“You say you play the guitar, Angel? How good are you?”

“I am pretty good, I am not a master of the guitar, but my Uncles are and my Granddad use to be.”

“I am sorry; he didn’t die, did he?”

“No, gramps is still alive, he just can’t play. He has arthritis in his hands. He used to be very good. I play for him, to show him my appreciation.”

“I am so sorry. I know that he must be proud of you.”

“He is.”

After Angel’s hair was towel dry, she was led back to Melanie’s styling station, where she combed out her hair. A nail tech, named Susan, came by and started to work.

“How long do you want your nails, Angel?”

“I need them short on the left hand and longer on the right.”

The nail tech looked confused for a second, till Melanie told her that Angel plays the guitar. It was an unusual requested, but the customer was always right.

“I will make the left nails a little longer, than we can file them down if they need it,” she said. “It will look weird having different length nails. Are you sure you don’t want them both to be the same length?”

“Umm, no, but can we try it and see how it looks?”

“Sure we can.”

She set about fixing her nails as she requested.

Melanie shaped and styled Angel’s hair, trimmed and shaped Angel’s brows, as Susan worked on her nails. Another lady came and marked Angel’s ears, held a gun up to Angel’s ears and after two quick pops she had pierced ears.

“Your brows aren’t perfect Angel,” Melanie said. “You have some voids in them. I want to suggest that you use a brush to fill them in. Here is how you do that,” Melanie said, as she took a two-toned pot, a cream and a black color, and began to work. She took a stiff brush and applied the cream to Angel’s brows, brushing against the grain. “This gives a better result than using a pencil,” Melanie stated, then began to brush some of the black in, smoothing the brow back into shape. To emphasize the difference, she penciled in the other brow.

“Which brow do you think looks better?” Melanie asked.

They both looked better than they had before, but the brow she had brushed, looked very good.

“The brushed brow,” Angel said.

Melanie smiled and cleaned off the other brow and made it match the brushed brow. She then began to roll Angel’s hair.

“Is there a guitar or music store, in this Mall?” Angel asked.

“Yes, just a couple of stores down and right around the corner,” Susan said, as she was finishing up on Angel’s nails, with a light pink polish.

“I would like to try out my new nails, while my hair dries. Would that be Ok?”

“Sure,” Melanie said. “I would like go with you; I want to hear how good you are.” She put a net over Angel’s hair and showed the girl where the music store was.

A music store was like a candy store to Angel. She knew she already had the best guitar that she could hope for, but it was nice to see what was out there. She saw a Martin Classical guitar sitting in a stand and asked if she could try it out. The guy behind the counter handed her the guitar.

Angel took a minute or two to tune and strummed it a couple of times to get a feel for it. It sounded good, albeit a little brassy to her. She then began to play the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on the guitar. She missed properly fretting the guitar at first but began to get use to the nails. The nails were a little long on the left hand, but she loved the nails on her right. She was so focused on what she was doing, that she didn’t notice that business halted in the store and people were coming in from the mall. The applause startled her, after she had finished. There were about fifteen people standing around listening to her.

“Hi, my name is Leo, I own this store. That was a mighty fine job you did there little lady. Are you in the market for a guitar?”

“Thank you. My name is Angel, and sorry, no thank you. This Martin is very good, but I have a better guitar at home. I just got my nails done and just wanted to try them out.”

“I hear acrylics don’t last.”

“Those aren’t acrylics Leo,” Melanie said. “They are fiberglass wraps.”

“Okay, whatever those are. I heard the mistakes you made at first Angel, but you corrected your fingering and did a whole lot better. What kind of guitar do you own.”

“I don’t know the brand, it belonged to my great-great,” Angel looked to be deep in concentration, “grandfather, I might have missed a great or two in there somewhere.”

Leo looked over the girl and saw that she was either Spanish or Italian, probably Spanish he thought. “Where was this relative from?”

“Madrid, back in the 1800’s.”

“Wow, Madrid had some great luthiers back then? Would you… could you bring your guitar so I can see it, please.” Leo asked, pleadingly.

“If I can, I will.”

“We get together and have a little jam here on Tuesdays, at about 2:00. You would be surprised at how much our sales increase during those jams.”

“It may be a little difficult to be here then, but I will try.”

Angel handed the guitar back to Leo, who put it back in it’s stand.

Melanie couldn’t stop praising Angel on the way back to the salon. Angel was getting a little embarrassed by all the praise. The old men she worked with would simply smile when she had done good and from them that had been enough.

Susan looked up from working on another client as Angel came in.

“Well, how did the nails work, Angel?”

“Great, but the nails on the left could stand to be a little shorter, not much just a little. I had a little trouble with my fingering.”

“She did great Susan. We have a Maestro in our salon today.”

“I am not that good, Melanie. My Uncles are better and my grandfather was a lot better.”

Melanie took the hair net off of Angel’s head, took out the rollers and did a comb out. She sprayed the girl’s hair to set the style. They hadn’t asked for it, but Melanie then did the girls makeup. She made out in her mind that Angel had to be about fifteen and did what she thought, a mother might approve in a makeup job, emphasizing the eyes just a bit. Angel had two lovely dark eyes to go with her raven hair. She finished with a pink lipstick and lip-gloss that went well with the girls new nail color.

Angel loved the way the curls framed her face and the way the makeup enhanced her looks. The other times she had been expertly made up, it was her hair and brows that detracted a bit from her looks. Now with everything done, she was mesmerized a bit by her appearance. There was absolutely no trace of the boy Angel in the mirror.

Carmine and her daughters came in to pay Angel’s bill and pick up her niece. Carmine had to smile as she saw the girl stand. The twins got all excited when they saw Angel and ran over to her to find out all that was done to her.

Melanie told Carmine what a hit Angel was at the music store, while Carmine told her about all the people that taught Angel to play.

“Girls, I like what Melanie has done with Angel’s makeup. If you two are good, I might let you two start doing your own like this next year.”

“We will be thirteen in two months, Mom!” Sierra said.

“Get through the next school year and keep your grades up. Those are my terms. No negotiating.”

Sierra and Nevada were clearly miffed, but accepted their Mom’s terms.

“Angel your Mom and I have talked about it. While you won’t be able to use much makeup at school, this look is somewhat appropriate for you.”

Carmine paid Angel’s bill and gave Melanie a nice tip.

“Come girls, we need to get Angel a nice dress for church tomorrow.”

Angel had more clothes now than she ever had at one time, but Aunt Carmine was right, she didn’t have any ‘go to church’ style clothes.

The four of them hit a couple of dress shops before lunch. They found a pretty shirt-dress that came to just below the knee. It was a print dress; that had a splash of color in light pastels. Angel also got some appropriate underwear, bra, panties, a full slip, because the dress was a light weight cotton and a pair of pink, low heel pumps.

They had a nice late lunch at a Mexican restaurant, in the mall, Spanish cooking is very similar, but at the same time different, than Mexican cooking. On top of that, much of the food served in Mexican restaurants, is a highly Americanized version. Angel guessed that local tastes changed the way food was prepared. The food at this restaurant in particular, was pretty good, albeit a little greasy.

They talked as they ate. After listening so much to their conversations, Angel felt like she was beginning to understand what girls talk about and joined the girls. Sierra and Nevada was pleased to hear their cousin join in their girl talk about fashion, stars and music.

Angel did bring her second favorite topic into the conversation. Angel just happened to be a manga and anime addict. The twins had seen her vast manga collection and the anime she had on her computer. They even found some interesting, but not like Angel. She collected various Shoujo and Shonen, words that would mean very little to the twins. Her prize collections though, were a few series of gender bender manga and anime, she found those fascinating, considering her situation.

After lunch they walked the mall, doing nothing more than getting a bit of exercise in and seeing what the various stores were selling as fashion. They did stop at one of the major bookstores. The twins made sure that Angel picked up a half dozen magazines, including Seventeen, Cosmo Girl, Teen Vogue and US Weekly. Angel found that the store had a decent collection of manga and picked up a Mai Hime, a Detective Conan and one she hadn’t seen before Seishun Panda.

They got home an hour before Carmine needed to begin dinner. Carmine made Angel change into a mid calf skirt and had her practice kneeling and standing, with the skirt on. Carmine had a family altar in a spare room; it had a kneeling bench. It was there that Angle had to learn to pull her skirt up a bit, before kneeling and how to stand up after having been kneeling for several minutes.

Angel hadn’t gone to church as a girl yet. Angel the boy, was well known to the priests, at her church back home. So this would be a first for her.

Carmine also gave Angel a mantilla. In most catholic churches, the wearing of head coverings by women, ended many years ago. For the Ramos women, this was not an option. Even the mountain twins were not about to buck that tradition. They found that many of the old women at the church they went to appreciated the respect they showed.
 

*          *          *
 
Sunday was rather anticlimactic for Angel. They went to the early Mass. Angel found that she had no problems fitting in with the teen kids, around her age. She and her cousins were all dressed in longer skirts and wore their mantillas, which raised some eyebrows from some of teen girls, but nothing that was belittling or cruel. It was just one of those, ‘Oh, your parents are really strict,’ type looks, or ‘I am glad my parents aren’t that strict’ looks.

The priests here were young and more with it, than some of the relics at Angel’s church. They still had some of the litany that she was use too, but the music at times, was fresher and more interesting. Even the sermons here were more interesting, Angel thought.

After the service, Sierra and Nevada introduced her to some of their friends. Angel liked a lot of the girls and got along well with them. There was one girl, Lisa Caldwell, who looked to be about sixteen, and was quick to put out the ‘Your not on top of the pecking order here, and the sooner you realize that, the better we will get along,’ type of vibes.

Her cousins tickled her, they seemed to extrude the, ‘You better think twice about that girl, before we have to take you to the square circle and do sumpin to your ass,’ type feeling. Lisa just harrumphed and left them there. Angel felt it was probably just the usual girl group dynamics. She had seen the same type dynamics amongst the boys, but they were more likely to get physical, more so than girls were. Girls, she noted, tended to be more catty about their turf.

Neither Angel nor the twins let on to Carmine that there had been any kind of problem, and really there wasn’t any.
 
 
Chapter 10
 
 
Angel was awakened, when Carmine called for the girls to get up and get ready for school. The twins had spent Sunday afternoon cramming for the tests that they would be taking this week. Angel had helped out the girls where she could, answering questions that they had about this or that and making sure that they had everything that they needed like cokes, chips and other snack food.

The girls made mad dashes for the bathroom when they woke up. As much as Angel needed to go, she kept out of their way until her cousins had taken care of business.

Aunt Carmine was already dressed for work in her uniform. She was an assistant manager at the local Marriot and was in charge of Reception and Reservations. She worked from seven to four, Monday through Friday with only an occasional weekend due to staff vacations or sickness. She had been there for ten years and liked what she was doing. She had been offered managers’ positions several times, but always turned them down. She didn’t want the added responsibility and she didn’t want to have to relocate.

She was a lot like her sister. She didn’t really have to work, but her job allowed them to have the little extras they couldn’t afford on Rodrigo’s salary. His life insurance had been more than enough for Carmine to quit and just take care of the girl’s, but she loved being with her coworkers. Besides, her girls were already in school and she got to spend a lot of quality time with them after school, including weekends. She had to spend a lot of time commuting; the hotel was slightly more than two miles from her home (yes that was sarcasm) and three miles from the girls’ school.

She kissed her girls and Angel, as they ate their breakfast and said, “Girls be good and do well on your tests. Angel, I’m sorry you will be here alone, but take care. I’ll see you all after work,” then she was out the door at 6:45.

“I’ll take care of the dishes and the kitchen,” Angel said, as her cousins got up from the table.

They kissed their cousin’s cheeks and rushed to their rooms, to get dressed. Angel cleared the table and began washing the dishes. She had already finished, as her cousins rushed out the front door, a few minutes before the school bus arrived.

Alone, Angel took out the magazines and the manga that she recently bought. After dressing in one of her mini’s, a blouse and a pair of her 3 inch heels, she read the manga Seishun Panda. She found that the story was cute and decided that she might just start collecting it. She then read many of the articles in ‘Seventeen Magazine’, dog earring the pages that dealt with clothes, makeup and relationships. She still hadn’t figured out what she would do about boys.

Angel hadn’t taken the time to figure out her sexuality. She didn’t know if she liked boys, girls or both. She liked reading the juicy romance mangas and she dreamt of being in a loving relationship, but she didn’t know who it was with.

For lunch, Angel made a fresh pitcher of ice tea, salad and a ham sandwich. She continued reading the magazines while she ate. She took a quiz that was in Cosmo Girl and found out that she was a true romantic. ‘Tell me something I didn’t know,’ Angel thought.

After cleaning up from lunch, Angel washed her hands and took out her guitar. She sat on a stool and began to play, after tuning the guitar.

She knew the words to most of the songs she played, at least the songs that actually had words, but rarely did she sing as she played. Today she chose to sing as she played. She started out singing a Neil Diamond song, ‘Song Sung Blue’.
 
 

"Song sung blue,  everybody knows one.  Song sung blue,  every garden grows one.    Me and you are subject to the blues now and then,  But when you take the blues and make a song,  You sing them out again.  Sing them out again."

 
 
Angel loved singing the songs, she didn’t know how well she sang, but she knew she sang on key and loved her voice. She loved her pitch, she was glad her Mom allowed her to take the testosterone blockers. Her voice was still high and feminine.

Angel finished the song and didn’t miss a beat, as she started to sing ‘Sweet Caroline’.
 
 

"Where it began, I can't begin to know when  But then I know it's growing strong  Was in the spring  Then spring became the summer  Who'd have believed you'd come along?"

 
 
Angel loved many of Neil Diamond’s songs. Ricky Montez, one of the men who taught her, liked Neil’s style too. She then switched to a Cat Stevens song ‘Wild World’.
 
 

"Now that I've lost everything to you  You say you wanna start something new  And it's breakin' my heart you're leavin'  Baby, I'm grievin'  But if you wanna leave, take good care  Hope you have a lot of nice things to wear  But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there    Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world  It's hard to get by just upon a smile  Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world  and I'll always remember you like a child, girl."

 
 
She just loved the guitar riffs on the chorus. After strumming the last chords of ‘Wild World’ she changed pace and started in on ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’ by ‘The Carpenters’.
 
 

"Talkin' to myself and feelin' old  Sometimes I'd like to quit  Nothing ever seems to fit  Hangin' around  Nothing to do but frown  Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down."

 
 
She finished playing ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’. She began to get serious about her play and started playing ‘Recuerdos De La Alhambra’, Fantasie Hongrosie Op65-no. 1, ‘Espana’ and ‘Preludio’. She finished playing and singing ‘American Pie’.

Susan had done a wonderful job, with her nails. The left hand nails were now short enough not to get in the way and the right hand nails were great for plucking the guitar strings.

Angel wiped down her guitar and carefully put it in its case. She thought about what she would do tomorrow. There was a bus that ran in front of the house and it would only be a twenty-minute trip to the mall. At first she was just going to blow the whole thing off, but then she felt like she really needed to get out of the house. She didn’t want to grow up to be a recluse.

Checking her watch, she saw that the time was two thirty. She decided to help Aunt Carmine out and make dinner. She headed into the kitchen, put an apron on and looked to see what was available. Inside the fridge was a round steak. She cut it into cubes and shook it in a bag with some cornstarch and set them aside. She poured some EVO into a skillet and heated it while she crushed some garlic, chopped up a couple of peppers and some onions, sautéing them till they were golden brown. She took the prepared meat and added it to the pan, stirring it till the meat had browned. To the mix in the skillet she added corn syrup, a can of diced tomatoes, and a cup of grape juice. After stirring it and bringing it up to a simmer she transferred everything to a casserole dish and placed it in the oven at 330 degrees.

Next, she began to set out the things she needed for sautéed peppers, eggplant, potatoes and steamed Broccoli with onions and olives .

While she was cooking, the twins got home. Angel just told them to study till Aunt Carmine got home.

Dinner was ten minutes away, when Aunt Carmine got home. She smelled the food and told the girls she needed to get changed, as she ran to her room.

Sierra and Nevada set the table, as Angel got the food in serving dishes and on the table. After the food was blessed, everyone dug in.

“See girls, anybody can cook,” Aunt Carmine said, giggling.

Sierra gave her Mom a serious look, “Mom, you know we can cook, you made us learn,” but she couldn’t maintain her cross expression. “You did a pretty good job Angel, but you left off the salad.”

“Don’t let my sister belittle what you did Angel, this is very good, but a salad with it would have been nice.”

“Sorry girls, I didn’t plan the menu early enough to do everything. I didn’t make a desert either.”

“If the girls wanted a salad, they could have made one Angel. I am proud that you did what you could. You don’t have to do it everyday, but it is nice to come home to a cooked meal. Thank you.”

“Your welcome, Aunty. I just wanted to do it, to thank you for what you did for my mother.”

“She is my sister too. I couldn’t let her down for such a little thing.”

“Yeah, it is good to have you with us this summer, Angel.” The twins said.

Angel had thought all day about going to the mall, without telling her Aunt. She knew her Mom would expect her to tell her Aunt, if she planned on leaving the house and where she would be going.

“Oh, Aunt Carmine, would it be alright if I go to the mall by myself during the day tomorrow? The proprietor of the music shop invited me to a jam session.”

“Do you think you’ll be alright by yourself? I know you know the area, but…”

“Yeah, I’ll be alright, Aunt Carmine.”

“Ok, but call me if you need me and if you are still at the mall when I get off, I’ll come pick you up. You have the number for my cell phone number.”

“Yes ma’am, Aunt Carmine.”
 
 
Chapter 11
 
 
After Aunt Carmine left for work and the twins rushed off to catch their bus, Angel went to her room to get ready for her day. She experimented with her clothes and makeup. She wanted to look older and more mature. She dressed in her panties, a padded brief and one of her better-padded under wire bras. She chose a very frilly, white rayon blouse, that had a strip of ruffles down the front. She dressed in some off-black, lace patterned, pantyhose and a mid-thigh, black mini skirt. Finally, she put on her black patent leather pumps, with a three inch heel.

She then draped a towel around her neck and began to work on her makeup. She tried to achieve a glamorous daytime look. The look she was trying to create was a little more than the usual daytime makeup, but she worked hard not to look too dark, or slutty. She tried to remember what others had done to her and about some of the things she had read in her magazines. It took her three tries to get the eyeliner and mascara done right, but in the end, she liked what she had created. She put her compact and lipstick in her purse and checked her nails, as she had been told. They still looked nice and shiny.

It was only a little after ten. She walked around the house a bit and checked herself in the mirror a few times, seeing if she could find any flaws in her looks, or her mannerisms. She looked good and felt that her mannerisms were as good as she could be, at this time.

She fidgeted about the house till she couldn’t stand it and then grabbed her purse and guitar case, and left. She hadn’t meant to leave this early, but well, she would find something to kill some time.

She walked half a block to the nearest bus stop and sat on the bench and waited. She smoothed the skirt under her, as she sat and carefully crossed her legs. She had only been waiting for about ten minutes, when the bus rolled up. She stood and when the door to the bus opened, she stepped up into the bus.

“Hello, ma’am. That will be a dollar and a quarter,” the bus driver eyed her up and down.

Angel already had the fare in her right hand and handed it to the driver.

“Where are you going today, ma’am?”

“To the Hillbrook Mall.”

“Ok, we are about twenty two minutes from that stop. Please take a seat.” The driver waited till the girl had a chance to take a seat, before moving away from the curb. It wasn’t because of any altruistic reasons, but that he could admire the young lady as she went to take her seat.

The bus drove towards the city, stopping to pick up and drop off riders at various points. The bus wasn’t crowded, but there were about ten riders on the bus. Angel thought many of them looked to be women heading to town to shop. It was between the early going to work group and the main shopping, lunch-time crowds.

They were getting close to the mall. Angel could see the tops of the tall buildings that anchored either end of the mall. She also saw a park, which was about a quarter of a mile, from the mall. She reached up and pulled the cord that would signal the bus to stop, at the next stop. The bus pulled up to the next stop and let her off.

Angel waited for the crosswalk sign to show walk before she attempted to cross four lanes of traffic. She crossed and then walked half a block before entering the park. It was a pretty park, about ten acres in size. There were already quite a few people there relaxing in its beauty.

Angel saw a fountain that wasn’t flowing and went over to it. When she got over there, she saw that the fountain had been turned into a planter and had all colors of flowers growing in it. She sat on the concrete rim. She sat her purse down next to the edge and her guitar case next to it, so that when she opened the case the purse would be hidden. She opened the case and took out her guitar. After crossing her legs and adjusting the guitar on her lap, she spent a few minutes tuning. She began with some of her practice lessons.

She looked up as she began to play the guitar in earnest. There was about ten people in the area and no one was paying her any attention. She concentrated on what she was doing. First she played four of her more challenging Spanish pieces. Angel looked up and there were more people and they were closer to her, but seemed disinterested in what she was doing. She began to play several of her classical pieces and soon had a crowd around her that seemed to appreciate her playing. She ended her classical work with Classical Gas, which drew a lot of applause.

She then began to play some rock starting with ‘Black Magic Woman’. She sang with the music as she played. She then went into ‘Hotel California’, ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’, ‘The Guitar Man’, ‘Our House’, ‘Brandy’, ‘Black Water’, ‘Mr. Bojangles’ and she finished with ‘We Will Rock You’. She was surprised with the audience participation on the chorus of that last piece.

She was beginning to get hungry so she went to put her guitar away, to much grumbling. She was shocked, when she looked down in her case, there was a lot of coins and bills there. She had to clear out all of the money before she was able to set her guitar down. After closing up the case, she counted the money, before she put it in her wallet. There was ninety-three dollars in ones, fives and a ten, and another twelve dollars and forty-five cents, mostly quarters, in change. The change had to go into the bottom of her purse and made it heavy.

She headed to the mall and once inside, she went directly to the food court. Angel picked up a taco salad, a seven-layer burrito, a brownie and a diet coke for lunch. She ate quickly, so she could stop at the bookstore and get some more manga, before heading to the music store. The clerk at the bookstore was a little miffed at being paid in mostly change, but a sell is a sell.
 
 
Chapter 12
 
 
Angel arrived at Leo’s Music Emporium at about one twenty. The store was narrower at the front. The first twenty feet was about fifteen feet wide and had a counter on either side of the store. There were instruments in the glass counter and larger instruments behind glass, behind the counter. The back area looked to be about forty by twenty-five feet and held hundreds of instruments. Leo smiled when he saw her and came over to greet the girl.

“Hi Angel, it is so good to see you again .”

“Hello Mr. Leo. How are you doing today?”

“It’s just Leo, Angel.”

“Ok, well hello it’s just Leo.” Angel said. She couldn’t control her giggling.

“Everyone’s a comedian,” Leo said laughing. “Is this your guitar?” Leo said eyeing the guitar case.

Angel set the case on the counter, opened it and carefully removed the guitar. “Yes it is. It has been in my family for ages.”

The guitar looked old, it lacked a lot of the ornamentation you generally see on guitars and the finish was worn in places but not too badly. Leo could tell that the guitar was well taken care of.

“May I take a closer look at it Angel?”

Angel was pretty protective of her guitar and wouldn’t let just anybody touch it, but Leo seemed to understand how people feel about their instruments. She handed the guitar to the man.

Leo looked closely at the instrument; he confirmed that outwardly it appeared to be in good condition. “I want to get a scope and check out the insides of the guitar,” he said, setting the instrument on a velvet pad on the counter. He then went into the back and came out with his laptop and a long snake like thing.

“This is a flexible fiber optic scope, which I use to check out the instruments that come in for repair.”

Leo loosened the bass strings and snaked the scope into the sound hole. Angel could immediately see the insides of the guitar on the laptop. She had never seen the guts of a guitar before and watched the laptop closely.

“The insides appear to be in very good condition, and it doesn’t appear to have a maker signature, although there is a number on the back. It just says 50. Mind if I take some pictures?”

“Not at all, Leo.”

Leo got out his digital camera and took about thirty pictures of the guitar from as many angles.

“You say your grand parents came from Madrid right?”

“That is what I have been told.”

“I am not certain about who made the guitar, but I have a good hunch. Will you play it for me?”

Angel took her guitar, tuned it and began to play ‘Cavatina.’ The guitar had a warm rich tone to it and a good volume.

“Girl, if that guitar is what I think it is, that is the last time you bring it here without an adult present. Take extremely good care of that instrument. It is extremely valuable. Put it back in its case and we will lock it up in the office.”

Angel detuned the guitar, carefully wiped down all the surfaces and put it in its case. She followed Leo to his office and placed it safely there.

“I thought I was going to play in a jam session, Leo.”

“You are. I like everyone to use one of the instruments I sell. It helps me sell them, when people can hear my instruments played well, Angel. I have some high end guitars that I want you to try out.”

Leo went behind the counter and selected four guitars that were three thousand dollars plus. “Try these out and tell me what you think.”

Angel took one after another of the guitars; she tuned them and then played several riffs on each one. She went back to the second and third guitars. Leo smiled at her choices; they were his favorite too. She then played ‘Cavatina’ on both of them.

The first was a three thousand five hundred dollar ‘Takamine’ classical guitar, and the second was a five thousand dollar ‘Alvarez’ classical guitar. Both guitars had superior tone and volume. Angel settled on the ‘Takamine’.

“I like my guitar better, but I would like to play this one, Leo.”

“I like it too, Angel. Take a seat over by the drums and get use to it.”
 
 
Chapter 13
 
 
Angel went to the open space in the back and began to play. It wasn’t a bad instrument it just wasn’t her instrument. As she played, someone came in and cordoned off the area with a velvet rope, like they use in theaters and such. Another guy came in and took one of the other guitars that Angel had tuned and joined her in the back.

“Hi, I am Jeffery Wilkins and this guy is Wee Willy Jenkins. I play a rhythm guitar and Willy plays a bass.”

“Hi, I am Angel Marquez, I play a classical guitar.”

They spent about ten minutes talking about what pieces Angel could play.

“Geez, don’t you know any modern pieces,”

“You have to understand, my oldest teacher is 78 and he thinks the stuff my youngest teacher teaches, is new fangled stuff. My youngest teacher is 49 and is still stuck in the eighties.”

“Ok, then lead and we will follow you.”

Angel started out with ‘American Pie’, she was a few measures in when the others joined in with her and by the chorus and Leo joined in on the drums. Angel felt like singing, so she did, Leo and Willy sang harmony. She found areas to let the others solo. She like the way Jeffery and Willy played. Leo also did an acceptable turn on the drums. She suspected that she was taking his place.

She jumped right into playing and singing the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. She was a little startled when the others came in on the supporting vocals, but again, she really like the way they sounded.

Angel saw that they were beginning to have quite a crowd in the store. They applauded when they finished the second piece.

Alice came over to Angel, “May I have that guitar please, I have just sold it.”

Angel handed the guitar to the girl and was handed another. She took a few seconds to check the tune and to let the others tune to her. When everyone was ready, she began to play ‘Hotel California’.

Angel found herself exhilarated by the enthusiasm of her troupe and the people listening. She thought her friends were playing and singing very well.

After they finished that song, she began ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. The guys next accompanied her on her classical pieces, beginning with Recuerdos De La Alhambra, then, ‘Espana’, ‘Preludio’ and finally ‘Classical Gas’. Jeffery and Willy figured out the keys and rhythm of the music and joined in.

Between Espana and Preludio she again had to trade guitars with a sales clerk.
 
 
Chapter 14
 
 
The guys wanted to take a break after ‘Classical Gas’.

Leo went to get everyone a drink, and Craig came over to Angel.

“Angel, a gentleman wants to buy that guitar, if you will autograph it.”

“Autograph it?”

“Yes he was very specific about that. That is an eight thousand dollar Cass Williams (fictional luthier) guitar. He has agreed to pay eight five if you will autograph it.”

David led Angel behind the counter to where a man stood apart from other customers.

Angel held out her hand like a lady does when greeting a man. “Hi I am Angel Marquez.”

Angel could see that the man was well dressed. She would hate to guess how much that suit cost him. His hands were soft in hers, this was no player she thought, and his nails were well manicured.

“Well, hello Ms. Marquez. My name is William Price the third. It is nice to meet the young lady who has been serenading us today.”

“You want me to autograph this guitar?” She asked.

“Yes, I do.”

Angel was stunned, but asked, “What do you want me to write?”

The man thought a few seconds and said, “Played by Angel Marquez 6-03-06. You see, I am a collector and if you continue to play as you did today, I can see this guitar becoming very valuable in the years to come.”

Angel asked David for a pen and a piece of paper. He handed her a sheet of plain white paper and a black Sharpie permanent marker.

She wrote on the paper, and included a stylized angel.

“Like this Mr. Price?”

“Yes, exactly like that, I love your handwriting.”

Angel practiced her signature a couple of more times before she approached the guitar. “Here,” she asked, indicating the area of the guitars face.

“Very nicely done, Angel. I am going to place this guitar away, somewhere safe.”

Angel again shook hands with the man. He placed the guitar carefully in its case and paid the clerk, using his platinum Master Card.

Angel looked at her watch, it was now three forty five.

“I need to go catch my bus, Leo.”

“Can you call someone; I don’t want you taking that guitar on the bus and I would like to talk to your parents.”

“Why?”

“Like I told you, that guitar may be very valuable.”

“Well, it will just be my Aunt Carmine. My mom is at a seminar in New York City and who cares where my father is.”

Angel called her Aunt. She told her that the owner wanted to talk to her and she agreed to come by the store.

Angel hung around and talked to many of the patrons there. Some of them asked her about how she learned to play and what she thought of this guitar or that one. She honestly answered the people’s questions.

