Jason sat rigid, waiting for the reply that he knew would be honest and feared might be too candid. He felt as though his life depended on her answer. Shelly was Jason’s oldest friend. True, until fifteen minutes earlier, he hadn’t seen her since second grade, but they had been inseparable until then.

The smile on Shelly’s face tightened a bit as she considered his question. She thinks she might hurt me, Jason thought. It’s OK, Shel, whatever. Nothing Shelly could say would hurt more than the hell Jason endured at school. Hardly a day went by that he wasn’t cornered, bumped, slapped, jabbed or shoved, that the the contents of his backpack weren’t scattered along the corridor or his gym clothes floated down the main staircase, that Jason wasn’t taunted for a sissy. It was so unfair that Jason couldn’t help crying, but that of course proved he was a sissy.

“No, silly, why would you say that?” Shelly reached across the tiny table and squeezed Jason’s arm. Overwhelmed by her kindness, Jason couldn’t help the tears that started, first drowning his eyes and then flooding his cheeks until Shelly handed him a paper napkin.

Her simple gesture released memories of happy days. Shelly had been like a big sister — a big sister who was never mean or petty. Jason had been her willing slave, her helper and supporting actor in a thousand games and make believe stories. Then Shelly’s family had moved away.

“I’m just so happy; I can’t believe it’s you. I’ve missed you so much. And, you’re so pretty!”

“Aw, Jase, silly little Jase! You really think so?” Shelly was pleased. She knew she was pretty, but it was nice to hear it confirmed by this boy with whom she’d shared a playpen, a sandbox and a dollhouse. And she was pleased that she’d found him, too. Something about the boy huddled on a bus stop bench had tweaked a long dormant synapse. He looked, well, familiar, and so Shelly’d walked right up to him and asked “Are you Jason Baldwin?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he’d replied, hardly looking up until she replied “Well, I’m Shelly Atkinson.”

A little more than a chronological year separated Jason and Shelly, but at that instant in time, light years separated the childhood friends in coolth. Jason was a totally prepubescent 12, Shelly a teenage dream at 14 going on 20.

A few moments later, Shelly had dumped the friend-boy who’d invited her to a mall movie to dish instead with Jason at an ice cream place. She listened sympathetically, her well-timed nods and smiles encouraging Jase to pour out his tale of woe. Jason for his part had decided that he could lay his soul bare to Shelly.

“My life sucks, really. I don’t have any friends anymore. No one wants to be seen with the class geek. There’s four or five guys who push me around, call me fay-rie, that stuff. Sometimes I think about taking a gun and killing them. Sometimes I think about killing myself.

“You know what I think, Shel? I think I should have been a girl. I mean it! I’m good at stuff girls like to do — art and writing, especially — and I really suck at gym.”

Something about what Jason said, or maybe the way he said it, as though he’d given the matter a lot of thought, caused Shelly to consider her own reply.

“Jase, there’s no bunch of apes on earth uglier than a pack of thirteen year-old boys, but it won’t last. Give it time. Just be yourself.”

“I hate being myself. I hate gym. I hate the way they make me lie and pretend I’m someone I am not. Why won’t they let me alone? Why am I such a retard?” Jason paused. “My prick’s still the same size it was when you saw it.”

Shelly remembered, and reflected that since that time she’d grown both nice breasts and a bush. “O Jase, Jase, relax! You know you’ll get there. Everyone does.” Her attempt at soothing him unleashed another flood of tears. “But Shelly, here’s the thing. Snf! I hate having to pretend that I want to be gross and stupid. I hate having to pretend not to know the answers in class, or that the only thing I read is the sports page. Girls don’t get beat up for being smart.”

Oh, right, Shelly thought, sucking hard on her straw, sucking up the last of the shake. He thinks it’s so easy. “Look, Mister,” she said, stressing the mister, “it’s not so easy being a girl either. . . . Though,” Shelly added as an afterthought, “it is worse if you are dumb.”

“Jeez, Shel, I’m not saying I want to be a girl. I only want not to be a boy!”

Jason was maybe five feet two, skinny from top to bottom. Shelly studied his face — not bad was the unspoken thought — and his shaggy blonde curls and slender hands. Shelly checked out the rest of him. “Stand up, Jason, and turn around.” Out of ancient habit, Jason did as Shelly commanded. It might work, she thought.

“It might work,” she said aloud.

“What might work?”

“I think you could pass for a girl, Jase. Want to try?”

“Like I said, I don’t want to be a girl.”

Shelly detected less conviction this time. There was something exciting about that. Was it the memory of Jason’s slavish devotion when they were children together? “What have you got to lose?” Shelly asked. “Why not have some fun for a change?”

II.

A distance so vast that it had sundered a childhood friendship was now only a matter of half an hour’s bus ride. Telling his mom that he’d been invited to go to a football game, Jason secured most of a day to visit Shelly. Her current neighborhood and her house were, well, intimidating, but Jason had decided to throw caution to the winds. He rang the bell; Shelly answered. In pink capri pants and a tank top, Shelly was, Jason realized, hot. “Hi,” he said, and tried to remember what he was supposed to say next.

Leaning against the door sill, Shelly stretched forth a finger and traced it idly around Jason’s ear. “Don’t vurry, darlink. Ve von’t hoort you. Now you coom in,” she purred in a pseudo-accent suggested by the late night movie of the night before. “Coom on. Mommy’s avay for ze day. Ve haf some pretty tings for you to stry on!”

True to her word, Shelly had combed her closets for outgrown clothes, and assembled a wardrobe that many of her 8th grade girl friends would have killed for. There were short skirts and long, tees and tank tops, a pink mohair sweater with puff sleeves, ballet shoes, short heels and strappy little sandles, a pair of embroidered jeans with jacket to match, and a pile of panties and bras.

Jason breathed hard. Something made him want to flee. Something else made him unbuckle his belt. “Not yet, Jase,” Shelly said, having reverted from Mata Hari to the bossy girl next door. “First I want you completely clean.” She made him drop his pants, shed his shirt, socks and shoes. “Now get in the bathroom and take a shower. Wash everything. Especially your feet.”

Jason dropped his underwear, stepped into the shower, and did as he had been told. When he finished, he opened the curtain and there was, well, Shelly. She handed him a towel. As he finished drying his private parts, she handed him a pair of silk panties and a training bra to match. “Try these on,” Shelly ordered in a tone that brooked no defiance.

Later that day, and on many occasions afterward, Jason was forced to admit to himself that he was a lot more attractive in the clothes Shelly had chosen for him than in a tee and cargo pants or anything else from his closet at home. She’d solved the hair problem by raiding the attic for a short wig left behind by an aunt who’d died of cancer — which morbid fact she did not share with her protégé.

Shelly also drilled mannish gestures out of Jason. To tell the truth, it wasn’t very hard to teach the boy how to sit in a dress, to walk in low heels, to show off his assets-under-development while preserving his modesty. She taught him how to use just enough lipstick and blusher and to handle a purse. Midday on the third Saturday, Shelly declared Jason ready for a trip to the mall. Jason winced, but as usual succumbed to Shelly’s edict. And why should he not, when a glance in the mirror proclaimed him as pretty as any hottie seventh grader? Jason did not need Shelly’s support to know that when he was dressed as a girl, no one would recognize Boy Geek Jason.

The mall was fun. They’d spent most of the afternoon trying on clothes under the bored gaze of salesgirls who knew that neither Jason nor Shelly carried enough cash to buy anything substantial. At four, it was time to scoot for home, before Shelly’s mom got back from work, but guess who’s car was in fact already in the driveway.

“Just keep your cool,” Shelly commanded, opening the door. “Mom! I’m home! I’ve brought a friend,” she shouted. Obediently, Jason followed. Shelly’s mother appeared, looking a lot like Mary Tyler Moore. “Hello, sweetheart. Introduce me,” said Mom.

“Mom, this is Jayne. I know you’ll like her, ‘cause I do. She’s from near here. She’s in 7th grade and I’ve kind of adopted her. C’mon Jay, let’s run upstairs for a minute” Shelly said in a couple of breaths.

Jason bolted for the stairs before Shelly’s mom could see he was hyperventilating. Jayne?! A bit of a shock, but not so bad a name, perhaps. As we will see, it soon becomes second nature. At first, it’s a bit of a sweat.

“Chill, Jayne. Here’s our plan” said Shelly, always prepared. “You are my protégé. You are a mall rat that I took pity on and have scooped up. Your family is poor and your only hope for couth and coolth is to hang out with us. And, untypically for a 14 year-old drama queen, I like to help out my less fortunate peers. Capisce?”

Where did Shelly pick up Italian? No big deal. As usual, Jason let her direct him through the scenes she set, this time prominently featuring Mom Atkinson.

III.

“Mom? Can Jayne stay to dinner?”

“Does Jayne want to? Is it OK with her parents? Does she like tuna?”

“Of course she wants to. We just want to know if it’s OK with you before we phone.”

“Mrs. Atkinson, I love tuna.”

“Call me Barbara, sweetheart.”

Now for the other part. The kids went into the den, out of Shelly’s Mom’s earshot. Shelly picked up the phone and dialed Jason’s house.

“Mrs. Baldwin, this is Steve uh, Schwartz. I’m the guy Jason’s been doing his history project with. My mom says it’s OK for him to stay to dinner if that’s all right with you. . . .

“Yes, ma’am, we’ve been working all day and it’s almost done. I’m awful glad to be working on this project with a guy as smart as Jason. We can probably finish up in just a couple of hours after dinner. My mom says my dad’ll run him home when we’re done. . . .

“Oh, thank you, that’s great!”

Jason was blown away by Shelly’s mom management. He hugged her. They high-fived and went in to set the table.

At dinner, or more accurately, over the remains of dinner, Shelly popped another question. She hadn’t run it past Jason, in fact it was spontaneous, but she sensed he wouldn’t object. “Mom, do you remember you said I could invite any girl friend I want to go to the beach with us when school lets out?”

Mrs. Atkinson, er, Barbara remembered.

“Well, could we take Jayne?”

Barbara nodded, wondering who Jayne was, really. Where did she come from and was she good company for two weeks? Then, remembering her manners, she nodded more enthusiastically and said “of course! We’ll have a great time, won’t we? But Jayne, I’ll need to talk to your mother first.”

Jason thought about just sinking silently below the table. Shelly kicked him. He abandoned the thought, but he still hadn’t a clue as to how Shelly was going to bring this one off.

Shelly was having too much fun, and she knew it. A bedrock element of decency reminded her that she was messing with Jason’s soul, with unforeseeable consequences, but it didn’t stop her.

IV.

The plot would have been blown if Shelly’s mom had done the driving instead of her stepdad. Shelly’s stepdad, however, didn’t know that where he deposited Jayne was only half a block from Shelly’s old house. Nor did he notice that in the back seat Jayne had changed just enough items of clothing to make a fair imitation of Jason as he went through the front door of the aging bungalow.

“Jason, is that you? It’s late.”

“Yes, mom. We got a lot of work done. What are you watching?”

“Sit down and tell me about your friend’s family. . . . It’s American Idol. . . . Are they Christians?

By “Christian,” Betty Lou Baldwin meant fundamentalists. Jason suspected that the Atkinsons probably didn’t even go to church very much, so he did the only thing he could under the circumstances. He lied. Then he excused himself, pointing out that tomorrow was Monday. Betty Lou sighed to see that her little boy seemed, for once, happy about going to school. She made a mental note that he needed a haircut, and kissed him good night.

Back in Ranch Valley, Shelly was filling in Barbara. “She’s such a sweet little thing, mom. Smart and basically pretty, but so out of it. And she’s had an awful life at home.

Barbara lifted an inquiring eyebrow, and Jayne explained. “Her parents are Baptists or Holy Rollers or something. Everything that’s fun is a sin. I want to help her. I’m going to teach her how to be cool. Is it OK that I gave her my old clothes? Could we tell them that I’m inviting Jayne to church camp?”

“That wouldn’t be true.”

“It’s a necessary white lie. If we don’t help Jayne get out of her cage, she’ll be messed up for life. You write a note, mom, please. We’ll both go to Sunday School if we have to.”

Fifteen minutes later, worn down by Shelly’s relentless advocacy, Barbara Atkinson had bagged the idea of a phone call. Instead, she’d agreed to write a note to Jayne’s mother inviting Jayne to join the Atkinson family in Ocean City for two weeks. She managed to mention the Methodist Sunday school twice. Barbara’s scrawl was so bad that it was possible to read ‘Jason’ where she had written ‘Jayne’ and ‘Steve’ where she’d written ‘Shelly.’

Hours after that, beguiled by the thought of a holiday from motherly duties and swayed by Jason’s enthusiasm, Betty Lou Baldwin agreed. Neither of the women realized that the other was a former neighbor. Though Jason and Shelly had been close, Barbara and Betty Lou had never been, and anyway, back then Shelly’s mom had had another last name.

When you’re a kid, you live for the moment. Fast-forward to teenager, you can imagine trouble ahead, but still you don’t necessarily take out an insurance policy. For all practical purposes, Shelly and Jason were winging it. School was at last finished for the year. The summer stretched before them.

Either Betty Lou Baldwin or Art Atkinson might have noticed that Jayne looked oddly boyish and Shelly oddly girlish when Art and Shelly picked up Jason that morning, but neither did. By the time they’d gotten to the the Atkinsons to load up the SUV, Jayne and Shelly were both giving a good and giggly imitation of nymphets, so much so that it crossed Art’s mind that perhaps he ought to keep a close eye on both.

At the beach, the sky was blue, the sun was hot, the surf and sand crowded with kids having fun. Shelly was a boy magnet. Having ditched the wig in favor of a boy cut that showed Jayne’s curls to advantage, wearing a subteen bathing suit that created a suggestion of non-existant curves, Jason attracted attention too. It was enough to provide Shelly plenty of instructional material when, at the height of the day, they retreated to a secret shady spot under the boardwalk. Shelly coached Jason in the art of flirting, devastatingly deconstructing the moves of the boys who made passes at her or Jayne, gently suggesting how Jayne might have hooked and reeled in the more attractive ones.

Jason objected. He didn’t want to hook any boys. Shelly explained that flirting was flirting, whether Jason was Jason or Jayne. If he could understand it from a girl’s perspective, Shelly argued, he could as Jason charm the flipflops off any 13 year-old girl on the beach — once he started to grow a little, that was. Jason understood.

By Wednesday, Jayne had hooked some guys. Not much compared to the swarm around Shelly, but both Don and Matt asked Jayne if she’d like to go out, Wednesday night, Shelly and Jayne went to the boardwalk with Fred and Don. Thursday night, they rode the rides with Greg and Matt. On Friday, Shelly wanted to date Fred again but Jayne preferred Matt, who was nicer than Don. The inner Jason sensed that Matt was safer, and for once Jason didn’t let Shelly roll over him. Shelly said ‘what the hell’ and double-dated with Greg again. They went to a karaoke place, took possession of a booth in back, and sang along with the romantic songs. Jayne was wearing an off the shoulder dress with a dropped waist and short skirt. Shelly’d accessorized her with strappy one inch heels and a temporary rose tattoo on her upper arm. Jayne would have felt foxy even if Don wasn’t nuzzling her neck. Jayne glanced behind her and saw Shelly was wrapped around Greg. What the heck, thought Jayne; might as well try it out. He’ll never know.

Matt! Quit singing. Kiss me! thought Jayne. She almost said exactly that, but it seemed simpler to grab his face and insert her tongue. Or was it Jason’s tongue?

At this point, as Matt vigorously kissed him back, Jason began coming to a conclusion that successfully being Jayne was about the best thing that’d ever happened to him. There was a small problem, though. His little wee-wee was stiff.

“Jase! Wake up!”

A cool breeze off the sea made sleeping very pleasant, and Jason wanted to keep it that way. Shelly, however, wanted to talk. Needed to talk.

“What?” said Jason, rolling over away from Shelly so she’d know now was too early for civilized conversation. “What? What!” she answered. “What the hell were you up to last night making out with that guy Matt?