About twenty minutes after four, she saw Aunt Carmine and the twins enter the store. She smiled and waved at them.

“Hi Aunt Carmine, Sierra and Nevada.”

“Hi Angel. What’s this all about?”

“Hello Ma’am, I am Leo Granger.”

“Hello Mr. Granger, I hope my niece hasn’t made any problems for you.”

“No, no she hasn’t been any problem. I just wanted to talk to you. If you would follow me.”

Leo led the troupe of ladies to his office. After they had a seat, he began. “I have enjoyed having Angel here with me, today. The reason I wanted an adult here is because of the guitar. Do you know anything about it?”

“Well, it belonged to Dad and he got it from his grandfather, who got it from his father and I am not sure after that.”

“Angel told me they lived in Madrid, is that right?”

“Yes, until 1949, I believe that is when they immigrated to the US.”

“Is that guitar insured?”

Aunt Carmine said that she didn’t think so and turned to Angel, who just shrugged.

“I am not an expert on rare guitars; I have seen a few and handled a few. I am just guessing that that guitar is worth at least six figures and maybe a lot more. There were a lot of famous luthiers in Madrid in the 1800’s. If I had to guess, I think this one might have been made by the granddaddy of them all, Antonio de Torres. Please take the guitar to a couple of experts, get it appraised and then insured. It is a wonderful instrument.”

“Oh my, I have heard that name before,” Aunt Carmine said.

“I also have something for Angel,” Leo said, handing her two checks, one for eight hundred and seventy five dollars, and another for five hundred dollars.

Angels mouth hung open, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“Oh My God, what are these for,” Angel said showing her Aunt and cousins.

“You helped me sell four guitars, for seventeen thousand five hundred dollars. The five hundred dollar check is from Mr. Price. Mrs. Santiago, Angel sold an autographed guitar. The guitar was a custom guitar, that we listed at eight thousand, Mr. Price paid me eight five for the guitar; the rest of the money was for Angel’s autograph on it.”

“Wow, thank you Leo.” She surprised the man by giving him a big hug. “Thank you for everything.”

“You’re welcome kiddo,”

Angel placed the checks into her purse and she picked up her guitar case. As a group, they headed out of the office.

“Hey Angel, can you play one more song with us,” Jeffery called out to her.

“Sure, how about ‘Cracklin’ Rosie,’” Angel said, taking her guitar out of its case. “This time I am playing my own guitar.”

“Sounds great girl,”

Angel tuned up her guitar and began to play and sing,
 
 

"Cracklin' Rosie, get on board  We're gonna ride till there ain't no more to go  Taking it slow  Lord, don't you know  Have me a time with a poor man's lady."

 
 
Wee Willy, Jeffery and Leo on the drums, all took her lead and joined her singing. Leo took the lead on the chorus, as he had a nice deep voice.

As they were singing, Angel saw a Marine Sergeant in uniform that had pressed forward through the crowd. When they finished that song, she waited a few seconds and sang a cappella
 
 

"Far  We’ve been travelin’ far  Without a Home."

 
 
Leo caught on and gave her some drums and the boys joined in on the beat. She then began to play ‘America.’
 
 

"But not without a star  Free  Only want to be free  We huddle close  Hang on to a dream."

 
 
From there she launched into ‘Philadelphia Freedom.’
 
 

"I used to be a rolling stone  You know if the cause was right  I'd leave to find the answer on the road  I used to be a heart beating for someone  But the times have changed  The less I say the more my work gets done."

 
 
They got a rousing applause from those gathered, as the last chords faded away to nothingness.

“Angel, you can play with us anytime, but give us a break on your transitions. My fingers are tired.” Jeffery said, shaking out his right hand. “Cause girl, you were smoking.”

Angel laughed and gave Jeffery and Wee Willy a hug, after she took care of her guitar. That seemed to placate their male egos a bit.

“Jeffery, Wee Willy, this is my Aunt Carmine and my cousins Sierra and Nevada. Aunt Carmine this is Jeffery Wilkins and Wee Willy Jenkins.”

The twins giggled as they were introduced, Jeffery was high on their cute meter and Willey wasn’t too bad either. Too bad they were both in their mid to late twenties.

“Angel where did you learn to sing and play like that,” Willy asked.

“Sorry about the singing, but I blame my play on my Uncles.”

“Sorry? You mean you can sing better than that. You sounded like you had years of voice training.”

“No, just singing to myself in the showers.”

Angel and her family all said goodbye to Leo and the guys. They went straight home and Angel put her guitar in her room, before they all went out for dinner.

Later that night, Carmine burnt up the telephone lines. as she called her sister, father and uncles to discuss all the things they learned. They all decided to get together and go to New York City on Friday.

Angel had to tell her cousins everything about her day, from the Park to what happened at the Mall.

---

 

---

 
To Be Continued...

Angel carefully opened the case. Inside was one of the most beautiful Classical Guitars she had ever seen. “Oh my gosh, is this your guitar Raul?”

“No, mi chica, it is your new guitar, and here is a history of your new guitar in Spanish and English.” Raul said, handing her a bound folder.

“You're not taking my old guitar away, are you grandfather?”

by Paula Dillon

---

 
 
Chapter 15
 
 
The discussion between Aunt Carmine, her sister and the old men went on for hours that Tuesday night. The consensus was that Angel could continue to play her guitar at home and anywhere there was at least one of them present. They would also take the guitar to New York and have it appraised by Christies on Monday.

The twins were thrilled because they would get to miss the last day of school and get to go on the trip with everyone to visit the big apple.

Angel was less than thrilled at the prospect of not being able to play her wonderful guitar whenever and wherever she wanted. She understood the reasons for all of this though.

Wednesday, Angel tried to get into a routine. She went through her closets and mixed and matched clothes before she got dressed. She would then sit in front of her mirror and practice her makeup, striving to achieve different looks. On the internet, she visited anime and manga sites to see if anything new tickled her fancy, visited some sites where she had found information about what she was going through and sent some email to some of her online friends. After lunch, she spent an hour and a half practicing on her guitar.

At about two in the afternoon she began to plan out the menu. She had found a website that had simple complete menu’s, in foods she liked and she knew her cousins and aunt would like. She used one of the menu’s she found.

She took a chicken and cut it in pieces, sautéed it with some sausage, onions, peppers, crushed garlic, salt, pepper and Paprika. In a casserole dish, she added some saffron rice, two cans of diced tomatoes, water, slices of squash and zucchini. When the chicken was lightly browned on the outside, she added the contents of the skillet to the casserole dish, covering it and setting it in a three hundred and fifty degree oven.

She began to hard-boil some eggs, drained a can of sweet peas, chopped some sweet pickles, celery, red and green bell peppers, onions and walnuts. She shelled and chopped the eggs up, added them to the sweet peas and vegetables, along with some mayonnaise. After mixing it thoroughly, she placed the bowl back into the refrigerator.

She took out the casserole, added some sour cream, plus a blend of shredded cheddar, Monterey Jack and mozzarella cheeses and put it back into the oven after covering it.

From the refrigerator, she took out some kiwis, strawberries and a mango. She peeled and sliced up the fruit, along with a couple of bananas, added some sweetener and fruit fresh.

Angel then began to set the table. Sierra and Nevada got home, soon followed by Aunt Carmine, who dashed off to her room to change.

They talked about their days as they sat and ate. Angel could see that Carmine was just like her Mom in that respect. The girls just had two days of testing left and four days of school left. They were excited about finishing their school year.

“This is good Angel,” Carmine said, “Maybe you should be a chef, instead of a musician.”

“No, I just eat to live. Since I have to eat, I like my food to taste good. It is different with music, I feel more alive when I am playing. I just can’t describe the feeling.”

“Oh, Uncle Javier called me at lunch. He says you can keep playing your guitar at home. Uncle Rolando will be by tomorrow; put him in the other guest room, Angel. Friday, after the girls get out of school, we’ll all be going to New York City. He said that you are not to worry about a guitar.”

“Great, we can see Mom, this weekend.”

“On Friday, I’ll get off early. Girls, make sure you take everything you have to turn in, to school in the morning. I’ll meet you there at three and check you two out for the year. Grandfather, Javier and Rolando will be here for lunch, Angel. Make sure you girls are all packed, tomorrow night. When we get home Friday, we are only going to have enough time to change before we go. We need to look nice when we leave here. We are going to stay in Aunt Margarita’s hotel suite. We need to pack for five days.”
 

*          *          *
 
Thursday Angel was playing her guitar, when the doorbell rang.

“Hola Tio Rolando.” (Hello Uncle Rolando.)

“Hola mi Angel,  ¿Cá³mo está¡ usted?” (Hello my mi Angel. How are you?)

“Hacer el bien y el tá­o? (Doing good Uncle and you?”)

“Muey bein. Let’s speak English. Some people are coming by to do some work around the house, soon,” Rolando said.

“What kind of work?”

“You will see, do you have any café,”

“I can make some for you.”

“Bien Angel.”

Uncle Rolando was halfway through his first cup of coffee when the doorbell rang again.

“Angel, you get the door and show the men to the garage. I will open the garage door for them.”

Angel greeted the men at the door and led them to the garage door. Uncle Rolando was just opening it for them. The men spoke to Rolando for a few minutes and then got to work.

“They are going to install a safe here and at your home Angel. The safe is burglar, water and fire proof. Keep your guitar there when you’re not using it. You, your Aunt and your Mom will know how to get in the safes,” Rolando said, as he led Angel back into the house.

Four hours later, one of the men came in and asked them to come out. Angel saw an ordinary looking wood cabinet. When the workman opened the door, she saw a large safe about seven feet high, by four feet wide, by three feet deep. It was large enough to hold two or three guitars. The safe had a dial and a keypad.

“The safe can be opened by a combination on the dial, or a number punched into the key pad. The dial is just a backup for the keypad, if the electronics go south,” he said, and he showed Uncle Rolando how to set the combinations to both. “Go ahead and set the combinations, leave the door open though. Then try them out. If they both work, you can close the door. If not, I can reset the locks.

Rolando set the dial and had Angel set the keypad. They then tried the locks and found that they both worked. They both successfully tried them, both combinations, several times.

The workman came back and Rolando thanked the men.

“Please remember the combinations; they are a bitch to open without them. Sorry for the language ma’am. It would take me up to about four hours to open it.”

Angel wrote both combinations down and hid it in Carmine’s office.

Rolando then looked at his great niece and said, “Consiga su guitarra mi hermoso Angel.” (Get your guitar, my beautiful Angel.)

Angel shrilled with glee, as she ran to get her guitar. For the next two hours, Rolando taught, Angel learned and together they played. They played well together; Rolando would lead and Angel followed; then Angel would lead, with Rolando following her. She always chose to play her most challenging music when she was with her teachers.

After finishing their lesson, Carmine and Rolando carefully detuned their instruments, wiped them down and put them in their cases. Rolando then handed her his guitar and had her lock his up with hers, in the safe.

For Rolando, years ago it was the master teaching his student, now it was the teacher struggling to keep up with his prodigy. Angel only lacked in the years of experience that her teachers had, from being great. There was hardly anything left for the old men to pass on to her. Like a sculptor, who had just put down his small chisel after years of chipping away on a marble statue, all that was left was polishing what was there.
 
 
Chapter 16
 
 
Friday, Angel made breakfast for her Uncle Rolando. He hadn’t gotten up when Carmine and the girls had. She made him his coffee, almost strong enough to get up and walk out of the cup. He liked espresso, but Aunt Carmine didn’t have an espresso maker. She also fixed him scramble eggs, fried potatoes and toast.

Sierra and Nevada were almost beside themselves with joy, as they collected all their books and the myriad other things that needed to be turned back in to their teachers, for the girls to be cleared to leave. Even Carmine seemed excited this day, as she got ready for work. Angel got her hugs and kisses, as one after another of her family left that day.
 

*          *          *
 
Around noon, her Grandfather Fernando arrived and then an hour later, Javier arrived in a full sized bus motor home, driven by one of her cousins, Marcos Dominguez. Angel ran to the bus and hugged her Uncle and cousin together.

“Ah mi, el Primo Marcos, Tio Javier, Es tan bueno verle usted dos.” (Oh my, cousin Marcos, Uncle Javier, It is so good seeing you two.)

“ ¿Como estas Marcos?” (How are you Marcos?)

“Good, but easy on the Spanish girl? I am not as fluent as you are.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Somebody has to drive this bus. Uncle Javier called and asked if I still had this motor home. He asked if the family could borrow it. I couldn’t let him down could I?”

“No of course not,” Angel said. “Is the bus stocked with food?”

“Just like a woman, worried about food. There are enough cokes and snacks to get us to New York. The diesel tanks are filled too.”

Angel and Marcos, with the old men’s help, got all of the luggage that had been set aside, loaded into the bus.

They got on the road with in a half hour of Carmine and the twins getting home. The motor home was really nice. Marco explained to the girls that he had bought a used bus back in 1990 and over the next ten years he worked on and fixed up the bus. The inside of the bus had leather couches, plush carpeting, a kitchen, restroom and shower, bedroom and a flat screen TV.

After the girl’s had a chance to peak and snoop over every inch of the bus, they sat down to relax. Angel and her Uncles got their guitars out and played for everyone. The twins weren’t happy that there wasn’t enough room to dance, but they did enjoy the concert, that the others were putting on for them.

About two hours into the trip, Uncle Javier got a call on his cell phone.

“Hola… hey Raáºl.  ¿Como está¡s?... Muy bueno.  ¿Cuando su aviá³n de la tierra? Nosotros usted recogerá¡ entonces en dos horas.” (Hello… Hey Raul. How are you? Very good. When does your plane land? We will pick you up in two hours.)

“Hey Marcos, can we be at terminal seven at JFK, in two hours.”

“We will be there in about an hour and a half, Uncle Ramos.”

“Good, we will pick up your cousin Raul Vargas there. He is one of Carmelita’s grandchildren.”

“Great, great Aunt Carmelita?” Sierra asked.

“Si, add another great for you chica, she is the family’s matriarch,” Fernando said.

“She must be what, 90 years old?” Nevada asked.

“No, she will be a 102 in September. I just talked to her, last week,” Javier said.

“She may be old, but she is a fiery woman. She chewed me out for ten minutes when I called a day late for her last birthday,” Rolando said.

“Si, she called me to tell you to call her,” Javier said.

“Yeah she wasn’t worried that she would die before you called, she was worried that you would be dead, before she could hear from you again,” Fernando joked.

“Tell me about it,” Rolando replied.

At JFK, Marcos dropped off Angel and Javier outside terminal seven. He told Uncle Javier to call him when they had Raul. Javier and Angel went to the security checkpoint outside of customs. There was a constant flow of people out from the customs checkpoint. Javier, at six feet four, saw Raul coming their way carrying two guitars, while a skycap pushed a cart of luggage behind him.

Raul smiled and nodded his head at Javier and headed his way.

“Hola, Tio Javier, Es tan bueno verte de nuevo.” (Hello Uncle Javier, it is so good seeing you again.)

(The following italicized conversation is in Spanish although your brains see it in English. You are getting better at thinking in two languages.)

“Raul this is you Cousin Angel Marquez. Angel this is your Cousin Raul Vargas.”

“So this is the beautiful child, the one that is causing the stir. You are a sight for sore eyes, my little chica.”

“Thank you Raul, tell me you have some pretty senorita back home,” Angel said, flirting with her cousin.

“Not as cute as you, but you are way too young for me,” Raul said, flirting back at her. “You didn’t lie Javier, She is quite charming. Here, carry this guitar for me Angel,” Raul said, handing her one of the cases.

Uncle Javier called Marcos on his cell phone, as he led their way to the passenger pickup area. They all talked on the way to Margarita’s hotel. The conversations were slowed, as someone translated for Marcos, who spoke mostly English and Raul, who spoke mostly Spanish.

Finally, Raul told Angel to open the guitar case she was holding.

Angel carefully opened the case. Inside was one of the most beautiful Classical Guitars she had ever seen. “Oh my gosh, is this your guitar Raul?”

“No, mi chica, it is your new guitar, and here is a history of your new guitar in Spanish and English.” Raul said, handing her a bound folder.

“You're not taking my old guitar away, are you grandfather?”

“No we aren’t, that is your guitar now, but we do want you to keep it safe. Use this new guitar in places where your old one might not be safe,” her grandfather said.

“We know that you might not like using a new guitar, but if the old guitar is as valuable as we understand, then you just can’t take it everywhere you go,” Uncle Rolando said.

“This new guitar, you may do with as you wish, and you may still play your grandfather’s guitar on special occasions. It is still your guitar, but accidents can happen to break it and it can be stolen when you play, like you did at the park.” Uncle Javier said.

“How much did this guitar cost? Who do I pay for it?”

“Don’t worry about such things, Angel. Just make beautiful music with it, that is all it costs you.”

Angel understood what they were telling her. She had been shocked to hear how valuable grandfather’s guitar might be. She took the new guitar out of its case. She carefully tuned it. She was surprised to hear it sing as she tuned it. It wasn’t better than her old one, but neither was it worse. It was different. It was definitely louder and brighter, but it wasn’t as warm toned. It was most definitely better to her, than the guitars she had played at Leo’s.

She then began playing some of her more technically challenging pieces she knew, Arabian Dance, El choclo, Classical Gas and Bohemian Rhapsody. She would have played more, but they arrived at her mother’s hotel.

Angel carried her two guitars off the bus, ahead of her aunt, cousins and uncles. A doorman opened the door for her and she saw her mother waiting for her in the lobby. Margarita rushed over to hug her daughter and the rest of her family. She stopped when she saw Raul; she saw the familial resemblance, but couldn’t place him at first. Raul just stood there grinning at her; her uncles were strangely silent.

It slowly came to her, she said, “ ¿Raul Vargas, es eso usted?” (Raul Vargas, is that you?) She asked a little uncertainly.

“Ah, usted me recuerda mi hermoso primo. Nosotros no hemos visto uno al otro desde que nosotros encontramos en Barcelona, hace veinte aá±os.” (Ah, you remember me my beautiful cousin. We have not seen each other since we met in Barcelona, twenty years ago.)

“Es tan bueno verte de nuevo.  ¿Cá³mo has estado haciendo?” (It's so good to see you again. How have you been doing?)

Javier translated for Marcos and then said. “Vamos a conseguir nuestros clasificados y equipaje en nuestras habitaciones. Marcos tiene que aparcar el autobáºs en un garaje y coger un taxi de vuelta. Conoce aquá­ en el vestá­bulo, en una hora. (Let's get our luggage sorted out and into our rooms. Marcos needs to park the bus in a garage and take a taxi back here. Meet back here in the lobby in an hour.)

Margarita then took charge and had Angel’s, Carmine’s and the twins’ luggage taken up to her suite. Javier then began to register the rest of the family into rooms.

“Angel, why are you carrying two guitars, does one belong to someone else?”

“No, Momma, they are both mine. Uncle Javier arranged for me to get another. Raul brought it over from Barcelona, Spain. It is so beautiful, wait till you see it.”

“Is Grandfather taking back his old guitar?”

“No Momma, he isn’t, but the old men want me to keep it safe.”

“Is it really that valuable?”

“We don’t know yet. Leo thinks it may be worth over a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Who is this Leo?”

“Leo Granger is the proprietor of the music store I went to. I played his guitars at his shop and earned thirteen hundred dollars, helping him sell his merchandise.”

“Oh my, what did you do?”

“I just played his guitars.”

“She is telling you the truth Sis; he called me in and talked to me.”

“He has a jam session every Tuesday, at the mall, near Aunt Carmine’s home. He invited me there and I took Grandfather’s guitar. We played a lot of songs and the clerks were selling the guitars I was playing.”

“One customer even paid to have Angel autograph the guitar she was playing, Sis.”

“You sold four guitars for seventeen thousand dollars?”

“I was paid eight hundred seventy some odd dollars commission for the guitars and I was paid five hundred for autographing a guitar. They were all high end instruments from three thousand to eight thousand dollars.”

“How much did your new guitar cost?”

“I don’t know, the old men won’t say, but it did come from a luthier in Barcelona. Raul brought it with him.”

“I didn’t know this was going to happen either, Sis. Uncle Rolando installed a safe in my garage and is going to install one at your home for Angel’s guitars.”

“I wish they would have talked to me about this.”

“Yes, but you know what they are like, Sis.”

“Yes I know.”

There were two rooms in Margarita’s suite; Carmine roomed with her, and the girls were in the other room. They all took time to clean up a bit and then headed down to the lobby.

The men were waiting somewhat patiently for the women to come down. (Yeah right, they were fidgeting like cats.) Javier led them into the dinning room where they had reservations for ten. After they ordered drinks and food, they sat back and talked.

(In Spanish, translated in English for Marcos by Carmine who sat next to him.)

“It is good for all of us to be together again,” Javier said. “Monday we go to Christies Auction House to have our guitar appraised. I said ours, because after I talked with Carmine, I talked to my brothers and other members of our family. There have been many guitars passed down in our family. Rolando and my guitars are very old too. I found out that they may also have a famous heritage and be valuable too. It is good that Angel caused such a stir.”

“More importantly, our visit has another purpose. Since I informed the family about Angel, there have been many inquiries, and Angel, if you will, we want you to talk to these people. We have scheduled a family meeting in a conference room. Marcos said he could do some internet thing and the others can listen and watch back home. Angel, don’t be afraid, no one will insult you at this family meeting. Carmelita and I will not allow it. Will you do this Angel?”

“Yes I will. I can do this.”

Angel was nervous about it and her therapist had told her that she should talk to all of her family about it sometime. Now was as good as anytime.

“Good. Can you translate and type in Spanish Margarita.”

“Of course I can, Uncle Javier.”

“Good, can you work with your cousin Marcos and translate for those who don’t speak English.”

“I can speak in Spanish well enough, Uncle Javier.”

“Yes I know, but this gives your Mom some control over what goes back and forth.”

Margarita hadn’t realized what her uncle had done for them and appreciated him for doing this.

“I will allow this Uncle Javier, as long as my Angel is protected.”

“If they don’t fear me, they will fear Carmelita’s wrath.”

Everyone that knew Carmelita shuddered and shook their heads.

“Good, then I have made arrangements for the girls tomorrow. Carmine here is the schedule for you and your girls, and Margarita here is the schedule for you and Angel,” Javier said, passing the women a sheet of paper.

They were scheduled for a salon and clothing fitting. Carmine and her girls, were to go to the clothier early, and then to the salon. Margarita and Angel were to go the salon and then to the clothier.

They talked about other things for a few hours and called it a day.
 
 
Chapter 17
 
 
Angel and Margarita’s first stop after a quick breakfast was the hotel beauty salon. They both had their legs waxed, it was fortunate for Angel that she didn’t have much leg hair. She nearly bit her tongue when the first strip was pulled. Her Mom had been through this before and knew what to expect. It was a pain having to shave several times a week, or wax twice a month, but she couldn’t understand her European relatives’ love of hairy pits or legs.

Next, Margarita needed to have her nails filled in. Angel’s new nails were just slightly damaged from her guitar playing, they just needed a bit of filing and fresh coat of nail polish.

Lastly, they were taken to the hair station; they were both given a shampoo and conditioning. Margarita’s had her hair trimmed and wound into a severe bun. Angel’s hair was turned into a mass of long curls, with six falls to lengthen and to add to the volume of her hair.

From the salon, they headed to a clothier that supplied various ethnic costuming. Angel and Margarita introduced themselves to the sales clerk named Monica and talked about what they wanted. Angel didn’t want to be dressed in the skin tight Flamenco dresses that her Mom favored. She never understood how she walked in those form fitting dresses and skirts she preferred. She and her Mom found what she was looking for. They had a heavily embroidered jacket and vest, which had an ankle length skirt, which she loved.

The clerk took them in the back and had Angel take off her sundress. Standing there in her bra, panties and slip, the clerk took her measurements.

“Angel hasn’t begun to develop much of her womanly figure yet. You know Margarita, with the right foundations, she would look so nice.”

“Yes, but she is still quite a doll right now.”

“Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t mean she wasn’t pretty.”

“Yes, I know what you mean. What do you have in mind?”

“I would suggest a basque; push up pads and a heavily padded brief. Come with me, Margarita.”

Five minutes later, Margarita returned carrying some lingerie and the clerk hung Angel’s chosen outfit and a ruffled blouse, on a hook before leaving.

Angel took off her slip and bra and Margarita began to hook up the basque. The basque had a built in push up bra and covered Angel down to about two inches below her natural waist. Angel had to suck in her stomach to help her mom get it hooked up. She turned Angel around and positioned a push up pad into each cup, before stepping back to look.

Her daughter looked good in the basque, she was bigger in the bust and she didn’t bulge out at the bottom. Margarita had to help her with the padded brief because Angel couldn’t bend very well at the waist. This padded brief had more padding than the ones she had bought before. Angel was afraid that she was going to look positively huge now. The basque and pushup pads added an inch and a half to her bust and took off two inches at her waist. The padded brief added just over two inches to Angel’s hips.

Angel finished getting dressed, starting with the ruffled blouse. The blouse was a long sleeved, linen blend, blouse that had ruffles up the front and at the cuffs. She then wrapped the skirt around her, fastening the two buttons and the two buckles on the left side. The vest fit quite well and made the outfit.

Monica wrapped a red scarf and ran the tag ends through a ring and turned the scarf to the left. She then took a black Sevillano hat and helped Angel put the hat on, so it hung by its lanyard on her back. The look was completed with chandelier earrings and ankle high, brocade boots, with wider stack heels. Even though she didn’t get to dance much, she tried to mimic the way her Mom, Aunt and cousins dance. It was clear that she wasn’t a beginner, but she really needed a lot of work.

“Your daughter dances beautifully.”

“Unfortunately, that was only fair, Monica. My sister, her daughters and I all dance much better, only we can’t play the guitar the way that Angel does. Still I expect her to put more effort into the dance,” Margarita said, with a wink at her daughter.

“Yeah, my younger cousins are way better than I am at dancing. They are almost as good as Mom and Aunt Carmine.”

“You play the Flamenco guitar?”

“I can, but I usually play Flamenco on my classical guitar.”

“Are you any good at it?”

“I guess I am pretty fair at playing the guitar.”

“Don’t listen to her, she is being too modest. She is very good at playing her guitar,” Margarita said. She took her phone and showed Monica, a short video that she had saved on the phone. “This is her cousins Sierra and Nevada dancing, while Angel plays the guitar.

“Those girls were in here about two hours ago. They must have tried on every dress we have in their sizes.” Monica said, as she watched and listened to the video, “I think that the outfit Angel has on, will look so good while she is playing her guitar.”

Margarita then spent the next couple of hours selecting an outfit for herself, with her daughters help. Angel tried to get her Mon into a less form fitting dress, but it was an uphill battle. Angel did see that the material of the dresses, did have a little stretch.

Mother and daughter changed to the clothes they had worn that day, although Angel left her new lingerie on and returned to the hotel. In the suite, they went to Margarita’s room and spent some time talking. An hour before the meeting, they changed into their outfits and went back to the hotel beauty salon for makeup.
 
 
Chapter 18
 
 
Carmine and her daughters went to the costume shop with Raul and the old men. The mountain girls spent half the morning criticizing the clothes the men were looking at. The men usually just went out and picked what they liked. That wasn’t good enough for Sierra and Nevada who wanted to see them in a half dozen of the outfits the store had for men. Even though the men questioned the wisdom of shopping with the girls, they had to admit that the girls had good taste in clothing.

Carmine had taken the time while the girls were busy bothering their Uncles and grandfather to pick out her outfit. She and her sister, Margarita had the figures that made the tight dresses look good. That is what she gravitated to.

When it was Sierra and Nevada’s turn to shop for clothes they literally tore through the stores whole collection for something that fit their tastes. They eventually settled on some of the first dresses they tried on. They almost spent as much time looking at all the different accessories, from jewelry to scarves, shawls, veils, combs and shoes.

From the costume shop, the men took the ladies out to eat. The old men chose to spend this time with Carmine and her daughters, Angel and Margarita got to see them more than Sierra and Nevada did because of her guitar lessons. The men wanted to make sure that the girls knew they were loved no less.

After lunch the old men dropped the ladies off at the entrance to the hotel’s beauty salon and skedaddled while they could. Carmine couldn’t help herself as she shouted, “Aww come on, are you sure, you guys don’t want to come in,” as the car slowly pulled away.

Sierra and Nevada just had to giggle at the retreating males.

Inside all three received the same treatments that Margarita and Angel had received, but their hair was trimmed and wound into the buns that classical Flamenco dancers wore. Instead of individual semi-permanent lashes they received pairs of false eyelashes for the stage. The eyelashes were longer and more dramatic. Lastly before heading to the meeting they all had their makeup done in a dramatic fashion.
 
 
Chapter 19
 
 
The conference room for the family conference was set up with tables in a standard U-shape, with the head table away from the entrance. A smaller table was set up in the open end of the U and three video cameras looked at both forks and the head table. A buffet was being set up next to the entrance.

There were about fifteen family members, many dressed in their festival best, milling around talking. Carmine was taking her twins around the room and introducing them to their distant cousins.

All three of them were in festive Flamenco garb. Carmines, a pale blue silk, lace and taffeta dress, was fitted tightly from her shoulder to just below her knees, it flared out sharply into a circle of black and blue ruffles at her ankles. The twins wore opposite colored red/black dresses, fitted at the bodice and waist, before flaring out to a wide hem that had lots of ruffles. Sierra’s dress was red, with black lace and Nevada’s was black, with red lace. They each wore brocade Flamenco shoes, with metal taps on their heels and toes. Their hair was pulled back into severe buns, with large combs inserted at the top of the buns. Contrasting lace veils hung over the combs. They each wore heavy, almost stage grade, makeup, including oversized, but not too gaudy, false eyelashes. Their outfits were accessorized by large chandelier earrings, beaded necklaces, matching bracelets, rings and castanets.

The guests were appreciative of the girls’ efforts, by those present. The people were just drawn to the lovely girls.

At the appointed time, Margarita came in and sat down by Marcos, at the media table. She was dressed like her sister, in a pink/white dot dress. She and Marcos had a short chat about the system and she pulled the laptop’s keyboard into a comfortable position.

Fernando was the first of the brothers through the door. He looked magnificent in his new Paseo jacket, waistcoat, breeches, black Sevillano hat and black high boots. The black jacket was closely fitted to him and was heavily embroidered, the pants showed his lean muscled form.

When he was well into the room, there began a swell of guitar music and a trumpet. Javier came in dressed similarly to Fernando. He was playing his Flamenco guitar. He was followed by Rolando and Raul similarly dressed and playing their guitars. Finally, Angel came in playing her old guitar.

The room was full of gasps, as the relatives saw Angel for the first time. Not even Carmine and the twins knew what to expect, as they hadn’t seen her all day. Angel looked simply divine as she wore a dark gray, fitted jacket and matching vest that were ornately embroidered, over a white ruffled blouse. Her skirt was a black ankle length, wrap around skirt that had two buckles on her left, just below mid hip. Her hair was a mass of curls, which now came to the middle of her back. Some of the curls draped on the front of her jacket, with the rest of them controlled by her black Sevillano hat, that she wore only by the lanyard around her neck. The salon had given her individual, semi-permanent, eyelashes, which feathered out from her eye. Angel’s makeup had been expertly applied, just minutes before she appeared.

Sierra and Nevada did a double take of their cousin. Her chest and hips looked bigger and her waist narrower.

Carmine and her girls began to dance to the music and playing their castanets. The appreciative audience began to clap to the music, some of them joining in on the dancing.

After about ten minutes, the playing and dancing came to a close. Javier got everyone’s attention and said in Spanish and English, “Welcome my family. It is good to be here with all of you. A buffet has been set up in the back. Please eat, drink and have a joyous time.”

The guitar players all carefully put their instruments away and joined the line at the buffet. They had to stop and say hello to this person, shake that hand, and hug this person.

Angel sat at the head table, flanked by her Mom and her Grandfather. Javier sat in the middle, with Rolando and Raul to his left. The family sat around the U and ate, talking with their neighbors. The seating had been jumbled, so cousins were seated by cousins they didn’t know as well. There was a mixture of English and Spanish being spoken around the table. The bilingual family members had been dispersed about the room and translated where necessary.

Most of the people had finished eating, except for a few chow-hounds that needed an extra meal like a drowning man needs more water. Javier stood and addressed the crowd in English, “Hello my, friends and family.” Margarita was again at the media table, “The first thing I want to cover are the guitars that are in our family. I have found out that there are many that have been handed down from generation to generation. We recently discovered that many might be very valuable. I implore you to have your guitars appraised by a reputable appraiser. We have found one guitar that may be worth several hundred thousand dollars, and my bother Rolando’s and my guitar may be valuable as well.”

“Secondly, there has been a stir created by one of our family. Angel Luis Marquez is now known as Angel Louisa Marquez. Some of you don’t agree with this apparent change of gender. She is here to speak for herself. You may not agree with her change of gender, but she is still family, you will treat her as family.” Javier turned to Angel and she stood. “Angel the floor is yours.”

Angel walked over to the podium and turned towards the people assembled there.

“Hello, I am Angel Marquez. I am fourteen and my mother is Margarita Delores Ramos-Marques. It is good that I get to speak to all of you. I guess I have known most of my life that I was different from all the other boys I have known. It wasn’t until I was six that I realized that I was a girl trapped inside the body of a boy.”

“Just before my sixth birthday, I told my parents just that. My dad couldn’t accept that and left. My mother though, was very understanding and took me to see a psychologist. I spent four years in counseling with this therapist trying to convince him I was a girl, as much as he spent questioning my belief. He finally agreed with me.”

“I am still seeing this therapist once a month. About two years ago, I began taking androgen blockers; it is the same medicine a balding man takes to help keep his hair. So I have avoided going through puberty.”

“I know I look pretty and feminine right now, but physically I am still a boy. What you see is not all me. The women out there will probably understand that better than the men. I will say that this is how in my mind and my heart, I know I should look. Since I was discovered dressed as a girl, I have spent all the time I could, looking like this. I was even given the approval of my therapist to transition to living full time as a girl. So since school ended this year, I have lived this way twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. When school starts for me in the fall, I will be registered as a girl.”

“I don’t want special treatment from the family because of my decision; I just don’t want to be treated badly. I am sorry if you can’t understand what I am going through. It is hard for me to even understand the why’s and how’s and I have lived through this.”

“I would love for all of you to accept this, but I am a realist. I know there are people out there that can’t, and won’t accept me, for who I am. If you can accept me, I would love to count you as one of my friends. I can use all of the friends I can get. If you can’t accept me, I will try not to make waves that will hurt you, after all you are family. I only ask that you do the same for me. Thank you.”

Angel started to return back to her seat.

“Excuse me Angel, do you plan to go all the way, with surgery and hormones?” one of the cousins asked.

“Yes, but I can’t do either until I am eighteen. I have to be old enough to give an informed consent.”

“What about sex? Do you like boys or girls?”

“I don’t know at this point. This isn’t about sex to me; it is about gender and what I see myself as. I am not out to seduce anybody or turn them over to the dark side. I may live my life celibate, at this point I just can’t say.”

“What about the church, Angel?”

“I know most of the church won’t accept me like I am, but I still believe in God and Jesus. Our church claims to be infallible, but look how the church treated Galileo, look at the cruelty that the Spanish and French inquisitions have done, in the name of the church. Many of the popes in the past have been just as corrupt as the heathens they were out to save. There are people in the church who have made grave errors and many who go to church on Sunday, but come Monday, lookout. I am not going to cast any stones. I have tried my hardest to be as good a person as I can be, seven days a week and I pray that that is good enough for God. I can’t believe a loving God would hate me for being like I am.”

“Thank you, but that is all I can say, right now.”

Angel took her seat and Uncle Javier stood again and took the podium. “Thank you Angel, you have given us much to think about. I just ask that you do think about it and remember, she is still family. Family is our strength.”

“Now, we have a special treat for everyone. There are seven guitarists here tonight. We are going to have a battle of the guitar. All of you get your guitars out and let’s tune them up with each other. We will play until we see that the rest are better than we are, and then we will step aside. When there are two left, we will speed up the music, till one can’t keep up.”

The seven guitarists stood inside the U and tuned up their guitars. Angel chose to use her new guitar, because of the way they were crowded. Javier then call out the name of a piece and they all began to play. He started out fairly easy and then the music began to get more challenging. One cousin dropped out, then another and finally a third. It was Javier, Rolando, Raul and Angel left. Javier called out a particularly challenging Master class piece and stepped out himself. Rolando stepped out in the middle of the same piece. Angel and Raul turned towards each other and played their best, through the end of the piece. Javier called out the name of another piece and they played on. When Javier clapped, they would pick up the pace of the music. They were into the third piece and both Raul and Angel were strained in concentration. Raul missed a chord progression then and bowed out. Angel finished the piece and another one so she could relax. When she finished, she was surprised at the applause she received.

Margarita handed Javier a slip of paper. He took the slip and read it. When he finished reading it, he whistled an almost ear shattering whistle.

“Excuse my rudeness, apparently our Great Aunt Carmelita has stayed up to see this, although the time is very early in Spain right now. She has asked if it would be possible for Raul and Angel to come play for her. I am sure that Raul can and we will try to get Angel there as well.”

For the next hour the guitars played and the dancers danced. Margarita danced with Raul and Carmine was on the floor with Marcos, the twins found themselves on the floor with a male cousin.

As much as Angel liked playing for the family, she had been on the go since nine that morning. She was glad when Carmine and her Mom led them out and back to their room. Angel had to have her cousins’ help getting out of her bustier. The bustier was longer than a long line bra and much prettier. It wasn’t really tight; she only had to reduce her waist a couple of inches. They helped remove the many falls that made her hair look so long.

On their way back to the room, Angel asked her Mom, “Well how did I do?”

“I think you did alright. Most of our relatives that were here were already on your side, so to speak. I think you convinced those that support you and gave the others something to think about.”

When they got in bed, Sierra and Nevada had to tell her everything they had done and extracted everything Angel had done that day.
 
 
Chapter 20
 
 
Monday, after a relaxing Sunday seeing the sights, Angel accompanied her Uncles and Grandfather to Christie’s Auction House, with their guitars. The four of them were introduced to Michael Dunn, the supervisor in charge of appraisals.

The old men began to tell Mr. Dunn about the history of their guitars. There had been several guitarist of renown in their family, but none who could be regarded as being famous. Michael showed interest in what the men were saying and took copious noted. He asked them about any provenances that they might have. Other than their family’s oral history, they didn’t have any written statements detailing who made, sold or bought the instruments.

“Are you certain of your family’s origins in the Madrid area, from the late 1800’s?”

“Yes, our family has lived in Madrid and the area within 30 kilometers of Madrid, since the early 17 th century. The first birth in the Madrid area I could find, was a Felipe Ramos. I found records of his birth at a church in Madrid, on March 23, 1643. I found the records in the archives of San Pedro el Viejo, a church that dates from the 13th century, in old Madrid. I think I can identify the original owners of our guitars,” Javier said, taking out a large sheet of paper that had their family tree recorded on. “That is according to my family’s traditions. There are holes in my research, but I am very confident about this tree.”

Michael took notes of where Javier first linked each of the three guitars they brought in today.

“I have enough to start my research, now follow me to our lab where they will inspect your guitars.”

The group followed Mr. Dunn into a secure area of Christies’. He had to use his ID card twice to get to the lab. “This is where we will have technicians inspect each guitar. Everyone here has at least a master’s degree and most have one or more doctorate degrees.”

“This is Dr. Wilson; he has doctorates in chemistry and forensics. He will be in charge of your instruments.” Michael said, introducing a colleague at a cluttered desk.

Jeremy Wilson appeared to be a balding man, in his early fifties. He was about five foot ten inches tall and sat a little too close to the dinner table, as he must have weighed about two hundred twenty pounds. He wore horn rim glasses, powder blue lab coat and all that was missing was the pocket protector.

“Please call me Jeremy,”

“Right Jeremy, this is Javier, Rolando and Fernando Ramos along with Angel Marques. They have three guitars they would like to Vet and appraise.”

“Hello Ma’am and Sirs.” Jeremy said, shaking their hands. “Are these the guitars,” he said, indicating the cases.

“Yes they are. All three came from the area around Madrid in the late 1800’s,” Javier said.

“Good, then. If you would please lay them out on this table for me,” he said, indicating a large table.

Angel, Javier and Rolando each took out their instrument and carefully placed them on the table. Jeremy picked up each instrument and gave them a precursory look.

“Given the age you purport them to be, they all appear to be in good condition. We have two Flamenco guitars and one classical, or more correctly, Spanish guitar. May I hear them played one at a time?”

The old men lightly pushed Angel forward. She picked up her guitar, tuned it up and played the first ten measures of Recuerdos de la Alhambra. When she finished, Javier motioned for her to play the other guitars. She had done this before, but only rarely. She played the same ten measures on each instrument.

Each instrument had its own unique voice. Angel could pick out the three guitars just by listening to them. Angel’s was more warm and mellow, Javier’s was the boldest and Rolando’s was the brightest.

“Very well done, my dear. I see you have been well taught.”

“Thank you, my uncles and my grandfather, along with two other gentlemen are my teachers. Give them all the credit.”

“Well I can tell already that we are dealing with superior instruments. Let me get the other researchers in now,” Jeremy said. He picked up his phone and asked a Karen to come to his office with William and Carl. He then told them what was going to happen. Jeremy also gave them a receipt for the guitars and said that they could watch if they liked. If not, they could pick up the guitars on Wednesday. The report might take a couple of weeks.

Three people soon entered and were introduced. Karen Long was the crack researcher, William Caldwell was the expert on musical instruments and Carl Dowdy was an acoustics expert. They were each in their late twenties to early thirties and each had a blue lab coat on. They first carefully photographed and documented each instrument, before they began to carefully examine them from their point of view.

Angel and her teachers, stayed for a little while, but once they saw that their instruments were in capable caring hands, they left. They talked about what if. The conclusion they came to was, if they were as valuable as some thought, they would still play them. A guitar that never leaves the case is just some wood, metal and string.

Angel felt a sense of loss at not having her prized instrument, but at least she still had one she could play.
 
 
Chapter 21
 
 
It was a long two days for Javier, Rolando and Angel. They wasted no time when they got the call that they could pick up their instruments. They met Michael at his desk, at Christies’. He was wearing his poker face and they couldn’t tell what he was thinking. The three guitar cases were behind his desk.

“Well I won’t keep you in suspense. We have examined all three guitars and have our preliminary report ready for you. Javier Ramos and Rolando Ramos, we are certain without a doubt, that your guitars are indeed Jose Ramirez guitars. Javier, we recommend that you insure yours for three hundred thousand dollars. Rolando, yours is a bit newer, but still you should insure it for at least two hundred fifty thousand. My people are pleased with the condition of your guitars. Your family has taken good care of them over the years.”

“Now Angel, your guitar was a bit harder to nail down. Your guitar, like your uncles, is a superior instrument. It is consistent in everyway with an Antonio de Torres guitar. We want to do a bit more research, before we put our reputations at stake. If it is an Antonio de Torres, it was made early in his second epoch, when he worked in his shop in Almerá­a, Spain. There are fewer known A. Torres guitars that remain in existence, than J. Ramirez guitars. So if we are correct, it could substantially be more valuable. I therefore have the documentation so that the guitar can be insured, till we can be certain. We are suggesting that you have it insured for at least a half a million dollars. If it turns out to be true, it could be more valuable than that. A provenance or documentation would add substantially to its value.”

“I don’t suppose any of you want to auction your guitars off, considering how long they have been in your family and how well you have taken care of them, am I right?”

“No, these instruments will be passed on to the next generation of guitarists in our family,” Javier stated, and his brothers concurred.
“It would be like selling my sister, in fact I would rather sell my sister,” Rolando said.

“We don’t have a sister that is still living Rolando,” Fernando said, laughing at his brother.

“Thank you Mr. Dunn for helping us out,” Javier said, elbowing his brothers.

“No, I want to thank you for bringing them to us to appraise. While it isn’t rare for us to see instruments of this caliber, it is rare to have three of them with us at the same time. You should receive our final reports on them by the end of the month.”

---

 
To Be Continued...

Angel, my brothers and I have talked it over. For a long time now we have been struggling to keep up with you, so that we can teach you. Javier and I are getting old now and Fernando’s hands won’t let him play well enough. We need to find you another teacher.

by Paula Dillon

---

 
 
Chapter 22
 
 
On Friday, Angel Marquez said goodbye to her mom. She left New York City with her Aunt and cousins all headed home after dropping Raul Vargas off at La Guardia. He gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek as they dropped him off at the curb. He was going to visit other family members, while he was here in the states. It was late when they finally got home. Marcos along with Javier left and headed back home after saying their goodbye. Rolando and Fernando stayed the night at Carmine’s home.

After locking up her guitar, along with her Uncle Javier’s that night, she headed to her cousins room. She placed her new guitar in the corner of the twin's room and the history on their vanity, vowing to read all about it in the next few days. They all changed into their nighties and talked about all that happened this past week. The twins were still excitedly talking about the past week as they all got into bed, even though they were clearly exhausted.
 

*          *          *
 
Saturday morning Carmine headed into to work to save a couple of her vacation days. The girls were up early enough to see her off, while their Uncle and grandfather were still sleeping. Together they began fixing breakfast when they heard the old men begin to stir.

After breakfast Uncle Rolando and grandfather had one more lesson for Angel.

“Angel, my brothers and I have talked it over. For a long time now we have been struggling to keep up with you, so that we can teach you. Javier and I are getting old now and Fernando’s hands won’t let him play well enough. We need to find you another teacher.”

“What, are you and the others not going to come by and teach me anymore?”

“No, we are not going to cut you any slack, we will still come by and play with you, but you are already as good as any of us are. The only thing we have that you don’t is the number of years of experience that we have. Don’t worry Pedro and Ricky will still come by and we will still come and play with you, if only to see how much you have grown. You just need someone who is more technically equipped to teach you.”

“Good. I still need all of you in my life still.”

“And we need you too, Angel. In a way you give us a greater purpose. You have the ability to be a great guitarist.”

Fernando and Rolando put Angel through her paces and they also worked with the twins on their dance. The staccato of their shoe taps could be heard on the slate tiles in the breakfast niche, while Angel and Rolando played.

After lunch the old men gave the girls hugs and kisses before they departed.

Angel pulled out the bound folder to read about her new guitar. Her guitar was made by Amara Verdad Cantu, one of only a few female luthiers. Her biography and picture was included. The biography listed her birthplace, where she grew up and the various luthiers she worked and studied under.

She was amazed as she flipped through the folder. The first section told about the various materials used in the construction. The face was made of old growth Canadian spruce recovered from the depths of Lake Huron. Lumberjacks in the 19 th century had cut down the logs and moved them into the water where they formed large flotillas of logs heading to the lumber mills. A large number of logs sank and they have laid there on the bottom for over a hundred years. The recovered logs have been shown to have superior tonal qualities. The back and the sides were made from old growth Brazilian rosewood, while the neck was of ebony.

Angel was fascinated by all the pictures of her guitar as it was being constructed. Amara documented, in photographs, each step as her guitar was being made. There were 30 pictures that showed her guitar as the wood was being cut, shaped, sanded, assembled and finished. She was surprised to learn that the gold artwork around the sound hole and the top of the sides wasn’t gold paint but was actually gold leafing.
 
 
Chapter 23
 
 
Monday Sierra and Nevada had Angel begin to decorate the guest room. She was allowed to take things that were overly abundant in her cousin’s room, like stuffed animals and pictures on the wall, to use in the guest room.

Angel found out that it was more than just having girly things in a room that made the room girly. Everything had to have its proper place. There was nothing haphazard about the way most girls decorate their rooms. The more important a thing was to a girl, the more important the placement about the room was.

Decorating the guest room was harder because everything that was already in the room was as gender neutral as Carmine could make it. Everything from the furniture, drapes, bed clothes, carpet and the paint on the walls were neutral.

“At the dorm, you are going to need to decorate your part of the room,” Sierra said.

“And while not all girls have an overly girly room, it can only help you to make your area as girly as possible,” Nevada said.

“What do you think this room needs that it doesn’t have?”

“Well I don’t have a vanity in this room, but there is a Queen Ann desk. I guess that with a makeup mirror and some trays so I can sort out my makeup that might work. Some of those crocheted things, you know those round and oval things.”

“Dollies,” Sierra provided.

“Yeah those things. I need a picture of Mom, Aunt Carmine and you guys too. While I have some stuffed animals in here, I don’t have one that is special. Like your Pooh Bear, Sierra and your Simba Nevada.”

“Good thinking Angel,” Nevada said.

“If you could paint this room, what colors would you use?”

“I think pink for the whole room is too much for me. I might use some pink with more baby blue and some pastel yellow. That bed spread and those sheets have to go. I have never liked them.”

“They aren’t too bad, but they’re definitely not for a girl,” Sierra said.

The girls booted their computer and navigated to the J.C. Penny website. They paged through the “Bed in a Bag” sections and the window treatment sections. Angel bookmarked the pages that had what she liked and her cousins approved. While searching stuffed animals she found one that she loved, a full sized plush guitar. She just had to have it; she took out her Visa check card and ordered it.

After lunch, she played her guitar while her cousins danced and played their castanets. She even got some dancing in as her cousins encouraged her. They pulled out a DVD lesson that they practiced with.
 

*          *          *
 
Tuesday the girls headed to the mall. They had asked Carmine the day before and had gotten permission from her to do so. Angel had her cousins' dress in their Flamenco skirts, over a pair of shorts and carry their practice shoes with them. She dressed in a borrowed Flamenco skirt, her boots and her Sevillano hat on top of her head. She took her new guitar this time as they headed off to meet the bus.

It was about ten forty when they got off the bus near the park. Angel led them to the area where she had played a couple of weeks earlier. She tuned up her new guitar, while the girls changed to their Flamenco shoes. The crowd, many of whom had been there two weeks ago, began to form around them.

Sierra and Nevada took up a position in front as Angel began playing. She started out playing Flamenco music, while the girls began to dance and play their castanets. The dance started off slowly and sensuously, building up into a furious crescendo. The people gathered there began to clap in rhythm to the music. As the last chords began to fade away, the applause was surprisingly loud.

Angel gave the girls a few seconds to breathe and then began a tango. Nevada assumed the masculine role and took a couple of slow sensuous steps toward her sister. Sierra turned toward Nevada and when she stopped she took a few steps towards Nevada, closing the gap. They continued on into the main tango movements. The people there made room for them as they took up more room, as they twirled and dipped about.

The next song she played was a Rumba. This time around a college aged couple joined the girls dancing. While the twins were better dancers than the college kids, they danced with the other pair, rather than show them up. Eight more people paired up and joined in the dance. Angel extended the piece she was playing a bit to give everyone a nice dance.

After that dance was over Angel switched styles to playing folk music. She sang and played Green Sleeves, Scarborough Fair, and The City of New Orleans. The twins took this time to rest but others continued to dance.

Angel gave her sisters a nod and they got up. She played a couple of more Flamenco songs. On the second song a distinguished looking, older Hispanic gentleman began to dance and the girls flirted with him as they danced with him. He wore a grin that was a mile wide as did the girls. He was slower than the girls but they danced to compliment him. Javier taught the girls to always make their partner look good. When the music ended, Sierra and Nevada took his hand and led him to sit on the planter.

“Muchas gracias niá±as, conceder a este viejo hombre a sentirse joven nuevamente,” (Than you very much girls, for making an old man feel young again.) he said.

“No, gracias, para bailar con nosotros seá±or.” (No, thank you for dancing with us sir.) Nevada said.

“Disfrutamos con un apuesto joven como táº, bailando con nosotros.” (We enjoyed having a handsome young man, like you, dancing with us.) Sierra added flirting with the old man.

“Usted hace mentira a un anciano, pero es un mentira bueno, no es.” (You would lie to an old man, but it is a good lie, is it not.)

Angel sang and played her rock oldies along with playing many of her classical pieces for the crowd. She had to quit a little after noon as it was getting a bit warm. The girls had taken off their skirts and changed back into their walking shoes.

Sierra had cleaned out Angel’s guitar case; there was about a hundred and twenty dollars. Angel split the money three ways to the cheers of her cousins.

From the park they headed to the mall. Angel led the girls to Leo’s music store. She smiled as she saw Leo behind the counter.

“Hi Leo, how are you?”

“Hello Angel, it is really good seeing you. I thought I told you not to bring your guitar without an adult.”

“This is a new guitar, Leo. My uncles and grandfather placed my old guitar in a vault.”

“What you didn’t buy it from me?”

“Sorry, my uncles and grandfather bought it for me, or I would have gone through you.”

“Well let me see it please.”

Leo’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he saw the beautiful guitar. Angel lifted it out of its case and laid it on a velvet pad on the counter.

“Angel, in all my years working in a music store, I have never seen such a gorgeous instrument. Who made it?”

“A luthier named Amara Verdad Cantu, in Barcelona. My uncles had it flown in by a cousin.”

Leo took out a big book and began searching through it, “Dang it girl, your family does things in a big way. That wasn’t so much as a step down to a new instrument as a step sideways. Do you know what it cost?”

“No Uncle Javier didn’t say. I think he doesn’t want me to know.”

“Then I won’t either, just take good care of it please.” He said after looking at the price ranges of twelve to twenty thousand Euros.

Leo reverently handled the guitar as he looked it over. “It is definitely new. What kind of strings does it use?”

“The booklet that came with the guitar said they are Savarez Cristal Soliste high tension. My other guitar I used D'Addario Pro-Arté EJ46 strings.”

“That sounds about right. Which do you like best?”

“For that guitar, I like those Savarez strings. Do you have any in stock?”

“No, but I can order them.”

“Good order me a dozen set of strings, Leo. Can I lock my guitar up, in the back, so I can go eat with my cousins.”

“Your cousins?” Leo asked, “Please forgive my rudeness. Hello I am Leo Granger,”

“Sorry Leo. We got caught up in things. This is Sierra Santiago and her sister Nevada Santiago.”

“You’re mountain girls, I see.”

Angel and her cousins broke out laughing, “Yes that is us, mountain girls,” Sierra said, laughing with her sister.

“Please Leo, don’t get them started on their mountain girl routine.”

“Follow me Angel, you can lock up your guitar here anytime.”

They went from Leo’s to the restroom to freshen up and makeup their faces before heading to the food court at the mall. Sierra led them to a gyro shop and they ordered large diet cokes, gyros (minced lamb that has been cooked on a spit in a molded block, then sliced thin and served in pita bread with onion and tomato) and salads.

Back at Leo’s Angel smiled as she saw Willy and Jeffery already there.

“Hey Willy, Hey Jeffery,” Angel said hugging the two guys, “these two girls are my cousins, Sierra and Nevada Santiago.”

“It’s good to meet you girls,” Jeffery said. “Do you play too?”

“No we just dance,” Nevada said.

Willy and Jeffery then began talking with Angel about what songs thwy wanted to play. She only had to say no to a couple of songs, she knew them but not well enough to play them. Leo brought her a guitar and everyone began tuning up.

“Aren’t you going to play your guitar, Angel?” Sierra asked.

“No, Leo uses this jam session to sell his guitars; therefore he wants us to play instruments he can sell.”

At two they began to play, they started out with ‘Rhiannon’. Angel sang as they played. Again a crowd began to form in Leo’s shop. Sierra and Nevada took up chairs behind Leo. Sierra saw Nevada timing the song with her hands like she would play her castanets and she began studying the rhythm too. By the end of the first chorus the girls began to play their castanets. Nobody missed a beat; Leo looked over his shoulders and smiled at the girls.

They then began ‘Dust in the Wind’, ‘More than a Feeling’, ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, ‘Uptown Girl’ ‘Mr. Bojangles’, ‘Old Black Water’ and ‘I Heard it through the Grapevine’, before taking a break. A sales clerk just took the second guitar that Angel had been playing that day.

“Can I pick out a guitar Leo?”

“Sure, pick out any guitar you want.”

As Angel went behind the counter she saw another girl standing by herself.

“Hi I am Angel Marquez, what is your name.”

The girl looked shocked at being spoken to. She had been use to people just ignoring her. “Hi I… I am Janice… Janice Fletcher. I saw you playing in the park. I loved your music and followed you here. I wondered if you were going to play in Leo’s jam session.”

“Do you play?”

“I know four or five chords, but I don’t have a guitar yet. I am saving up my money to get one.”

“Which one?”

“That Yamaha acoustic.”

The guitar the girl pointed out was one of the cheapest name brand guitars there. She reached up to the next shelf over and grabbed a nice Martin. Then she found a very good Takashima classical guitar to play herself.

“Come on back here Janice.”

Janice followed Angel back into the area where they had been playing.

“Jeffery give me an E.”

Angel tuned up both guitars to the group and handed Janice the Martin.

“‘Song Sung Blue’, boys.”

Angel began calling out the chords and strumming them. Janice followed and Angel corrected her where necessary. They went slowly through the song twice. Janice smiled as she saw how easy Angel was making it.

“Ok you follow Jeffery, Janice, while I will take my line.”

Together the three guitars, bass guitars and drums played slowly through the song. Seeing how well she was following they played it again, while Angel sang the song. Janice followed very well only missing a couple of chord changes as she played. When they finished, Janice wore a thousand watt smile.

Angel walked back to where Leo was at the drums and whispered to him. “Leo, can you sell that guitar to Janice for what that Yamaha was priced at. I will make up the difference and if you can arrange for her to make payments, I will cover the whole price if she doesn’t pay. But I don’t think that is going to happen.”

“I knew I liked you Angel. We’ll split the difference two ways, I will pay part and you can pay part. If she gives me her name, address and telephone number, she can walk out with that guitar today.”

Leo went and talked to Janice. She wouldn’t accept his offer till she called her Mom first. Leo talked to her for a few minutes. She agreed to let the girl buy the guitar if she could sign for her daughter.

Angel, Jeffery and Willy kept playing, while Leo drew up an impromptu contract. They started with ‘Guitar Man’ then went into ‘Hotel California’, ‘Rock and Roll Heaven’, ‘Diamonds and Rust,’ and they finished up playing ‘Come Monday’.

They put up their instruments and cleared the area where they played. Leo got Angel’s guitar and cut her a check for three hundred and fifty dollars. She didn’t sell as many guitars and the ones she sold weren’t the high end instruments she had sold previously, besides the arrangement she had made with Leo for Janice.

On their way out they walked past Janice and an older lady.

“Angel stop. I want you to meet my mother. Angel this is my Mom Rita Fletcher. Mom, this is Angel Marquez. You really need to hear her play she is great.”

“Hello Mrs. Fletcher, these two girls are my cousins Sierra and Nevada Santiago.”

“Hello it is nice to meet you girls.”

“I didn’t know these girls were your cousins. You should see how those two can dance that Spanish dance.” Janice said, mimicking the Flamenco.