Jason sat up, a dreamy smile covering most of his face and his brain as well. “Yeah, wasn’t he cute? I had such a good time! C’mere, Shelly . . . .” Jason reached over and gave his friend a hug. “Thanks.”

“Thanks for what?” Shelly was on guard. Girl friends hugged all the time, and Jason in pink baby doll p.j.’s certainly looked the part. Last night he’d acted the part — and that was the problem. Jason was getting further into the Jayne role than Shelly had expected.

“Thanks for making all this possible. I can’t remember when I’ve been so happy.” There wasn’t a hint of irony; Jason was genuinely, completely thankful, and completely comfortable, this very early Saturday morning in late June, to be for the nonce not Jason but Jayne, an almost thirteen year-old babe.

“This isn’t going to last forever, right?” Cranking in the new data (Jason was happy being Jayne), Shelly was working out contingency plans in her head. So far she’d gotten up to Plan F, and every one of them from A thru F now ended crash and burn.

“Just a minute. I gotta pee.” Jason didn’t quite shut the bathroom door. Shelly listened. It was the sound of someone peeing sitting down. Aw, jeez, Jason!

Jason returned to the bed they shared. He started to say something. So did Shelly. Both stopped. “OK, Jase. You first,” she said.

“Do you think your Mom would adopt me?” he asked.

A remarkable idea, Shelly thought. “No,” she said. “Why?”

Put on the spot, Jason hesitated. He licked his lips and twisted a lock of hair and looked for a long second at the ceiling. And then the thoughts rushed out.

“It’s like this. I’ll bet my parents could care less. I’m a total disappointment. I think sometimes my dad likes our dog better than me. Anyway, he’s always gone; he drives a long-haul truck. As for my mom, she couldn’t wait for me to go here with you so she and our preacher could get it on.

“My school sucks. If I lived with you, I could go to your school. Your mom is nice. So’s your dad. That’s all.”

To her credit, Shelly took a full 90 seconds to process this new data. She checked out Plans G through J. The result was still crash and burn.

“Meaning,” she said carefully, “we should tell my mom and dad that you’re really Jason and we want you to move in with us?”

It was Jason’s turn to think some more, about half a minute. He thought about the apes at school that worked out their pathological urges on him every morning before homeroom. He thought about the time he’d walked in on mom screwing the preacher and they’d explained it away as an intensive prayer session. He thought about his dad quoting the Bible about sparing the rod and spoiling the child. That was the bad part. Then Jason thought about how happy he’d been helping Barbara cook dinner. How much he’d liked hanging out on the beach and the boardwalk with Shelly. How grown-up he’d felt when Mr. Atkinson — Arthur — had poured him a tomato juice as the sun went down and talked with him about space travel and global warming. And told him that he wished that more of Shelly’s girl friends were as aware and articulate.

“Your dad says I’m aware and articulate. Your mom says I’m feminine without being silly and she’s happy I’m your friend.

Jason took a deep breath. “Do you think they’d let me live with you and still be Jayne?”

“Oh, jeez, girl!” Plans K through at least R spun through Shelly’s head; none worked. “Here’s a Flash. The Jayne bit is just make-believe. It’s to help you get out of your hole and high enough up to see that life can be fun. Not to turn you into a permanent girl!”

“Could we talk to your mom anyway?”

VII

The first thing was to find a good time to talk.

That ruled out Saturday and Sunday and Monday morning because Art was going to make the best of a long weekend before going back up to the city. So instead Shelly and Jayne went out with Art and Barbara to feast on crab and corn on Saturday night, and waterskiing on Sunday, and then that night to a movie with Matt and another friend of Matt’s that Shelly liked substantially more than Greg, so she wasn’t bored when Matt and Jayne played tonsil hockey.

Monday afternoon, Barbara sent Jayne and Shelly to get their shaggy locks cut and styled. Shelly got a boy cut like Jayne’s. Jayne got a shaggy boy cut that looked more like a girl’s.

Monday night, Jayne dried the dishes while Barbara washed up. Shelly had found a reason to be absent. “Barbara, can I ask you a question?”

Barbara picked up on Jayne’s anxiety. “Sure. C’mere.” Barbara pointed at a seat at the kitchen table. She took one herself. “What’s up?”

“If you found out that I’m not who I seem to be, would you be really mad?”

Long pregnant pause. Nothing Barbara has read or been taught had directly addressed this question. At last she said “What is it? I’ll do my best.”

“I’m a boy.” Barbara inhaled. She tried not to seem too astonished. “Not much of a boy. I wish I really was a girl.” Barbara registered silently that there was nothing about Jayne that communicated “boy.”

“Well, I’ll be darned,” said Barbara.

VIII

Six rings. At last he picked up. “Art? We have a problem. . . . Jayne doesn’t want to go home. Turns out her home life sucks. Odor of child abuse here. . . . Oh, and Jayne’s really a boy, though she’d rather not be one. . . .

“Yes, I know. . . . No, I don’t think so. . . . What do you expect? Nervous.

“Yes, Shelly’s OK, at least I think so.

“All right, sweetheart. . . . You too. Bye.”

Jayne hung up. The phone rang again.

“I understand, Art. Much as I’d rather not. G’bye!” She slammed down the receiver.

“Jayne?”

Jason braced himself. He regarded Barbara gravely.

“What’s your real name?”

“It’s Jase . . . Jason Baldwin.”

“Like little Jason on Amherst Street?

“Yes, ma’am. Shelly was my best friend. This isn’t her fault. She’s nice, and I’m a mess.”

Quietly, “How’s your mom?”

It wasn’t a question Jason expected, but something urged him to tell the truth. “She’s all messed up too. She’s in love — I guess — with the preacher from our church.”

It was more truth than Barbara expected, but helpful in a way. Helpful to know that a straight line isn’t necessarily the shortest way between two points, or two parents.

It was necessary to lower Jason’s expectations. “Jase? May I call you Jase?” The child sitting forlornly at the kitchen table looked perfectly like a Jayne. Slowly, he nodded.

“Jase, honey, I’m not comfortable with where you’re at. Have you ever had counseling? Talked to a psychiatrist or social worker? Told any other adult how you feel?”

Jason thought about his life up until now. School sucked. His dad was ashamed of him and that embarrassed his mom. Until six weeks ago, the best part of Jason’s whole life had been playing house with Shelly. Now the best part was hanging out with Shelly as Shelly’s friend Jayne.

Where was this conversation heading? “No,” Jason said. “No counseling. None of that. And I’m Jayne,” he added defiantly.

Art came back to Ocean Shores the next day, even though it was only midweek. He was waiting when Shel and Jason got back from the beach. Jason could see by his expression that the news was not good.

“Shelly, why don’t you and Jase get cleaned up, and then come back to talk?” he said. They did. Trying not to rattle Art any more, Jason wore cutoff jeans and a tee, no makeup or jewelry, as androgynous a look as he could improvise under the circumstances.

“Um, er, Jason — do you mind if I call you Jason? — it’s easier for me” said Art.

“I’d rather you still called me Jayne” said Jason, refusing permission.

“Can’t do that,” he said. “Look, do you know . . . you do know, don’t you? . . . that this is an impossible position for Barbara and me? You’re way too young. No one will ever believe we didn’t encourage you.”

“You didn’t,” Jason replied truthfully. “Shelly did. And I liked it.”

“Shelly made a mistake. A big mistake. She didn’t consider the consequences for Barbara and me if it got out that we tolerated — no, they’d say abetted — sexual deviance.”

Shelly was in agony. “Daddy, I told Jason it was just a joke. I told him he had to stop!”

Jason on the other hand was merely decomposing as he contemplated the ruin of the sand castle he’d built in his imagination. The boy felt his eyes fill with tears and then overflow. “It wasn’t Shelly’s fault. She didn’t know how much I’d like it . . . not being a boy, I mean.”

“I’m sorry, Jason. Barbara and I are both public figures. Our careers would be on the line. We can’t chance it.” It was the speech Art had been rehearsing as he drove down the parkway to the shore. Jason could tell he believed it. Maybe it was true.

Right there, twelve year-old Jason Baldwin realized that Art and Barbara were deathly afraid. He owned them, if he wanted to. Meanwhile, Art was running on. “I’ll take you back to the city tomorrow night. We’ll pretend this never happened, OK? You’ll be all right. You’ll see. Maybe you can still be friends with Shelly, but you have to be a guy, OK?”

Jason’s eyes were dry now. You piece of shit, he thought. Aloud he said “Whatever you say, Mr. Atkinson.”

“I think maybe I hate you, Daddy,” said Shelly. “For now, at least.”

The phone rang. Sunk in his private gloom, Jason tried to ignore it. It wouldn’t quit. He threw off the covers and picked up the receiver. “Yeah?”

“It’s me, Jase. We got back night before last. Guess what? That guy Matt asked me for Jayne’s phone number.”

“Yeah?”

“I told him to give me his number, and you could call him instead.”

“Shelly, are you trying to mess me up for life?”

“You like him; you know that. He likes Jayne. You like being Jayne. I’m being a friend.”

Jason paused, as though Shelly’s logic needed time to sink in. Was it going to start again? Better it didn’t. “Look, Shelly, maybe I’ll call you, OK. Not right now.”

XI.

The ride back from the shore had been horrible. Shelly’s father ignored Jason. The batteries on Jason’s CD player died after twenty minutes. After that, there was nothing to do but watch the scrawny pine trees whip past. As the scrub pine gave way to subdivisions, Art Atkinson spoke.

“Jason, you should get psychiatric help. Maybe you imagine what you were doing is just play, but what you were doing is wrong. It’s dishonest and it ought to be illegal. You should be ashamed. Frankly, you disgust me. I don’t want to see you near Shelly unless you can act like a young man, do you understand? I don’t want you corrupting my daughter.”

It was a relief when Shelly’s father dumped Jason and his suitcases in front of his house.

The car was gone, meaning Mom was at work. Jason retrieved the back door key from a can under the steps, let himself in, went up to his room and opened a window to let out two weeks’ of dead air. Then he replaced all the clothes from his boy suitcase in the drawers from which they had come, save a tee shirt and a pair of briefs. He took the suitcase Shelly had given him to the kitchen and dropped most of the contents into the washing machine. Jason studied the dial and pressed Light Wash. He took off the sphagetti strap tee, the shorts and panties and dropped them in the washer too. Then Jason put on the boy’s briefs and tee shirt and a pair of cargo pants. He sat on the back steps waiting until the washing machine stopped spinning.

A shrink or social worker, seeing Jason at that point, would have said “Wow, that is one seriously depressed kid with pink fingernail polish and blue toenails.” After he moved Shelly’s old, but now freshly washed clothes to the dryer, Jason remembered to take off the nail polish. Then he took the ironing board down off its hook and began ironing. I feel like a zombie, he thought, and that’s appropriate because now I am a zombie. I had a life and now I’m dead”

The boy took the clean underwear and socks and folded them. He folded the ironed shirts and shorts and two dresses, and put them all back into Shelly’s suitcase, on top of the sandals and shoes and the little purse and the costume jewelry. Then he closed up the suitcase and gave it a decent burial upstairs in the back of the hall closet, underneath some boxes of Christmas decorations.

When Betty Lou Baldwin came home — late, because she’d stopped in at the church — she noticed the shades were drawn in Jason’s room. Unlocking the front door, she heard the radio playing. “Jase, is that you? What are you doing home already?” she called as she climbed the stairs. No answer. Seized by a sudden rush of panic, Jason’s mother threw open the door to find her son lying stolidly on his bed, his eyes wide open but fixed on apparently nothing. Unbidden from Betty Lou’s mouth came something midway between a gasp and a sob.

Jason turned his head, focused on the silhouette in the doorway, and said “I came back early, Mom. It was a bad trip.”

XII.

The next day Jason ate breakfast, assured his mother that he’d be OK, and went right back to bed as soon as she left.

The day after that, he didn’t bother to pretend. When she called him to get up, he just turned up the volume. She pulled the plug. Jason glared at her.

“Baby, please. Can we talk?”

“Just let me alone for a while, OK, Mom?”

Many moms at this point would have made a doctor’s appointment. Jason’s mom had small faith in doctors, and a lot of faith in Reverend Prentiss. She excused herself from work a little early and stopped by the church office. As always, the preacher was very happy to see Jason’s mom. His enthusiasm flagged, however, when he realized that Frances wasn’t in the mood this day for nookie.

“OK, sweetheart, what is it? Confession’s good for the soul.”

Betty Lou reached into her purse. She extracted a tissue and applied it to her moist eyes. Then she extracted a pair of silvery silk panties. “Frank, I’m so worried about Jason. I found these in the bottom of the washing machine.”

The story poured out as Frances had lived it. Jason’s curls, now scraping his shoulders. His unexpectedly early return from the beach. The tan lines on his shoulders. His withdrawn, gloomy brooding. The panties.

Frank Prentiss could add. He gave extra weight to the curls and the panties. “It adds up to something sick, I fear, something sinful. I sense an Abomination, dear. Maybe we’d better pray.”

She sank to her knees and he followed her, thinking she’d rarely looked so appealing. Being a principled sort of adulterer, Frank merely uttered a prayer, something like this but much longer:

O Lord, who sees all and justly condemns them that stray from Your righteous path, we ask You to show Your mercy on Jason Baldwin, who is but young and perhaps confused. Deliver him, O Lord, from Abominations of all sorts and cause him to be the sort of son that your servant Betty Lou deserves, A-men.

Betty Lou felt better immediately. Frank knew, however, that His work was not done. “Here’s what you gotta’ do, Bett. First, get Jason to a barber before Bud comes back. And then all of you come to church this Sunday, you hear?”

XIII

It took another two days, the imminence of his father’s return from humping a wiggler to Portland and back, and a combination of wheedling and threatening before Jason’s mom convinced him to let the barber cut back nearly three months’ growth of red-blonde curls.

As usual, Bud Baldwin was in a vile mood after fighting heavy traffic for 14 hours, and with only a couple or three beers in him he decided Jason needed a whumping. Though there were lots of things about life that made Jason cry or want to, this was not one of them. He was not going to give his father the pleasure of seeing tears. Probably he got an extra whump or two for being stubborn.

The next morning they all dressed up and went to church. Preacher Prentiss gave everyone a warm hello, led the congregation through a number of prayers and psalms, and then launched into his sermon. In language both lurid and vague, the Reverend P warned about a large number of things distasteful to the Lord to which confused Youth are specially prone. He mentioned gays/homos, lesbians, transgenders and baby-killers. That the preacher did not put his finger specifically on Jason, Jason took to be an act of kindness when it was in fact more a failure of the preacher’s imagination. Jason had no doubt that the preacher was addressing himself directly to Jason’s own sins, no more than he doubted the truth of the Hell that awaited those who did not repent of their Abominations.

It was hot in the small church, but Jason felt a distinct chill as Preacher Prentiss swung from sermon to prayer. In well-practiced cadences, Prentiss invited the sinners to step forward. Repent and you will be forgiven; continue your Abominations and you will go to Hell, no middle ground, the message was clear. Jason bit his lip, fighting back nausea and fear of Hell.

The service ended with a ragged hymn. The church emptied slowly of its congregation. Most paused at the door for a word with the Preacher. Jason’s father paused longer than most, gripping the other man’s hands and whispering intently — angrily, it looked to Jason. They climbed into the car, Bud Baldwin last, slamming the door. “Bett, that’s the last time I’m coming to services here. We can find another church.”

Jason’s mother sucked in, waiting for the rest of it. It was best to let Bud rant when he was mad.

“Prentiss is a fucking hypocrite. He can rot in Hell with his whores.”

Pause. “What do you mean, Bud?”

“There’s a roadhouse on Route 22 that my good buddy Denny goes to sometimes. He’s seen Prentiss there. Seems he’s a regular.”

“Bud, most men drink. Lots of men go to bars. You know you do.”