“You mean Flamenco Dancing,” Nevada said.

“Yeah Flamenco dancing.”

“Janice you did real good on the guitar you were playing.”

“Yeah but not as good as you.”

“I have been playing since I was ten. I see that you went ahead and got that guitar.”

Janice shocked Angel when she sat down her guitar case and hugged Angel. “Yes and I want to thank you for that. I don’t know what you did, but I know you did something.”

“I want to thank you too, Angel, while we are not poor, our money is tight at times.”

“I didn’t do anything special.”

“We don’t believe that, but thank you anyway,” Mrs. Fletcher said.

Janice and Angel traded email addresses and hugged one more time before Angel said, “Well just keep up your practice Janice, you’ll be playing well in no time, and you can catch me at the park on Tuesdays. We have to get on home now.”

“Well thank you again Angel,” Janice said.
 
 
Chapter 24
 
 
Angel was with her cousins in their room just after breakfast one day.

“There are several of things every girl knows that you don’t Angel,” Sierra said.

“They need to know their favorite doll.”

“They need to know about sleepovers.”

“And they need to know how to talk about boys, fashion and makeup.”

“These are all of the dolls we had as little girls,” Sierra said, pointing at her bed.

The bed was covered with about twenty dolls. They were all lined up from little baby dolls to Barbie dolls to a couple of taller porcelain dolls with stands on top of their dresser drawers.

“Girls begin to be trained to be mommies beginning with their first baby doll at about two and a half to four years old. They learn to feed their dolls from baby bottles, diaper and dress their babies. As they get older the doll gets a little bigger or older,” Nevada said.

“They also make up names for their dolls; every girl remembers the names of most of her dolls, especially her favorite dolls. Almost every girl then moves up to Barbie dolls between six and eight. Some girls don’t because their parents think the dolls are too mature,” Sierra said, picking up one of her Barbie dolls.

The three of them sat down on the floor and played with the dolls for the rest of the morning. At lunch they had a pretend tea party with their dolls and their stuffed animals at the table.

“You miss the full impact of the tea party because most girls also dress up in party dresses, or their Mom’s over sized clothes as they sit around for their tea party,” Sierra said. “Girls are taught to how to be good mommies and wives, doing these things.”

“But there are many Barbie dolls out now, where the girls can play business professionals, doctors and astronauts.”

“I knew one girl who had several dozen Barbie dolls, many were still in their original boxes,” Sierra said.

“Why keep them in their boxes?” asked Angel.

“There is a large market for collectable Barbie dolls. Some of the first are quite valuable, especially if they are in their original boxes,” Nevada said.

“Let’s check it out on the internet.” Sierra said.

Angel sat at the family computer and booted it up. She clicked on their browser and did a google on Barbie. All three of them were surprised at the millions of hits. Angel clicked on an Ebay url and saw hundreds of Barbie dolls on sale there, priced from twenty dollars to over nine thousand dollars for some of the original or rare Barbie dolls. Other urls took them to various sites about the dolls. A couple of sites shared some of the controversy about the dolls. Some sites gave an estimate of Barbie’s measurements if she were a real adult. There were hundreds of estimates about Barbie’s size if she were a real person; most gave some ridiculously small waist and hips sizes or an extremely unrealistically tall woman of average sizes.

“This is incredible, it seems the company is selling young girls into trying to be this size. What is your size Sierra?” Angel asked.

“We both are five foot three, a hundred and five pounds, 32-24-34 and we are almost a full A cup.”

“Gee your waists and hips are larger than a real life Barbie’s would be and you two are small compared to most girls out there.”

“Oh that is so ridiculous,” Nevada said, “I can’t see us with smaller waists or hips.”

“You two are a size 2P right?”

“Yes, in ladies sizes or a size 3 in juniors, junior’s clothes are more in our tastes. We are not ready to dress like our Mom yet,” Sierra said giggling.

The three girls then spent the next couple of hours shaping and painting each other’s toe nails, fingernails and then braiding each other’s hair. The girl’s told Angel that this was just a part of what goes on at a sleep over.

“You need to go back to the salon and get your nails filled Angel,” Nevada said. “Your nails are growing out and you can see where the wraps end now.”

Angel looked at the base of her nails and saw just how noticeable the gap was, there was a clear delineation between her glass wraps and her cuticle. “I see, I guess we can go back on Tuesday early and get them.”

“You say I need to talk about boys, do you two do it.”

“Yes we do,” Sierra said. “Girls always talk about boys from age four or five. At that age they talk about how yucky boys are. Then somewhere between ten and twelve boys aren’t so yucky anymore and they start becoming yummy.”

“That’s something that I have never thought about before. What do I do?”

“Well do you know some guys your age or older?” Nevada asked.

“Of course I do.”

“Are any of them particularly handsome, cute or interesting?”

“Some of them I guess. I spent my time in middle school just trying to not get caught, pretending to be a boy.”

“Tell us about the boys you found particularly intriguing.”

For the rest of the afternoon, they talked about boys. At first it was just Angel telling the twins about the boys she knew at school. Sierra and Nevada would stop her only to ask questions about the boys Angel was describing. Later they started correcting Angel on how she described them, changing some of the adjectives she used, the things she had noticed about the boys and her body language while she was describing the boys. Sierra and Nevada also told Angel about the boys they knew, the boys they were interested in and about the boys they would never be interested in. All of this while they were doing their nails, braiding each others hair and fixing dinner.

Angel was shocked to hear her cousins talk about the boys and girls they knew, in the terms they used. She had never considered her twelve year old cousins as ‘sexual creatures’. Both girls admitted to thinking about doing “IT” with this or that boy, but they also admitted to having not done “IT” yet. Girls it seemed thought about many of the same things that boys thought about, but as a whole girls seemed to show more restraint than boys. She had to admit though, that the adjectives boys used tended to be cruder.

“Look Angel, we have gone past the ‘Prince Charming’ stage as girls, and from what I have read girls these days are thinking of and doing sexual things. That doesn’t mean Sierra and I are itching to lose our virginity, but we are thinking about guys in more sexual terms.”

“Is that because of Sex Ed?”

“I don’t think so and I can’t speak for others, but everywhere we look someone is using sex to sell something. Our TV shows all have a sexual nature to them, even most of the shows that appeal to teens,” Sierra said. “A lot of Sex Ed was on how to protect ourselves from pregnancy and disease. True there was some how to and some about the body. They also talked about gays, lesbians and people like you Angel.”

The conversation got back to boys, and Angel thought about the boys she knew, she tried to see them in the same light as her cousins would. She knew which kind of boy she liked and which ones she would definitely avoid, but she didn’t picture things in a sexual manner. After a while she was able to evaluate the boys she knew as a girl would and share the details that girls saw as important, in the language girls used.

As of this point Angel hadn’t given much thought about sex with either boys or girls. Her biggest trial in life had just been getting her body to line up with the picture of herself, in her mind.

After dinner, they watched TV shifting from VH1 to MTV to other shows that were slanted towards teens, their ages. They critiqued the clothes they saw, the makeup that the stars were seen in, and who was hot and who was not.
 
 
Chapter 25
 
 
The next day the twins were both a little cranky, as Aunt Flow took this time to make her call. The girls were more than happy to explain to Angel exactly what was happening to them, without giving their cousin a more graphic lesson. They made Angel go online and do research about a girl’s period. Angel did find one interesting detail that she might need. Girls that live in close proximity to each other, like in the same dorm room, tended to have their periods at the same time after they had lived together for two to four months.

Angel just realized that if she was going to live in a dorm room with other girls, that she would also have to find a way to keep up with when she would have her period, how to give off signs that she indeed did have a period and to detect when her dorm mates were having their periods, without being to obvious about it. She then researched ways to simulate having her own period.

Angel talked with her cousins about this and they both agreed. They even suggested that she start wearing a sanitary pad when ever they were on their period too. Nevada handed Angel a light days pad with wings and told Angel how to use it.

“Also don’t flush a tampon or a sanitary pad Angel,” Sierra said. “They will expand and clog the drains. Then others will know something is fishy because they wouldn’t do it themselves. There will always be a trashcan; either in the stall or nearby to dispose of them. You can take the wrapper from your next clean pad and wrap your current used one in it or use some toilet paper and then throw it in the trash can.”

Sierra and Nevada both showed Angel calendars they kept in their purses. They marked the onset of their period and each day they bled with a red dot. They then put red circles on the days that they expected their next period. They suggested that she buy a calendar to keep up with things like this. They also told her she needed to always make sure she had some tampons, sanitary napkins and Midol in her purse.

While Angel was on the computer she checked her email. There were some from her relatives, her Mom, and one from Janice.

Angel O:-),

I needed to send you an email thanking you. I know you talked to the store owner and helped me get my guitar. The guitar you helped me buy is much nicer than the one I was trying to buy. I already know about ten chords and am learning how to put them together to make music.

Will you be at the music store again this Tuesday? I would like to see you and show you what I have learned. My poor fingers ache, as I haven’t built up a callous yet, but I practice everyday.

Again I want to thank you for your kindness.

Janice.

Angel typed up a reply for Janice.

Janice ; -)

It is good hearing from you. I didn’t do anything that other people wouldn’t do, who had the means. I know you like to make music like I do, I can see it in your eyes. I didn’t have to work to get my guitars my Uncles and my Grandfather gave me two wonderful guitars. They also took time to teach me to play like they play. I am glad that I can share my music with you. Keep up the good work.

God willing I will be there on Tuesday, I really love playing with Jeffery, Wee Willy and Leo.

Angel O:-)

p.s. Thank you for the idea of that emoticon. I know it means angel, but I never thought to use it.
 
 
Chapter 26
 
 
The next day Angel got an hour and a half of practice in using both of her guitars, while her cousins danced. Sierra and Nevada then got her to put on one of their Flamenco skirts, and shoe before handing her a pair of castanets. They played a CD that they used to practice and took turns dancing with her. She was hardly a novice, but the girls worked her hard to improve her dancing.

They giggled when Angel missed the floor a couple of times with her toe taps. As absurd as that sounds, it actually happens quite often to dancers who are learning to tap rapidly. Her castanet play was good, but not as good as her guitar play was. Her form in the dance was basically correct most of the time, but she lacked the attitude that female Flamenco dancers generally show as they dance. Flamenco dancers put a lot of attitude into the dance as they stomp and sashay around. The women’s movements shout femininity. Angel actually was getting better, but she had a long way to go.

After their dancing the girls got out their teen magazines and went over them with Angel. They asked what she thought about this article or that story and then told her how various girls might think about what was covered. Having read every page in the five magazines she had bought, Angel had no problems talking with her cousins. She asked why girls did certain things and why they reacted in a certain manner to this and that, the twins answered as best they could.
 

*          *          *
 
Early Saturday the phone rang in the Santiago residence. Aunt Carmine answered it and after a few words were spoken passed the phone to Angel.

“Hello,” Angel said.

“Hello Angel this is Joyce Drummond. I am to be your new music teacher.

Joyce Drummond had a strong voice in the upper registers. Her voice had an ageless quality that seemed to be between twenty and forty; Angel just couldn’t nail it down. It was a perfect voice for a woman in a position of authority.

“Uncle Javier said he was going to get me a new teacher.”

“Yes he called me on Thursday and asked me to take you on as a student. I am still considering whether I will or not. He also told me that you are very good at playing the guitar.”

“Yes, I guess I am, but there is always room to improve.”

“I like that attitude Angel, you are right there is always room to improve. Now I just want to confirm what I was told. You are fourteen right?”

“Yes, I will be fifteen in September.”

“How long have you been playing the guitar?”

“For almost five years.”

“How often and how long do you practice?”

“Everyday for a minimum of an hour, usually an hour and a half to two hours, depending on the circumstances.”

“Good are you doing anything tomorrow, say around three?”

“Let me check,” Angel said. She turned to her Aunt and asked.

“No Angel, three is fine for us tomorrow.”

“We are free tomorrow Ms. Drummond.”

“Good and that is Mrs. Drummond. How well can you read a music score?”

“Not all that well, I can take sheet music and with time figure the piece out, but I can’t just pick up the score from a new song and just play it well.”

“Can you play a piano?”

“I can’t play well, I sometimes use a piano to work out an unfamiliar score. I do know all the keys on a piano and I have memorized the frequencies of the keys.”

“Really,” Joyce said. The she asked Angel the frequencies of about a dozen keys, which Angel answered correctly. “Why do you know the frequencies of all the piano keys?”

“I don’t know, I once saw a chart of piano and guitar frequencies. I thought it could help so I took a couple of weeks one summer to memorize it. It is helpful to me in tuning up.”

“Do you have perfect pitch?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay we will check you out tomorrow.”

“Okay I am looking forward to meeting you.”

“I want you to start warming up at two thirty, okay.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Bye.

“Bye.”

Two hours later Angel received a letter from Christie’s Auction house. Inside a 9 by 12 inch envelope was a twenty page document and two cover letters. The cover sheet boiled down what the document concluded. The first section set out a detailed provenance for the guitar, from the ancestor who first purchased the guitar, in October of 1879 in the city of Almeria, Spain, down through the various relatives who had owned the guitar. Angel was amazed that the line of ownership was more inclusive than what her grandfather had remembered.

The next section dealt with research on the guitar itself. It covered forty five criteria from the materials; the woods used, the various finishes, the construction, the appearance and the tonal qualities of the instrument.

The next section compared the guitar with six known Antonio De Torres guitars; by size, shape, materials used and appearance.

The last section of the cover letter contained the conclusions of the researchers. Three hundred and seventy two words of the cover letter came down to the last two sentences of the document.

The guitar presented to our research department was consistent in every way with an Antonio De Torres guitar. Therefore we are confident enough to Vet that instrument as authentic and issue this provenance as an Antonio De Torres guitar.

The cover sheet was signed by Michael Dunn Appraiser and by each of the scientists and researchers who worked on the enclosed document.

Angel felt a lot of trepidation about what was to become of her guitar. She was afraid that it would be taken away and locked up, but she knew that she had to talk to her Mom and the old men.

Angel’s woes became true after she talked to her Mom, uncles and grandfather. The cost of insuring the instrument was too high to store the instrument at her or Aunt Carmine’s home. They weren’t taking the guitar away from her, but for her safety and the safety of the guitar, it had to be locked up. She was happy to hear that Leo’s did have a bonded secure storage for musical instruments. She was to take her guitar to Leo’s on Monday and lock it up. Till Angel was eighteen she would need to have an adult with her to sign it out. She would also have to notify the insurance company before she retrieved it and when it was returned.
 
 
Chapter 27
 
 
Sunday after church and lunch, Angel began to warm up on her new guitar. She began with some of her simpler pieces to loosen up. Her fingers glided effortlessly across the strings that sang as she plucked and strummed them. She was in a world of her own as she went on to some of her more complex pieces across the many genres of music she knew. Her Aunt and Cousins just watched in awe as she played.

She was playing Recuerdos De La Alhambra when the doorbell rang.

“Keep playing Angel, I just love that music,” Carmen said, as she got up to answer the door.

Carmine opened the door to a woman who looked to be in her late twenties, early thirties. She appeared to be very professional in her appearance. She was around five foot six and a hundred and thirty pounds. She had blonde hair in a bun, fair complexion, hazel eyes and a tight smile. She was dressed in a black skirted suit, a simple white blouse, off black hosiery and black low heel pumps. She had a black purse, a black satchel and was pulling a long case on its wheels.

“Hello I am Carmen Santiago; I take it that you are Joyce Drummond.”

“Yes Mrs. Santiago, I am Joyce Drummond. I am here to evaluate whether I want to teach Angel.”

“Please come in, and please call me Carmine.”

“Thank you.”

Joyce followed Carmine to where Angle and her cousins were. Angel was just playing the last notes of Recuerdos De La Alhambra.

“That was very nice. You must be Angel Marquez,” Joyce said. “I am Joyce Drummond, and who might these two beauties be.”

“Mrs. Drummond this is my cousin Sierra and my cousin Nevada Santiago.” Angel said.

“It’s nice to meet you girls”

“Nice to meet you Mrs. Drummond,” They both said.

“Can we have a little privacy, please?”

Sierra and Nevada both got up and went into the living room. Joyce set her things down on the kitchen table and open the case she had been dragging. Inside was a Roland Fantom G8 keyboard. She set it up on the kitchen table.

“Angel I must admit, that I don’t play the guitar, but I am very accomplished on the keyboard and in music theory. I am not certain about how I may be of assistance but we shall see. Now play me your most challenging and eclectic music, till I say stop.”

Angel started by playing several Flamenco pieces, Spanish guitar, Classical, Jazz and Rock pieces.

“Ok, that is enough for now; I see that you really are a very advanced guitarist.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you have a music list?”

“Yes ma’am, Mrs. Drummond.” Angel went to her room and wheeled out a dolly with two boxes and a 2 inch ring binder. She handed the ring binder to Joyce and said. “This is my music list. I have it sorted alphabetically, by title, author and by genre. The boxes contain my music books and sheet music.”

Joyce looked over the binder.

“You have a strange collection of music, Angel.”

“Yes ma’am, I have five teachers and each has his own favorites.”

“Who are your other teachers?”

“My Grandfather Fernando Ramos, Uncle Javier Ramos and Uncle Rolando Ramos teach me Spanish, Flamenco and classical music. Pedro Aguilar and Ricky Montez teach me Jazz, classical and rock.”

“I have heard of Pedro Aguilar and Ricky Montez, before.”

“Yes, they played for several rock groups in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s. They also did set work in Nashville, Detroit and LA,”

“Okay now I am going to check your ability to discern notes? See if you can identify the notes I am playing.”

Joyce stood in front of her keyboard and played a couple of dozen notes. Angel identified the notes by key number, note and frequency, such as key 49-A4-440hz, key 20-E2-82.4069hz and key 67-d#6-1244.51hz. She turned a dial on her keyboard that skewed the pitch slightly and played middle C.

“That is key 40-C4 but the note is a little sharp. It is between C4 and C#4, but closer to C4.”

“Very good Angel, you seem to have perfect pitch. Now let’s see how well you read music.” Joyce reached into her satchel and pulled out a sheet of music, handing it to Angel.

The sheet of music did not have a title, and she didn’t recognize it. It had four parts, violin, violin, viola and cello. “May I write on this sheet Mrs. Drummond?”

“Yes you may.”

Angel got a ruler and a pencil and began figuring out the chords for the score. It took her about ten minutes to do that, and then she began to mentally compose a part for the classical guitar. She took her guitar and began to play bits of the piece and make adjustments. After about thirty minutes she played it through a couple of times working on the chord progressions.

“Okay I think I have got it,” Angel said, and she played it.

The piece was baroque and not unlike many of the pieces Angel played. She liked the way it sounded to her.

“That was very good Angel, did you like the piece?”

“Yes it is like a lot of my classical pieces.”

Joyce and Angle did a post mortem on the piece, and they talked about the piece. Joyce played the tune on her keyboard as Angel played it on her guitar. Joyce would stop and either make a change here and there or have Angel make a change, before they would continue. They then played the tune all the ways through with Joyce recording on her synthesizer.

“Who wrote that piece Mrs. Drummond?”

“I did, as a part of my studies at college.”

“Do you play any string instruments?”

“I play the violin some, but not as well as the piano. You don’t have to play an instrument to be able to compose for it, sometimes it helps, but it isn’t a requirement.”

“Now I will play a few pieces from your list, try to compliment rather than lead.”

Angel was use to being the lead and she had to work at playing with Joyce. They played Minuet in G, Prelude in C minor, Fur Elise, and Paganini’s Caprice no. 24.

“You follow pretty good, now lead on Classical Gas.”

Angel was surprise at the way they sounded together. She had never played that piece with accompaniment before. The piano gave it a whole new dimension although the guitar was still the star. When she finished that piece, Angel just smiled and continued into Bohemian Rhapsody. Within a few notes Joyce was playing along with her.

“Well, I see what we need to do; first you really need to learn to read music faster, you did well for the most part, but not nearly good enough. We need for you to learn to play with other instruments, and expand your repertoire. I have twelve simple scores, I want to you to practice playing without taking time to work them out first. Learn to play while you read.”
 
 
Chapter 28
 
 
Monday Carmine traded a weekend with her boss to get today off. She would work Saturday and Sunday for Monday and Tuesday. At ten that morning she headed to the Mall with Angel and her daughters. Angel reluctantly opened the safe and took out her beloved guitar, leaving her new guitar still there. Together they headed to Leo’s at the mall.

“Hello Angel,” Leo said as the four ladies entered his shop, “and hello Mrs. Santiago, Sierra and Nevada. What can I do for you ladies?”

“I understand that you have a bonded secure storage for musical instruments,” Carmine said. “It appears that we are in need of your services.”

“Oh yes, I was kind of expecting that, come with me back to the office.”

Back in his office he offered Carmen and Angel a seat while Sierra and Nevada were checking out the store.

“Now I suppose you need a locker big enough for your guitar is that right Angel,”

“Yes sir, Leo the insurance cost was too prohibitive for me to keep the instrument at my home.” Angel stated.

“Which insurance company did you go with?”

Carmen supplied him with the name of the company.

“I hate not having my guitar at my side, but I know it will be safer here than with me carrying it around.”

“The company wants notification of when we deposit the guitar in your vault and when we remove it for any reason,” Carmen said.

“Okay storage is one twenty five a year. My vault is climate controlled and extremely secure. I will make notifications when necessary. I need the signatures from Angel and an adult. Any additions to the authorized lessees will need to come here with the same signatory that signed the original leaser.”

Leo spent the next five minutes talking terms with Carmen Santiago. The three of them then signed the lease. Angel would not be able to take the guitar out of storage without an adult signatory present till she reaches the age of eighteen.

“Okay let’s lock this baby up,” Leo said.

Angel and Carmen followed Leo out of his office and through a door on the other side. After he shut and locked the door he led them around the corner. They were surprised to see an eight foot steel vault door.

“What was this place, a bank,” Angel asked.

“You’re pretty sharp young lady. Yes before I moved my store here this place was a bank. They went out of business before construction ended. The Mall management tried everyway they knew to get another bank in here, but you just don’t see many banks inside of Malls anywhere. I have a fifteen by twenty foot vault. It is time locked from eight to three seven days a week. You can pick your instrument up anytime within those hours, outside of that I need twenty four hour notice to be able to have the vaults opened for you.”

Leo opened the large vault door and to one side was a key box to the other was a small room. Leo checked one key out.

“All the doors are double locked like a safe deposit box, but the boxes are a lot larger. If you want to check your instrument out first use the side room. When you are ready come on out. I suggest you loosen or remove the strings for long term storage in there.”

Angel took her guitar into the room and loosened the strings till there was no tension. She then wiped down the instrument and carefully placed it in its case.

Together they headed to her locker and locked up her guitar.

“You know I hate you a little for this don’t you. I was blissfully playing an enormously rare instrument till I met you.”

“I know Angel, but it was too much risk for a person to carry it around. There are too few instruments made by the masters around these days. I hope that you will forgive me.”

“I do, but it still hurts.” Angel appreciated that Leo said person instead of child.
 
 
Chapter 29
 
 
Tuesday Angel met Janice in the park. She didn’t play to the crowds this time but sat on the grass playing with and teaching Janice to play the guitar, while Sierra and Nevada just sat around listening to the girls play.

“I don’t think that I will ever be as good as you Angel,” Janice said in frustration.

“Sure you can be, if you want to and try hard enough. You already play pretty good for a beginner. I am sure that you can learn.”

“How did you get so good? You could be playing professionally, I think.”

“I don’ think that I am quite that good, but I had a lot of very good teachers helping me learn. My grandfather and great uncles were driven so to speak to teach me. So I just found myself driven to be the best guitarist I could be.”

“You are that good; you must have spent your whole life practicing. Do you still have any time for your friends?”

“I… I don’t have many friends… I have always had a hard time making friends. Except for my cousins, I would be lost with them.”

“I can’t believe that, you seem so bubbly and outgoing to me.”

“I… I have to admit, I have changed a lot,” Angel said. ‘Boy have I changed,’ she thought.

“Well if this is the new you, I hope you never go back to the old you. I hope that you can call me a friend.”

“You are Janice, I like you.”
 

*          *          *
 
It got hot really early that day so the girls headed to Mall early. They dropped their guitars off at Leo’s and headed to the food court at about eleven thirty. Angel was amazed at how well her cousins fell in with Janice. She amazed herself even at how open she was with this girl.

It took them about thirty minutes to make it to the food court as they window shopped on the way. Many of the stores had their holiday displays in their windows and they all had to stop and look at them as they moved through the Mall.

They all stopped at the pizza shop and got a slice, a salad and a drink. They happily talked about this and that as they ate and watched all the people come and go. That is until they heard.

“Girls, I can’t believe that you would sit down and have lunch with that thing!”

The girls turned and saw Lisa Caldwell coming in their direction.

“Ya’ll get away from ‘IT’,” Lisa all but shouted.

“What are you talking about, Lisa!?!” Sierra said, as she stood and stepped in between Lisa and the rest of them.

“That thing is a lie, that thing is not a girl,” She said, pointing toward Janice.

“For that matter, I am not so sure about YOU,” Nevada yelled back to Lisa.

“Why you bitch,” Lisa shouted, at Nevada.

“No, you got it wrong; you are the only bitch around here!” Angel shouted back at her. “So just get your ass in gear and get on out of here!”

Lisa began to cower as Angel and her cousins got in her face. She could see the murderous gazes in their eyes and began to back away.

“We’ll just see about this.” Lisa said, before turning away and leaving.

The girls turned back to find Janice with her head on the table crying. “I am so sorry about all of this. You must hate me now.”

“Why would we hate you? It’s that bitch Lisa that we hate,” Angel said. “She is just a spoiled rotten bitch.”

Janice then began to speak softly, “But it’s true. I am a freak.”

“What are you some sort of mass murderer, rapist or terrorist?” Angel asked.

“No, I am a boy, who wants to be a girl.”

“You look like a girl, talk like a girl and think like a girl,” Nevada said. “So in my book you are a girl.”

Sierra agreed with her whole heartedly.

Angel started to confess to Janice, but looks from her cousins stopped her.

“Janice, you are more of a girl, than that Lisa Caldwell is,” Angel said. “Just live your life like you feel you should.”

---

 
To Be Continued...

by Paula Dillon

---

 
 
Chapter 30
 
 
Angel turned to Sierra and asked her to follow Lisa for a bit, “Call me if she heads back this way. Nevada and I are going to take Janice to the ladies room and get her fixed up.”

Sierra took off as Angel and Nevada helped get up and head to the ladies room. Once they were there Angel just held Janice till she stopped crying.

“Pull yourself together, Janice,” Angel whispered into her ear. “You aren’t the only girl who is different and you won’t be the last.”

“Why are you helping me? Didn’t you hear, I am a freak.”

“You look alright to me. Now clean up your face.”

Janice wiped her face, and Nevada helped her with her makeup. Sierra called Angel and said that Lisa was coming back with security. They hurried up and were back at their table before security got there. The three of them were all acting natural when security arrived and walked past us.

“There is the pervert,” Lisa shouted to security.

They stopped and looked incredulously at Angel, Nevada and Janice.

“You are kidding Ma’am. It is a crime to make a false report.”

“The brown haired thing there is a boy and a pervert.”

“I only see three girls sitting there and having a meal. Just what was she doing that could be considered offensive?”

“It just being here is offensive to me.”

“Ma’am I am going to have to ask you to come with us.”

Janice started to get up, but the security team took Lisa by the arm and began to escort her away.

Another of the security team approached the girls and said, “I want to apologize for our intrusion. We have had problems with perverts in the past and we take all such reports seriously. The Mall doesn’t care if people are transgendered or otherwise as long as they act appropriately and I am not about to ask if anybody is transgendered, so please accept our apologies.”

Ten minutes later Sierra joined them. “They took Lisa to the security office and after about five minutes they escorted her out of the Mall. I heard them tell her not to come back to the Mall for six months or they would file trespassing charges on her. She was cussing and bitching all the way,” She said giggling.

Angel filled in Sierra on what had happened here.

“You mean you guys don’t care that I may not be a girl.”

“Why should we?” Sierra said. “You look like a girl to me, and even if you are, what did you say Angel, transgendered, you have a right to be who you are or should be. You are certainly a better girl than that Lisa Caldwell.”

“You are our friend, Janice,” Angel said to her, holding her hand.

“Yeah and now you are on the top of the list of our friends,” Nevada said giggling. “I would have paid big bucks to see that Lisa kicked in the pants.”

“Unfortunately they just escorted her to the door. I wanted to kick her ass,” Sierra said.

“And yo… you… don’t care.”

“Why should we? Are you going to attack us or something?” Angel asked.

“No… no… you are my friends.”

“Ok, let’s go play,” Angel said.

There was a big crowd waiting at Leo’s that day. Word about Angel had spread like wild fire.

“Damn, I am going to have to get permission from the mall to move this jam session to the stage we have in the mall next week. The Mall manager loves our sessions. She said that the other stores have reported that before and after our jam sessions, sales at the mall go up.”

The mall had a stage area next to the food court, where they held community plays and free concerts.

Angel sold seven guitars that day, one after she had just tuned it up. Angel had to revert to her own guitar, when Dave asked for that guitar; Angel looked crossly at him and said, “Not on your life, Dave. This is my guitar. Death to anyone who tries to take it,” hugging her guitar to her chest. Dave walked away shaking, her look had really scared him and left the band laughing.

They did a few easy songs and Janice joined in on them, along with several other people. They even had someone join them on a keyboard, another played a trumpet and the twins played their castanets. Angel played a few more of her Spanish pieces than usual. The twins did their dancing at the back, which got the crowd clapping.

After they finished playing, the girls found Carmine and Rita waiting for them at the front of the store. Angel told Janet not to say anything about what had happened yet, as they went to greet them.

“Wow, all of you really are as talented as my daughter has told me,” Rita said, as the girls got to the front.

“Oh Mrs. Fletcher, hello,” Angel said. “Aunt Carmine, this is Rita Fletcher. Mrs. Fletcher, this is my Aunt Carmine Santiago and the twins Mother.”

“Hello Mrs. Santiago, it is so nice meeting you. You have such a talented family.”

“Please call me Carmine, yes they are talented, especially Angel.”

The adults talked about the show that was put on and Leo joined them. He handed Angel a check for two thousand dollars, after telling everybody about the guitars and things they had sold.

“I set a sales record today and not just for the guitars you sold Angel. Seriously, the mall manager wants us to play on the stage the week after next.”

“I can’t Leo,” Angel said. “I am going to have to visit the school I am starting this fall. I have to take exams and such. I don’t know when the next time I will be able to play.”

“Dang it,” Leo said laughing. “Well, give me a call, a week or two in advance and I will try to set something up.”

On the way home, the trio told Aunt Carmine what had happened at the Mall. She was surprised that Janice was like Angel, happy that Angel had not outed herself, incensed at what Lisa had done and she agreed with the girls about not making a scene at the music store.

“Please Angel, talk it over with your Mom or me before you tell anybody about yourself. I need to talk to Rita, do you have her number.”

Angel gave Aunt Carmine the Fletcher’s telephone number when they got home. She went to her bedroom and made a call.

Angel, with her cousins’ assistance, began to fix dinner.
 
 
Chapter 31
 
 
Friday evening, Angel had another lesson with Joyce Drummond. Joyce handed her a stack of new music to learn, none of the new sheets had chording. Joyce asked Angel to try not to manually chord them and to try to play them later. She wanted Angel to try to read and play the music. She then handed Angel another piece of music.

It was an untitled piece; Angel saw that it was written for guitar and piano. This sheet did have chording. Angel read the whole sheet of music before she picked up the guitar. It had the same feel as the classical music she loved. She played the line she would play in her head before she began to play her guitar. The piece had a short piano entry, but Angel just started with her part.

Joyce let her play it through a couple of times before she joined Angel in playing. There were several places where they played together, the guitar played a solo and where the piano soloed. They went through the piece three times. Angel and Joyce made some alterations at various points. The fingering was very complex for Angel and she found that she liked it. When Angel and Joyce were satisfied, Joyce added a mike to her workstation/keyboard for the guitar. After she played with the levels a bit, she recorded their music.

They played and recorded the piece twice. Stopping to listen to the tracks they had just recorded before playing it again.

“Well how did you like it, Angel?”

“I like it very much. You wrote this, didn’t you?”

“Yes I did. I got the idea from listening to you play. I wrote it to be especially challenging for you.”

“It wasn’t easy, and I know I can improve the way I play it, but I really like it. It’s a very good piece of music. I would give you an A+,” Angel said, teasing Mrs. Drummond.

“Well this is the first time that I have been graded by a student and I think it is an honor.” She said smiling at Angel. “I have copied several tracks on this CD. Track one is just the piano, so you can play the guitar to it. Tracks two and three are what we recorded today. Use that to practice your guitar part. You can keep that sheet music, but don’t publish it. It is a work in progress and yet to be copyrighted, although I did send a copy to myself by registered mail.”

“I really liked the way the guitar and keyboard worked together to compliment and challenge each other.”

Joyce handed the CD to Angel.

Angel and Joyce worked together for about a half an hour more, before they called it quits. Angel told her about her having to go to her new school for tests. Joyce made some notes on her PDA.

The next morning, the last day of June, the house was a bee hive of activity. Today was the day Margarita would be coming home. Uncle Javier and Grandfather Fernando were already here. They were expecting Rolando shortly and a few other cousins would soon be here. Margarita wasn’t expected till about three in the afternoon.

Carmine and Esmeralda Cortez, a third, or fourth cousin, (Angel would really need a family tree to figure it out) were in the kitchen preparing a feast. When those two were busy in the kitchen, there wasn’t a man alive that would get in their way.

Uncle Rolando, with several other cousins, arrived with two cases of Spanish wine. Sierra, Nevada and Angel had the kids (eleven kids, between three and twelve, at last count) corralled in the backyard and kept them busy and out of everybody else’s hair. Soon there were about thirty people counting the children.

Javier and Fernando had all the cars moved around the corner and out of the way. This was really going to be one big surprise party.

Finally Sierra and Nevada were told to get all the kids out of sight of the door. All of the adults went back into the bedrooms and garage. Angel sat in the recliner, reading a magazine and was told to react coolly to her mother, while Sierra and Nevada were playing with a ball in the back yard. Carmine was in the kitchen cooking.

The front door opened and Margarita entered the house.

“Hello everybody, I am home,” Margarita said.

“Oh hi Mom,” Angel said, barley looking up from the magazine. “Aunt Carmine, Mom is here.”

“Gee, has everybody forgotten about me,” Margarita said, somewhat dejectedly.

Carmine stuck her head around the door and said, “Oh, hi Sis, dinner will be ready in a couple of minutes.”

“Gee, don’t anyone break a sweat welcoming me.”

Margarita barely got the word me out of her mouth, when people came flooding in shouting,“ Congratulations!”. Angel jumped up and ran to her Mom and hugged her.

Margarita jumped in surprise and almost broke down in tears as everybody came over to give her hugs and kisses. The fiesta then began in earnest. There was food, wine, music and dancing till almost ten pm, when things quieted down a bit, but the last of the people didn’t leave till almost midnight. Javier, Rolando and Fernando took a taxi to the hotel Carmine worked, as they would be in town for another week. There had been quite a few that had taken taxis to nearby hotels, because they were unfit to drive.

Angel had to help her Mom get to Aunt Carmine’s room, while the twins helped their Mom.

Sierra and Nevada wanted to head for bed, but Angel enlisted their help to clean up a bit. It was close to two in the morning when they all got to bed.
 
 
Chapter 32
 
 
Angel was the first up on Sunday, at about seven that morning. The sound of heavy snoring reverberated the walls. She dressed in her robes and went to the kitchen. She was glad that she and the twins had spent the extra time cleaning last night. She unloaded the dishwasher, finished cleaning up and taking out the trash.

The twins didn’t stir till about eight thirty; they drug themselves into the kitchen. Angel made them breakfast and they seemed to perk up as they were eating.

Carmine and Margarita both got up at about eleven thirty, mostly out of necessity. Angel made them both a Virgin Mary mixed with a raw egg (tomato juice, salt, pepper, lemon juice, celery stalk, dash of tobasco). Both of the adults came into the kitchen and sat gingerly.

“Oh God, how much did I drink yesterday,” Margarita asked.

“About as much as I did.” Carmine said.

“Remind me not to let Uncle Javier be in charge of filling our glasses next time.”

“You got it, Sis.”

Margarita almost choked on her drink, “God Angel, what did you put in these drinks.”

Angel told them what they were made of, “Now just drink them up and don’t complain. You did this to yourselves,” she said, giggling as she gave them each a couple of extra strength acetaminophen, a couple of chewable vitamin C, and a couple of ginseng capsules. She then made them each a cup of green tea.

The girls kept the hot tea flowing for about an hour and a half. Angel tended to her Mom, as the twins helped their Mom. About two that afternoon, the two women began to perk up a bit.

“Angel, where did you learn to make that horrid concoction?” Margarita asked.

“On the internet. I looked it up this morning,” she said, a little too cheerfully. “It is supposed to help you recover from your hangover. I didn’t get a chance to say it yesterday, but it is so good seeing you, again.”

“I was beginning to wonder, after I walked in the door, yesterday.”

“It was all Uncle Javier’s idea, Mom.”

“Yeah and he also got me drunk.”

“You just need to loosen up a bit, every now and then.”

“We missed church today?”

“Yep, but don’t worry too much about it, I don’t think anybody from the party made it.”
 

*          *          *
 
About five that afternoon there was a small group of people, much more subdued than the previous day, assembled in Carmine’s house. They were the ‘Old Men’ and a few of the other family musicians. They were putting Angel through the paces. One or another of them would call out the name of a piece of music and Angel would play it for them while they critiqued her.

Finally she said, “I have a piece that I want you all to hear. It doesn’t have a name yet. Mrs. Drummond wrote it.” Angel said, inserting a CD into the stereo.

Javier explained who Mrs. Drummond was, while Angel set things up. When she was ready she nodded to Sierra, who hit the play button on the CD player.

Angel waited for her cue and began to play. The whole piece lasted for five minutes and twenty three seconds. She was lost in the music, and had a wonderful smile on her face. The music faded to nothing and the people sat in silence for several seconds, before they erupted in applause.

“That piece has several rough spots, but overall, I think it is a marvelous piece of music,” Julio Dominguez said.

“Yes it is Julio, I think we made a good choice with Mrs. Drummond, did we not Angel?”

“Yes, I like her. She is still working on that music, Uncle Javier.”

“How often do you practice and for how long?” Rita Dominguez, Julio’s wife asked.

“Everyday for an hour and a half, to two hours. I also play every Tuesday with Leo Granger; he has a jam session at his music store. It helps him sell his Music instruments. I have helped him sell about forty-five thousand in guitars this month.”

“Just you and Leo playing?” Uncle Rolando asked.

“No, Leo plays the drums. Jeffery Wilkins, plays an electric guitar and Wee Willy Jenkins, plays an electric bass. The girls have also danced and played their castanets there too.”

“That is where you have stored your guitar, is it not?” Uncle Javier asked.

“Yes sir. I love playing with those guys. The Mall wants me to play a mini concert there for them, but I won’t have time after Friday.”

“Is the shop open on Sunday?” Uncle Javier asked.

“Yes sir, for about an hour more,” Angel said, checking her watch.

“Call him and let me talk to him.”
 

*          *          *
 
Monday, Angel had her nails worked on at the Mall, Susan did them like Angel requested, without question this time. She rewrapped the nails on the right hand and just filled in the nails on her left.

Tuesday, she and the girls dressed in their costumes, as their Mom’s did. Carmine drove them to the Mall, where they met the rest of the family. They caused quite a stir as they walked in the mall carrying their instruments into Leo’s.

Leo Granger was all smiles as he saw Angel come in. “Welcome to my store,” Leo said.

Angel made all of the introductions to Leo and told him what instrument they would be playing. Julio played the trumpet, Rita played the keyboard and Carlos played the violin.

They all checked the store out. They were pleased with the quality of the instruments they found. There were your basic starter instruments to some very high end instruments.

“Angel, you never told me that Leo knew Pedro Aguilar,” Uncle Rolando said.

“I didn’t know he did.”

“Look at the picture here.”

“I didn’t notice the picture before,” Angel said, as she looked. “Is that Jerry Garcia he is standing next to?”

“Yes it is,” Leo said. “We did some set work with the Grateful Dead back in Nashville.”

“We would like to get the Torres guitar out, Leo,” Javier said. “Angel will be playing that today and thank you for your good eyes. It made us all check out our instruments. Rolando and I are both playing Jose Ramirez guitars and didn’t know their value.”

Leo, Angel and Carmine all went to the vault and retrieved the guitar. Leo also called security for an escort.

Leo introduced the act as the Ramos family and Angel was tasked with introducing the individuals on stage. They did two sets of about an hour and a half each. Angel, against her wishes, was solo for about half the first show. The twins and their Moms danced at various times during the show. The first half of the show featured a lot of their Spanish music and classical pieces.

After a short break, Angel did the second set with Leo, Jeffery and Wee Willy. It consisted of a lot of the oldies rock she knew. Angel just had to finish with ‘Little Willy’, she surprised them, but after they heard Angel sing ‘North side, East side, Little Willy, Willy wears the crown,” they knew what to expect. Willy, playing the bass, acted and danced, wearing a silly grin. Angel had the crowd singing the last three choruses with her.

The applause was deafening, as the crowd cheered them on. Angel had never played for such a large crowd, but she loved every minute of it.

The crowd had started out pretty thin, only about fifty people, but it didn’t take very long for the crowd to grow. By the end of the show, it was standing room only, about seven hundred people. The Old Men were very pleased with the show.

The first person to greet her when she left the stage was Janice and Rita. Janice almost leapt into her arms and the two of them hugged.

“Wow Angel, that was magnificent, marvelous, wonderful, like the best,” she said, jumping up and down.

“Calm down girl, it wasn’t that great.”

Janice put both hands on her hips and leaned toward her friend, “Oh yes it was and I won’t hear it from you that it wasn’t.”

“Alright I give up.”

Angel introduced Janice to the rest of her family. Each one got a hug from this rambunctious young lady. She then introduced her mother.

Their little get together was interrupted by a Lady in a business suit and Leo.

“Hello, I am Adele Williams; I am the manager for West View Mall. I want to thank you Angel for agreeing to play for us today. I only wished we had a couple of weeks notice.”

“I am sorry, everything was so spur of the moment, this was all Uncle Javier’s idea.”

“Well thank him for me and here is your check.”

“Check, what check?”

“The check for your performance, silly.” Ms Williams said, handing Angel a check.

“TWO THOUSAND five hundred dollars,” Angel said mouth open, eyes as big as half dollars. “Mom, we need to split this with everybody,”

“You will do no such thing,” Uncle Rolando said, from behind her. “Put that money in the bank, my little girl.”

“Leo?”

“Don’t look at us, we loved playing with you. Put it in the bank like a good girl. I’ll take care of Jeffery and Willey.”

“You better; you owe each of us a case of Schlenkerla Urbock, pay up old man.” Jeffery said.

“I feel bad keeping it all.”

“They didn’t come to see us Angel,” Wee Willy said. “They can see us any Tuesday at Leo’s. These people came to see you. You are the star girl, so put the money in the bank.”

“Ok, Mom I need to put up the guitar.”

Rolando and Javier, who had gotten keys, handed Angel and Leo their guitars. Angel then placed all three of them into her locker. She turned to her Mom and said, “Mom, Janice is just like me, only she doesn’t know about me.”

“You’re kidding, that girl…”

“Yes, she is…”

“Well, don’t tell her for now.”

“Okay, why don’t you invite them to our home?”

“Good idea.”

Margarita went to talk to Rita and Janice, “Would you two like to come over to our house for dinner tonight?”

“Please Mom,” Janice said excitedly.

“Well…”

“Is there a Mr. Fletcher?”

“Yes but he is away rough necking on some oil rig, or another, eight or nine months a year. Summer is their busiest time of the year. Alright, we can come over for a bit.”

At Carmine’s home, the kids all went to the twins’ room and the ladies went to the kitchen.

“Gee, I just love your room,” Janice said. “Do all three of you stay in this room?”

“I have another room, but I prefer sleeping with my cousins. I am an only child and never knew what I was missing not having a brother or sister. Sierra and Nevada treat me like a sister.”

“I have an older brother, his name is Timothy, but he went away to college and got married.”

“If you don’t mind us asking, how long have you known you were different?” Sierra asked.

“No, I don’t mind, I consider you guys my friends. I have always been fascinated by girls clothing. When I was ten I started to ask Mom a lot of questions about girls. She was a little embarrassed at first, then opened up and we had some serious talks about boys and girls. Mom first asked me if I wanted to be a girl. I had to think about it for a couple of weeks. It all started to make sense to me; I did wish that I had been born a girl. Mom found a friend who knew more about it, he’s a psychologist. Together we talked it over. He suggested I experiment with it when I was eleven. I live as a girl right now all the time, except when Dad is around, but he is away most of the time now.”

“Your dad doesn’t like you dressing as a girl?” Angel asked.

“No he doesn’t. I think Mom would leave him if he didn’t send most of his checks home. I think he is fooling around when he is away.”

“Did he ever hit you?” Nevada asked.

“No, but he can scare the hell out of you with out touching you. My brother knows about me, but he just ignores me, which is kinda ok. He is ten years older than I am and I am thirteen now. I never played with, or talked with him much growing up. He was already out of the house when I started dressing as a girl.”
 

*          *          *
 
In the kitchen, a similar conversation was taking place.

“Rita, would you mind if I tell my sister what happened the other day at the mall?”

Rita looked a little frightened, but if Carmine and Angel accepted her daughter, she supposed that Margarita might accept her. “No, I guess I don’t mind.”

Carmine told her sister what happened at the mall. The girls didn’t tell her till they were on their way home. She had called Rita when she got home and they talked a bit about the situation.

“Who is that bitch, Lisa Caldwell?”

“She goes to my church, Sis. Her parents are big supporters at the church, but they are not well liked. They are all very opinionated and prejudiced. They almost left when some blacks and Hispanics joined our church. They probably consider us to be Mexicans.”

“You’re not Latin American?” Rita asked.

“No, we are Castilian, our roots come from OLD Spain. Mom and Dad came from the area around Madrid,” Margarita said.

“When did they come over?”

“Grandfather immigrated to the US around 1949; they lived there through the Spanish civil war and much of the recovery after WWII. In a way, Spain was punished worse for not choosing sides than Germany. Germany was well on its way to recovery by 1950, Spain didn’t begin to recover till 1953,”

“I didn’t know Spain had a civil war in the 1900’s.”

“Yes for two and half years beginning in 1936. It isn’t taught too much in the US.”

“So you don’t really mind about… You know about my Daughter.”

“Why should we? She is happy, I can tell that. She isn’t hurting anyone, is she? Angel and the mountain girls seem to like her,”

“Mountain Girls?”

“Yes Sierra and Nevada,” Carmine said.

“Oh that’s cute, I hadn’t thought about the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”

“Yeah it was cute; I hurt like hell having those two babies.”

“You love them, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, but it still hurt like hell.”
 
 
Chapter 33
 
 
The next few days went by in a whirl, that found Angel and her cousins getting ready to head to Sarah Adam’s Academy for Girls.

The Fourth of July had been fun for them Janice and her Mom had joined them for a barbecue; there had been games and other festivities that culminated in a spectacular fireworks display.

The next day the girls had to go shopping for some odds and ends for their stay at school the next week. You know what type things they needed, travel supplies of shampoo, conditioner, bath soap and such, along with some snacks in case they got hungry. They bought some new towels, bedding and pillows, the girls coordinated what they bought to what Angel had already bought.

Saturday the girls all packed their bags for the week. Angel was surprised at all of the luggage that three girls required for just a weeks stay. They would need to take both Carmine’s and Margarita’s cars to carry everything.

It was decided that the kids would ride with Margarita and Carmine would haul most of the stuff. They would leave after soon after the early Mass. They loaded the bulk of their luggage into Carmine’s station wagon that night.

It was hard for everyone to get up and look respectable leaving the house at seven am to catch the early Mass, but the girls did it. The sermon that day was living the righteous life, and was about how Christians should live their everyday lives. How can a Christian be a beacon in the darkness, when they treat sinners with hate? They can’t. Jesus didn’t rebuke the woman at the well. He didn’t cast the stone at the woman caught in adultery. The people he rebuked the hardest were the religious people who cheated and lorded themselves over the masses. He loved the humble spirit, the teachable soul and the downtrodden.

After church they picked up Carmine’s Car and headed out. It took about an hour and a half to get to Sarah Adam’s Academy for Girls, mostly due to all the twists and turns on country roads and due to the fact, that they had never been there before.

They were directed to park outside of the Admin bldg, where other older girls directed them to the Headmistress’s office.

The pack sat out in the waiting room for about ten minutes. Another family exited the office and two minutes later they were all invited in. A matronly woman of about fifty greeted them as they entered.

“Hello, I am Ethel Beckman, Headmistress of Sarah Adam’s Academy for girls. I want to welcome you all here today.”

“It’s nice to meet you Ms. Beckman,” Margarita said. “I am Margarita Delores Ramos-Marquez; this is my daughter Angel Louisa Marquez, my sister Carmine Estella Ramos-Santiago and her daughters Sierra Isabelle Santiago and Nevada Anita Santiago.”

“Well it is nice to meet all of you. All of you look so nice today. Please take a seat.”

They all sat in an area of the office that looked a lot like a living room rather than an office. There were two couches on either long side of a coffee table and a large comfy looking high back chair at either end.

“Would any of you like some coffee or tea?”

Carmine opted for coffee and the rest of them opted for tea. Ethel pushed a button on a remote and a senior student entered.

“Two coffees and four teas please Barbra.”

“Yes ma’am, Headmistress.”

Mrs. Beckman and the adults talked about the weather and such till, Barbra knocked and entered. She set a tray down on the coffee table and began dispensing the beverages. She then smiled before making her exit.

“Angel I was impressed by what all of your teachers have said about you, especially by what your Uncles and Grandfather have said about your musical abilities.”

“Thank you Ma’am, I try to keep them pleased with my progress.”

“I am sure you do, and listening to the recordings of you playing, I don’t think they exaggerated one thing about you.”

Angel didn’t recall anybody recording her except for Joyce.

“I also look forward to seeing how well your daughters do too, Mrs. Santiago. From what I heard from their teachers, they may be a couple of underachievers.”

Carmine looked at her daughters with only that look that mothers disappointed with their children seem to use.

“I have always suspected that they could do better than what they were accomplishing.”

The girls wilted a bit under their Mom’s gaze.

“We will get a better understanding of what they are capable of for you Mrs. Santiago. They are a year younger than what we accept, but we hope that they might be able to join us in the next class.”

“If I can work out the financial aspect, I may just enroll them here.”

“We have a lot of flexibility in that department and there may be scholarships available if they do well at their school this year.”

“We will test all three girls very thoroughly, I expect each of you to do your utmost to excel,” Ethel said, in a manner that sent chills up the girls’ spines.

They talked a bit more about the school and what would be happening over the next few days. Carmine and Margarita would then pick up their girls on Saturday after a luncheon and show.

The mothers were then given a map and directed to the cottage the girls would be staying. The caravan then drove around the campus to the indicated cottage. There were several senior girls there who assisted them in carrying their luggage to their cottage.

The cottages looked more like large homes rather than small dorms. The common room was an oversized living room that had an upright piano, four couches, a big screen TV, a stereo, a large kitchen and dinning room to one side and a laundry area to the other and five doors leading to rooms. One was the housemothers room the rest dorm rooms.

The girls and their mothers were greeted by Mrs. Sandra Westfall who appeared to be a cross of Marine DI and a younger grandmother.

“Hi I am Sandra Westfall, the girls will address me as Mrs. Westfall, but you parents may call me Sarah.”

“I am Margarita Marquez and this is my daughter Angel.”

“I am Carmine Santiago and these two are Sierra and Nevada Santiago. You can tell them apart by having them sign their names. Sierra is right handed and Nevada is left handed.”

“That is good to know,” Sandra said, as she gave the girls a ‘busted’ look. “I am sure that we shall have no problems from any of the girls at all.”

“Angel, Sierra and Nevada you will all share Room number two. If you should need to call home, just tell me and I may or may not approve. Just being home sick is not really a reason. Cell phones, if you have any, must be kept in your locked drawer in your rooms. Feel free to use them after dinner and before eight at night. Here are the keys to your rooms and drawers.”

“You will eat breakfast here at seven sharp and dinner here at six sharp. Lunch is in the cafeteria on campus, except on weekends. You are each expected to keep your rooms immaculate and beds will be made before breakfast. Skirts on campus, will be no more than two inches above the knee. If you need to check, just kneel next to that board,” Sandra said, indicating the board on the floor near the door. “If it doesn’t touch the board you need to fix it, or change. If a teacher has to ask you to check it in school, you are already busted. Skirt length is two demerits, ten demerits is a work punishment. Things from there get worse. Around the cottages, you can wear shorter skirts or shorts in the common room that we are in. You will be dressed when you leave your room, no robes only, out here.”

“No medications will be stored in the girls’ rooms, not even aspirin or Midol, except for certain asthma, or emergency meds. I will need to be notified first. Girls requiring regular meds will get them from me or from the nurse on campus, during the day.”

“You each have a hard wired connection to a desk top computer that we provide and a Wi-Fi connection to a laptop that you may provide, but all connections will go through my server. I control the content that passes through. If you need to search content that is not allowed through, I will check on it each time. Any software you want to add to our computer has to be approved by me. I have a list of pre-approved software and I can check out other software. Students can receive email; I will set up an account for each of you. This will be the only approved email account you may use while you are here. Again I will be responsible for the content.”

Margarita handed over a bottle of pills to Sandra and explained about them to her. She read the label and then logged them in.

Sandra went over a long list of rules before she let the girls go to their rooms.

The rooms were set up for four girls and were larger than they expected. There were four desks in room, four beds on one wall, four closets and a bathroom with two toilets, two showers a bathtub and two sinks.

The girls then began to put their room in order, while their mother talked to Sandra.

“Mom did have to squeal on us, Sierra,” she said.

“Yeah, why couldn’t we have been regular identical twins?”

“These rooms are nice,” Angel said. “I was expecting something plain and stark.”

“They are even better than a summer camp we went to,” Nevada said.

After about an hour and a half they had their beds made up and their room set up. Angel had her plushie guitar on her bed and her guitar next to her nightstand. Sierra and Nevada had their areas looking nice. They invited their mom’s in and Sandra came in too.

“Now this is how a room should look,” Sandra said.

“Mrs. Westfall, I’m not worried about it now, but when school starts, what about my guitar? It is very expensive.”

“Well, if you are concerned about it this fall, I can store it in my room. How expensive is it?”

“I am just guessing, my uncles didn’t tell me, but it is probably worth more than twelve thousand dollars.”

“Oh my, that is expensive. You may certainly store it in my room. Do you play well?” Sandra asked.

“She plays very well,” Margarita said.

“Well you can play while I fix dinner. You are staying for dinner?” Sandra asked Margarita and Carmine.

A couple of senior girls helped Sandra as she started on dinner. They took over as Sandra had to stop and welcome other girls and parents.

Angel just sat on a stool and played a whole range of melodies on her guitar to everyone’s appreciation.

“We appreciate our girls using their own talent to entertain, rather than TV or stereo, but we know they can’t do that everyday. So we have TV and a stereo.” Sandra said, as she worked in the kitchen. “Also we want our girls to keep up with current events on the news.”

“The girls are permitted to watch TV from after dinner till nine on from Sunday to Thursday and eleven on Friday and Saturday, if they spend the weekend on the grounds.”

There were eleven girls in the dorm and they were all there for testing. Five other parents were there for dinner. The seniors helped serve and ate their meals, before retiring to their own cottages.

After they said all their goodbyes, some tearful others not, the parents left. The kids gathered with Mrs. Westfall’s encouragement and introduced themselves to each other. All of the girls were either thirteen and going to be fourteen before school started, or fourteen, except for the twins. Sierra and Nevada were twelve, yet they held their own with the other girls. When it became Angel’s time to talk the girls that had heard her play all got very excited.

Angel gave her age and told them a little about herself. Afterwards, she was deluged with questions about her skills, how pretty her guitar was and could she teach them to play like that. Several also wanted to know more about her manga collection, as they also collected manga.

At about eight thirty, Mrs. Westfall broke in and said. “You will be in your rooms at nine pm, lights out at nine-thirty. Wake up alarm is at six in the morning. Breakfast will be at seven. Beds will be made up before breakfast and your rooms clean. You may have two room checks a week. A couple of senior girls will be by the dorm at eight, to pick you up and take you to where your tests will be held. Testing will be from eight-thirty to eleven thirty for scholastic classes and from one to five for other courses, including PE.”

A few minutes before nine, all the girls headed to their respective rooms. Angel and her cousins were in bed by nine-fifteen and talked for a few minutes before going to sleep in their own beds. Even the twins slept apart, because the beds were twin and too narrow to sleep two comfortably.
 
 
Chapter 34
 
 
At six in the morning sharp, the alarm went off. Angel rolled out of bed looking for the clock that rang for one minute. Apparently the alarm was integral to the bldg. The twins were slower waking, but they were awake before the alarm finished. Angel let them hit the toilets first and she went when Sierra finished. The girls took a quick shower and hurried to get dressed. They were all ready and had their beds made and their room sorted by seven. Breakfast was nice; they had a variety of choices, except for sugary cereals, much to the displeasure of many of the girls.

At seven fifty, the girls had an inspection. Mrs. Westfall found a few faults and had the girls correct it. When she got to Angel, she said. “You need to lose the fingernail polish.”

“I have to wear it. I have fiberglass wraps on my fingernails, because I keep breaking nails playing the guitar. Without the polish my nails look really funky,” she said, turning her nails over so Mrs. Westfall could inspect them.

“Oh dear, I need to talk to the head,” she said. “I will give you a temporary pass till I hear from Mrs. Beckman.”

A couple of senior girls appeared at eight and led the troop to the academic classroom they needed to be at. There was a computer keyboard and mouse at each seat. Ms Albertson entered the class room and introduced herself. She took roll and then passed out a sheet of paper with the girls’ name on it.

“These sheets of paper have our login procedure and your password. Your password changes on a daily basis. You will log on and begin taking the first test, when I say begin. You have one hour to take the test. All of the questions are multiple choice questions. Don’t worry, you won’t finish the test and don’t worry about how well you are doing. You may be getting quite a few wrong answers. Keep working till I say stop.”

She waited a few minutes and checked to see that everyone had logged on, before saying, “Begin.”

The first test was English, the first five questions were very easy, the second five were a little harder and the third five were harder yet. If a student answered only three correctly, the next set of questions were a little easier. It went back and forth when the student reached the level where they were fairly competent at. The computer encouraged the students to work as fast as they could. The more questions the students answered, the better idea the school would have of their skill.