“Prentiss is cozy with all the girls there. ‘Cept they aren’t girls, Bett. It’s a gay bar. It’s full of transgenders.”

“Oh my God, Bud! Is that true?!

“Fucking straight it is.”

XIV

Transgender! That was the word he needed to know. As he mowed Mrs. Holloway’s lawn, Jason pieced together what he’d learned at church, from his dad’s rant, and from Art and Barbara Atkinson. He collected two bucks from Mrs Hennessy. Still deep in thought, Jason started in on the Baldwins’ own lawn. Transgenders were people who belonged to one sex but acted like the other. Were they just pretending, or was it a real feeling? Were there lots of them? Were they all going to Hell?

Jason was putting away the lawn mower when his dad came out with a mug of black coffee. Bud Baldwin sat on the back steps, squinted at the sun and said “Looks like a hot one today.” Jason recognized this as an invitation to talk, so he sat on the steps too. “Yeah, real hot. You taking the truck out again soon?”

“Yeah, I have a load of air conditioners to Houston for starters. Leaving tonight after dinner; that’s why I slept late.

“Look, Jase, I’m sorry about the other night. I shouldn’t have thumped you. I was upset because your mom told me she’d found a pair of girls’ panties in the bottom of the washing machine.”

Jason swallowed hard, waiting.

“You’re way too young to be messing around with girls. Don’t be in a hurry. Don’t get caught having to get married the way I did, or you’ll be hammering an eighteen-wheeler sixty hours a week too. I want your life to be different. Special. We’re saving up so you can go to college.”

Was it still OK to hug your dad when you are 12? Jason wasn’t sure, so he leaned closer and kind of hugged his dad’s leg. His dad gave him a pat on the back. “You’ll be OK, kid. Anything you want to tell me?”

Jason thought about his Mom shagging the preacher, and then he thought about double-dating at the beach with Shelly, but he heard himself answering “No, Dad. Except . . . I love you.”

“Thanks, kid. Me too. Let’s go make some lunch and watch a game together.”

The next day, Jason got up before his Mom left for work. “I’m glad you’re up, Jase. I worry when you just lie in bed all day with those earphones on.”

“Mom, I’m bored. I’m going to the library today to see if I can find any books I want to read.”

“Wow, that bored, huh?” Mom herself was not much of a reader.

Jason put Mrs Holloway’s two dollars in his shorts pocket and rode his bike to the library. The public use computers were in the back. He clicked open a search engine, looked around to see if anyone was watching, typed in transgender, and pressed the Enter key. The old machine blinked a couple of times and then a screen appeared:

By direction of the Putnam County Library Board, this computer is equipped with software that screens out obscene, violent or overtly sexual material. This is to protect the community’s youth from indecency. If you are over 18 and wish to have the software temporarily disabled, please fill out a form explaining why and give it to the research librarian.

Books and articles dealing with ___transgender___ are in the locked stacks. If you are over 18, wish access to them and have a legitimate research purpose, please fill out a form and speak to the research librarian.

Jason had no doubt that his research purpose was legitimate; he also was sure that the only thing that would result from his talking to the librarian would be a phone call to his mother. He shut down the computer, nodded to old Mrs Hasking, unlocked his bike and pointed it toward the Comic Shop.

Usually, Jason would have stopped to check out the new issues. This time he headed for the game room in back. There were already half a dozen kids there. Two little ones were playing some sort of Pikachu game. The others were whacking away at each other in a multi-user sword fight. A kid with a stud in his nostril and a ring in his eyebrow was sitting at the control desk. Jason paused, unsure. “Seventy-five cents an hour, or three hours for two bucks,” said the Goth, answering Jason’s unspoken question. “I guess I want three hours, and, uh, a computer with a good search engine,” Jason said.

“Use number three; it’s a little faster than the rest, and more private.” The Goth kid took his money and gave him a wink.

Jason sat, clicked open the search engine, and again typed transgender. This time he was rewarded by a screenful of possibilities. A bewildering screenful of possibilities. He clicked on one and a popup of a broad-shouldered naked lady filled the upper corner of the screen. Jason hurried to kill the pop-up window; it died and then resurrected as a black lady fondling her penis. Killed again, the window was reborn as a lady shot from behind with her skirt lifted up to expose her ass and an improbably large dong. In desperation, Jason shut down the search engine. When the screen was blank, he cautiously started it up again. Remembering what he’d learned in IT class, this time he typed in transgender not sex.

Up came another screenful of offerings. They were more sedate but still confusing. Most wanted him to buy something. Time was passing, and Jason wasn’t getting answers. “Aw, shit,” he sighed as the screen came alive again with an advertisement for She-Male Fun! This one at least died quietly.

“Uh, hey,” said the Goth. “Don’t I know you from school?” Startled, Jase tried to think but didn’t connect. “Yeah,” said the Goth, “you’re that 7th Grade kid that was always getting beat up every morning by a gang of dorks. Hi. I’m Eric, sometimes called ‘RedRaven.’” He stuck out a hand, so Jason shook it. “Try typing in FAQ and whatever you’re looking for. FAQ means frequently asked question.”

“Thanks. My name’s Jason, often called ‘fay-rie.’ I’m trying to figure out why.”

“OK, let me know if you need more help.”

Two hours later, Jason had practically memorized a FAQ posted by a woman named Laura and another posted by a college lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender association. He’d declined invitations to register for admission to a private chat room and a special store for discriminating shoppers. He’d found a Dr. Anne somebody’s site and then a site run by Andrea somebody when he realized he was out of time.

He wheeled the chair around to face Eric RedRaven. “I’m out of time, huh?”

“Yeah. Want to stay for lunch with me and my father? I think you’d find it interesting.”

Jason started to say no, asked himself what he had to lose, registered the grin on Eric’s studded face and said yes. “Thank you,” he added.

Eric led Jason to the kitchen in the back of the shop. It was hot. A man with a ponytail was standing at the stove cooking with his back to the boys. “Dad, this is Jason. He’s got some problems you can help with. Jason, this is my dad, Earl, sometimes called ‘Darla.’

Turning, Earl acknowledged Jason’s presence with a smile. “I’ll be Darla Dahllin tonight. Right now I’m just Earl Lindahl. Not quite what you expected?”

XVI

In the first place, Earl was wearing ballet slippers. His legs were hairless. Under his apron, Earl was wearing a bra and silk panties. He had the beginning of a bald spot.

“Eric, if you’ll sweep away those manicure things and set the table, I’ve got some good soup here. Cheese sandwiches, too. You like grilled cheese sandwiches, Jason?”

Jason was gawking. He couldn’t much help it. About the cheese sandwiches, he nodded.

“Well, I wish I had as much impact on my regular audiences. I guess your tastes aren’t so jaded, right, Jason?”

Jason launched an utterly confused look at Eric, who laughed, but kindly, and started to fill in the blanks. “Twice a week, my dad does a show at a roadhouse on Route 22. Darla sings and dances. That’s how she’s saving up for her sex change operation. I told Dad he could use my college fund but he refused.”

“You mean . . . you’re a transgender,” stammered Jason.

“Absolutely, young man. In the flesh and in the fantasy!”

Eric cut in. “Dad, look, get serious, please. I invited Jason to stay for lunch because I saw he was surfing through the TG sites. He doesn’t know much yet. More than he did, though. I think you can help him sort stuff out.”

Earl and I exchanged slightly embarrassed looks. Then he said “Sorry, Jason. One of the things TG people do is joke around. It covers up a lot of pain.

“Let me guess, you think maybe you’re more girl than boy, in spite of the anatomy? And you wonder why?”

Jason nodded.

“Let’s eat and talk,” said Earl, exchanging his apron for a light silk robe. You and I can talk most of the afternoon, if you’re free. Are you?”

XVII

When Jason unlocked the door and let himself in at half past four, it struck him that this house, and everything else in the world as he had known it, was irreversably changed. It was as though all kinds of things that hadn’t made sense at all had started to fit together. He and Earl — well, mostly Earl -- had talked for the better part of three hours. Earl offered a cleaned up version of his and Darla’s life story. How he’d acted out, and been thrown out, on the streets at fifteen. How Eric’s grandmother had taken him in, and straightened him out, she thought, and how happy she’d been when Earl married her wayward daughter. How after Eric was born, both he and Jennifer had drifted back to their old habits — she dropping acid and he doing drag. How Eric’s grandmother had been smart enough to leave her estate to Eric, not to him or Jennifer. Jennifer’s death by overdose, and was it on purpose? Darla not to be denied. Earl’s resolve to be both a good father but true to herself. (At that point, Eric had drifted back to the kitchen, listened for a moment, and cut in to say “and he is a good father. The best.”) Deciding, at 31 and with Eric’s blessing, to start in on hormones. Hoping to go all the way in a few months.

Earl hadn’t asked for anything in reply, but Jason volunteered his and Jayne’s history, such as it was. When Jason finished, Earl said “I’m not ready to come to conclusions. But it seems to me that you should read everything on AntiJen’s site. It’s www.antijen.org. I know Jennifer Lynn, and you can trust her. Tell me what you think afterward.”

Jason murmured that he was out of money.

“Tell Eric it’s on the house. And tell him I said to give you back your two bucks from this morning.”

XVIII

The next day, Jason pulled Shelly’s suitcase out from under the Christmas stuff. He opened it, took everything out, and set it around him in neat piles. The shoes and sandals. The camis and tees. The shorts and skirts and the skort. The two dresses. The bathing suits and the two training bras. The little pocketbook with lip gloss and blusher. The wig that had belonged to Shelly’s aunt. The baby doll p.j.’s and the peasant shirt. The bracelets.

I wish, he thought. I do truly wish.

Then Jason packed everything back up, everything but a pair of panties and a tee that could just barely work for a boy, and wearing them he went back to the Comic Shop and as Earl had recommended, read everything on the AntiJen Pages. She was way cool, and the stuff she posted spoke straight to Jason’s confusion.

He wasn’t sick, he learned. It was unusual but not abnormal to wish nothing more desperately than to be the other sex. There were girls who longed to be boys, too. There were teens who had shed their birth gender and lived in the gender they wished. Some of them had surgery to make their anatomy coincide with their feelings. But until age 18, a person is still a minor, and doctors generally refuse to perform sexual reassignment surgery on minors. That used to mean that by the time a boy or girl could have “the operation,” they already had developed a lot of secondary sex characteristics of their birth sex. But — and here Jason almost forgot to breath — now it is possible to delay puberty. There are hormones that don’t do anything irreversable; they just stop beards and chest hair from sprouting, the voice from deepening, muscles from thickening, the penis and testicles from enlarging. Stop the hormones and everything starts up according to the usual genetic program.

There were other blocking hormones for girls, Jason read, hormones that stopped breasts from sprouting, hips from widening, periods from happening. He went back and read about the hormones for transgender boys again. This time Jason also read the page about how doctors and parents were coming around to allowing fifteen or sixteen, even fourteen year-old kids who were unambigously transgender to start taking the hormones that caused their bodies to take on the characteristics of their brain sex.

Wow! What this means is that as long as I don’t mind being a little kid for a few more years, I can grow up to be a real girl! Well, almost real. I won’t be able to have babies. Babies can be adopted, though. I could marry Matt!

There was more stuff on AntiJen’s site about how to talk to grownups about feeling transgender. Sometimes parents could be persuaded. Often they’d known already that there was a problem but didn’t know there was a solution. Adults like school guidance counselors and some social workers were required by law in many states to help you get good help from psychiatric specialists.

XIX

When Jason got home, he tried to watch TV but his mind wasn’t on it. Not the World’s Cup match and not Oprah, either. There was too much new data to integrate; 8th grade was now barely a month away. Jason found his way back to the suitcase. He put on the training bra and a cami. He put on the wig. He painted his lips and accessorized with bracelets and a necklace. He wondered if he should do his nails but instead lay back on his bed. Jason’s hand found its way within his panties. He dreamed a waking dream. Jason was wearing a bouffant gown, like Scarlett O’Hara. It was strapless and trimmed by a broad scarlet ribbon woven through the tiers of tulle. Ringlets waved about Jason’s neck and shoulders, his dainty feet were shod in red satin pumps, his breasts were heaving with excitement. Jason’s date had arrived to take him away to the prom. Jason couldn’t make out his escort’s features but he could see his dad and mom clearly. They were happy for their son, or maybe for their daughter. A wave of joy rose inexorably from his groin, surged high and broke over Jason: his first orgasm.

Notes:

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A Little Help From Her Friends (the middle)

Author:

Daphne

Audience Rating:

General Audience (pg)

Publication:

17,500 < Novella < 40,000 words

Genre:

Transgender

Character Age:

Preteen or Intermediate

TG Themes:

Permission:

Permission granted to post by author

A story of luck and pluck, good and evil, honesty and hypocrisy, and of a boy who gets by with a little help from her friends. Second of three parts.

Bing-bong! Jason was in the kitchen. Mom had left for work. He was cleaning up after their breakfast when the doorbell rang insistently. It was Shelly. “I rode my bike all the way over here to see my friend Jayne. I think it would be fun for Jayne to hang out at the pool.” Shelly pushed her way in. “Why didn’t you phone me? Aren’t you my friend anymore? What happened to your beautiful curls?”

“Wait a sec, Shelly.” Jason organized his thoughts. “One, your parents don’t want me anywhere near you; Two, I don’t know what you are planning but I think it’s about you, not me; Three, I love my mom and dad and they’d both have a cow if they saw me in a dress; Four, I don’t know who I am and I need time to think it out. Am I your friend? Yes, because I can’t help it!”

“OK, work it out,” says Shelly. “No biggie! My parents and your parents don’t have to know if Jayne goes swimming with her buddy Shelly. Now let’s go. I brought you a bathing suit and cap. You can wear the wig while you’re out of the water. Do you still have it, silly?” Shelly knew how to melt Jason.

Half an hour later, Shelly and Jayne had stashed their bikes, claimed a spot on the preppies’ side of the pool and were slathering on suntan oil.

“Jayne, even though your tits are foam rubber, you are a pretty darn sexy twelve, aren’t you?” Shelly was probing. When someone’s emotions get badly bruised, she figured, they need sympathy and a while to repair. Well, Jayne had had the time off, almost three weeks. Time for him, er, her to rise to greatness.

Jason was feeling uncomfortable, way out of place in the Atkinson’s posh club. He took a deep breath and replied without raising his voice “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up? I was doing fine until you decided to raise me out of the gutter!”

“Maybe,” she said with a grin, “I should call you Eliza, not Jayne. Like Eliza Doolittle. Dorky little boy turns into hottie chick.”

Jason rolled over onto his chest, arms under his head. He glared morosely at the mob of kids playing in the water. Oil squirted onto his back, then he felt Shelly’s hands kneading it into his shoulders, neck, spine. No, I’m not going to be her robot again, thought Jason. She thinks she can wrap me around her little finger. Mmm that feels good . . . . Jason closed his eyes.

“That feels good, doesn’t it Jayne? . . . Jayne? Doesn’t it feel good, Jayne?”

Something was strange. Shelly’s stupid giggle had moved to right in front of him. Whose hands were on his back? Jason opened his eyes and catapaulted to a defensive crouch.

“Hey, don’t freak out! I was just giving my girlfriend a back rub.” Matt was grinning from ear to ear. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

The truth was that Jason was very happy to see Matt. He knew right away it was true because it wasn’t a matter of conscious thought but a surge of happy feelings. “Yeah, I am. A lot.”

Shelly remembered that she had to go sign up for an aerobics class. Matt stretched himself out on Shelly’s towel. Jason was surprised at how lanky Matt seemed. “Were you this tall before, at the beach?”

“My mom says I’ve grown about two inches already this summer — and four inches since Easter. I’ll need all new clothes for school. Funny, in sixth grade I was the smallest kid in the class.

“You’re still cute as a bug, Jayne.”

“A bug? Yew, gross!”