Despite being told not to worry, most of the students were pretty frantic when the teacher called time. The students were given a raw score immediately and an estimate of their grade level. That eased the anxiety of some of the students and added to it for others.

Angel scored well above her grade level and she just smiled.

“Don’t worry about your scores; you wouldn’t be here if there was a question of your qualifications. This just gives us an idea of where you are in the subject. The next test will be math and it will begin in ten minutes. You may take a break, use the rest room, but be back in your seats in ten minutes. You may go now.”

The girls left the room and headed in several different directions, but they were all back in time. After math came the science test, and then lunch.

The girls were led to the cafeteria. The food looked and smelled better than the usual school cafeteria fare. Many students were disappointed though in that there was an absence of any high fat, high salt or high sugar foods.

While she was eating with her cousins and some girls they met, they talked about the tests and how they did on them. Angel had done better than the other girls at her table and the twins had done better than they thought they would.

Angel heard her name called by a girl. She stood and looked around and saw one of their escorts, calling her name. The girl smiled, approached her asking, “You are Angel Marquez right?”

“Yes I am.”

“Good, I am Mandy Coleman. Please come with me, the headmistress wants to see you.”

“Ok, Mandy, lead the way.”

In Mrs. Beckman’s office, Angel met the headmistress and a couple of other ladies.

“Miss Marquez, this is Mrs. Richardson and Mrs. Delray. Mrs. Westfall called me and informed me about your fingernails. We need to see them, if you would please.”

“I had to get these fiberglass wraps,” Angel said. “My nails were constantly breaking. Since I have had these nails, my play has improved quite a bit. I can stop using polish, but my nails would look so bad.”

The ladies inspected both sides of Angel’s fingernails and agreed that her fingernails would look worse without the polish. They sent Angel outside so they could talk for a few minutes. When they called her back in they told her that they would reserve their judgment till they heard from her music teachers.

Mandy was waiting for her when she got out and said, “I understand that you have music next right.”

“Yes, but I need to go to the dorm to get my music and my guitar.”

The girls left and hurried to the dorm. Angle had three boxes on a dolly, which she grabbed and her guitar. Mandy then led her to the music bldg.

Angel first met with three teachers, Mrs. Cartwright, Mrs. Bloomington, and Ms Grogan, who played ‘hundred questions’ with her. They asked what she played, could she read music, did she play any other instruments besides the guitar, did she have her music with her and many other questions.

After they finished their questions, Angel was led to the rehearsal hall. They asked her to play five of her best pieces. Angel found a stool and sat down with her guitar. A girl came on stage and set up a mike for the guitar. There were five people she noted, before the stage lights came up and the house lights went down. She tuned up and warmed up a bit, before she began to play. She played Pachelbel Canon in D, Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Cavatina, Romance d’Amour and Paganini Caprice no. 24.

When she finished, she looked up, not seeing the audience. As the last notes faded away she was shocked by the applause. The house lights came up and she saw about forty five students and teachers in the rehearsal hall. She stood and bowed to the audience.

“Please play about ten more pieces, now and show us a variety of styles.” Angel heard from somewhere in the audience.
The house lights went down again as Angel sat down. She decided to play the pieces she loved the best. She sang with a couple of the songs, Hotel California, Green Sleeves and Scarborough Fair. She also played Bohemian Rhapsody, Classical Gas, Ave Maria, California Dreaming, Dock of the Bay, Minuet in G, Fur Elise, Bach Prelude BWV 997, Mediterranean Beauty, Stairway to Heaven, Fandangos and Malaqueňa. She got carried away and lost count of the songs she played.
When she finished this time she stood and bowed. The applause was deafening this time. The hall was full of students and teachers. About a hundred and fifty people were there. Angel had to bow three more times before she went over to her guitar case. The teacher and administrators came on stage as she was detuning her guitar and wiping it down. The administrators checked her nails again and saw the damage to the polish. They guessed that without the wraps her ability to play would be lessened and without the polish her nails would look bad.

One music teacher wanted to see her guitar. She opened the case and handed it to her. “My, this is a nice guitar. I never heard of Amara Verdad Cantu before, but your guitar has a wonderful voice,” Mrs. Cartwright said.

“She is a master luthier from Barcelona, Spain.”

“Is it new?”

“Yes it is, my uncles bought if for me this summer.”

“It must be a step up from your other guitar then.”

“Actually it was a step down for me. My other guitar is an Antonio de Torres guitar. The insurance was too expensive to bring it here. I had it appraised for many, many times what this guitar is worth. It is stored a vault now.”

Nobody there had actually heard of Antonio de Torres either at the time, but they soon would.

“Well there is no denying she has talent,” Ms Grogan said, to her colleagues. “We will also have her take voice this fall, I think. She sang very well, but she could use some training there.”

“Just as long as it doesn’t take away from her instrument, practice,” Mrs. Bloomington said.

“Yes, as good as her voice is, she is a maestro at the guitar,” Mrs. Cartwright said.

“We need to get her reading music and maybe get her into piano,” Ms Grogan said.

“It would be hard to get her into all those classes at the same time,” Mrs. Bloomington said.

Angel just stood there listening to the teachers talk as she put her guitar away again.

“I would like to see how well she plays with an orchestra and the choir.”

The teachers escorted Angel to a classroom and asked her to look at a piece of music.

“May I write on the sheet of music?” She asked

“Yes you may.” Ms Grogan said.

It wasn’t written for a guitar. She went through the piece and first found her chords. The second time through she began to formulate the notes that she would play. She went over to the keyboard in the classroom and began to pick it out on the keyboard.

“I thought you said that you couldn’t play any other instruments.”

“I can’t, this is as good as I get on a keyboard, but I do know all of the keys and frequencies of the keys.”

After about thirty minutes, Angel then picked up her guitar, tuned it and began picking out the song on the guitar. She went through it several times making several changes, before she was ready to play it.

She then played the music three times before she was satisfied with her efforts.

“I can have it down better in a couple of days, with practice.”

“You did well Angel. If you would let us have the sheet music, we would like to study what you did in more detail and seeing that it is so late, you may head back to your cottage.”

When Angel left the classroom, she was surprised to see a group of girls that were apparently waiting for her. One girl took her dolly and another tried to take her guitar.

”Ah no thank you, I am sorry but I will carry my guitar.”

“You were wonderful, Angel,” one girl said.

“We loved what you were doing,” another said.

“Which cottage are you staying in?”

“Mrs. Westfall’s”

“This way,”

Angel knew where her cottage was, but saw that these girls were determined to go with her. The girls were asking her all sorts of questions, from where she learned to play that well, did she have a boyfriend, what she thought of the school, was she really going to start here in the fall, how come she was wearing nail polish, to did she know any modern music.

Amy Spencer, a senior, got the girls to calm down a bit as they walked Angel to her dorm. Angel answered their questions as best she could, and got the girls talking to. She found out that when she went into the rehearsal hall a girl heard her playing and spread the word. In the music department, students are encouraged to attend the rehearsals of other students and they need no invitation.

Angel saw her cousins dressed in running shorts and t-shirts, with a pack of girls from their cottage, heading toward the cottage. She waved at them. They started to cross the grass but were stopped by the senior girl they were with.

“They have to use the sidewalk Angel. That is a major rule here; students can’t cut across the lawns,” Amy said.

They all met up at the cottage Angel and the twins went ahead in, but the rest of the girls rang the doorbell. Mrs. Westfall came to the door and said, “Well hello girls. What can I do for you today?”

“Hello Mrs. Westfall, the girls and I were wondering if we could come over after dinner?” Amy Spencer asked.

“Why certainly, it will be nice if you could join us after dinner.”

“Thank you, ma’am. See ya later Angel,” Amy said smiling and giving her a finger wave.

“What was that all about Angel,” Mrs. Westfall asked.

“I don’t know, I think they like my playing.”

“Ok get cleaned up for dinner Angel, and you two need to take a shower,” Mrs. Westfall said wrinkling her nose at the twins.

The girls were a little rowdy sitting around the dinner table. Mrs. Westfall gently, but firmly reined them in. She served her girls and then blessed the food. Several of the girls were famished, including the twins and started to eat with too much ‘Gusto’ Mrs. Westfall told the girls, “We eat like Ladies here. None of you are starving enough that you have to wolf down your food.”

She got them to slow down by getting them to talk with each other. They talked about the tests that they had taken that day. Many of the girls had a lot to say about their Coach, very little of it was complimentary.

“I have never exercised as hard as I did today,” one girl named Darla said.

“Yeah the coach drove us all too hard,” another girl name Gina said.

“Now girls, Coach Butler just wants to see what you are capable of, and to help you see what your potential is.”

“Yeah, but I am sore in places, I never knew I had,” Sierra said.

Mrs. Westfall smiled and said. “Well maybe it is good that you know you have those places and that they need exercise.”

The girls were all tasked helping with clean up, some washed dishes, some helped clean the kitchen, while the others cleaned the dinning room.

The girls had a few minutes to sit and relax before the door bell rang. Mrs. Westfall admitted Amy Spencer and six other girls. Many of the girls carried cases that held their instruments.

Angel greeted Amy, who introduced the girls with her to the girls in this cottage. The girls of the cottage introduced themselves.

“I suppose you want play your instruments,” Angel said.

“Yes, we heard you do some of the music we know, and thought we could have some fun playing together.”

“Let me get my guitar” Angel said. As she came back she said, “What songs do you know, that I play.”

“Well, I can play Classical Gas on my violin?” Amy said.

“Really, I never heard that before.”

The girls all tuned up together, with the assistance of a girl at the piano.

“Let me hear your version, Amy.”

Amy then put the violin up to her chin and began to play. Angel moved her fingers up and down the neck of her guitar in time to Amy’s play. When she finished, the two girls talked over how they would play together. They then began to play together, complimenting each other. Amy played a few measures and then Angel played a few, some parts they played together, each had identical solos and they had a big finish together.

The girls in the cottage applauded as the two finished. Amy and Angel gave each other a hug.

“What else do you know?”

“Well, we have a string quartet that does Bohemian Rhapsody. Everybody is here except the Cello player.”

“You girls lead and I will try to keep up with you.”

Two other girls stood, one with another violin and the other had a viola that was a little larger than a violin. This piece of music was a little harder for Angel to match up with, as there were a few differences between the arrangements they all knew. They gave it a second run through, which was much better. Again Angel was surprised at the way the music sounded with the different instruments.

They then did Pachelbel Canon in D, Minuet in G, a few other classical pieces that they were all familiar with. Angel then asked if any of the girls played piano. One girl volunteered, saying she did. Angel ran to her room and retrieved all the sheet music that her instructor had given her.

“This is a piece that was written for a string quartet. I adapted it to a classical guitar,” she said.

Amy and the two other girls crowded together to look at it. Amy took her violin and began playing it.

“I wish I could make copies, but it isn’t copyrighted yet. Mrs. Drummond sent herself a registered copy through the mail, but she is still working on it.”

“I like it, I can see where it needs work,” Amy said.

“Here is a piece she wrote for the piano and guitar.”

Amanda sat at the piano and began to play it slowly. Amy corrected her a time or two as she played. After a third play through, Angel joined Amanda.

“She is a good writer,” Amy said.

“Yes, she wants me to be able to read music better. I just can’t pick up a piece and play it on the guitar. I have to work it out.”

“That is why the page is all marked up, right Angel.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Tell her to get it copyrighted, I want copies.”

The students then sat down and talked with the girls in testing. The girls in this cottage had all kinds of questions about the testing and what school was like here.

Mrs. Westfall smiled at the girls. Having the older students visit with and talking to the girls looked like a good idea. She would have to talk to the administration about.

Amy checked her watch at about eight fifteen and said, “Come girls, it is time for us to head back to our cottages. Thank you Mrs. Westfall, for letting us come visit.
 
 
Chapter 35
 
 
The next day, testing went on in the morning, with three new subjects. There was less anxiety in the room now that the girls had a taste of the process.

In the afternoon, most of the girls returned to PE, where they were stretched and did some calisthenics, but instead of running this day, the Coach set part of them playing soccer and part of them playing softball.

The first day the Coach also spotted her key to tell the twins apart, she noted the birthmarks on their shoulders. The one identified as Sierra had a birthmark on her left and Nevada on her right.

Sierra and Nevada were separated by design. Sierra was sent to the soccer field while Nevada went to the softball field. They knew that twins usually spent a lot of time together and they wanted to see how they were apart from each other.

Sierra was good at some aspects of soccer, she could handle passes, pass and kick the ball well, she looked across the field for her teammates, but she didn’t have the stamina to be really good at the game, at this time.

Nevada did well in softball; she played first base, short stop and pitched a couple of innings. She was 2 for four, with 2 singles and scored once.

Both girls got along and played well with the other girls. They had 48 girls and eleven were like Sierra and Nevada, future prospects. Physically they were about even with the older girls.

Angel faced the music instructors again. They dissected her playlist, first narrowing it down to forty pieces, they considered master class and then they spent thirty minutes selecting twenty songs they wanted to hear Angel play.

“Angel,” Mrs. Cartwright said. “We want to record and video tape you playing these twenty pieces. Do you have any nice clothes suitable for a concert?”

“I have an Andalusian Curro Romero Skirt, Jacket and Vest in black,” Angel said. Then she spent a few minutes describing the individual pieces.

“That will have to do. Tomorrow and Thursday dress in that at lunch and then come here. In the meantime we want you to practice these pieces. We want you to play at your absolute best. Tomorrow you will play pieces one through ten and Thursday you will play eleven through twenty.”

One of the instructors sat down and asked her, “Which pieces, do you really need to work on?”

Angel looked at her list and was surprised to see Hotel California, Bohemian Rhapsody and Classical gas. She marked five of the pieces she hadn’t recently played. Two were on Wednesday’s list and three on Thursday’s list. Angel worked on them while Ms Grogan gave her advice and criticism. The pieces were hard, but Angel could do them, she just didn’t like them as much as some of her other pieces. Because she didn’t play them as much, she had to work hard on them.

Angel liked working with Ms Grogan. She may not have been a guitar teacher, but it was obvious that she knew her music. She pointed out the rough sections to Angel, who played them over and over till she got them right.

Angel played all five songs several times, after she had worked on them. Ms. Grogan began to smile brightly.

“Very good Angel, now play your list for tomorrow as listed, from first to last. Wait about ten seconds between pieces.”

Angel put the list up on the easel and began. It took forty two minutes and some seconds to play all ten.

“Very Good Angel, if you can play those two that you had problems with tonight a couple of times it will be great. It is about four thirty go ahead and head back to your cottage.”

“Thank you, Ms Grogan.”

Angel detuned the guitar, wiped it down and put it back in her case. She then headed back to her room. This time she didn’t have anybody waiting for her. She got back to her cottage first this day and went ahead and took her shower. She was drying off when the twins rushed in to take their showers.

At dinner, the girls talked about their days. There wasn’t as much grumbling about what they did this day. Angel was surprised that the twins had been separated in different games today. Both happily described what they had done. Angel told the girls what she did and was going to do.

“Today they went over my playlist and selected twenty of my most challenging pieces. There were five that I don’t play much because they aren’t my favorites. Wednesday and Thursday they are going to do a digital audio and video recording. I am going to have to come back here after lunch and change into my Andalusian Costume, before hurrying to the music department.”

“You must show us your costume after dinner,” Mrs. Westfall said.

“Do you mean for me to get dressed?”

“Heavens no, just show it to us on its hangers.”

After dinner, Angel went in her room and took her skirt, Jacket, vest and blouse, out of the garment bag. She then took them to the common room. All the girls made a fuss over the jacket and vest. They were both heavily embroidered. Mrs. Westfall raised an eyebrow in surprise and kept the girls back, so there would be no chance of them getting it dirty.

With a careful eye, she inspected Angel’s costume. It was made of superior material and the stitching and embroidering were first class. “What shoes are you wearing with this outfit Angel?”

“I have my Flamenco shoes.”

“With taps?”

“Yes,”

“Do you have any black pumps with heels?”

“With me no.”

“What size do you wear?”

“Sevens.”

“I will see what I can do? You don’t want the sharp sound of taps on a recording.”

Angel then said, with a giggle, “You reckon the skirt is long enough.”

Mrs. Westfall looked at the ankle length skirt, and with half a giggle said, “If there is any question, you can always kneel and check it. You do have pantyhose right.”

“Yes ma’am,”

“Good.”

Angel then took everything back to her room. She took her guitar and went out to the patio to play the pieces she had to work on. A couple of girls, besides her cousins, followed her out.

She played each piece three times, working hard to get them right. She then played the pieces for Wednesday again. The girls listened quietly as she practiced and didn’t applaud till she was putting her guitar away, which startled her.

“That was wonderful Angel,” a girl, whose name Angel thought was Debby said.

“Yeah, it was kinda cool for old music,” another, that had to be Grace, said.

“Old, two of the pieces were from the 70’s and 80’s,” Angel said.

“Like we said, old music,” Debby said.

Angel went back inside and Mrs. Westfall was waiting for her. “Thank you for taking your guitar outside Angel. I know the girls liked your music, but some missed their TV shows, last night.”

“I am sorry.”

“There is nothing to be sorry about, Angel. I like them to be touched by culture rather than the regurgitated pabulum from the TV, just not every day. I understand that each person has their own taste in entertainment. It is apparent that you love music.”
 
 
Chapter 36
 
 
Angel hurried through lunch and almost ran back to her cottage. Running on school grounds, she was reminded, that runing was reserved only for real emergencies and P.E. In her room, she tried to do something with her hair, as she changed. Mrs. Westfall had handed her a pair of black three inch stiletto pumps. When Angel came out, Mrs. Westfall stopped her and worked on her hair a bit, before letting her go.

It took a while longer to walk to the music department in the stilettos, but she got there none the less. In the music hall she was taken to a dressing room, where a senior student did her makeup, with moderate false eyelashes. The girl used a heavier stage makeup, but Angel didn’t look gaudy.

Another girl worked a bit on her hair, spraying it heavily with hair spray.

On stage, she came out, did mike checks and video checks. There was just one mike in front of a lone stool. Angel tuned up her guitar.

“Angel,” Mrs. Cartwright said. “Before you start your first piece and after you finish a piece, you will see a red light. Don’t start the next piece till you see the green light in the control booth,” she said pointing to the booth.

There was a red, a green and a yellow light showing.

“If you see a yellow light, start the previous song over again.”

Then she said to the few people not in the control booth. “The rehearsal hall is under silence till all three lights come back on. Place your guitar in the stand, and walk off stage right. Enter when the stage director indicates it is time.”

Angel walked off stage right. The stage director had a pair of headphones on and smiled at her. Angel waited till the stage director whispered,“Break a leg,” to her and motioned for her to go out.

Angel walked to the stool, took her guitar and sat down looking up at the control booth. On a green light, she brought the neck of her guitar to her shoulder and began to play.

It was cool in the rehearsal hall, but by the eighth piece she began to sweat a bit. For some reason she was a little nervous, but she steeled herself and didn’t let it adversely affect her. After she finished her last piece, it was about twenty seconds before the three lights flashed on together, and she breathed again. She had gone straight through with no do overs.

The teachers met her on stage and drooled over her costume a bit. She had told them what she was going to wear, but her words were not enough.

“Very nicely done Angel,” Mrs. Cartwright said. “It isn’t the first time someone played straight through, but it is rare.”

“We are proud of you,” Ms Grogan said. “Your description of your outfit was sorely deficient. It is wonderful.”

“I have a Sevillano hat, that goes with it, but I didn’t bring it.”

“Well, bring it to school with you. You look magnificent.”

“Thank you,”

“Good, now let’s rehearse tomorrow’s music,”

Angel played the three pieces that needed the most work, again Ms. Grogan helped by making corrections and suggestions. She had Angel go over the rough spots, smoothing them out and then replaying the pieces.

When Angel played the pieces well, Ms Grogan had her play the playlist from first to last. It took Angel thirty nine minutes to play all the songs.

“Very good Angel, try playing the pieces again once or twice tonight. It is a little after four. Get Sylvia to take off your makeup and then you may head back to your cottage.
 

*          *          *
 
At the P.E. facility, the Coach had the girls switch sports today, “Girls, those of you who played soccer yesterday, will play softball, and those of you who played softball, will play soccer.”

“Sierra, the softball field is that way, Nevada, the soccer field is the other way.” The coach smiled, as the girls realized they had been busted.

Both girls played well at what they were doing, but not as well as their sibling had done. Nevada had more trouble keeping up with the flow of the game on the soccer field, but she was decent handling the ball, just not as well as her sister. Her stamina was maybe a smidge better, but not much. They both needed to get into a running program. Sierra played softball well, but made a few more errors than Nevada did fielding and she didn’t hit as well as her sister.

All of this was noted by the coach. The girls were opposite handed and footed. They also had different skill sets.
 

*          *          *
 
Back at the dorm, Angel found Mrs. Westfall waiting. “Go ahead and change. If you bring me your costume, I will wash your blouse and steam your jacket, vest and skirt, to freshen them up for tomorrow.

Angel changed into a pair of shorts and T-shirt. She took her costume out to Mrs. Westfall. The house mother hung the skirt, jacket and vest separately and placed the blouse in the washing machine. She used a steam wand on the jacket. The wrinkles began to smooth out and afterwards the jacket had lost its body odor, Angel noted. Mrs. Westfall did know what she was doing.

Angel went to her room and took a shower. Sierra and Nevada came in as she was rinsing off. Nevada traded places with her as she stepped out to dry.
 

*          *          *
 
Thursday, the costume smelled fresh, as Angel dressed. Her hair was more manageable today; it must have been the humidity yesterday. Today the air was a little drier, but not too dry.

Today she had been requested to play one of the pieces over again. It was one of the pieces that she had to work on. She had made a mistake in one of the chord progressions, but on the second pass she knew that she had nailed it.

She again met with the teachers on the stage after she had finished.

“Angel, tomorrow you can relax, no more playing for us, but we want you to come back dressed as you are now. We want to take some photographs of you. Bring your guitar too; it will be a prop in some of the photographs.”
 

*          *          *
 
Angel was met again by Mrs. Westfall and again she changed and handed off her costume, although she didn’t wait around to see what was being done.

She was already dressed and in the common room when all the girls came in from P.E.
 

*          *          *
 
The final day, the girls received their test results and received individual counseling from the teaching staff. Sierra and Nevada knew they were in deep poo poo as they saw their results. They had both done well, better than their results at their school, and wondered how they would explain it to their mom tomorrow. Angel was very pleased with her tests. She had performed up to and better than her old school.

The twins were told how they could not work harder at their subjects, but to work smarter. They could make better use of their study time and to come up with better results.

At ten, they were given the rest of the day as free time, except for Angel, who had an appointment. Back at the dorm, Mrs. Westfall sat Angel down and rolled her hair up. She sat under a dryer for about half an hour and then she dressed. The rollers were then removed; her hair combed out and sprayed heavily. Mrs. Westfall was careful not to gunk up the hair. She just wanted it to look just right. Mrs. Westfall and the twins went with Angel.

Sylvia gave Angel a more normal glamour makeup job. Emphasizing the eyes, which she thought were Angel’s best features.

The Photo shoot consisted of three girls, who were from the schools own photo class. They had lights and a backdrop set up on the stage. For the next hour and a half, the three girls’ took about a hundred and seventy five shots of Angel, each.

Mrs. Westfall explained to the twins, that each girl was doing this for an assignment and for the school.

The girls would stop at times and dump the pictures into a laptop, before taking some more. The pictures were moved from the laptop to the schools server and into each girl’s partition, on that server, the music department’s partition and a partition for Angel.

The girls took shots of Angel, Angel with her guitar and some of her guitar alone. All the shots were tastefully done of course.

After all the pictures were taken, Angel walked her guitar back to her room and went with her cousins to explore the campus.

Angel had only seen the campus in passing before. She loved all the trees that surrounded the campus. Academics was built on a Quad, with a student center on its west end. The Music hall was south of the student center/cafeteria and Physical Education was west of the Music hall. The Admin bldg was to the east end of the quad. The Math and Sciences were on the north side of the quad. Languages, Geography, History, Social Sciences and such, were on the south side. The library was south of the Admin. Bldg. The cottages were north and south of the quad.

Still dressed in her costume, and wearing her makeup, Angel got a lot of looks from all the students. The girls found the library, which was more than adequate and quite modern.

The twins took their cousin to the gym, where a lot of the girls were playing various games. Coach Butler was in the gym to keep everything going smoothly.

“Those are the same girls that were complaining about exercising?” Angel asked.

“Yes, but Coach Butler was pushing us harder than that,” Nevada said.

From the gym, the girls headed to the student center. There were many more girls there, where the cafeteria, bookstore and other recreational pursuits took place.

They were all back at the cottage after diner, the girls sat around and traded email addressed and phone numbers. There were some tears shed, as the girls realized that some of them would probably not be back.
 

*          *          *
 
The next morning, the children and parents met with the admin staff. Angel and her cousins were among the last ones called to the office. They met with Mrs. Beckman, in the headmistress’ office. Again they sat at the couches.

“Well Mrs. Marquez, it is good seeing you again.”

“It’s good being here, Mrs. Beckman.”

“Let me get the suspense out of the way. Angel, we are accepting you at our Academy. Here are her test results.” Mrs. Beckman said, handing Margarita a sheet of paper. “She tested out at a Sophomore and Junior levels in all of the subjects we tested, but we want her to enter as a freshman. Her music performance skills are very advanced and slightly beyond basic in her knowledge of music theory. She needs a lot of work. She has good social skills and gets along well with the other girls. NOBODY noticed that she wasn’t what she appears to be. ”

“So let me welcome you to our Academy, Angel.”

“Thank you Mrs. Beckman,” Angel smiled.

“Now, Mrs. Santiago, here are the test results for your two girls. Sierra did very good in English, History and Social Studies; we put her in the top fifteen percentile in those subjects. Her Math, Science and Geography we place her at slightly above her grade level. She needs work on her Spanish grammar.”

“Nevada was just the opposite of Sierra, almost subject by subject, except for Spanish; she needs to work on her Spanish grammar.”

“So how does what they did here dovetail into what they did at their school?”

“They seem to be performing below their abilities.”

Carmine looked crossly at her daughters and had a short conversation in Spanish that made them blush a bit.

“I see both girls as potential leaders; they get along very well with other girls, and have very good organizational skills.”

“I always thought they were always plotting something, but that fits with what I believe.”

“All in all I would like to do anything we can to have your daughters attend our Academy, Mrs. Santiago. We don’t take girls their age but we would love having them next year.”

“I can’t afford two tuitions,”

“We may be able to work something out, please give us a chance. Anyways, we have a year to think about and work on it. Please keep in touch.”

The luncheon took place in the Student Center. There were three projections screens set up at the head table. On the screens were pictures of school activities being projected. The girls recognized that they were pictures of the group of girls that were being tested. Occasionally there were some of the pictures of Angel on them.

There was also music playing over the sound system. A few of the pieces were of Angel playing her guitar. When her music was playing, her pictures were on the two wing screens and on the center screen was the video of her playing.
Carmine and Margarita were enjoying the show and Angel was embarrassed. The other girls in the cafeteria were pointing at Angel’s table during the show.

As the luncheon came to an end many of the parents stopped by and chatted with Margarita and Angel, complimenting her for her play.

On the trip home Carmine turned to her girls and asked, “Girls tell me why you have been performing below your level?”

“We don’t know Mom. Maybe it is the way we were tested,” Sierra said.

“Yeah, the way the computers tested us, kind of pushed us harder,” Nevada said.

“I ought to leave you with Aunt Rita and go with Angel myself.”

“Go.” Sierra said.

“Where?” Nevada asked.

“What?” Angel asked.

Margarita and Carmine giggled. Margarita then said, “Well it was supposed to be a surprise, and I guess it kinda was. We are all going to take a trip.”

There was a pregnant pause as the girls waited for Margarita to continue. The adults just enjoyed the torment they imagined was going on in the girls’ minds.

Finally Angel asked the big question, “Where?”

“Girls, Wednesday, we are flying to Madrid. Carmine and I got together with the Old Men and discussed it. It would mean so much to Carmelita.”

“Wow,” “Oh my,” “Yeah,” All three of the girls shouted.

“One thing though Angel. You will have to travel in pants, without your breast forms, but you can change when we get in country.”

“Why?” Angel asked in an indignant manner.

“Passport,”

“Oh, alright, I guess I can do that,” she said, understanding the problem.

“Yes, you can’t change your gender on the passport till you have had GRS surgery, and you can’t get that till you are 18.”

The rest of the trip home, they discussed the upcoming trip. The Old Men had already left on Friday and would pick them up in Madrid. They would leave Carmine’s home and head to Margarita’s home on Tuesday. An airport limousine would pick them up and take them to JFK from there at midnight.

---

 
To Be Continued...

Angel and her family travel to Spain and visit their relatives She has fun with the people she meets and she learns what is really important.

Angel Marquez

37-44

by

Paula Dillon

It was like a madhouse at Carmine’s home on Sunday and Monday. There was washing the girls’ clothes and packing the clothes the girls wanted to take with them. Luckily Carmine and Margarita had been sane enough to buy more luggage, shopping. Margarita got a large purse and put all her documents in a travel wallet; this included passports, birth certificates, Letters from Angel’s psychiatrists, traveler’s checks, seven plane tickets and documents for both Angel’s guitars(Angel’s guitars were flying with her and not as luggage). Still the girls had to make several dashes to the store for something they just couldn’t do without.