“Oh, that’s just something my grandpa says. Don’t take it litter . . . literally. You’re just the way I remembered you, except that your hair is different. After you had to go back home, I kept wishing I had a picture to remember you by. I was afraid . . . well, Shelly wasn’t sure you’d want to see me again.”

The way Matt talked gave Jason the shivers. How could he not want to see Matt every day? How could he help not dream of Matt’s goofy grin? A stiffening of his weenie confirmed Jason’s feelings. Afraid to look, he smoothed the skirt of his bathing suit to cover the crotch.

“Matt, honey. . . . Can I call you that? I’ve missed you too. Every day. But there’s a problem. Did Shelly tell you?”

“No, she just said you were evading contact. So we hatched this plan. I guess it worked. Sure, call me ‘Honey’ if you like. Call me anything you like.”

“I’ll bet you wouldn’t like it if I called you ‘Mildred,’” said Jason with a wink.

“Hello? That’s a girl’s name. Uh, Jayne? What’s the problem Shelly didn’t tell me about?”

“My parents are . . . kind of old fashioned. We spend a lot of time at church. They don’t want me to have anything to do with boys.” So far, Jason was telling the literal truth. “Not for now, anyway.” His last statement was more of a hope. “So I have to keep us a secret. Maybe I can see you sometimes, but I can’t see you very often.”

Jason waited for Matt to answer. He felt awkward, but he knew he’d feel a lot more awkward if Matt saw him as Jason, not Jayne. A thought zapped through his mind: if Matt knew I was a boy, he’d probably beat the living shit out of me!

Matt at last spoke. “Um, Jayne — that’s OK with me. I don’t want you to get in trouble. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

Jason felt so happy he could hardly stand it. “C’mon! Let’s swim for a while,” he said, giving Matt a friendly punch.

Matt responded to this affectionate gesture by throwing Jason into the pool and cannonballing in next to him.

They were cuddling in a corner of the pool when Shelly found them an hour later. “Either of you lovebirds hungry yet? I’m starving!”

XXI

Matt was wolfing down a hamburger and a plate of fries. Shelly was finishing a big slice of pizza. Brooding on the suddenness of Matt’s growth spurt, Jason was barely nibbling on a tuna fish sandwich.

Jason and Matt had filled Shelly in on their plans. She’d been unable to suppress a giggle, but didn’t let on to her surprise when Jason replayed Jayne’s explanation to Matt about her ‘parent problem.’ As Jason expected, Shelly volunteered to help. She’d be the go-between so Matt wouldn’t have to phone Jayne’s house. She’d help Jayne figure out how to get loose.

“Um, Matt, wait here for a moment, won’t you? In fact, please clear the table for us. Jayne and I will be right back. C’mon, Jayne.” Picking up her pocketbook, Shelly headed for the women’s locker room. Jason had no choice but to follow. As soon as they got inside, Shelly doubled over with laughter. Jason couldn’t help laughing out loud either. Two women looked around to see what was so funny. “Kids!” said one to the other, chuckling, as Jayne and Jason disappeared into the bathroom.

“Omigod it went perfect,” Shelly gasped.

“Shel, I am so happy right now. I don’t even want to think about where this is going to go! Thanks for being a friend. Uh, can I borrow your lipstick?”

A moment or two more passed in primping and plotting. Then the two women observed two giggling girls returning to the scene of their triumph. “Darn, I wish I was young and cute again like that” said the other to the one.

Matt was waiting patiently to say goodbye. He was out for football, and practice had already started three afternoons each week. Jason gave him a chaste kiss and whispered a promise that they’d meet again soon.

As Matt disappeared up the path, Shelly fished around in her purse and pulled out pearly nail polish. “OK, stick up your toes, girl friend.”

“Shelly, I can’t do that.”

“Who sez? This is my reward for being so smart as to get you two back together.”

It seemed to Jason then, and long afterward, that Shelly got her kicks by pushing him beyond his comfort zone. He was right.

XXII

Jason finished Mrs. Holloway’s lawn, collected his two bucks, biked to the drugstore for some acetone to take off the polish on his toenails, and then down to the Comic Shop with a dollar left. Eric waved it away. “Darla says it’s on the house, kid, as long as you’re doing research.”

Hours passed. Jason was reading someone’s site about “successful transgender women” when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Eric. “Hey, c’mon up for air! Lunch is ready. You have to eat my chili.”

Darla was there for lunch, too. “I heard you were coming, so I got myself dressed to celebrate,” said she, a very believable she except for the baritone voice. “Jason, you’re gawking again!”

“Well, uh, I’m awful sorry but you really are like a woman. Your clothes are real pretty. That’s not all, though. It’s uh, body language isn’t it?”

“Kid, as transgenders go, I do it pretty well considering the disadvantages of my misspent youth. I hardly ever get read. You know what “read” means?”

“Probably not what I’m thinking,” said Jason, not wanting to seem either stupid or conceited.

“‘Read’ is when somebody figures out that you aren’t what you are trying to seem to be. It’s an interesting situation, normally embarrassing for everyone. Sometimes, though, it gets real ugly.”

“Darla, if you were a kid again — like me — would you tell your mom and dad that, uh, you really, uh, . . .

“ . . . feel I’m a girl? Or mostly a girl?” Darla finished Jason’s sentence. “Sweetheart, there’s never been a doubt in my mind. Not since kindergarten. Probably not in theirs, either. So why should I hold back? But I did. And when I finally came out to my parents, they threw me out of the house.”

“Dad, let me butt in,” said Eric. “Darla, or Earl, is a good dad. He didn’t want to do anything to screw me up. He thought that meant staying married to my mom. She died almost five years ago. I was nine going on ten at the time.

“Now I get to choose who I want to live with. I go visit my grandmom a few weeks every year, but I’d rather be with my dad.” Eric blew his dad a Gothic kiss. “How’s the chili?

Jason’s cue. He was impressed that Eric could cook chili from scratch. He started to ask if Eric farted a lot, but realized that that was the kind of thing that dorky little boys ask, so he simply said “you sure make good chili!”

“Want some more?”

“Uh, frankly, no. I love it, but I don’t want to start a growth spurt.”

“That’s what’s bothering you now, is it, hon” asked Darla.

XXIII

School was only three weeks away now, and Jason felt ill thinking about it. That he’d get stomped on again by the Apes was a certainty. This time it wouldn’t be a surprise, so maybe, just maybe, he’d handle it better. “The important thing’s not to cry. Once you cry, they own you.”

Three times more, Jason had hooked up with Matt. The first time he’d met Shelly first. They’d changed at the pool and all three kids swam and chilled together there. The second time he’d changed into Jayne at the pool and then met Matt at the Cineplex. He’d chosen a goofy romantic movie and Jayne loved him more for that. In fact, Jayne could hardly love Matt more. He’d bought double dip ice cream afterwards — pistachio and butter rum for her and triple Dutch chocolate for himself.

Alone in his bed, Jason wondered about his feelings for Matt. It seemed that he couldn’t imagine loving Matt except if he was Jayne. If he was just Jason, it didn’t feel right, in fact he didn’t feel a thing, but if he put on Jayne’s clothes just in his head, Jason’s weenie stiffened and all Jayne could think about was being kissed by Matt.

Matt was a good kisser, getting better all the time. Jayne was beginning to worry if she could keep Matt to that. On their third date SSS (since Shelly’s surprise), which wasn’t really a date date, Jayne had phoned Matt from the Comic Store. They’d arranged to meet after football practice. He’d given her directions on how to get to his school on the bus.

Jason had strapped the suitcase on the back of the bike. He was changing clothes in the bathroom of the store when Earl knocked on the door. “I have a present for Jayne,” he said, “for luck,” he said, handing in a box. Inside was a pair of double-A silicone breast forms. “It’s a trade sample,” he explained. “Supposed to fill me out. But I don’t need them anymore.”

It felt natural to be hanging out with a bunch of junior high football girlfriends waiting for practice to be over. Some were cheerleaders; most weren’t. There were a lot more football players than cheerleaders at Matt’s school, it seemed.

“So, who’er you waiting for,” one asked, giving Jayne a lookover because she was a new body. “A guy named Matt,” Jayne answered. Jayne was happy. It was impossible to hold back a grin.

“Matt LiPietri? Him? You’re da bomb he hooked up with?” She gave Jayne a closer look, frankly impressed.

“Well, mostly we’re just talking. But it might go somewhere if I’m lucky.” Jayne crossed her fingers behind her back.

“Damn’ right, girl. And you know what, he has one big crush on you.”

Matt came up behind them. “Hey, Suze. You telling Jayne all my secrets?”

“No way. Come to the kickoff dance, Jayne. Tell you then.” Suzie headed off to reel in her current fave. Matt gave Jayne a surprisingly gentle hug for a guy who’d just been slamming into other guys. Just out of the locker room, Matt reeked of deodorant.

“Matt, you shouldn’t use so much deodorant. I want to smell some of you,” murmured Jayne.

“Yes, ma’am. C’mon, let’s go for a walk. If we go over that hill, you can catch a bus home on Dorsey Boulevard.” Matt knew Jayne had to be home before her mom finished work.

To the extent that necking and squeezing is eventful, it was an eventful walk. The breast forms were wonderful. They felt real. Jayne let Matt squeeze all he wanted, only brushing away his big hands when they tried to wander inside her shirt. She felt his bone-hard willy when he pressed up against her skirt. Something told Jayne not to go there, at least not yet.

“Jayne?” said Matt. “Do you think you could go with me to our Kickoff Dance? It won’t be until September, uh, 23rd. A Saturday night. After the game.”

There. Jayne had been warned it was coming. What to do? “Yes,” she said, guided by a natural impulse. “I’ll figure something out.”

XXIV

There again. The clock was ticking. A month and a couple of days to sort this thing out.

Jason asked Earl. He said Jason should do something. Earl wouldn’t offer an opinion as to whether Jason should talk to a guidance counselor at school or to his parents, but the worst thing to do was /i>nothing.

Actually, it just happened one night after dinner. Jason had dried the dishes while his mom washed, which was the usual thing when his dad was away on a trip. “Jase,” his mom said. “I haven’t measured you for a long time. Let’s see if you’ve grown any.”

She got out the ruler, backed him against the wall and drew a line. “Lord be praised. You’ve grown an inch this summer!”

Jason couldn’t help the tears. First they filled up his eyes and then burst the dikes and overflowed his face. Mom hovered, unsure what this meant. Feeling like a little kid, Jason hugged her waist as far as his arms could reach and buried his face in her ample breasts.

“Jason, honey! You’re not happy to finally get your growth spurt? C’mere and sit. Explain this to Mama. What’s eating you?”

It spilled out like Jason’s tears, first a trickle, then a flood. How miserable he’d been in 7th grade. How scared he was that 8th grade would be even worse. No one would want to be his friend while the apes pushed him around, called him fay-rie and little girl. He used to like school; now he hated it.

“And you know what, Mom. The apes are right. I am a little girl, inside. I feel that way. I’ve always liked to do girl stuff better — art and music and writing. Cooking with you. Nobody beats up on a girl if she’s smart in class. Last year I deliberately made mistakes. I pretended to be dumb. Sometimes I didn’t turn in my homework on purpose. I thought it might help me fit in.”

Betty Lou Baldwin nodded. She’d seen her son’s grades go into the toilet the last year. So that was why. She waited for Jason to say more.

“Mom? I want to be a girl.”

This is a Test that God has sent me, thought Betty Lou. Through a mist that she realized were her own tearing eyes, she saw before her a little boy in shorts and a tee, a tear-streaked face and the short haircut she’d insisted he get. A sweet little boy who’d never taken to fishing or messing around with motors as his dad had hoped. Who’d always helped with the dishes, who used to sing in such a lovely, piping voice, who loved to play dolls with that neighbor girl before she moved away. Who’d learned lately to keep himself clean and his room picked up.

“Honey, first of all, I love you no matter what. So does your Dad, though he has a harder time saying that. We’ve seen you suffering, and wondered why. I guess I didn’t realize how much you were being hurt. Thank you for telling me.

“But, Jason, you’re a boy. God gave you all the boy parts. In due course, He’ll let you grow up, too. You’ll be quite handsome, and the teasing will stop, I’m sure of that. In fact, I’ll bet you’ll have to fight off the girls.”

Jason was not at all cheered up by that thought. “God played a dirty trick, Mom. He gave me the body of a boy and the brain and feelings of a girl. And for that the preacher says I’m going to Hell!”

“Aw pooh, Jason! I don’t believe that Abominations stuff. Neither does your father. And I’ll bet you Frank Prentiss doesn’t either. But look here, sweetheart. When I was in the hospital after losing your baby sister, and afterward at home convalescing, I saw some of those transsexual people on Jerry Springer. Every one of them looked and sounded just like a man in a dress.”

Jason remembered his mother’s miscarriage, and how she’d had to have part of her insides removed, and especially how she’d grieved for months afterward for the little girl she’d lost.

“Mom? Listen! This is important. It doesn’t have to be like that! That’s why I’m scared of having a growth spurt! Sometimes kids like me are allowed to take hormones so they don’t grow up right away. And later on, if they are sure, they can change their sex, with hormones and after that an operation. And then they look just the way they feel.

“That’s what I want, more than anything in the world. I want to be your daughter.”

XXV

Jason and his mom talked a lot that night. He told her about Shelly Atkinson and the trip to the beach. He told her about Earl and Eric. Matt he kept a secret. He told her about the suitcase hidden underneath the Christmas decoration boxes, that held the girl clothes Shelly’d given him.

Jason asked what name she’d planned give his little sister, if she’d lived to be born. “Edith,” Betty Lou said softly, “after my grandmom.”

“My girl name’s ‘Jayne,’ Mom. I think I’d like to become Jayne Edith Baldwin, if that’s OK with you.”

Betty Lou got a notebook and a pen. She wanted to remember all the details, she said. She wasn’t too worried about Bud; he loved Jason and when he thought about it, would want what made Jason happy. Betty Lou wondered if she could ever call her son Jayne as though he’d never been Jason. The idea of going to Jason’s school to talk to the guidance counselors made her uneasy. But it had to be done. Maybe Bud would go with her — perhaps day after tomorrow, when he got home again.

Betty Lou said she wanted to ask a favor. She knew Jason didn’t approve of her spending time with the Reverend Prentiss. She wasn’t too proud of it either, but she hoped maybe Jason could let it go enough to quit reminding his dad. “I love your daddy, Jason, but there’s some things he can’t give me, and Frank can. You’re not the only person whose life is complicated.”

Jason just smiled. She could see he was exhausted, and so she urged her little boy up the stairs. When he didn’t resist, she tucked him in.

“Mommy,” he said, fighting off sleep, “I’m so glad I don’t have to pretend to be a boy anymore. G’nite.”

She kissed his cheek. “G’nite, princess.”

XXVI

Jason woke early. He could hear his mom in the shower. She was up early, too. He opened the closet door, moved the Christmas boxes, pulled out the suitcase, and rummaged around until he found some shorts and a cami top that almost matched.

He’d made his mom’s coffee, poured some juice and had a bun in the toaster oven when she came downstairs. “Jason! Thank you. My, don’t you look sweet? Would you rather I call you Jayne?”

“So, it wasn’t a dream at all, was it, Mom? Uh, call me whatever you like. What time will Dad be back?”

Maybe three, Betty Lou thought. Or maybe late. She hoped he’d call. She wanted to talk to Bud before he started in on the beers. “I don’t know when, Jason. I’ll see if I can get home early today myself. We’ll have steak tonight to celebrate,” she added, rummaging a package from the freezer.

XXVII

Jason had almost finished a list of things he wanted to tell the guidance counselor when Shelly showed up. He’d signed his name at the top. “What’s this, O wow, Edith! Is that name lame or what?”

“I like it,” Jason replied. “Jayne Edith Baldwin. The Edith is for my great-grandmother. And by the way — I told my mom everything last night. She’s OK with it.”

You really did that? I can hardly believe it! Y’know, my dad says there is something very weird about you.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re not supposed to want to be a girl! My dad says that some men do end up like that, but it’s only because they’ve been forced to by their moms or aunts or girl friends! I didn’t force you to do anything!”

Um, Jason had an epiphany. He realized what District Attorney Art Atkinson did in his spare time. Got off on those dumb tg story websites. . . .

“So, Jayne Edith, old girl, d’ya want to go out somewhere,” Shelly asked. “Maybe to the mall?”

“Nah, I’ll brew you a cuppa tea right here, Miz Shelly. And then you have to go. My dad could come home any time.”

Shelly could tell it was a sobering thought. “He doesn’t know yet, huh?” She thought about her own dad’s reaction to just being near Jayne. Her dad was a lot better educated than Jason’s dad, and he was a sure thing to be elected mayor in November. “Oh, I wanted to show you. . . . I guess I’ll just tell you. You know the big billboard on Center Street? Guess whose pictures are on it? Me and my mom and dad!”

“So he’s running, is he,” Jason asked politely, wishing Shelly would just leave so he could think.

She took the hint and skipped the tea. Jason went upstairs and changed into a boy’s shirt. Then he went back to writing in the notebook.

I don’t want to shock my dad. What I wear doesn’t matter. It’s how I feel inside, if I feel OK about myself and if other people feel OK about me. Mamma’s right about him loving me. Still, he gets mad awful fast. I wonder what he’d think of Earl? I wonder if I should become a Goth chick? No, Matt would hate that!

XXVIII

Fortunately for Betty Lou, it was a light day at the office. Before the waiting room filled up, she’d called the late girl and asked her to come in at two-thirty instead of four. Then she managed to reach someone at Jason’s school who made her an appointment with the 8th grade guidance counselor for next Tuesday morning — five days away, two full weeks before the first day of school. That should give them plenty of warning, she thought. She filled out a leave request form. I’ll take off the whole day, spend some time with my new daughter.

She wondered where she could get more information. Of course, she knew Jason wasn’t just making it up, but maybe he was seeing what he wanted to see. She rang home. “Jase, what was that website you mentioned, the one for teens?” Betty Lou wrote it down. There would be time at lunch to check it out. She’d eat at her desk and try not to get crumbs in the keyboard.

XXIX

Bud’s ratty old TransAm was in the driveway when Betty Lou got home. He was finishing up a box of fried chicken with a little help from Jason. “Hey, Betts, what’s with my friend here? He’s been acting like the cat that swallowed the canary. Says you’ll explain.”

She joined them at the kitchen table. “Jase, take away this box and stuff and then come sit with us. You need to help me explain.

“Bud, I don’t know where else to start, so I’ll start at the beginning, and you please just listen. Then you can ask all the questions you want. We can talk all night if we have to, or until you can’t stay awake anymore. You’re not too tired, are you baby?”

“No, Charlie Steele rode back with me. We dropped a trailer in Columbus, and then he drove the last leg bobtail while I got caught up on my sleep. So give. What’s the mystery?”

“The mystery’s solved. We know what’s been eating at Jason. He’s miserable being a boy. He wants to be a girl real bad, honey.”

“Holy shit! That right, Jason?” Jason, who was rinsing the dishes, nodded slowly. He held his breath. “C’mere. Yeah, all the way over here.” Bud put his arms around his kid and pulled him close. “I don’t know why, but this makes some sense. I had a feeling it was going to be something I can’t handle. I can deal with this if you and your mom can. Just don’t get pregnant till you finish college.”

“This is serious, Bud. It’s not a joke. Look at him!”

Jason was crying again — tears of joy that wouldn’t quit, wrapped in his Dad’s hug.

XXX

“Honey, you still awake?”

“Yeah, I can’t sleep. Jase is awful happy, but this won’t be as easy as he hopes. . . . Maybe we should say she from now on, what do you think? . . . Anyway, if Jason couldn’t get accepted as a boy last year, should we believe the same bunch of kids are going to be comfortable with Jayne?

“He — she — says the real trouble was a fairly small group of boys, the ones, uh, she calls the Apes. Once they’d singled Jason out, everybody else just got out of the line of fire.”

“Were you happy in junior high?”

“I hated it half the time. That was when my parents were breaking up, remember? I felt like that made me defective. Fortunately, I had a few friends. Felicia and Rosemary, especially. They kept me sane.”

“She’s right, you know. . . .”

“Who?”

“Jase. If you like yourself, you’ll be OK in the end. Jayne’s the self he, er she, likes. She’s a different person when she’s into her Jayne self.”

XXXI

The guidance counselor was neither as friendly as Betty Lou Baldwin had hoped nor as hostile as she had feared. “She’s a different person when she’s into her Jayne self,” she heard herself saying.

“To sum up, then, Ms Baldwin, you want Franklin Junior High to welcome Jason back in whatever guise he chooses to present himself? And that includes presenting himself as a female?”

“No. That’s not what I’ve been saying. I’ve been saying that he’s been working through some very difficult issues, and what I want the school to do is to protect him against harrassment by other kids.”

“Do you think that would be likely — if he presents as a boy?”

Was the woman being deliberately dense? “My son got the shit kicked out of him last year. Every day before class. Sometimes at lunch, sometimes after school He was physically and emotionally battered. And you are telling me that not one teacher found a need to file a report on Jason or refer him for counseling?”

“I’ve looked at his file, Ms Baldwin. Jason is described as immature and a bit of an underachiever. There’s one note about his lacking social skills — that of course could refer to what you were saying. . . .”

“Tell me, Miss . . . uh”

“Croynberg”

“Miss Croynberg, you are going to finish with me and then you are going to talk with . . Jayne, and then you are going, no doubt, to write a note for your files. What else are you going to do?

“Um, I’m going to talk with Jason’s homeroom teacher in particular. I’ll speak to the Assistant Principal. We’ll set up an evaluation by Dr. Schenk; he’s the school system’s psychologist. As soon as we have his report, I’d like to meet Jason.

“Are you going to protect Jase — him or her as the case may be — from harassment?

Guidance Counselor Croynberg put on a you-can’t-please-everybody-but-you-can-try-kind of smile. “Well, we have to admit, don’t we, that your son’s behavior has brought a large part of this so-called harassment down on himself?”

Betty Lou sat very still, counting to ten while she struggled for self-control. “Since when is it school policy to blame the victim? I cannot believe you actually said that! I refuse to believe that you think that!

Angela Croynberg, brand-new in her job, had to admit that Mrs Baldwin was right.

XXXII

Angela did what the school counselors’ handbook told her to do. She put notes in the file, cc to Assistant Principal Jack Reardon and Principal Sylvia Stanton. She set up an appointment for Jason with the psychologist. Then she picked up the phone and called Richard Spittle, listed in the handbook as the school district’s lawyer.

Spittle took notes and inquired as to whether Miss Croynberg had yet had a word with her superiors. She said she’d sent an e-mail.

“Thank you for giving me such a prompt call. This is a matter that must be handled very carefully. Where did you leave things with the boy’s mother?

“I told Mrs. Baldwin that I would consult my superior — that’s Jack Reardon, our Assistant Principal — and almost certainly Jason would be referred for evaluation. I said I’d meet Jason himself after the evaluation results were in hand. Oh, and of course I said I’d alert Jason’s homeroom teacher.”

“And, you told me Mrs. Baldwin alleged that the school had failed to protect her son last year, while he was in seventh grade — did she make any threats?”

“Well, sir — she was quite upset, particularly when I told her that there’s nothing in the boy’s file that suggests a problem. Uh, sir, if I may offer my professional judgment, . . .

Spittle cut her off. “No, don’t do that. My job is to protect the school, not the kid. Tell your supervisor, uh Reardon, to call me right away once he’s in the picture.”

Spittle hung up, thought for a moment, then dialed the extension of a colleague. “Barbara, Dick here. Have lunch plans? No? Let’s grab a bite outside. I’d like to tell you about something that’s going to be very interesting to the school board.”

Barbara was a partner in the firm. Dick Spittle wanted to be a partner. Helping Barbara’s husband revive his faltering campaign for Mayor might do the trick.

XXXIII

“What! He said that?” Sylvia Stanton had heard a lot of dumb things from lawyers in her twenty-nine years as an educator, but this one took the cake. “I don’t give a damn what Spittle thinks — our first priority is the welfare of the child.” She looked at her Assistant Principal. “Am I right, Jack?”

“As always, Sylvia.”

“Right, uh, Angela? May I call you Angela?” Miss Croynberg was new at Franklin. Sylvia had meant to sit her down for a chat before school opened, but Mrs. Baldwin’s visit had happened first.

“Yes, ma’am. Yes to both questions.”

“Jack, do you know the kid?”

“I remembered him when I looked at the school record photo. He wasn’t much bigger than your average fifth grader. Timid, introverted and solitary, as I recall. The kind of boy who’d be picked last in gym class.”

“I’d like you both to talk with him after we get the doctor’s report. Two sets of eyes and ears are better than one in situations like this. And Jack, I’ll want you to talk to 8B on the first day of school. Keep me posted. Angela, don’t worry. You are going to do just fine here.”

XXXIV

Barbara Atkinson poured two more daquaris and continued her story.

“. . . So, anyway, Art, Spittle does have an interesting idea. He says that left to make its own decision, the school will accommodate the kid and his parents. I told him to let things just happen, not to push a legal opinion on the school board. Did I do good?” Barbara gave her husband the coy glance she reserved for occasions like this.

“Sweetheart, better than good. We’ll let the board step in a cow pie, and then cover them in shit. Would you like a big kiss now or later?”

“Now, you handsome hunk, you.”

XXXV

SUMMARY REPORT: Request for Evaluation of Jason Baldwin

Children in their early teens or younger are not deemed capable of making informed judgments as to how they wish to live the rest of their lives. There is therefore a consensus within the medical profession that no irreversable drug interventions should be allowed before a gender-conflicted patient reaches the age of fifteen or sixteen. Surgical intervention is rare before eighteen.

Because the secondary characteristics of an “unwanted” sex may become quite pronounced by the age of thirteen or fourteen in boys, and earlier in girls, these delays are typically traumatic for a patient who is intent on gender reassignment. Consequently, many practitioners now advocate the administration of hormones that delay the onset of puberty in such cases.

There is no doubt that a well-calibrated dosage of certain hormones can delay the onset of puberty. The medical protocol is well known, and the efficacy of hormone therapy in retarding the development of both primary and secondary sexual characteristics has been demonstrated in dozens of well-documented cases, particularly in the Netherlands. Nor is there doubt that it is reversable.

Jason Baldwin, aged twelve years, ten months, presents as a normally-developed pre-pubescent boy with an apparent age of eleven years, i.e., he is considerably smaller and slighter than average. His intelligence as measured by standardized tests and our observation is considerably higher than the norm. There is no evidence of endocrinological abnormality, nor of the increased androgen and testosterone production that is associated with the onset of puberty.

We assessed Jason using a battery of psychodiagnostic tests and techniques that have been developed to gauge the intensity and persistence of gender disorders. We also conducted extensive interviews with Jason and with his mother. We spoke to his father and his family physician by telephone to confirm certain details. We had access to school records dating back to kindergarten and to medical records from birth.

Jason is psychologically normal in every respect but his eloquently expressed conviction that he is “really a girl.” Challenged on this point, he displays a high degree of defensive anxiety. The trauma that he suffered when harrassed by his peers has damaged Jason’s self-esteem to the extent that he is poorly socialized in his birth sex.

We conclude that there is a strong case for hormone therapy to delay the advent of Jason’s puberty, in part to gain time for him to further explore his gender identity and other developmental issues. Jason has a deeply rooted, strongly feminine orientation dating from early childhood and appears sincerely persuaded that his chance for happiness and full self-actualization in life depends critically on eventual gender reassignment.

Jason understands that delaying his puberty may cause him more, rather than less, discomfort in the short run by accentuating his differences from his peers. He seems convinced that once his peers are no longer unsure who he is, he can deal with any consequent awkwardness. Regular pyschotherapy is strongly indicated.

/s/ Jonathan Schenk, MD, FAPI, psychologist consultant, City School Board
/s/ Ruth Martinez, MD (Psychiatry), Herschell Institute

XXXVI

Jason arrived well before ten, parked and locked his bike, and looked for the guidance counselors’ office. He’d never been at the school when it was empty of kids. Somehow, it felt friendlier.

There were two grownups who were going to talk with him. Mr. Reardon he recognized, and he knew the woman was the same one that had talked to his mom, Miss Croynberg. It was her office. Jason waited politely while they got their papers organized.

It didn’t take them long to get to the point. Was becoming a girl entirely Jason’s idea, or someone else’s? How long had he felt this way? Did he want to come to school as a girl?

Patiently Jason explained that yes, the idea was entirely his, that he had felt more like a girl for a long time but he’d only recently learned, mostly from the Internet, that he could do something about it, and no, he had no plans to come to school as a girl. The main thing the school needed to know now, Jason said, was that last year he had terrorized by a bunch of boys who thought they had a right to pick on someone who was different. Then, he’d almost accepted their right to beat him up because he had thoughts and ideas that he was pretty sure no one else had. He’d felt like jumping in front of a bus, some days. This summer, he’d learned that he wasn’t so different, and that he could do something about it.

Mr. Reardon said thank you, that was essentially what Jason’s doctor’s report said, too. He thought Jason was unusually brave to face up to his feelings. He was sorry that Jason had such a tough time in 7th grade. Mr. Reardon wanted Jason to stay home on the first day of school, so he could talk to the kids in 8B about tolerance. He couldn’t guarantee that Jason would have a lot of friends but he was pretty sure the hassling would stop. Miss Croynberg asked if Jason would rather skip gym class for a while; he was pretty sure he did. She said that instead of gym class, she wanted him to come and talk with her and some other kids who were having social adjustment difficulties. And that was pretty much that.

XXXVII

School started on a Wednesday. As he’d been instructed, Jason took the day off. On Thursday a couple of kids in his homeroom said ‘hello’ when he came in. Most of the others just looked in other directions when he entered their space. There were a couple of snickers from the back that stopped when Mr. Meizner’s ruler thwacked loudly on his desk.

It was an amazingly peaceful sort of day at Franklin Jr. High, but it was the lull before the storm.

When classes let out, TV trucks were parked near the school entrance, and also a couple more trucks with “Fight for Family Values: Art Atkinson for Mayor” signs. A knot of cameramen were gathered around a guy that Jason recognized: Shelly’s father. Then he saw Shelly’s mother. She was pointing at him. Suddenly all the guys with cameras were pointing them at him and his bike.

Transfixed like a deer caught in headlights, Jason hesitated, then bolted for home. The camera guys told each other it was good footage, better than footage of Art Atkinson mouthing off. They guessed it would be on the evening news.

XXXVIII

“Sonofabitch!” said Earl, who was watching the Channel 12 news at 6:30 pm, to Eric, who was warming up the stew. “C’mere! Look!”

Eric turned to see six seconds of Jason fleeing on his bike before the camera cut to Art Atkinson. Atkinson was flaying the school district for its spineless capitulation to political correctness in the guise of a boy who claimed he was really a girl inside. That was the launching pad for a forty-five second riff on the threat to American values and Art’s plan to clean out the liberal crowd who ran the schools when he was elected Mayor. Even Earl had to admit it was good theatre.

Earl’s better judgment said “lie low,” but he picked up the phone anyway. He reached Bud Baldwin on the second try at 6:42 and said he was a friend of Jason’s. No, said Bud, he didn’t have the TV on. Yes, he knew something was screwy because there’d been two or three crank calls in the last ten minutes. He’d been thinking of pulling the phone plug out of the wall.

Well, said Earl, perhaps Bud should turn on the seven pm news to see what else Jason was up against. And perhaps he should get some expert help. He wanted to suggest a very talented lady lawyer. She had formerly been a man; Earl hoped that wouldn’t bother Bud.

Bud guessed that under normal circumstances that might bother him but right now, he said, he was mad enough to phone her right away. Earl gave him Tracy Tyler’s phone number and also his own number, just in case. Bud said he was grateful and hoped to meet Earl for a beer or two sometime soon.