Angel then bought herself and her cousins Canon SX1 IS Digital Camera kits, with her own money. They agreed not to carry batteries, as they were heavy. She also bought a travel outfit that was very androgynous. She found a silk shirt in a neutral color and a pair of hip hugger jeans, that were pretty non-descript.

They filled out customs declaration forms for the US and Spain, to speed things up when they arrived in Spain. Margarita attached copies of the Christie’s provenance, for the Torres guitar and a form Uncle Javier provided, for the Amara Verdad Cantu guitar, the cameras and a laptop they were taking with them. They inventoried and listed everything they took more valuable than five dollars.

Tuesday, Angel played at Leo’s and took her guitar from the locker. Margarita called the insurance company and informed them.

Almost every square inch of Margarita’s and Carmine's cars was filled to the brim as they headed to Margarita’s home.

Once Angel and Margarita were home, Angel had to take off her breastforms and place them in her carry on luggage case, with one set of clothes. Everyone was surprised to see Angel’s chest, there was no denying it, she now had small boobs, a little more than an AA cup.

“How did you get a pair of titties?” Sierra asked

“A side effect of the anti-androgen, I would suspect,” Margarita said. “She has been taking that since she was twelve. Her testosterone is way down and that leaves estrogen the dominant sex hormone.”

The girls were sent to bed at four, for a few hours sleep, but nobody really slept. They had a light meal at ten and then corralled their luggage at the front door.

The twins took a lot of pictures of nothing special on the way to JFK airport, just getting use to their new cameras. Angel had gotten some pictures of everybody but her. She didn’t want to see any pictures of Luis.

At the airport, they checked in and had a two hour and twenty minute wait to board the airplane. They were flying an American Airline 777 to Madrid via London.

Chapter 38

Sleeping had been hard on the airplane; the girls were all excited at the thought of finally flying to Spain. They noticed that the plane was a bit noisy, that, even the movie on the screen, wasn’t enough to overcome the constant drone of the engines.

They arrived in Madrid at four thirty in the afternoon. It took another hour and a half to get through the Immigration checkpoint. Angel and Margarita were pulled aside, not for Angel’s appearance, but for the two guitars she carried. The officer checked the paperwork carefully and inspected the two guitars and the cases. He then had to have his supervisor signoff. Speaking Spanish and claiming Spanish ancestry, made their entry a little easier.

As soon as they cleared customs, Angel hit the ladies bathroom, no one in there questioned the young girl being there. Inside a stall, Angel put on a bra and slipped her breast forms into the cups. She then let out her ponytail and combed her hair with her fingers, before adding a little makeup; lipstick, powder and mascara.

Uncle Javier was waiting with the rest of the family when Angel came out of the restroom. He made a phone call when Angel joined them.

(From here till they get back to NY, NY, consider all conversations to be in Spanish, unless otherwise noted.)

“Rolando, Fernando and Jesus Cortez will be waiting for us at the curb in a second,” Javier said. “We have two vehicles; baggage goes in the van with a few passengers.”

Javier led the way out of the terminal. Outside there was a jumble of cars. They stopped and looked around till Javier saw what he was looking for. He made his way to his goal.

The girls got a really strange look on their faces when they saw their uncle Rolando behind the wheel of a really strange vehicle.

As if reading everybody’s mind, Javier began to explain, “Girls, that is a genuine, 1938 Mercedes Benz, 770K convertible. It has been in our family since after the war. Before that it was the property of the German government. It is rumored to have been the German Military Attaché’s personal vehicle.”

All five of the girls got in the convertible, with it’s top down. Uncle Javier got in the van with Fernando. Angel let her uncle take her guitars with him.

All three of the youngsters had their cameras out and were taking pictures, while Uncle Rolando drove away from the Barajas International Airport. There weren’t a lot of sights to see, as they were shortly on major highway that headed northeast from Madrid. Just past Villanueva de la Torre, they left the main road and drove a couple of miles to a large Ranch style home.

“This is where Carmelita lives with the Cortez family. You probably won’t see her today. She only has a few good hours a day to be around people, but she is still quite mentally active and as sharp as a tack,” Uncle Rolando said.

As they drove up to the backside of the house, the girls did see an older white headed lady sitting in a rocking chair, catching the last rays of the sun. Uncle Rolando went up to her and spoke with her for a few seconds. The lady looked up smiling and did a little wave to the girls, as they were waiting besides the car.

A few seconds later, Uncle Rolando returned, “Not today girls, she is happy to see you, but…”

“Yes, we understand Rolando,” Margarita said. “Give her our warmest love.”

Another lady in her mid to late 40’s, came out of the house. She ran up to them and hugged Jesus, before turning to them and saying, “Welcome to my home, I am Felicia Cortez, Jesus’ wife. It is so good to see my American cousins.”

She barley finished talking and was already giving everybody hugs and kisses.

“Hello, Felicia. I am Margarita Marquez, this is my sister Carmine Santiago, with her daughters Sierra and Nevada, and this is my daughter, Angel Marquez.”

“Oh, you are all so beautiful, please come with me.”

Felicia took them inside her beautiful ranch style home. It was an older home that had been constantly updated. The roofing was made of red clay tiling, the exterior walls were stucco. They had a large tiled patio, much of it covered by an awning. Inside, she had central air and the beautiful painted tile kitchen, which was a cross between modern and old style Spanish design. There was some marvelous black walnut wood paneling everywhere and not that cheap ply board paneling either.

“Don’t worry about crowding, this home was built for a working ranch and I have lots of bedrooms.”

There were a lot of bedrooms and bathrooms. She had ten bedrooms and four bathrooms. The dinning room and living rooms were cavernous, compared to the girls’ homes back in America. The whole place had well worn slate flooring, except for the living room, that had wood. There was a huge fireplace and mantle at one end of the home.

“The original parts of this home were built in the thirties, but the original owners kept rebuilding parts of the home and adding on to the original. The kitchen and some of the bedrooms are from the fifties, but still in keeping with the original design. Much of the old living room was added to the dinning room and we added the new living room and master bedroom.”

Everyone could tell that Felicia loved showing off her home. It was filled with a mix of real antique and antique reproduction furniture that went well together.

“I know you must be tired, let me show you to your bedrooms,” Felicia said.

She showed them to a wing of bedrooms, “You may select the bedrooms you want and tell the guys which room you are in. They will move your luggage into your room.”

The bedrooms were the smallest rooms in this house; even so, they were still larger than the bedrooms back home. Angel selected a room for herself, although she would probably sleep with her cousins. She didn’t want to cause a scandal, so she decided to test the waters first. Margarita and Carmine chose a room together. They felt that there would be more company here later.

The rooms were gender neutral, but had a lot of nice touches, like four poster king sized beds, armoires, dressers and vanities in each room.

“You can rest for an hour or so; I will wake you for dinner.”

The girls had their luggage delivered to their own rooms and collapsed on the beds.

They were awakened a little more than an hour later. Felicia served them dinner out on the patio. There were about twenty-four people who gathered for dinner. Introductions were made, the food was blessed and they all sat down to eat. Felicia dispersed the Americans between their Spanish kin. Angel sat between Felicia and Juanita, Felicia’s daughter. Food and drink flowed as they all chatted and got to know each other. Even Angel, Sierra and Nevada got half glassfuls of Spanish wine. Carmelita was the only relative in town that was not at the table; she had already gone to bed.

All of the Americans were bombarded by questions. Everyone wanted to know everything. There was a twelve-year old boy, named Tomas Cruz, who sat between Sierra and Nevada, and who was smitten by the girls. The twins thought he was kind of cute and spent a lot of time teasing and flirting with Tomas. Dinner started at about seven forty five, but desert wasn’t served till after nine thirty.

Between ten and eleven, most of the people had to leave, as they had to work the next day. The ones that stayed discussed the upcoming agenda for the Americans. It was arranged for the girls to go sight seeing with a few of the older Spanish teens, while Felicia would take Margarita and Carmine around town sight seeing.

A chance to meet Carmelita would come on Friday, or Saturday, depending on how she felt. A big to do was planned for Friday night, and the Friday before they all went home. On Monday, it was planned for them to visit Barcelona and be back in Madrid on Friday night.

**************

The next day, Juanita Cortez and Pablo Ramos took Angel, Sierra and Nevada into town, with a couple of other cousins, Tomas and Suela Cruz. The twins and Angel were dressed in jeans and T-shirts that spoke of their American heritage. Together they headed to Xanadu Snow Zone. The girls had wondered why Juanita loaned them some light jackets now they knew. The Snow Zone was a huge building. Inside the temperature was around 30 degrees f. There were five snow covered slopes inside. They tried skiing and snow boarding. Angel didn’t ski very well; she fell quite a few times, as she tried to keep her skis parallel and under her.

She traded in the skis after half an hour for a snow board. Sierra and Nevada saw this and decided to change too, even though they had done fair on the skis. Soon all three of them were zooming down the easy slopes and on the medium difficulty slopes. Angel began to see some of the fun she had missed growing up. She wouldn’t change her past one bit, she was what she was, but she did plan to have some more fun.

There was also an awesome go-kart track there, designed like a formula one track. Angel killed everyone on the go-kart track, much to the frustration of Tomas and to the amusement of his sister. He couldn’t believe that he had gotten beat by a girl. The twins tried to console him, but they still wound up giggling.

After lunch, the girls took off shopping.

“Hey can I join you?” Tomas asked, wanting to flirt more with the twins.

Juanita asked him, “Does Tomas want to try on a pretty dress, or find a cute bra to wear?”

“Come Tomas, let the girls go to the stores, join me in the arcades,” Pablo said.

Dejected, he went with his cousin.

The girls spent a little time looking at clothes, but spent most of the time shopping for souvenirs. They each bought several T-shirts that had something to do with Spain and Madrid.

One shop owner offered Angel three T-shirts, if she traded her T-shirt that had the pre 9/11 World Trade Center picture on it. She took the deal and changed into one of her new T-shirts. The shop owner immediately put it on a mannequin and shortly sold it for a nice profit.

On the way home, Pablo drove a circuitous route home, as he and Juanita told the girls some of the history of the area. They took a lot of pictures and made several stops on the way.

As they pulled around back, the kids saw Margarita, Carmine and Felicia sitting with and talking to Carmelita. As the kids headed to the house, Felicia stopped them and asked them to come over.

“Aunt Carmelita, you know Pablo, Juanita, Tomas and Suela of course, with them are Sierra, Nevada and Angel. Girls, this is your great Aunt Carmelita Ramos.”

The girls gave a small curtsy, as they were introduced. They didn’t know what else to do.

“Come girls, give your Aunt a hug and a kiss,” Carmelita said.

The kids one by one gave their great Aunt a gentle hug and kissed her cheek.

“Sit with me for a few minutes, before I have to go inside. It is good seeing so many young people having fun together. How was your day?”

The kids told their Aunt about what they had done. Suela just had to gloat over Angel beating Tomas driving go-karts. Carmelita even got a giggle out of that. Angel said that she really liked snow boarding. The girls loved all the stores that they had a chance to visit. They refrained from teasing Tomas about the dress and bra.

Carmelita was becoming visibly tired, “Children, I am getting tired and must go in. but first Angel, will you play your guitar for me tomorrow.”

“Yes ma’am, I would be proud to play for you.”

“Good, then I will see all of you tomorrow.”

Felicia and a nurse that had come out, helped Carmelita up and into the house.

After Carmelita left, Margarita and Carmine asked some more questions, “So where did you go snowboarding in July?”

“Oh Mom, they had this big building that was very cold. Inside they had all of these hills covered with snow. I tried skiing, but I couldn’t keep standing too long wearing the skis. So then I tried snowboarding,” Angel said.

“Yeah, she was pretty fair at snowboarding, Mom,” Sierra said. “Pablo, Juanita and the rest were better, but we did pretty good.”

“Poor Tomas,” Margarita said. “You let Angel beat you in a go-kart.”

“She had to be cheating, Aunt Margarita,”

“Did not,” Angel said, a little indignantly.

“Why do you say she cheated?” Margarita asked.

“She had to be cheating, she is a girl.”

“Oh my, Tomas. Didn’t you know girls can do a lot of things very well.”

“Yeah, but men are better drivers. She had to get a better go-kart or something.”

“Maybe so, Tomas. She might have gotten a faster go-kart. Then maybe she is a better driver.” Margarita said in closing.

“I want to go practice on my guitar Mom, especially if I am playing for Carmelita tomorrow.”

The kids followed Angel inside. She retrieved her new guitar from her room, went to the living room and began to play as the others talked. The kids kept talking for a bit as Angel warmed up, but when she began to play in earnest, they all stopped to listen.

Angel spent quite a bit of time playing her scales and working on her progressions. After about an hour of hard work, she chose to play eight pieces out of her collection of her master class Spanish and classical pieces. She rotated to some of the pieces she hadn’t played in a while. Her time at the new school made her realize, she needed to work in a more diverse manner and that she needed to maybe expand her repertoire.

Juanita and Pablo had seen the Internet show, but Tomas and Suela hadn’t. Even seeing the show, had not prepared them for how good Angel was with her guitar. Everyone was strangely silent when she finished.

“I couldn’t believe that anyone could play better than Raul Vargas. Most of us thought of him as the best the family had,” Tomas said. “But then I had never heard of you Angel. You are both a magnificent player and a maestro at the guitar; I have to say that you are probably the best in our family now.”

“Thank you Tomas, I know how hard that was for you to say, but I am still learning.”

“Play some more for us Angel,” Juanita asked.

Angel played and sang some of her fun songs, singing in English, as she didn’t know them in Spanish. Sierra and Nevada translated some parts of the songs roughly into Spanish, when they were asked.

Chapter 39

The next day, Angel worked on her guitar again. She was told that her cousin Raul would be there to practice with her around noon. She wanted to make up for the lack of practice after she left school.

Raul came in with the Old Men and the five of them began to hash out a program. Angel was a little sad that her Uncles weren’t going to play with them, but it was Carmelita’s request that these two play for her. The Old Men would play before Angel and Raul came out. Javier and Rolando chose most of the music and Angel and Raul selected a couple of their favorites. They would each have two solo numbers.

They then spent time working out the kinks of playing together. Angel and Raul really enjoyed playing together. He really presented a challenge to her play and he liked being forced to work harder to do his best. By the end of their practice sessions, they were playing very well together.

Before the fiesta, they all took time to put on their festive best costumes. Juanita helped Angel with her hair falls and makeup.

The fiesta started early that evening. Carmelita was assisted by Felicia and her nurse, to a well cushioned wicker chair beneath the awning. About forty people applauded her appearance. Ladies began serving the feast; a whole pit roasted pig was served along with all the accoutrements.

After most of the people had finished eating, Javier and Rolando, along with three other family members, came out playing their guitars and trumpets, in all their Spanish attire. Dancers then appeared, including Margarita, Carmine and the twins.

At the conclusion of the fourth piece, the dancers and musicians took their seats. Raul and Angel made their entrance. They strode up the middle of the crowd playing, the crowd clapping to the music and castanets were clacking away. At the table in front of Carmelita, they did a quarter turn towards each other.

During the show, Angel switched guitars. She had tuned the Torres guitar down two full steps to a C, rather than on an E, to harmonize with Raul and let him shine. It made the pieces sound richer and fuller. Raul caught on and adlibbed it up a bit.

The two also worked to compliment each other, rather than to compete with each other. The guitarists could feel the excitement of the people that had gathered. On Angel’s favorite pieces, she tried to play the best she ever had. In many ways her play showed a new level of maturity than she had shown previously in New York. The two of them played to each other’s strengths.

There was silence when the two finished, everyone was afraid of breaking the spell that had been woven by the two musicians. Finally they all began clapping, shouting and whistling.

Felicia got the attention of the two guitarists and led them over to Carmelita.

Carmelita sat up straight and smiled, as the two guitarists approached her. Felicia placed a mike in front of Carmelita so everyone could hear.

“I just don’t know what to say, in my 102 years of life, I have heard a lot of people play a lot of music. I have never heard the likes of what I have heard tonight. Both of you are great guitarists, but together you transcend greatness. I don’t know where life will lead you two, but if you never play together again, it will certainly be a waste of talent. Thank you for playing for me my dear children.”

She gave the two a hug and a kiss. The two of them bowed to her, turned and bowed to the crowd. After another round of applause, all the people wanted to meet the two. Angel handed off her two guitars to Rolando, while Raul handed his off to Javier.

They then went and talked to the people there. All of the Americans found themselves at the center of one group or another. The other musicians played for the people. It was almost like a second fiesta had started.

Towards the end of the fiesta, Felicia announced that Carmelita wanted to have lunch with all of the children under 20, tomorrow. This brought a stir of excitement from the parents. It wasn’t often that their children got to spend time with Carmelita.

Raul and Angel played some more together, much to the crowds delight. They especially liked it when Angel played from her rock repertoire. It seemed a few already knew the English words to the songs, even when they didn’t speak the language. Angel loved singing with them.

**************

The next day Felicia, Juanita, Margarita and Carmen were busy preparing food again. They dressed up the living room a bit and set the tables. The girls were busy trying to look their best. Carmine did let the girls use a bit more makeup than usual.

Around eleven thirty, Angel and the twins began acting as greeters to the people arriving. Most of the kids arrived by eleven fifty five and were seated around the table.

Carmelita came in and was seated at the head of the table. They said a blessing and the food was served to those there. Everyone there was on their best behavior, some under heavy threat from their parents. The Americans were dispersed amongst their cousins. Angel sat to Carmelita’s right. Tomas was fuming, as he was seated away from Sierra and Nevada, and next to Suela, his sister. It wasn’t to her taste either, but she put up a better front of it.

Carmelita just smiled, looking at the twenty one children there and ate. Her meal was much different; blander than the kid’s food, but she was the only 102 year old there.

After lunch, they all assembled in the living room. Carmelita sat in her large cushioned chair; a couple of mikes had been set up. The kids sat on the couches, on the chairs, or on the floor around her.

“Children, please bear with me,” Carmelita said. “I know many of you don’t like school, but the history I am about to give you relates to our family.”

Excerpts from the lips of Carmelita Ramos. (Facts may or may not be 100% correct but hey, what history is.)

I was born in 1905 and have seen and lived through a lot of history. I was born during the reign of Alfonso XIII, King of Spain. This was after the infamous Spanish American war, which taught us how misguided perceptions can easily lead to war.

I was nine when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated and the First World War took place. As a child I didn’t understand what was happening or why my parents were so disturbed by the events.

We lived on a small ranch back then. My father Miguel Ramos raised bulls for the arena back then. He was a proud man who raised brave bulls.

Spain was neutral back then, but we still worried that the conflict would spill over into our country. Conflicts have a habit of spreading once they are started.

But I stray; the time I am really concerned about, began in 1923, with the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. He was a general in the army. Spain’s government up to that time, was splintered and unresponsive to the people. There were many factions and most didn’t get along well with each other. Financial distress and social unrest led to him overthrowing our parliament. He took power away from them and our king. Alfonso tried to placate him and declared him Prime Minister.

Rivera suspended our constitution, dissolved our legislature and declared martial law. He sent forces to the Basque and Catalonia regions to suppress separatism in those regions.
Between 1923 and 1930, things did get somewhat better, but there was a period of inflation in 1929 and the value of the peseta dropped like a rock, hurting the people. Rivera’s rule fell apart in 1930, Alfonso XIII abdicated and the Second Republic began.

The thirties were very turbulent and the conditions worsened. The worst part in our history began in 1936, the Spanish Civil War. Of the people that you know, my nephews Javier and Rolando were alive then. There may be others, but very few.

We were a divided family, with members in many different factions. I won’t list the factions or say who was what. It was a time that nearly tore us apart.
I will say people who loved freedom were the big losers during this time.

Many factions made up the Popular Front, which included the Republicans, Communists and Anarchists, are but a few and many made up the Nationalists, which included the military, the strongly fascist falange and monarchists, most of whom were Catholic, are a few.

In the next three years, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards were killed and executed, with many more injured.

Most of the family pulled together on our ranch. It was hard to keep everyone fed. One side or another would come through and take what they could find. We were smart, we had more than some, but we were able to conceal it. We kept our family well and helped some of our neighbors stay alive.

I have to say, that even though the majority of us didn’t like Franco and his government, he may have been the lesser of two evils. He did one thing that was good; he kept Spain out of WWII.

Although we were neutral, both the Axis and the Allies operated in our country. Mostly it leaned Axis, but there were many who helped and fought for the French and the Allies.
Stalin, who had sided with the Popular Front, hated Spain and at the Potsdam conference, urged the Allies to invade Europe through Spain. Thankfully, Churchill and Roosevelt both resisted that idea.

Life after WWII wasn’t any better for many years. Spain was punished in some ways, mostly economic, for their neutrality. Parts of our family went to Mexico, to the United States, Argentina and many other countries.

We may be separated by many miles, and some of us may have diverse beliefs, but one thing is important children; we are all Family. Our family is our strength. You may not like one Aunt, or Uncle. You might not be able to stand this family, or another. There may be good family members, or bad family members. One thing remains for us, “We are all Family!”

“Felicia, I tire.” Carmelita said, after talking for over two hours. “I need my nap.”

Felicia and the nurse helped the old lady to her room.

Quietly, the kids all hugged and their parents took their children home.

**************
Sunday morning, everyone in the household went to confession and then Mass. The church they went to was incredibly old and had a gothic appearance. The girls took a lot of pictures from the outside, but they left their cameras in the car before they went in. Even here, Carmelita had a place of honor, a nice comfy chair for her to sit in.

It was interesting listening to a sermon in Spanish; back home there were Spanish speaking churches, but their parents all went to predominantly English speaking churches.

Throughout the litany of standing and kneeling, Carmelita just sat, she would have liked to be able to kneel with her family, but it was enough for her to just be there.

After the service, Angel was invited to ride back home with Felicia, Jesus and Carmelita. The nurse rode back with Margarita and Javier. They hadn’t gone far when Carmelita began to address Angel.

“Angel,” Carmelita began. “Yesterday was for you and for our family. No matter what else, never forget that. You Are Family. You are not the first to be this way, in our family. There have been a few others. They have remained a bit more anonymous, but you have a rare gift. It will be hard for you to be anonymous. Just hold your head up high and smile, knowing that you are loved, and that you are family.”

“We shall speak of your differences no more, as a matter of concern. You are, to us, what you appear to be, just be the best person that you can be and that will be enough, little one.”

Chapter 40

Monday found Angel in the accompaniment of eight children and seven adults, on the AVE high-speed rail, headed to Barcelona. None of the Americans, except for Margarita, had ever been on a train before. To actually ride a train, was more exciting than even flying, to them. It was different to fly thirty thousand feet over the land and when you could see the land, it was small and anonymous. From the train windows you could see everything, at least briefly; considering they were traveling at 300kmh. Angel figured that out to be about 186 mph.

Angel was traveling with her guitars again; her uncles had insisted that she bring them, but they didn’t say why. She loved looking out the windows at the landscape. Portions of Spain are very rugged, especially on the border with France. It was similar in appearance to parts of New Mexico.

They arrived in Barcelona at two; Uncle Rolando had already rented two vans for them and had made hotel reservations. It was just a short trip to the hotel, where they were free for the rest of the day. They all went out to eat and then sightseeing around the hotel.

**************

The next day, the Americans and the Old Men took a side trip. They went to what looked like a warehouse district. Angel got real excited when she saw the sign for Amara Verdad Cantu Guitars.

“This is the place that made my new guitar, isn’t it Javier,”

“Yes, we thought that you might like to meet the lady who built your guitar.”

“Thank you.”

The eight of them entered the storefront of the warehouse. Angel was carrying her two guitars and was surprised to only see about a dozen guitars. The storefront was quite nice. This shop didn’t have the feel of a traditional store; it was more like some luxury stores. There was real wood everywhere and the ceiling wasn’t a drop panel ceiling but consisted of fancy moldings. They even had crystal chandelier.

“Welcome to Cantu Guitars, what can I do for you,” the salesman said.

“My niece is from America and we bought her one of your guitars. She just wanted to see the place where it was made,” Javier said.

“We don’t usually have tours, but let me check with Amara Cantu.”

The salesman made a call, while everyone waited.

Angel looked at the displays; she could pick out the guitars she thought might be cheaper and those that were up there with hers. The cheaper guitars might be less expensive, but they looked to be just as well made. Some were made with different woods and most didn’t have the detailing that went into hers.

A woman in her late forties, to early fifties, came in from the back. She was a hefty woman, but not overly fat. Her arms were muscled from all of her work and her hands had speckles of varnish on them.

“Hello, I am Amara Verdad Cantu,” the middle aged woman said. “I understand that you want to see the place where your guitar was made.”

“Yes, I am Javier Ramos, we bought my niece, Angel Marquez from America, one of your guitars. She really loves it. We thought that she might want to see where her guitar was made.”

“Which one of you is Angel?” the woman said smiling.

“I am ma’am.”

“I am Amara Verdad Cantu, which of my guitars do you have?”

“I am not sure, but I have it here,” Angel said, opening the case.

“Ah, that is one of my Concert Classical Guitars,” she said looking at it. “I sold that one not a month ago, to Raul Vargas, if I remember correctly?”

“Yes, he is one of my uncles.”

“Maybe one day you will play as well as he does.”

“Maybe,” Angel said smiling. “May I play it for you?”

“Yes, please play for me.”

Angel tuned up the guitar and began to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The expression on the woman’s face changed to surprise and then to joy, as the girl played first few measures. Angel then went on to play Recuerdos de la Alhambra. A few more workers came up front as Angel played.

“Oh Mother of God, forgive this old woman for talking down to you Angel. That is a good name for you, you play like an angel.”

“Thank you,” Angel said, giving the woman a thousand watt smile. “I really do love your instrument.”

Angel then put away her Cantu guitar.

“What is this other guitar you have with you?”

“It is my favorite, but I can’t keep it with me all the time,” she said, opening the case of the second guitar.

Amara raised an eyebrow, at the girl’s statement. Angel took out her Torres guitar and tuned it up, before playing Malaguena and Cavatina on it.

“Oh, Mother of God, who made that guitar?”

“Antonio de Torres.”

You could hear a pin drop in the room, after Angel said that.

“Just a moment, let me get Grandfather,” Amara said, hurrying into the back.

Amara came back in with a very elderly man. The man looked like a workman, who had been hard at work.

“Grandpa, this young lady is Angel Marquez and her Torres guitar. Angel, This is Juan Alfonso de Torres. His great uncle was Antonio de Torres. Would you mind playing your guitar for him?”

She played Romance de Espana, Sarabande BWV 997 and Paganini Caprice no. 24.

“That was wonderful,” the old man said, as tears stained his cheeks. “What number is your guitar?”

“Fifty.”

“Ah yes, he was in Almeria then. Uncle Torres never revealed what made his guitars so special. It has been many years since I have heard one of his guitars. Thank you for the gift you have given me.”

“Your granddaughter has come close, in my opinion, Mr. Torres. I have to keep my Torres in a vault, but I take it out to play on special occasions. My Uncles have two Jose Ramirez guitars.”

“Ah yes, they are very good too, but none are like a Torres.”

“May I look at your guitar young lady?”

“Yes you may.”

Juan took a minute to wipe his hands clean and then Angel handed him the guitar. He looked it over with a careful eye and then used his hands to feel the wood.

“Your family should be commended for taking such good care of this guitar. I can see its age, but it is in excellent shape.”

He smiled and handed the guitar back to Angel.

“I would be honored to show you my shop Angel,” Amara said.

They all headed into the back with the woman.

“May we take pictures,” Sierra asked.

“Yes you may. Our secrets can’t be photographed. Our secret is only the touch of our hand’s and the qualities of the materials that we work with.”

Her people went back to work so that the visitors could see what they do. There were maybe a hundred guitars in various states of completion.

“I am a small operation. I can’t make guitars in the thousands with the same quality. We do use some machines to cut and shape the woods, but all of the fine work is done by hand tools.”

She led them to a room that was full of various types of wood.

“There are a lot of woods a guitar can be made of; each type of wood can give the guitar a different sound. I have found that old growth woods, or wood that has been recovered from the bottoms of various lakes and rivers, can add a certain richness to my guitars. So where possible, I choose to use them.”

Amara took them through step by step of the process. All three girls took a lot of pictures of the craftsmen doing their jobs. Angel tried to look into the soul of the men at work, and took some really good pictures.

Amara herself put her hands to work on a soundboard. She would scrape the backside of it and feel it with her hands, before doing some more work.

Angel loved seeing Juan work on a guitar neck. He had a neck in a clamp and was shaping it with a plane. There were no electric machines in his corner of the shop, just his hand tools.

In the finishing department, one man was adding gold leaf to a high-end concert model, before varnishing the instrument.

“Everything we do to an instrument can affect the sound quality, even the gold leafing and the finishes we use. So we have to be careful not to do something just for the sake of beauty, but an instrument that is as beautiful as it sounds, is a joy to the eyes and the ears.”

The family spent about two hours in the shop.

**************

Barcelona was a lot like Madrid and yet very different than Madrid. It had some wonderful beaches, some beautiful parks and a lot of history. They visited several museums, went to a symphony, visited a cathedral that has been under construction for over a hundred and twenty years, visited the Olympic sites in town and visited many quaint shops.

They even spent one day visiting the city-state of Andorra. This is a country that is just over 450 square smiles. It is smaller than many large cities, with a population of only about 85,000 people. It is located on the border between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains.

Chapter 41

Monday, in Madrid, the girls were so excited, that they had to set their laptop up in the kitchen and loaded all their photos on the hard drive. They went through all the pictures, sorting out and deleting the pictures that they didn’t like, before transferring the photos they wanted to keep, to their Photobucket account.