When Earl hung up the phone, his son Eric gave him a big and totally spontaneous hug.

XXXIX

By Wednesday morning, the media was in a feeding frenzy. The newspapers had been scooped by the TV crews and so they had to fill up columns with speculation and a few juicy quotes phoned in from Art Atkinson’s campaign headquarters. Determined to gain back lost ground, reporters from the Enquirer and the Clarion flooded the Baldwin neighborhood. They camped outside the Baldwin house, interviewed Mrs Holloway down the street and anyone else that had an opinion on little boys in dresses. The TV trucks were there too, parked at the top of the block, drivers dozing behind thewheel while hopeful cameramen debated whether to try to check the Baldwins’ trash cans for, maybe, discarded cargo pants.

At 09:20, Bud Baldwin, Betty Lou Baldwin and a smaller figure draped in an anorak got in Betty Lou’s RAV4 and drove toward Medford Junction. Six or seven press vehicles gave chase. Two were still on their tail after Betty Lou doubled back through Sleepy Hollow and then veered left through Rambler Crest to Washington Boulevard. A few blocks before the road became a four lane divided highway, Bud made a cell phone call, then spoke to his wife and son. “They’re coming. Pull left, Bett. Get ready, Jason.”

Betty Lou moved left, ignored the no-stopping-on-median sign and blew a kiss to Bud. He and Jason ran across the strip and into a small sedan that had paused just long enough to pick them up. A TV truck slowly cruised by Betty Lou. She resisted the temptation to raise her right hand to offer the truck the salute it deserved.

“I guess we’ve lost them,” said Earl Lindahl. “Nice to meet you, Bud. You’ve got a fine kid.”

Jason stood up to lean over the seat so he could give Earl a kiss.

Bud was processing a lot of new information about how people could present themselves. Earl was pretty odd, hairless and tweezed, with a pony tail and a bald spot. Tracy Tyler was just overwhelming. She was six-two in low heels, with a big hat, big shoulders, auburn curls, a red blazer, short gray pleated skirt and brighter lipstick than Bud had ever seen on a woman not in the sex trade. Her office was near the courthouse.

“Hi,” Tracy said, offering Bud her large hand. “I’m Tracy and my job is to keep Jason from turning out like me. Earl and I are old friends.”

“Hi, back,” said Bud. “This is Jason, and I’m Bud. His mother’s off leading a diversion.”

“Now down to business,” said Tracy. “What the hell are you doing going into a firefight without a helmet and a flak jacket?”

“Huh,” answered Bud.

“S’cuse me, that’s Vietnam coming out again. Before your time, I guess.

“What I mean is that Jason is raw meat for that asshole Atkinson. Did you think this was going to be easy or something? ‘Please Mrs. Principal, help my little boy become a girl.’ ‘Oh, yes, of course, whatever’s best for the kid.’ Not in this state, I think. Not just before an election.”

“If you are wondering, I’m all woman. It’s said so on my driver’s license ever since 1976. I was admitted to the state Bar in 1981 after they ran out of excuses. I do cases like Jason’s pro bono. I just wish you’d given me a head start.”

“Nice to meet you,” answered Bud. “What do you recommend?”

“First, I need to ask Jason a few questions. OK?”

Jason and his dad nodded a synchronized ‘yes.’

Tracy Tyler fixed her gaze on Jason. She took his hands, one in each large, perfectly manicured paw. “Jase, honey, would you rather I call you Jayne?”

“Jase is OK. It’s just a label.”

“Jase, this could get really ugly. You up to it?”

“Nothing could be worse than last year.”

“Right. Now then, honey, tell Aunt Tracy about yourself. Take your time and include all the details.

Notes:

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A Little Help From Her Friends (the end)

Author:

Daphne

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Publication:

17,500 < Novella < 40,000 words

Genre:

Transgender

Character Age:

Preteen or Intermediate

TG Themes:

Permission:

Permission granted to post by author

Synopsis:

A story of luck and pluck, good and evil, honesty and hypocrisy, and of a boy who gets by with a little help from her friends. The last of three parts.

Story:

XLI

Every now and then Tracy Tyler asked a question for clarification or probed for underlying issues, but mostly she took notes. When Jason finished, she’d filled several pages of a yellow legal pad.

“Thank you, Jason. You tell your story well,” she said. The boy blushed.

Bud and Earl were waiting for Tracy to talk, so she continued. “I’ll need to work over these notes later on and maybe do some cross-checking, but there’s one thing I’m convinced of already. We need to counter-punch, starting today. Up to yesterday, you tried to deal with Jason’s trouble discreetly. That was understandable because his school was being cooperative. Now Jason’s been outed. Silence now will look like an admission of, uh, something bad.”

“Bud, I think you should make a statement at lunchtime today. That will get on the evening news. Then I’d like to arrange for the Clarion to interview you or your wife. The Enquirer’s probably a lost cause, but we can promise them an exclusive tomorrow with Jason if they behave.”

“Uh, I’m not sure I want to put Jason through something like that.”

“I hope he’ll do it. He’s a heck of a lot more appealing than you or me, and just as articulate.”

Earl nodded. “I think she’s right, Bud. Don’t reject the idea just yet.”

“I’ll talk with the school authorities,” Tracy added. “They need to speak up, too. Maybe I should seek an injunction against hate-mongers. And we need to draft Bud’s statement. How about we order in some lunch and get to work?”

XLII

At 1:05, in the threadbare mezzinine of the Lawyers’ Building, Jason’s father stepped in front of a rack of cameras and blinding lights. “I’m Bud Baldwin, Jason Baldwin’s father. I am going to make a statement. I hope you all realize this is a first time for me to talk to journalists and it’s only happening because my son, Jason, has been the victim of a highly public and vicious personal attack.

“Jason is 12, and beginning the 8th grade at Franklin Junior High School. He’ll be 13 in November. During the whole of last year — 7th grade — Jason was the object of regular harrassment by a small group of classmates. The harrassment was both verbal and physical, and it was relentless. The nature and extent of that harrassment only became fully known to me and my wife in recent months. It is not an exaggeration to call the treatment Jason received at the hands of this small group of his classmates ‘terrorism.’

“As any other loving father and mother surely would, when we learned of the harassment, we discussed its impact with Franklin Junior High staff. Jason is a bright child who’d always done well in school. Then his schoolwork and of course his grades nose-dived. If that’s not a signal that something’s wrong, I don’t know what is.

“Also, after Jason confided in us, we had him evaluated by a psychiatrist who is a widely- respected expert in adolescent self-esteem disorders, Dr Ruth Martinez. Dr Martinez and the school system’s psychologist, Dr Jonathan Schenk, have made a joint report. They confirmed Jason’s own belief that his brain chemistry and his personality are basically feminine. In short, while he’s externally a boy, my son is wired up to be a girl. The kids who tormented Jason were of course picking up on that incongruity.. Tragically, a large number of other kids at Franklin Jr. High and their teachers chose not to get involved.

“In view of these circumstances, my wife Betty Lou and I, and Jason first of all, considered it important also to tell the staff at Franklin Junior High that he has begun taking certain hormones under medical supervision. These hormones are blocking his development from a boy into a man. They are not feminizing him. They are simply delaying his puberty while he sorts things out.

“Jason thinks it is very possible that he may begin taking feminizing hormones in the future, and attend school as a girl student. For now, let me emphasize again, he is working with a psychiatrist, Dr Martinez, to sort things out. Jason is soaking up information. He has been relieved to learn that he is not unique — though perhaps he is precocious.

If, after careful consideration, Jason chooses to travel the path toward gender reassignment, Betty Lou and I will give him our full support. We love our child. We pray that he will no longer be victimized or terrorized. We rely on the staff of Franklin Jr. High and their superiors to be sure that Jason Baldwin is not victimized or terrorized.

“As for District Attorney Art Atkinson’s grandstanding yesterday — well, Betty Lou and I have nothing but contempt for his attempt to exploit a child’s misery for his political advantage. Thank you.”

Shouts went up from the pack of reporters. “Bud!” “Mr. Baldwin!” “Questions, please!”

“Sorry,” said Jason’s dad. “Not today.”

“What about Atkinson’s statement that he is arranging for an injunction barring Jason from returning to Franklin?”

Bud began to answer. “That’s the first I’ve . . . .” when Tracy stepped up to the mike. “You heard him, people. No questions today. Give the Baldwins a break.”

XLIII

“There’s something I should have told you about reporters, Bud,” Tracy was explaining. They’ll never take ‘no’ for an answer and they’ll try to surprise you into saying something you haven’t thought out first. Never comment on something you’ve only heard about from a member of the media. Oh -- otherwise you did real good today.

“By the way, it’s true. Atkinson’s trying to boot Jason out of school. Worse, the school system’s counsel is playing along. Guess who’s a senior partner in Dick Spittle’s law firm? Barbara Atkinson, for Christ’s sake!”

“We learned about this while you were rehearsing. Fortunately, the principal at Franklin is good and mad herself. She’s a brick; lady named Sylvia Stanton. She’s agreed to call an emergency assembly of the entire 8th grade today for the last half-hour before school lets out.

“Earl’s taken Jason over to the school. Betty Lou’s on her way there too. Let’s go; we can just make it on time.”

XLIV

The security officers at the Franklin school gate had instructions to let in Tracy’s car. The tail of press vans was left to stew outside. Tracy pointed out that Fox News and CNN had joined the pack.

There were more security personnel in the school lobby. “At least so far,” muttered Tracy, “Franklin JHS remains under friendly control.”

Jason had been speaking for nearly ten minutes when Bud and Tracy took seats at the back of the darkened auditorium. Standing on a stool behind a podium, Jason was speaking in a piping child’s voice, but confidently. Jase knows he hasn’t anything to lose, thought Bud. He knows we’re behind him.

“So that’s where I am right now,” Jason was saying. “I’m pretty sure I’ll never go back to trying to think of myself as a boy. Someday I will start taking hormones to make me develop as a girl. Exactly when is pretty much up to my doctors and my mom and dad.

“I can’t tell you when I might start coming to school dressed as a girl, either. That depends on a lot of factors.

“I don’t expect any one of you to be my friend. I know I’m different and that’s a problem for a lot of people. I’ll be happy if some of you, at least, are brave enough to be my friends. And if nothing else, I hope at least that you’ll accept that I’m a person with feelings that can be hurt, and just let me be . . . me.”

Then Jason stood at the podium looking out into the auditorium as the lights came up. He’d given it his best shot.

There were a few seconds of silence. Then from the 300 eighth graders began a rolling, spontaneous burst of applause. A shout from the back -- “You rock, Jase!” -- started another wave of clapping. Jason smiled. He stepped down while Ms Stanton banged on the podium and waited for the crowd of boys and girls to quiet down.

“Thank you, thank you people. I’m proud of you. School’s out for today.”

Jason stood by a side door with his mother and Miss Croynberg while the auditorium cleared. Detaching themselves from groups, a few kids detoured to give Jason a friendly pat or high-five.

Eric headed Jason’s way with a couple of girls. “Hi, good buddy,” said the 9th grader. “I think maybe you need some friend-girls. These are Jade and Tasha.”

XLV

The two girls dressed with attitude. Of course, Jason thought. Eric RedRaven wouldn’t have plain vanilla friends.

“Hi. I’m Jason, or maybe I’m Jayne — whatever you like. Eric’s exactly right. There’s nothing I’d rather have than some friends. Things are a little stupid right now. Can I phone you later?” Jason copied down their cell phone numbers.

XLVI

e-mail string

to: whatsa.mattr from: jayne249. u saw the news, i know. all i can say is i’m sorry. sorry i let u think i was somebody i only wished to be. sorry i can’t be your date at the kickoff dance. u must hate me, but i still think u are a wonderful boy. jason/jayne.

to jayne249 from whatsa.mattr. yes, i was surprised of course. mostly i felt bad for you. no i could never hate you, you made me feel special. youre smart and cute. don’t worry about the kickoff dance, take care of you. please tell me your phone number. hugs, matt.

to whatsa.matter from thename’s.jayne. i had to change my e-mail address because somebody leaked jayne249 and it’s full of hate mail. matt, please don’t bug me for my phone number. i can’t handle that now. when this is all over, we can talk about me and you and then you decide what to do. hugs back, jayne

to thename’s.jayne from whatsa.mattr. i want it to be over soon. i miss you. don’t care if you still have a willie, i know youre a girl. the kickoff dance was pretty lame without you. check out www.antijen.com if you haven’t been there yet. waiting, matt.

XLVII

Art Atkinson was not going to waste another good opportunity. He meant to win. His polling data told him what he had to do, so late on a Saturday night, the police rolled up the employees and patrons of Harvey’s Roadhouse on Route 22. “A cesspool of degeneracy,” Atkinson told reporters, assuring them that the DA’s Office had plenty of evidence of male prostitution and drug-dealing on the premises. Atkinson himself would lead the prosecution. Harvey’s was going to be put out of business, he promised.

The roadhouse raid was top news for a couple of days. It pushed the standoff at Franklin Jr. High to the inside pages of the newspapers. For a few days, updates on the “Jason to Jayne” story almost disappeared from the nightly news. Then the Franklin Jr. High story got new legs: information sourced to people near the Atkinson camp connected the scandal at Franklin Jr. High, to the roadhouse raid through the person of ‘Darla Dahrlin,’ a drag queen who performed regularly at Harvey’s. Miss Dahrlin, in real life Earl Lindahl, had been booked for indecent conduct after the raid. He was believed to be one of the masterminds of the Jason/Jayne Baldwin incident, according to the sources. Dahrlin had not been allowed to post bail. An investigation was said to be ongoing.

An even more direct connection, though not immediately noticed by the press nor identified by the Atkinson campaign, was the brief incarceration and lasting radicalization of Preacher Frank Prentiss.

Prentiss spent all day Sunday and most of Monday waiting for his congregation to raise bail. His appeal to the elders of the congregation failed entirely; they returned his phone call only to say that they had met and voted unanimously to dismiss Prentiss from the pulpit. Would he kindly arrange, they added, to move himself out of the apartment the church provided him by the end of the month?

Prentiss paid for his bail bond by hocking a life insurance policy. As he boxed up crockery and books, he brooded on the unfairness of his erstwhile congregation.. While in jail, he had worked out a Sunday sermon on repentance and forgiveness. That one had been a non-starter. Prentiss’ thoughts turned instead to revenge.

XLVIII

Shelly was searching on her dad’s laptop for stuff on tectonic plates. A boring subject, but there was no ducking it — a paper was due. Her geography teacher could care less how embarrassing it is to borrow someone else’s machine. She had no choice; a virus had munched through the hard drive, gobbled up RAM and slowed her computer to a crawl.

Oog. More than 400,000 hits on tectonic + plates. Try “tectonic plates”? Umm, still over 30,000. How was that other word spelled? Shelly clicked on History to sort out the consonants in chthonic and copied it down. She couldn’t help looking at the rest of the list of URLs. The first four were sites she’d checked, including www.chthonicocclusion.umn.edu. #5 was a surprise: www.boybabes.com. Intrigued, Shelly clicked on the boybabes site. A page opened that demanded she leave at once unless she was over 18. Click again (a white lie; Shelly knew she could pass for 18 and she had a fake ID to prove it).

Click. Click. Omigod, what is this! Naked boys! Click. Little boys! Click. Oh aagh! Men and boys. How did this get on here? Is my dad . . . a, a peedo- . . . pedophile?

Gagging, Shelly barely made it to the toilet in time before waves of nausea forced out her breakfast and last night’s dinner. She found some mouthwash, gargled, went back to the machine. I have to know!

Bookmarking boybabes.com, Shelly checked out the Cookies and Temporary Internet Files directories. Boybabes showed up; so did its clones. Repressing another wave of nausea, Shelly blacked the screen for a moment while she went to find a Seven-up to settle her stomach. Her mom’s car was gone; her dad was still out somewhere campaigning. Good, she’d hear the garage door go up if either of them came home.