They got a call from Tomas, just after they finished loading the photos on the Internet.

“Hey Angel, this is Tomas.”

“Hey Tomas, what’s up?”

“You’re famous Angel. I found some videos of you on youtube.com.”

“I have never posted any videos on youtube.”

Tomas gave the girls the search parameters he used for youtube and they pulled up the site and did the search. Sure enough, there were six videos of Angel on You Tube. They were the videos the school had taken.

“Mom,” Angel called out.

A few seconds later, Margarita entered the kitchen. “What is it Angel?”

“Mom Look!”

Angel played one of the videos, “That is one of the video’s they made of me at school.”

“I never gave them permission to post any videos on the Internet,” Margarita checked her watch and took out her cell phone.

“Sarah Adams’ Academy, my name is Marlow. How may I help you?”

“I am Margarita Marquez; I need to speak to Mrs. Beckman regarding my daughter Angel.”

“Just one moment please…” after about a minute the phone began to ring again.

“Hello Mrs. Marquez. How may I help you?”

“You can tell me why there are videos of Angel, taken by your school, on YouTube,” she said calmly. She didn’t see any point in getting angry.

“I didn’t authorize any of that, believe me Margarita.”

“Well it is there,” Margarita said, as she gave the URL to Mrs. Beckman.

“Oh Lord, yes those are our videos of Angel. I am so sorry. Let me get to the bottom of this. Where can I contact you?”

“I am in Madrid, Spain, for the next eight days. You can call me on my cell phone.”

“I hope that you won’t pull Angel out of our school.”

“No of course not, but I was upset about the videos.”

“We will provide adequate compensation and I assure you that no more videos will appear on the Internet. We will try to remove the one that are there.”

“Don’t bother, taking them down. Once something is put up on the Internet, it is almost impossible to completely remove.”

“We wanted to use those videos to help in our recruitment.”

“I have no problem with that, Ethel.”

“How is your vacation in Madrid?”

“We are having a wonderful time. We got to meet a lot of distant relatives, including my 102 year old great, great, great, Aunt. We went to museums, art galleries, amusement parks and we got to see the sights of Spain. We even visited the country of Andorra.”

“That sounds wonderful. I hope you took lots of pictures.”

“We did, we posted them at Photobucket,” Margarita said, “We will have a non family viewing directory when we get a chance.”

“I look forward to seeing those pictures. Well let me get right to tracking who posted those videos. You have a great time in Spain.”

“Thank you, I expect to hear from you soon.”

“I hope nobody gets into too much trouble over this,” Angel said.

“Don’t worry too much about it Angel. I don’t think anyone will be fired or expelled over it, but someone violated the school’s trust and our rights.”

“The videos were posted on Saturday and look at the hits they have already picked up,” Sierra said.

“And the comments people have posted.” Nevada said.

Margarita checked out what her nieces had said. In forty-five hours one video was already at twenty thousand hits. Even the least popular video had over fourteen thousand hits. The comments were ‘oustanding’, ‘fabulous’, ‘a beautiful girl, making beautiful music’, ‘a real genius’, ‘a real virtuoso’ and other similar comments.

**************

Tuesday, Juanita and Pablo took the Americans to a park where many people gathered to perform. There were mimes, musicians and even people who were performing plays. One Man was doing Marc Anthony’s funeral soliloquy. Hearing it in Spanish was new to the girls.

Angel had brought her Cantu guitar. She found an area where she wouldn’t interfere with the other performers and sat on a concrete bench. After tuning up, she began playing her Spanish repertoire. She already had a small crowd of family. The twins changed into their Flamenco shoes and began dancing.

They soon had a nice crowd gathering around them. After she played four or five pieces, she switched over to some classical and American pieces. The crowd loved her Bohemian Rhapsody and Hotel California. One guy even sang the words to Hotel California in English, as she played.

She had been playing a while, when an old man approached her.

“Hello I am Servando Morales. You are such an angel. May I play with you?”

“Yes, you may. I am Angel Marquez.”

The old man began laughing, “Of course your name is Angel.” He took out his guitar and quickly tuned it to Angel’s. “Do you know Bach’s Sonata no, 2 BWV 1003,”

“Yes I do, you take the lead and I will follow you.”

They were both tentative at the start, but as they played together, they began to challenge each other. Angel had misjudged the old man at first and had to work to keep up her part of the duet. They gave each other places to play solo and played follow the leader a couple of times.

They played six more pieces together, including two of Angel’s most difficult pieces. The old man never missed a beat and neither did Angel. They had drawn a huge crowd of people who were strangely silent and listening.

He was amazing, playing at Angel’s level, but she suspected that he was better, than she was. Together the two guitarists were incredible weaving together the notes that flowed from their fingertips. When they finished, the applause was tremendous. Servando stood and offered a hand to Angel. She took his hand and stood, together they bowed to the audience. Then Angel bowed to Servando. He smiled and then bowed to her.

“You play wonderful, young lady. I feel I will be seeing more of you.”

“You play pretty good yourself,” she said giggling.

Margarita, Carmine, Juanita and Pablo made a buffer for Angel and Servando. The people there wanted to know who the girl was and more.

“Thank you kindly, for allowing me to play with you.”

“No thank you, Servando. I needed a good challenge. You provided that and more. I loved playing with you so much.”

“You are too kind.”

He turned and put away his guitar.

As the crowd began to dissipate, many came by and threw coins and bills into her guitar case. It took Angel about five minutes to clean out her case and stow her guitar, she had €327.50. She turned to give the old Servando half of the money, but he was already gone.

“Dang it, Angel, you could pay for this trip in a couple of weeks doing these shows,” Margarita said.

“Servando didn’t stay so I could split the money with him.”

“It is good that you want to share, honey. There will be times that people will want more than their fair share in the future, I believe. You will have to do what your conscience tells you is right then.”

**************

When they got home, they went over the pictures they had taken that day. Nevada had taken about two dozen really good pictures of the two playing their guitars. She was really becoming a good photographer. Felicia stopped them when she saw the picture of Servando Morales.

“You played guitar with Servando Morales?”

“Yes, that is what he said his name was.” Angel said.

“He is one of the premier Classical and Spanish Guitarist in the World,” Felicia said.

She got on the girl’s computer and searched Wikipedia for Servando Morales (Fictional Character). He is eighty three, calls Madrid his home and plays with several of the great European orchestras at times. Other sites listed him as high as the third best Classical guitarist living and in the top fifty of all time.

“I knew he was better than me. I had to work hard to keep up with him.”

Sierra found that he even had his own webpage. She played a video of him playing.

**************

Later that evening Margarita’s cell phone rang.

“Hello,” Margarita said.

“Hello, Mrs. Marquez, this is Mrs. Beckman. I called to inform you of what I found out.”

“Hello Ethel, it is good hearing from you and please call me Margarita.”

“Well, we found the girl who posted the videos. It was Vanessa Hall. She is one of our freshman, soon to be sophomore girls, who WAS taking a course in Video Editing. She had taken, as part of her course work, the raw video of Angel and had edited it into short videos. She did a really good job of it too; she seems to have a knack at picking the best shots to go with the audio. Vanessa told me that she really loved Angel’s playing and the videos we shot. She took some of her favorite pieces home with her last weekend and posted them. She really is a computer whiz.”

“I had all of the students in the auditorium and talked about ethics and copyright laws. I told them that they could be expelled, or sued for posting copyrighted material on the Internet. If you want, I will expel her.”

“Don’t do that Ethel, but I would like an apology from the girl.”

“You both will have that. Vanessa really is a good student, but she just didn’t think before she did this.”

“I think that will be sufficient.”

“Not quite enough by us Margarita. She will also be in my personal doghouse, this fall. I guarantee that when she gets out of my doghouse, she won’t want to get back on my bad side anytime soon.”

“That sounds good. You will tell me if Angel gets placed in your doghouse too won’t you.”

“Of course, if her actions warrant it.”

“Well, then we will see you in August.”

“Enjoy your vacation.”

“Thank you, bye.”

Chapter 42

Angel treated several of her Spanish cousins to a day at the arcades. Tomas and Suela were both in heaven. At least till Angel beat Tomas at a Grand Prix race game. He couldn’t get away from Suela teasing him. Angel’s best time was number 19 on the race game’s top twenty.

Sierra and Nevada gave everyone at the Arcade hell, on the dancing game. They ruled at the arcade, till some of the champions of the arcade came in, then they held their own, winning as much as they lost. Their one two punch, crushed a lot the players. Sierra would beat someone and they got their hopes up when Nevada challenged them, only to be crushed again.

Tomas did get some satisfaction from Angel on the Hogan’s alley shooting gallery. Angel, encouraged by Suela and Juanita, really did try to beat him, but Tomas was better. He was going to Lord it over her, but remembered that she had beat him driving.

**************
As their vacation days wound down, the girls went shopping for souvenirs and things not readily available in the states.
At a Spanish costume shop, Angel picked up a couple more outfits. The first was a heavily embroidered, white Curro Romero jacket and a gray skirt. She also bought a blue embroidered, Rejoneador jacket, vest and breeches. These costumes were better made than her other costume. She bought a pair of calf high boots, a pair of ankle high boots; both had 3 inch block heels, two ruffled blouses, two more sets of chandelier earrings and several more bracelets. She wore the blue jacket, vest and breeches out of the store, with the ankle high boots.

**************

They held a big fiesta on Saturday. There were more people there than the first one. Raul and Angel were the featured musicians as before, but there were a lot more of the family involved in providing musical entertainment.

Carmelita got to spend a couple of minutes with each family there. When Margaritas and Carmine’s turn came, the old woman smiled and handed each child a piece of jewelry, which she had collected over the years. To Angel she gave a jeweled guitar broach that looked very old. The edges of the guitar were lined with some shiny stones. The twins each received ruby slipper dangle earrings.

“That was my broach, Angel. I too use to play the guitar. Music was important to us back in the bad old days. Music helped us forget our troubles, at least for a little while. My only regret Angel, is not having met you years ago,” Carmelita said. “Wear that broach with pride and remember me, my little one.”

“I will Aunt Carmelita,”

As they left Carmelita’s side for the next family, Felicia handed Margarita and Carmine some documents, “You might need these documents when you go home. They state that the items listed were indeed a gift, and the value of the gifts is unknown. You may have to pay a duty on them in the U. S. I don’t think they are just costume jewelry, but I don’t know.”

**************

Monday they all went back to the Snow Zone, with Margarita and Carmine. The kids liked watching the olds try to snow board. Neither Margarita nor Carmine had skied or snow boarded before. Just like the kids, they had a hard time at first. Carmine plopped down face forward and plowed snow down half the hill. She sat up laughing at herself. After a while though, they were able to make it down the easy hills without embarrassing themselves too badly.

The parents did worse though, in the arcades and the go-karts, the kids were just too much for the olds. Angel was the grand champion at the go-karts and Grand Prix racing game, Tomas ruled on Hogan’s Alley and the twins on the dancing game.

Margarita and Carmine loved playing with their children; it had been too long since they had just played with their kids like this. The kids got to see a softer, sillier side of their parents. Margarita they found, could be quite the prankster.

**************

The next day they spent getting their purchases and gifts listed on the declaration forms and packing. They were all amazed at how much stuff they had accumulated. They packed all of their new things in one large case, which they bought in Spain, except for Angel’s new costumes, which had their own garment bags.

**************

They had an early breakfast the next morning and they were all surprised at the number of people, many very drowsy that met them at 4 am.

They all received a round of hugs after eating and a promise to keep in touch with each other. Sierra and Nevada both gave Tomas nice kisses on the lips.

Chapter 43

After a long flight, with a two-hour layover at London, Heathrow, they landed at New York JFK. This trip through customs took a little longer. The question wasn’t the Torres guitar, but the Cantu guitar, it was a good thing they had it registered before they left the US and the jewelry. Margarita nearly fainted when she was told the broach was Fabergᨠdiamond and emerald creation. The twins were equally surprised at the value of their earrings. Both families paid more in duties than they expected.

They headed directly to Carmine’s place from the airport. They all were thoroughly exhausted, even though it was early evening, when they arrived. They just managed to get all their stuff inside before they collapsed in their beds.

**************

Saturday, Janice came over with her guitar. The girls just had to regale her with their pictures and stories of their trip to Spain. Janice couldn’t believe the number of pictures that they had taken, there were hundreds and hundreds of pictures.

After a couple of hours of going over their trip and lunch, Angel gave Janice a guitar lesson. She could play an acoustic guitar, but after playing the classical guitar so much over the last few years, she had to think about what she was doing a bit more. Janice was a quick study; she paid a lot of attention to Angel as they worked on their guitars.

Their work was interrupted by the doorbell. A minute after it rang, Carmine came into the girls’ room and asked Angel to come to the living room. All the girls came with Angel to find out what was happening.

In the living room, Angel saw her mother talking to Mrs. Beckman and another girl. Angel’s heart was in her throat. She was worried that there might be a problem with her going to school at Sarah Adams Academy.

“Hello Mrs. Beckman,” Angel said. “Is there a problem with my going to school there?”

“Oh heavens no Angel, this is about Vanessa Hall apologizing to you for putting your videos on the Internet.”

Vanessa Hall was a fifteen year old girl, just a little taller than Angel. She had long blonde hair and two beautiful blue eyes that sparkled. She was dressed in the school’s blue blazer, red tartan pleated skirt, white blouse, red crisscross tie, knee socks, and black Mary Jane flats. Her face was full of worry, but she stood upright and tried to smile.

Angel felt a lot better.

“Angel this is Vanessa Hall, Vanessa, I know that you know Angel.”

“Yes Ma’am, I know of Angel, although we have never met.”

“Do you have something to say to Mrs. Marquez and Angel, Vanessa?”

“Yes Ma’am. Mrs. Marquez, Angel. I am very sorry for posting videos of Angel on YouTube. I didn’t think about what I was doing before I did it. I liked what I had done, in working with the raw video and audio. I have never heard anybody play the guitar like you before, Angel. I loved listening to you play. You are the greatest, Angel.”

The more Vanessa talked the more she began to tremble. She was almost in tears at this point.

“I now realize that I violated your privacy by posting those videos without your consent. I also violated the schools trust in me. They let me work with those raws, so I could learn how to do video editing. I know that you, your Mom and the school can sue me and my family for this violation and I won’t blame you if you did. You would be fully justified in this action. I admit, I did it, nobody else is to blame, I did all the editing at school and loaded the finished videos onto a flash drive and uploaded them onto my You Tube account. I just wanted to show other people the wonderful music you made Angel. I am sorry.”

The dam burst and Vanessa started to cry. Angel ran over to the girl and hugged her, telling her not to worry about it. Vanessa hugged Angel tightly.

“I am so sorry Angel,” Vanessa said, as she cried on the girls shoulder.

“It was bound to happen sooner or later Vanessa. Don’t worry; my mom is not going to sue you. Are you Mom?”

“No, I am not happy about it, Vanessa, but I am not out to ruin you or your family.”

Vanessa then ran over to Margarita and gave her a big hug.

“I am so sorry Mrs. Marquez; I didn’t do it to hurt your daughter.”

“I know you didn’t, but some actions have consequences, sometimes big consequences. You need to think before you do things.”

Vanessa then stood before Mrs. Beckman.

“Again, Mrs. Beckman I am sorry for what I did. I know that you could expel me or worse. I would deserve it if you did.”

“We aren’t going to expel you Vanessa, we might monitor you more closely for the next few months and you will have to earn our trust again, but you are still one of our best students.”

Mrs. Beckman was a very proper lady, but she knew the power of words and the power of a good hug. She reached out and gave Vanessa a big hug.

After she let Vanessa go, Mrs. Beckman said, “I guess we should be returning to school now.”

“I won’t hear of that Ethel,” Carmine said, “You will stay here for dinner.”

Mrs. Beckman smiled, “Well I guess, if you insist.”

“I insist.”

“Yes, you are welcome,” Margarita said.

Sierra and Nevada each took one of Vanessa’s arms and said, “Come on back to our room, Vanessa.”

“What video’s are they talking about, Angel?” Janice asked.

“Oh sorry, Janice, we didn’t tell you about them. Janice, this is Vanessa Hall. Vanessa this is Janice Fletcher, she is a friend of mine.”

Back in the girls’ room, Angel had Vanessa pull up the videos of Angel that she had posted. All of the videos had garnered lots of hits and comments. One video had gotten almost three quarters of a million hits and twenty three pages of comments.

“Oh, my Angel. I would never have thought that they would get those kinds of numbers in just over two weeks,” Vanessa said.

“Wow, Angel, you’re an Internet star,” Janice said.

The girls played all of the videos online for Janice. They all talked about the videos and each girl picked out her favorite.

Angel then said, “Let’s dress up for Dinner. Janice you are staying for dinner.”

“I don’t know, I have to talk to my mom and I don’t have any good clothes.”

“Call her; better yet, ask her to come over too. I will tell my Mom.” Angel said, handing Janice a cell phone. “Don’t worry about clothes; there are enough dressy girls’ clothes here for all of us.”

They all started working on getting dressed. Vanessa was just going to sit back and watch, but Sierra and Nevada got to work on undressing her and dressing her up, as Angel was working with Janice. Vanessa was handed the outfit that Angel had worn in the video, Angel wore her White outfit and helped Janice dressed in the blue outfit.

The jacket and skirt were too tight in the waist, so Angel had to pull out her basque. Janice blanched a bit, she didn’t know what to call it, she hadn’t worn one before, but she knew in her heart what it was meant to do. Angel strapped it on Janice in her own room. She was surprised that Janice had more up top than she did, without the breast forms.

Janice saw her confusion and said. “I have been taking hormones for years, Angel.”

“They prescribed them for you at your age?”

“No, I snuck behind Mom’s back, till she caught me. The doc was pissed at me too. These,” Janice said, indicating her breasts. “Were the reason, I started dressing as a girl full time. I just couldn’t hide them very well.”

Angel stuck a couple of pads into the cups, to flesh them out and Janice fit nicely into her clothes.

**************

Carmine started the cooking in the kitchen, with Ethel and Margarita’s help. Then Ethel took over as Margarita and Carmen went to get dressed.

Ethel didn’t escape either. Margarita brought her a lovely teal, cocktail dress and shoed her off to her room to change, after she had gotten dressed.

**************

The girls’ room was a war zone, with hair and makeup flying everywhere. Vanessa was, much to the twins delight, very good with makeup. She was ecstatic with the girls’ makeup kits. The twins went to work on the hair, of those not getting their faces done.

Once they were finished, they waited in the twins’ room for Mrs. Fletcher to arrive.

Carmine greeted Rita when she rang the doorbell and made the introductions in the dinning room. Margarita knocked on the twins’ bedroom door.

The ladies were all standing as the girls came in. They oohed and ahhed as they saw the girls. First the twins came out in long sheath dresses, Sierra in red and Nevada in green. Next was Vanessa, followed by Angel and last was Janice.

When Rita saw Janice, she gasped. Janice was really beautiful. She reminded her of herself as a young girl.

“Oh my gosh, Janice. You look so lovely. Where did you get that outfit?”

“It belongs to Angel, she loaned it to me. She also loaned an outfit to Vanessa too.”

“Well it is so pretty, you better be careful not to stain it, ok.”

“I will Mom.”

“Mrs. Fletcher, this is Vanessa Hall, a girl that goes to school where Angel will be going,” Angel said.

“It’s nice to meet you Mrs. Fletcher.”

“It is nice to meet you too Vanessa. All of you girls look so nice.”

Everyone sat at the dinner table and after the food was blessed, they began to eat. Vanessa took this time to explain why she was here. Janice told her mom about what a big Internet star Angel was. Angel and the rest of the family talked about their trip to Spain.

After dinner, Angel and Janice played their guitars. They played some easy pieces: House of the Rising Sun, Greensleeves and Janice played the bass line, while Angel played the main line, of Pachelbel’s Cannon in D.

They girls then went to Photobucket on a laptop and put their pictures of their trip up on the LCD TV for all to see. The girls explained what the pictures were, as best they could.

Mrs. Beckman was fascinated to learn that Angel had played guitar with Servando Morales. She hadn’t known that name before this summer, but after hearing Angel play guitar, she had done a lot of googling on the classical guitar. She had found a list of the top classical guitarists.

After going through the pictures, they all sat around and talked.

“Well Janice, where do you go to school?” Mrs. Beckman asked.

“I did go to Crestview High, but that is going to change this fall. I am going to have to change schools.”

“It’s a long story, Mrs. Beckman and I don’t want to go over it right now.” Rita said.

“What kind of grades did you get?”

“Last semester, I got five A’s and two B’s. I usually do better, but Calculus and Physics were kind of hard at first. I got the hang of it now.”

“Were you taking a senior level math course as a freshman?”

“Algebra was boring the first semester. I took a test in December and they let me take Calculus in the spring. I had a lot of catching up to do.”

“Girl’s, why don’t you go change out of those nice clothes, I would hate to see them get dirty.” Mrs. Beckman said.

The girls got up to go change. Angel and the twins suspected what was going to happen after they left the room. Angel and Janice undressed and then hung up the outfits.

“Angel, this jacket and skirt are so nice, thank you for letting me wear it.”

“No problem Janice, you are welcome. You and Vanessa looked so nice in them. I loved helping you out.”

Back in the living room Mrs. Beckman said, “Mrs. Fletcher, I would like to test Janice and see if she could fit into our school.”

“I… I… couldn’t do that. For one thing I don’t have the money to send Janice to a private school. We just couldn’t afford that.”

“We do have a scholarship program. A good third of our students are on some sort of financial aide.”

“I… I… just couldn’t.”

Mrs. Beckman reached into her purse and took a card, out of her card holder. She scribbled a note on the backside and then handed it to Mrs. Fletcher.

“Call me Monday, I bet we could work something out for you. Please Mrs. Fletcher, call me.”

Mrs. Fletcher looked at the back of the card. It read, I know, please call me. I can help you.

Once the girls were back in the room, Rita said, “Well it is getting late. We need to be heading home.”

“We need to be going too, Vanessa. I hadn’t planed to spend all day in town, but I admit it was a delightful experience.”

Janice hugged Angel and the twins, and then Vanessa hugged Angel, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you Angel. I really didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me, Vanessa. I was just surprised to see myself on the Internet.”

**************

Angel had to start getting ready for school. Sarah Adams’ Academy actually started next Monday, a full nine days before Sierra and Nevada had to return. She had to come in two days before the regular students, for orientation. Margarita had already returned to New York to start her new job.

Her first stop was a shop, which sold uniforms for Sarah Adams’ Academy. She got five sets of uniforms and two extra Long uniform skirts for cold weather. She also needed the orchestra outfit, which consisted of a jacket, a long black skirt and a blouse. She passed on the Phys Ed clothes, except for the schools hooded jacket sweat shirt and pants.

She got her hair and nails done one last time before school, visited her doctor and her psychologist, picked up a ninety day supply of meds and played with the guys at Leo’s one last time.

She was a big hit at Leo’s. He had life-sized posters made up from some of the images downloaded off the Internet. Leo asked if she minded, she said it was alright. He then had her autograph the posters that he had up.

“I have to admit,” Leo said, “I was surprised to find you on youtube.”

“I hadn’t planned on being there. One of the students at the school I am going too, boot legged some video the school had shot and uploaded them herself.”

“I have to admit, those were some fine videos, very professional. The audio was outstanding and the video editing was above par.”

“The school has a really nice recording sound stage. The girl is a sophomore in school, named Vanessa Hall. She edited the raw video herself and mixed in the audio. She took feed from four cameras and melded it into a video.”

“Wow, I am impressed. You say she is a sophomore. I am going to keep my eyes open for her name. I am sure she is going to do well in the biz.”

“She got in a little trouble over it; she didn’t have my families, or the school’s permission to post it.”

“Are you or the school gonna sue?”

“No, she is a good kid, but she is in the doghouse right now.”

They played their usual set and Angel sold seven high-end guitars, three she autographed. Leo’s was so packed for the jam session. They had to move it to the courtyard in front of the shop.

As Angel was getting ready to leave, Leo stopped her.

“You don’t think we are going to let you go without saying goodbye. Do you?”

“I’m not going away forever Leo, just to school.”

“Well, just come over here girl.”

Wee Willy and Jeffery Wilkins brought out a guitar shaped cake, with three sparklers burning on it. ‘Good luck at your new school’ was written on it, in icing.

“Come on guys. You didn’t need to do this. I will be back.”

“You better come back and visit us Angel,” Wee Willy said.

“Don’t make us come to kidnap you from school,” Jeffery said.

“I won’t be here for your jam sessions, but I will drop by here on some weekends.”

“Just give us some warning, Angel. We will set up a show for you. Here are our E-mail addresses. Write us girl,” Leo said.

“I will send you my new E-mail address, when I get it guys.”

They cut the cake and sat around talking in the back of the shop.

“We also got some presents for you,” Leo said.

The guys handed her three presents. Leo bought her a sterling silver necklace with a guitar pendant. Wee Willy bought her silver guitar drop earrings and Jeffery gave her a charm bracelet with a guitar charm on it. Angel kissed all of them on the cheek and put on her new jewelry.

“Guys you shouldn’t have, but thank you anyways.”

Chapter 44

Angel couldn’t find Janice to say goodbye. She had seen neither hide nor hair of her all week. She did leave her some emails in her inbox, but she was a little sad that she would be unable to say goodbye in person.

Saturday, after breakfast, Angel, the twins and Carmine loaded all of Angels’ things into a van that Uncle Rolando had brought by. It was a nice van and they needed all the space. Margarita was unable to make it down this weekend. She was on a retreat with the senior management.

As they pulled onto the campus, a senior student stopped them at the gate. After identifying themselves, they were directed back to the Mrs. Westfall’s cottage.

There were three girls sitting on a bench, near the cottage, wearing the scools sweat pants and hoodie. They approached the van as it pulled to a stop. The girls introduced themselves and asked.

“Angel Marquez, for Mrs. Westfall’s cottage right?” One girl asked.

“Yes, this is Angel Marquez,” Carmine said, standing behind Angel.

The girls attacked the van. With Carmine and the twins, they only needed to make two trips to the van.

Mrs. Westfall greeted them all warmly, as they entered the dorm.

“Where is Margarita?” She asked.

“She just started a new job and is in a business meeting this weekend. She gave me guardianship. That is not going to be a problem is it?”

“No, of course not. Some students arrive here with only a chauffer. We don’t like that, but some parents are just too busy.” Sarah said with a little distaste to her voice. “I just wanted to tell her how happy we are to have Angel here.”

“You don’t have to worry about Angel. We won’t leave her here and forget about her. She may spend one or two weekends a month here, but we love her too much just to abandon her.”

Mrs. Westfall smiled at that. She had three girls that spent all of last year here.

“I didn’t think she would be forgotten. I will need to sign her in, verify contact information, collect any medicines and get her into her room. Girls, she is in her old room.”

The girls headed to the room she had been in this summer. She was the first to arrive at the cottage and had her pick of beds. She chose the bed nearest the bathroom.

Everything was taken from the van and in her room in fifteen minutes. The seniors headed back to their station and the twins helped Angel to get all of her things put away, as Carmine sat and talked with Mrs. Westfall.

In an hour, they had the luggage all nested and stowed on top of the armoire. The bed was made; her stuffed guitar was strategically placed on the bed, her laptop on her desk, family photos on top of her dresser and the few other personal touches that were allowed.

“My room is ready for inspection Mrs. Westfall.” Angel said.

Mrs. Westfall was surprised by that; it usually took girls hours to get their rooms in order. Especially when they brought in as much stuff as Angel had. She found the room neat and in order. It was unusual to find a freshman that had as much discipline as Angel was.

“Yes, this room is in order. Nice job Angel, Sierra and Nevada. You all did a good job.”

The girls ate lunch with Mrs. Westfall and then took Carmine on a tour of the Campus, showing her areas that she had yet to see. At three thirty, Carmine and the twins gave Angel a tearful goodbye. The twins hated to leave their cousin. It had been so much fun having a third sister, so to speak, this summer.

There were two more girls there by dinnertime. Neither one of them were in Angel’s room. One of the girls Angel already knew from this summer, so they had a happy reunion.

**************

Sunday, nine more girls arrived. Angel took up station with the seniors and helped the girls get their things into the dorm. An hour before dinner, Angel was inside playing her guitar, as a large group of girls sat around listening.

As she was playing, she heard her name called. She turned to the door and screamed as she saw Janice.

“Janice, it is so good to see you. Are you going to this school too? Are you staying in this dorm? Come on tell me.” Angel said, in one breath. She had jumped up, set her guitar gingerly in its case and ran over to give her a hug.

“Yes and no.” Janice said. “Yes I am going to this school now and no I am not in this cottage. I am in Mrs. Collins cottage.” Janice said, pointing in the direction of her cottage.

“How?”

“I got a full scholarship. I have been here all week testing. Yesterday we went to town and got my things and some uniforms.”

“You have got to tell me all about it.”

“It will have to be later. I have to get my room in order. I just came over here to say hi.”

Angel put her guitar in her room and walked Janice back to her cottage, talking all the way. At the door, they hugged and parted ways.

As she walked back, she thought how life had changed for her. Life seemed to be getting better. Angel was walking on air, knowing she had many new friends, a new school, a wonderful family and many more wonderful relatives that all accepted her for who she really is. Life was definitely going to be interesting from now on. She couldn’t imagine where it would all end up, but she definitely wanted to be part of this exciting journey.

The End

I want to thank everyone who have read and commented on Angel Marquez. It has been a fun story to write. I am taking a little break from this story to write others, but there just may be a sequel in my gray cells somewhere.

Thank you,

Paula