Now Shelly searched for .jpg files in the My Recent Documents directory. There were a bunch of photos of Dad campaigning and then — files with names like caleb.jpg and steven.jpg. Dozens of them. Shelly knew what they had to be, wished she didn’t know, and clicked her way into a trove of paedophilic pornography. Does my dad do it, she wondered, or does he just look? She couldn’t tell. She wasn’t sure it made any difference.

Grimly, Shelly took out a blank CD disc and began copying the files — the folders of photos first, and then the lists of internet files and the cookies. She didn’t know the password to her father’s e-mail account but she copied the folder of .wab files. This is so fricking sick. Why do I have to deal with this. I’m just a kid, Shelly thought as the machine copied data to the CD.

Shelly started to put the CD into her purse, thought again, and made another copy. She put one disc into her purse and the other between pages 299 and 300 of her physical science text. Then Shelly went back to her report, working mechanically until she’d filled up the required four typewritten pages. The report sucked, Shelly knew, but a B minus effort was all she felt up to right then.

XLIX

Shelly waited in the kitchen for her mom. Some ground beef was thawed on the counter; starting dinner would do for a distraction. Spaghetti sauce was simmering on the stove when Shelly at last heard the garage door go up. She helped her mom bring up the groceries. “You’re kind of late,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Oh, my, spaghetti bolognese! Thank you, darling. Uh, you were waiting for me? Weren’t you supposed to . . . I thought you had a dance lesson this afternoon?”

“I called and begged off. Said I was sick. I am sick. Mommy! Hold me! Hold me tight!”

“Baby, baby, darling, precious — what’s wrong? Is it a boy?”

“Mommy, I wish it just were. But it’s not about me. It’s dozens of b . . b . . boys, little b . . boys. In Daddy’s computer!”

Barbara Atkinson stepped back from hugging Shelly and sat down heavily. So Art was messing around again. And now Shelly knew! The fucking bastard. “I guess you’d better tell me everything,” she said.

Later, Barbara picked up the phone in her bedroom. She dialled Art’s private number. “Art, you’d better come home now. There’s something we need to discuss. . . No! Fuck the campaign. Be here in thirty minutes or I’ll go nuts.” She hung up, cutting him off in mid-excuse.

The bastard. The fucking reckless bastard. Barbara mixed herself a gin tonic and waited. Twenty-six minutes later she heard the throaty whine of Art’s overtuned Chrysler coupe coming down the hill and up the driveway. She heard the door open and close, and then she heard Art looking for her. Barbara sat quietly in the twilight, hardening her heart and her nerves.

“There you are, sweetheart. What on earth has happened? Are you OK?”

Barbara glared at him. She flicked on the lights. Art knew he was caught.

“I warned you,” she said. “You swore it would never happen again. You utter jerk! I don’t care what happens to you, but you are screwing around with Shelly’s life and mine.

The row that followed was just plain ugly, and it went on for hours. After twenty minutes of listening to screaming, shouting, pleading and crying from behind the locked doors of her parents’ suite, Shelly filled a backpack with a change of clothes and some toiletries, made a phone call, left a note, and slipped out to spend the night at a friend’s house.

Morning arrived at last. Art snored until Barbara kicked him awake. “You’re fortunate. You can still be Mayor if you can fool enough people. Here’s what is going to happen.

“You are going to plead exhaustion and take a break from the campaign. We are going to New York where Martin Aronson is going to write us up an agreement. You remember Marty, don’t you? He’s the lawyer I should have married instead of you. He’s very good at writing divorce settlements.”

Art’s jaw dropped open. Words tried to come out but ended up as mere sucking noises.

“No, not a divorce. A settlement. You are going to sign over to me and Shelly the house, the cars, the money you inherited from your parents and aunt, your rights to manage Shelly’s trust fund, and every other goddamn asset we own except your IRA. If and only if you do that will I stay in the same house with you and keep my mouth shut about your sick turn-on.”

What could Art do but agree?

LII

“Jase, it’s me, Shelly. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. . . . Yeah, I’ll bet. Jase, look, I need to see you. For two reasons. First, so I can apologize for being a really bad friend. Second, there’s something very important we need to talk about. . . . No, really serious. Could you come over to spend the night? My mom and father are away, so it’s OK. . . . Yeah, sure, talk to your mom. Call me right back.”

It was half an hour before Jason phoned back. Experience had bred caution. Shelly? I can come overnight but not alone. Can I bring a couple of friends? . . . Yeah, kids, some kids I trust.

When they’d hung up, Shelly felt sick — not nauseous, but sad sick, like her tummy was cramped and twisted tight. Yeah, I guess I earned that, she thought.

LIII

The bell rang. Shelly opened the door. Jason made the introductions. “Hey, Shelly. This is Jade. This is her boyfriend, Eric.”

Saying “hi” and “c’mon in, I hope you like reheated lasagna,” Shelly checked out her guests. Eric was cute, if you didn’t mind a bad haircut and a touch of metal. Jade was a hottie. Her hair was thick, black, twisted high and fixed by a silver pin; she was wearing tights, laced boots, a distressed sort of shrink top in mouldy green and a short black skirt. Semi-Goth? thought Shelly, or just a poser? And Jason — well, clearly more Jayne tonight, cute in a totally pre-pubescent way. The blonde curls were past the collar now, and showed signs of brushing. A skinny top, with no attempt to disguise the lack of boobs, a nicely tailored pair of jeans, skater shoes -- and dangly earrings! Shelly couldn’t restrain a whoop. “Jase, you got your ears pierced!”

“Yeah, last weekend. Didn’t hurt.”

Eric and Jade deployed in a protective mode, maybe in case Shelly’d lured Jase here with evil intent. What to do? A compliment, perhaps? “Jade, I’d kill for hair like yours. How do you make it so beautiful?”

“Try getting some East Asian genes. Otherwise, I’d say you were out of luck.” Jade smiled. “Blonde isn’t so bad, though. I think it’s got a bad rap. I know lots of blondes with IQs over 80.”

Bitch, thought Shelly. “Jase, . . . Jayne, why do you want to be a girl, anyway? All we do is sublimate the aggression.”

“Yeah, that was unprovoked.” It was Eric, speaking for the first time. “How about we cool it, Jade?”

LIV

Hours passed, and things lightened up little by little. Secure in the knowledge that her parents were a hundred twenty miles away until Monday night, Shelly selected a bottle of wine to go with the pasta. It was a bottle that Art had paid fifty dollars for; Shelly didn’t know and didn’t care. They finished it and she opened another.

The wine made everyone giggly and foul-mouthed. “I don’t give a fuck if my father isn’t Mayor,” said Shelly. “Do you think I give a fuck, Jayne?”

Eric could see that Shelly had real problems with the way her dad was hounding Jayne. He wondered what she’d say if she knew his dad was still in jail, without bail, because of Art Atkinson. Eric decided he’d listen some more. He caught Jade’s eye and gave her the shh sign.

“Thish, this is what I want to say, Jayne. You are my friend and my father is a dick-hole. I’m sorry I didn’t notice that before.”

Jase/Jayne stood up, and pointed to the living room. Eric and Jade obediently headed that way. Shelly started to cry. Jase circled behind her, leaned close and kissed Shelly’s cheek. “Whatever it is, you are strong, Shel. You can get past it. If it will help to talk, my friends and I are here to listen. You decide.”

“I’ll talk. You especially need to know this.”

Shelly let Jayne lead her out to the living room. “Shelly needs to talk,” Jayne told the others. And Shelly let loose. The details of her father’s other life as recorded by the hard drive on his computer. The deal driven by her mother. “I . . I know why my mother did that” Shelly choked out. But I don’t want to live that way. I don’t want to be in the same house with him.”

“What would you do?” Shelly asked her guests point-blank. “What would you do if you knew where to find a monster that has hurt a lot of people, and you knew if he wasn‘t stopped, he would hurt a lot more people?

Eric, Jade and Jase knew that was a rhetorical question, so they waited attentively for Shelly to answer it.

She got there at last. “My father has a huge collection of pictures of naked little boys doing sex. I found out three days ago by accident. Since then I haven’t been able to sleep. I lie there and I imagine him doing stuff to little kids for money.

“Then I think of my father running for mayor, and trying to win votes off Jason, going on TV as this big-time defender of American Christian morals, and busting that queer place on Route 22. I’m ashamed to be his daughter.

“I thought my mom would just dump him. I could handle that. But instead, she’s cut a deal with him. He gives her control of all our money, and he gets to be mayor and he can keep on messing with little boys. Shit, this freaks me out!”

Considerably later, Eric and Jade gave Shelly and Jase a group hug and headed home. Jase was in no danger and Shelly needed his forgiveness, not theirs. So Shelly took Jase/Jayne upstairs. She rummaged into a drawer, found a pair of silk pajamas, added a towel and washcloth and her own nightgown, and led Jase into the bathroom.

Watching her friend intently, Shelly kicked off her shoes, undid her belt and let her shorts slide to the floor. Jase looked back at Shelly, grinned, pulled off his hi-tops and dropped his jeans. He was wearing lace trimmed panties. They removed their tees in unison. “G’me a hand, OK” asked Shelly, pointing in the direction of her bra strap. Jase noted that Shelly was indeed stacked. He wondered if Jayne would ever be so stacked. Meanwhile, Shelly pulled off her own panties, stepped into the shower stall, adjusted the spray, and looked expectantly at Jase.

For an instant, Jase was transported almost ten years into his past. Shelly had always had a hold on him. He slipped fingers under the elastic and the panties dropped to the floor, revealing his little boy’s wee-wee backed by two tiny balls. Shelly pulled him to her under the shower. She wanted something — that was clear. Jase felt like a child next to Shelly, and physically he was — she was six inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than he. He put his arms around Shelly and nestled his head on her chest, watching the rivulet twist between her breasts. Shelly took Jase’s head between her two hands and guided his mouth to a teat. “Don’t you want to suck, silly? Go on, it’s OK.”

Jase wanted to murmur that he felt more attracted to boys, but it was hard to explain while sucking on Shelly’s teats. Maybe I should explain at a more appropriate time, thought Jase as Shelly pressed down on his shoulders, pushing Jase’s head down to where the rivulets joined and sprayed out from her bush. “There! Jase, there!, she commanded, spreading the lips apart. “Please kiss me.”

Jase understood that Shelly meant he was to kiss her girl parts, not her lips. OK, if it meant that much to her. He gave a lick and a tentative suck. It was a nice taste. Why was Shelly so juicy? She smushed his head into her pelvis, she groaned. Jase did his best to oblige, darting his tongue into the pinkness of Shelly’s labia, caressing her vulvan lips with his own until Shelly rewarded his effort with a long spasm and an ooze of goo.

Immediately afterward, Jase registered two things. First, his weinie had not reacted to what his brain had found more than usually exciting. Second, Shelly was crying. Tenderly, Jason soaped his friend, rinsed her, and turned off the shower. He found a towel to dry Shelly off and another for his own use. Then Jason took Shelly to her bed. Arms and legs entanged, they fell into exhausted sleep.

LVI

When Jason awoke, Shelly was already up, half-dressed, rummaging in her closet. “Hey, Jaynie! Good morning! Today’s the day we dress you up a little. Uh, who’s been buying your clothes?”

“Jayne really doesn’t have much. My mom bought me a few things, but she doesn’t know much more than me about what girls wear. Someone gave me double-A silicone falsies. There’s the stuff you gave me to take to the shore, but that’s all for summer.”

“Here, try these on.” Shelly pulled out an assortment of panties and training bras. “My mom won’t throw my clothes away when I outgrow them,” she explained. “She says she’ll give them to the Salvation Army but never gets around to it. Good luck for you.”

While Jason tried on panties and bras, Shelly triaged another box and kept up a running commentary. “Not that pair, Jayne — too big. Find the ones that fit smoothly over your little butt. Ooh, these overalls are so out of style! Cute, though. Here’s something that might work. Try it on, Jayne.” Shelly offered Jase a pullover dress that was a long tee that ended in a short skirt. “Blue’s good for you; matches your eyes. And since you don’t have any hips, the dropped skirt gives an illusion of them. It’ll be good for school. These too,” Shelly added, piling skirts and tops on the unmade bed. “That gray pleated one’s awfully nice. I was sad when I outgrew it. And here’s a jumper you can wear with anything — a blouse, a turtleneck — or nothing.”

The pile kept growing. Tights, low cut jeans, sweaters, jackets, socks, shoes. “Oh, hey!” erupted Shelly. “My first pair of Docs! Try them on, Jayne, I’ll bet they’ll be a perfect fit.” Jason complied. “See! OK, let’s get dressed. Let’s dress you from the bottom up. What will work with the Docs? Tights, of course. Oh, hey, I know! Shelly reached into the pile and found a short dress with a high waist, a square neckline, puffy sleeves, and a softly flared skirt. The dress was forest green, dotted with red flowers. Jase had to admit it was beautiful. Shelly prescribed green tights to match.

Shelly pulled on a pair of jeans and helped Jase dress. She found a ribbon for Jayne’s hair exactly the color of the flowers. “No, you can’t look in the mirror yet. First, let me make you up — just a little. A bit of blusher and some lipstick. Ugh, your eyebrows need work, but we’ll save that for later, along with a manicure.” Shelly brushed Jason’s curls forward, then tied them up from his neck with the elastic ribbon. “I did that so it’s not so obvious that you need a haircut,” she explained. “Now look!”

He did look good. Jase didn’t need Shelly to tell him that Jayne was already a cute little chiklet, but she did anyway. “When Jayne gets her own tits and a butt, she’s going to fight off the boys. ‘Ya think, Jayne?”

“Shel, are you going to get dressed, too? ‘Cause if you’re just wearing jeans, isn’t this . . . .”

“a bit much?” she finished. “Well, yes, Jaynie, but I already know what it’s like to feel like a girl. You still need practice. Heck, I’ll put on a skirt to keep you company.”

A bagel and juice served for breakfast. A large selection from Shelly’s closet was bagged and boxed until Jase’s Mom or Dad could run him over in the car to pick it up. “OK, girlfriend, let’s hit the mall! Look!” Shelly fanned out a stack of twenties. “First installment of guilt money from my dad,” she explained. “Your do’s on him.”

LVII

First stop was SmartCutZ, to make an appointment. Then to a salon where twin sisters from Vietnam did their fingers and toes. Back to SmartCutZ. Shelly commanded “just a trim” for herself and “a cut and shape for Jayne so she looks more like a girl. Would you believe she’s been letting her mom cut her hair?’ Angela the stylist agreed that Jayne’s mass of curls needed attention. Did Jayne have a particular look in mind, she asked. Jase said, “um, no, just do what you like. Not too radical, OK? I’m kind of a tomboy.” He was beginning to think about Monday morning. He didn’t want to evolve into Jayne faster than the kids at school could handle.

Angela gave Jase what she called a two-way cut. If his curls were brushed back and down, he could pass as a boy, barely. Brushed up and fluffed, he was all girl. “See, Jayne, I told you,” laughed Shelly. “Angela, would you shape Jayne’s eyebrows a little bit, too?”

Chores done, the girls rewarded themselves with lunch. Not in the food court but upstairs at the Pasta Palace. It was time to talk.

“I don’t think I can stand living with my dad anymore,” Shelly offered as she picked at her salad. “I can’t believe what a creep he is. It’s not just the little boys. It’s the hypocrisy that really makes my skin crawl.”

“You know, I guess, Shel, that a lot of people think dressing like the other sex does, or wanting to change your body to fit your gender is about as bad. The guy who used to be pastor at our church called me an “abomination.”

“Jase, it’s night and day different! You don’t hurt anyone. You aren’t fucking with other people’s lives, especially little kids’ lives. Except your own,” Shelly added with a wink.

“What do you think you’ll do,” Jason asked.

“I’ve pretty much made up my mind to make sure he doesn’t become mayor. I just haven’t figured out how, and the election’s only two weeks away. Then I’m going to get my mom to let me go away to boarding school.”

“Maybe he’ll lose anyway?”

“No, it doesn’t seem like it. My dad is pretty confident about rolling out the church vote.” Shelly leaned closer. “Jase, we need to talk to your mom and dad and your lawyer. Maybe there’s a way to manage this. Is your dad home now?”

“I think so. Let me check.” Jase pulled out his cell phone and punched “HOME.” “Hi, mom. It’s me. . . . Yes, it was great. Uh, mom, can I bring home a friend from the sleepover? I’d like you and daddy to meet her. . . . Oh, he’s back. Good. Yes, we just had lunch. . . . Thanks. Bye, mom.

“So you got a cell phone at last.” Shelly lifted her eyebrows to put a question mark on her statement.

“Uh huh. My parents can’t really afford it, but they are worried I might get into a situation I can’t deal with — like with the Apes or something. The phone’s got a panic button on it.”

“That’s cool.”

LVIII

Jason realized that he was a little self-conscious as he and Shelly parked their bikes by the back porch and banged on the door. The shrink, oops, Dr. Martinez, had warned him to take baby steps — now he was in 100% Jayne mode with a new haircut, lipstick and nail polish.

Mom opened the door. “Jaynie! Don’t you ever look sweet!” Jase pecked a kiss and hurriedly said “Mom, this is Shelly. Maybe you remember her. I think she was seven when you saw her last.”

“Shelly Atkinson?” Jason’s mom more or less stifled a gasp.

On cue, Shelly took Betty Lou’s hand. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been a bad friend, and now I’m trying to make amends to Jayne. I asked her to bring me home so I could tell you and Mr. Baldwin a story that I’m not very proud of.

Jason’s dad arrived at the kitchen as Shelly was saying that. Jase introduced her and Shelly said the same thing over again, after which everyone removed to the den. Bud clicked off the game. “OK, Shelly, needless to say, maybe, you have our full attention.

Shelly told her story. It came out more quickly now, and with more determination. In the way that people who’ve shared 20 years of life do, Bud picked up Betty Lou’s body language. She believed the girl, and so did he. “Betts, how far can you stretch dinner? I was thinking maybe we ought to give Tracy a call.”

LIX

Around the dinner table, the conversation was lively. Tracy’d brought her partner Glenn, a bucket of hush puppies, and news that under other circumstances would have been depressing.
She’d swooped in in big hat, poncho and expensive boots to announce that Jase was on vacation from school effective Monday. “I guess it was inevitable; Art finally found a judge stupid enough to issue a restraining order.

“Jase, you are ‘hearby enjoined not to attend classes at Franklin Junior High School until you (a) certify that you are not taking hormones of any kind; and (b) agree that you will dress only in clothing appropriate to the male sex and/or gender.’”

“I can’t go to school, huh? Can Art make that stick, Tracy?”

The lady lawyer gave Jase a thoughtful look. He’s really quite smart. A lot like I was. “All Art Atkinson cares about is what happens before election day. It’s a farce. I’ll appeal the order tomorrow, but I don’t think the state supreme court will agree to fast track an opinion.

“Um. By the way, nice Docs you’ve got. You got a haircut too, right, Jase?”

“A haircut, nails, a lot of new clothes and a big surprise. Tracy, this is my friend Shelly. Shelly Atkinson. Listen to her.”

Dinner was ready before Shelly had finished telling the story for, oh, the fourth time. Each time she tells it, Jason thought, it gets simpler, and the difference between right and wrong is clearer.

“It comes down to this, Shelly,” Tracy was saying, “are you willing to give us the CD? Are you willing to stand up in front of reporters and say where you got it?”

She was, Shelly said. She hadn’t been entirely sure until Tracy’d said her dad had gotten Jase thrown out of school.

Glenn spoke up. “Trace, if I understand the situation right, this girl can’t go home. Her mom has her dad by the balls, but she isn’t about to jerk the cord. If Shelly outs Art Atkinson, it undoes her mother’s hold on him and the cash flow that goes with it.”

Everyone looked at Shelly. She nodded.

Bud drew the logical conclusion. “Shelly needs a refuge. She can’t go home for a while and it’s no good staying with you or us. Shel, do you have any ideas?”

Shelly did not. Her aunt, maybe? No, Auntie Lydia wouldn’t stand up to mom. Anyone else? No, they’d be scared of a lawsuit or something.

Jason whispered something to his mom.

“Bud, Tracy. Jayne here has an idea. Go ahead, honey.” Betty Lou gave Jase a quick kiss for courage.

“Dad, you know Mrs Holloway, right? The old lady whose lawn I cut? Well, do you remember what she told the newspaper — that she didn’t care what I wore or thought I was, I was the best lawn-cutter she’d ever had? Well, she takes in boarders.”

Shelly said that would work for her. Tracy didn’t think it would get past the Department of Child Welfare. Shelly might end up in a foster home.

“Hello? Don’t you grownups understand? I don’t care! I just don’t want my goddamn father to win the election!”

Betty Lou had slipped out to phone Helen Holloway. “She’ll do it;” she reported. “But only for tonight. Helen doesn’t want the press throwing cigarette butts in her garden.”

“That’s fair enough,” said Tracy. “Tomorrow we can find an organization that will take temporary responsibility for Shelly’s welfare. Maybe the state chapter of the National Association for Battered Women.”

So it was decided. Shelly would leave a phone message for her mother that she was OK and would be in touch. Tracy would set up another midday press conference so Shelly could tell her story. The CD would be available for review but not digital copying on the terminals at a nearby Internet café.

Glenn checked around the table, and after pouring a little more wine in Bud’s glass, said “I’d like to propose a toast. To Shelly, first of all, for doing the right thing no matter how hard it is. To Jayne for being true to herself and calm under fire. To Betty Lou and Bud, who are the kind of parents I wish I’d had. To Tracy, who’s the coolest broad and smartest lawyer I’ve ever known. Let’s drink to a beautiful future.”

Monday dawned bright and clear, a beautiful Indian summer day. In Manhattan on Monday morning, Art signed the papers that Marty Aronson had drafted. Barbara drove back. Art brooded. At three, nearing home, he phoned his campaign office and asked for Billy Flynn, his law partner and campaign manager.

Billy got right to the point. “You’re screwed, Art. Turn on the news. And by the way, I quit and you’re no longer a partner. The vote was 6-0.”

Art Atkinson flicked on the radio. The signal was sketchy but perfectly intelligible.

Barbara touched him — not a caress, exactly, but a contact of some sort to convey that she was still on his side. “Believe me, I didn’t put her up to it, Art.”

“I know. You’re too damn greedy for that.”

A green sign announced that it was 48 miles to the city and a mile to a roadside rest. “Stop there, please, Barbara. I need to stop.”

Barbara Atkinson turned off, found a shady place and parked. Feigning inattention, from the corner of her eye she watched her husband retrieve a brown bag from under his seat. He unlatched the door and murmured “you know, I do love you.” Fat lot of good that does me, thought Barbara as Art walked unsteadily toward the rest rooms, cradling the package in an effort to make it seem inconspicuous. Pathetic, Barbara thought. She waited. Three minutes later she heard the sound of a shot, and she screamed.

LXI

In the city, Shelly also screamed and screamed. Jase hugged her, and so did Eric and Jade and others who’d come over after the press conference to show support. “It wasn’t your fault, Shel.”

“I don’t c-c-care. It isn’t fair. Why do people have to be so fucked up? Why my dad? Didn’t my mom love him enough? . . . I loved him.” I adored my Daddy! And he’s dead!

The six o’clock news was coming on. Jase jumped to turn off the TV but Shelly stopped him. “No, I want to see it.”

“Good evening,” said the announcer. “Welcome to those who are just joining us. All afternoon we’ve been following the unfolding tragedy of Art Atkinson, a brilliant district attorney and a seeming shoe-in for election next week as mayor — until today.

“At noon, KRGL learned, according to Atkinson’s 14 year-old daughter Shelly, that for years Atkinson has been collecting photos of naked boys in sexual situations. We saw the pictures, but we can’t show them to you. Enough to say that an ordinary person would probably call Atkinson a pervert, which is doubly ironic because he’s run for mayor on a ‘morality’ platform.

“A little past three, we received word from the rest stop at Glencove, forty miles up the Interstate, that Atkinson was found dead in the men’s room of a bullet wound to the head. His wife, Barbara, outside, heard the report. Deeply distraught, she confirmed Atkinson’s depression over the shame his conduct had brought on his family.

“Uh, this just in. It looks as though Atkinson’s death may not be suicide after all. Police report that the Reverend Frank Prentiss, who is in custody, may have confessed to shooting Atkinson.”

Betty Lou rushed in from the kitchen. “Frank? What was that about Frank?”

LXII

Prentiss had been sitting alone in his Chevy, chewing on a fast food lunch, trying to decide whether to leave the city or not. The car, and the boxes and bags and rack of clothes in its rear seat and the suitcases in the trunk were all he had salvaged from the wreckage of his career as a spiritual leader. He wondered how far he’d have to go before he’d have another chance at a decent job.

He recognized the Chrysler coupe immediately. Atkinson. Prentiss had trailed Atkinson all over the city but he’d never gotten so close. He watched the DA say something to the woman in the car — his wife, perhaps, though she didn’t seem very friendly — and then head for the toilets.

Prentiss took a pistol from the glove compartment, checked that it was loaded, released the safety and put it in his jacket pocket. It was clear as could be. God sent Atkinson to me. What else could explain this chance to even the score?

Inside the lavatory, Atkinson was swigging from a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. Prentiss walked up behind him, said quietly “Mr. Atkinson,” and when Art Atkinson turned around, blew a hole through his head.

LXIII

e-mail string

to thename’s.jayne from whatsa.mattr. when can i see you, please jayne. are they going to let you back in school? how’s shelly doing? miss you, matt

to whatsa.matter from thename’s.jayne. yes!!! i’m going back to school on monday. the school board met last nite. maybe u saw it in the paper already. they voted unanimously to ignore the restraining order. they didn’t even wait for the election. shelly’s ok, considering. she’s not sure she wants to move back in with her mom. she says she’d rather go to boarding school, can you believe that! o, matt! i’m going to school as jayne! ïŠ i met the principal today, with my guidance counselor. they’re both cool. i’ll be treated as a girl totally, except for gym. think, like, home ec! love u, jayne.

to thename’s.jayne from whatsa.mattr. u didn’t say when i can see u again. ïŒ matt.

to whatsa.matter from thename’s.jayne. sorry, i needed to talk to my mom first. meet me at the front entrance to prospect park at 3 on saturday, ok? wear something nice, because after we go for a long walk, i’m going to take u home. u’re invited to dinner. hugs, jayne. p.s., maybe i’ll give you my phone number. j

to thename’s.jayne from whatsa.mattr. deal! see you then. can’t wait! matt

LXIV

“Jayne, can you come over?” It was Eric on the phone. “We’ve got something to celebrate. Dad’s home!”

“Be there in, maybe, twenty minutes! Bye!” Jayne tore off her sweatshirt and put on a bra and the breast forms. Didn’t seem right to visit Earl without wearing his gifts. She covered them with a turtleneck sweater, fluffed her hair and renewed her lipstick, scribbled a note for her mom and flew out the door. She couldn’t make her bike go fast enough.

“Darla!” Jayne whooped, launching herself into his arms and covering him with kisses.

“Jaynie! Don’t you look just great! And happy, I think.”

“I’m really happy they let you out of jail.”

“Tracy got him out,” Eric said. “She found a guy who taped Dad’s whole show that night. She found the two guys who’d testified that he stripped naked and they retracted everything. Said they’d signed false confessions to persuade the cops to let them walk. Then Tracy threatened to sue the DA’s office for false arrest and fabricating evidence. They popped for $20,000 rather than lose in court.”

Earl waved an envelope. “Guess where Eric and I are going for the Christmas holidays? Bangkok! I’ll have a little operation and then we’ll hang out on the beach for ten days or so.”

Jayne felt herself crying again, she was so happy for Earl.

LXV

Jayne went early to Prospect Park. It was a lovely late fall day. A crisp breeze hurried brown leaves from the maple and sycamore trees. Jayne was glad of her woolen slacks, turtleneck sweater, short suede jacket and tall leather boots. The jacket and boots were a birthday gift from her mom and dad; at last she was thirteen.

The girl — for that is what Jayne was now, insofar as you or I or anyone else could see — positioned herself where she had a good view of the front gate. A circle of kids were playing dodgeball, girls were jumping rope, some skaters were bumping down the stone steps, families and couples were out for a walk. Then Jayne saw Matt turn into the park and felt a surge of joy so intense that it startled even her. I must love him, she thought. He was taller than she remembered, and just as slim. Matt was wearing a burgundy jacket trimmed with gold — his school’s colors — and carrying a small backpack.

Jayne hurried down to meet her friend. “I see you won your letter,” she said, indicating the big G on Matt’s jacket.

“Aw, it was mostly just for showing up. Golly, you look nice. Can I have a hug?”

“And a kiss. And later, I’m going to cover you with kisses!” They embraced. “Matt, it’s been over two months since I saw you last. So long.”

“Two months, five days, 21 hours. Never again, OK, Jaynie?”

“C’mon, let’s walk.” Jayne tugged at Matt’s hand and pointed up the hill toward a grove of oaks, still resplendent in their scarlet glory.

“I want to thank you, sweet Matt. You stood by me. Thank you for talking to Dr. Martinez. She told me that you influenced her recommendations a lot.”

“I just told the truth — that you were the most feminine person I’ve ever known, and the smartest, too. I said I didn’t know Jason at all, and that my friend Jayne was a happy girl, fun to be with.”

“You do like me a lot, don’t you.”

“’Course I do. More than a lot, and you know that already.”

They’d reached the copse. “Yeah, I was just fishing,” said Jayne. Gently, Matt pulled her close. She went up on tiptoes to give him a long, dreamy kiss. “Umm. We can’t stay too long. My mom has a leg of lamb in the oven already.”

“Can I give you your birthday present first?”

“Is that what’s in the bag! How’d you know?”

“There’s some homemade cookies my mom sent, too. This one’s for you,” Matt said, fishing out a flattish box fastened with ribbon. “Shelly told me your birthday was last Tuesday.”

Jayne tore off the paper and ribbon. Inside was a lusciously soft wool scarf. It was baby blue, the color of her eyes. “Oh, Matt, dearest Matt. It’s cashmere!” She wound it around her neck. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? How can I help loving you?” To show it, Jayne kissed Matt again — lips, nose, ears, neck. Matt buried his face in her auburn curls and pulled her very close.

They sat on, or rather in, a pile of leaves, and talked and talked. No detail seemed too small or insignificant to share. Jayne said Shelly had left for prep school and wouldn’t be back until Christmas. Matt said Jayne needed to let the newspaper take some new pictures; she was way prettier than the photo they were always using. “Maybe tomorrow,” Jayne told him. She’d given the Clarion an interview, and they’d taken lots of pictures. The story was supposed to be in Sunday’s paper. Matt asked Jayne if she’d come with him to his school’s harvest dance, and the Christmas ball as well. She told him she could hardly wait. “But,” Jayne asked, would the school have issues? Would Matt’s friends have issues? She was out and couldn’t imagine going back. Matt thought that if anyone had issues, they weren’t friends. It was as simple as that. The two kids hugged and kissed and cuddled. Matt was a gentleman, but Jayne wished she had some more assets to offer his loving hands. Someday she would have them.

“Jayne? I’ll always remember this day. I wish it would last forever.”

“Matt, honey, if we’re lucky, it’s just the beginning. And by the way, my daddy says that smart people make their own luck.”

“Umm. Let’s try. And now take me home. I want to meet your parents.”

The sun was low now. It reddened the park’s benches and boulders and set the oaks on fire. The sky was a riot of red and purple. Hand in hand, Matt and Jayne walked toward the sunset and their future.

Notes:

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